Costs pp: bus from Valencia to Barquisimeto 35vef approx 3hrs, local bus 1.5vef.
The journey was sweet but the bus had it's airconditioning on so low that Carol had to hide beneath the curtain and open the window to warm up a bit. We had been warned that Venezuelan buses like to have the temperature set really low but hadn't experienced it yet. In the future we will make sure to carry our coats inside.
At the terminal we rang Enrique our Barquisimeto 'couch', he was down with a cold so gave instructions to the phone attendant on how to arrive to his home. The attendant wrote words all over a small piece of paper and it seemed to us that no-one would be able to understand it however a taxi driver put us onto a bus and the bus driver let us off beside the house. People are so amazingly helpful to us and we appreciate it so much.
Enrique lives with his wife Marilin and children Sergio and Angi in the house that he was born in. They made us feel very welcome, we sat a while and got to know Enrique (he and Sergio speak english) then we joined them for dinner. Hospitality has a far greater meaning here in Latin America than in the west, here we become a part of the family, the whole of the home is open to us and we join with our hosts for meals as well. When we return to NZ and have a place to offer we want to be a 'couch' again and offer this same hospitality.
Unfortunately Kent came down with a cold and spent the next day in
bed, quite a few people have it and travelling in the buses with the
airconditioning pretty well ensures that you'll get it. He slept all
day and Carol caught up on this blog and pics and also read an article
written about Venezuela by a Canadian traveller who had also couched
with Enrique, it was very interesting. In the evening we had some great
discussions with Enrique about the Venezuelan people and their makeup
and about how they are still finding their own identity as a composit
of three main cultures being European/Spanish, Caribbean, and African.
On
Saturday Enrique and Marilin took us out to El Sorte a place in
Yarracuy about a half an hours drive away. Sorte is a place on a
mountain where the Cult of María Lionza practises. It was a very
interesting experience, we went on Saturday which is a quiet time and
walked around the area with a guide and another two tourists from
Caracas. Rather than writing what we saw the following is an account
written by Blair Bourassa the couchsurfer mentioned above:
The most anthropologically interesting place in Venezuela, Sorte Mountain, does not appear in any guidebook. Nobody is there selling ice-cream or offering to take photos of tourists. It is only discussed, when it is discussed at all, in private and in Spanish. It stands in the otherwise unexceptional state of Yaracuy, and somewhere buried deep inside the 40,000 hectares of virgin forest that it occupies is the principal altar of the pagan goddess María Lionza.
After days of discussion and deliberation, my friend Enrique had reluctantly agreed to take me to the mountain, and as we drove through seemingly endless fields of flowing corn and approached the huge, looming, jet black and thickly-wooded mountain, an ominous feeling crept into my otherwise far from superstitious breast.
As we came to the turnoff that led towards the mountain, we drove past a monumental eight-meter tall statue of the goddess, and craned our heads to appreciate the magnificently sculpted body of the deity. ...
There are three entrances: the gates of Sorte, El Loro, and Quibayo. All but the last have become far too dangerous for all but the most foolhardy seeker of his own violent death to visit. Quibayo at least had some modicum of security in the form of national police who stood guard at the entrance.
We drove into a parking area full of vehicles and got out of the car. It was a Sunday, the busiest day of the week on the mountain, and it had been difficult to persuade Enrique to bring me on that day. He had been putting it off, hoping to be able to get a police escort for the trip and come on mid-week. But the escort had fallen through, and there were now only three of us: Me, Enrique and his thirteen year-old son Sergio (who was tall enough to easily pass for eighteen).
Together we lit up some low-quality cigars that we had bought in a shop dedicated to the goddess in the nearby village of Chivacoa. Throughout Venezuela, tobacco is used as a sign of reverence to the gods, and at Sorte there is a specific way of holding the cigars: fingers over, thumb under, with no finger crossing to the bottom allowed, and it is vitally important to remember to remove the cigar’s paper ring before smoking. I forgot to remove the ring and was promptly verbally assaulted by a group of believers concerned that I was offending the deity.
Quibayo was once the key headquarters of indigenous resistance to Spanish colonialism, and every October twelfth (the official “Day of Indigenous Resistance” in Venezuela) tens of thousands of worshippers gather here and perform various mystical feats, like walking on hot coals, pushing thorns through their skin33, and drinking whole litres of rum in a single gulp -later coming out of their trances reportedly not the least bit drunk.
The scene on the mountainside was like something out of India, and didn’t resemble anything I had seen anywhere else in Latin America. There were thousands of people there, transsexuals, gangsters, prostitutes, extended families, insane elderly entering into the darkest stages of senility, all roaming in packs. The cult of Maria Lionza attracts the fringe elements of Venezuelan society, and people from all walks of
life seek the sacred site to bathe in the waters of the local Yaracuy River.
I had already met several people who had visited the mountain, and they all had stories to tell. One man had told me that he was taken there by his mother to be cured of childhood insomnia (which problem was indeed resolved by the visit), and as he was being bathed in the river by a shaman, his eight-year-old female friend who had accompanied him suddenly seemed to become possessed by a demon, screaming in a deep, horrific voice and flailing about until she had to be forcibly restrained. Another
interesting account was that of a middle-aged woman I had heard of who had been paralyzed and no doctor seemed to be able to cure her. When she was brought to Sorte and bathed in the river, she began to convulse violently, until worms poured out of every orifice for several minutes -and then she was well again.
