Tag: El Pao

Creede: Part III

Richard Barnes

Before the men of El Pao brought their wives and children, the pioneers had to build the camps. 

So the Bethlehem Steel set out to build a camp on the banks of the Orinoco River to receive supplies and materials needed to clear and grade a roughly 40-kilometer road through the thick jungle and also build the administrative and labor camps housing the workforce that was to come later, not to mention the mine itself. 

These efforts required intelligence, strength, determination, and capital to pay for mine development and required facilities such as hoisting and power plants, mine machinery, and so on.

Visiting the Creede mining camp area, I was immediately reminded of the iron mines in Venezuela. The geography and topography, not to mention the latitudes, are nowhere near the same; however, the spirit and type of men and women drawn to such endeavors were certainly so.

The last time I visited El Pao in 2005, it was awfully quiet compared to my childhood and youth there. Nevertheless, it was nowhere near being a ghost town. A number of families still lived in the labor camp while a much smaller number occupied some of the houses in the administrative camp where I used to live.

The temperate climate and green jungle were still ubiquitous as always and the folks remained friendly.

But the dynamiting and the ore crushing and the shouts of miners and the freight movements — truck or train — were gone.

Visiting the Creede mining area provoked similar observations. The spectacular ruggedness which greeted the prospectors and, later, the miners, is still there beckoning hardy souls who dare to trespass; the sites of the numerous mines can be seen and, in some cases, visited; the areas where camps once thrived are there. But all is quiet, even though Creede itself has never become a ghost town to this day.

Many were the men and women who left their mark in this area. Many whose names are known to us and who-knows-how-many whose names remain unknown but to God.

This post seeks to note only a few, which, hopefully, give a glimpse of the many more whom space does not permit to mention.

It is believed that the first settler in the area around Creede and Bachelor was Tom Boggs, brother-in-law to Kit Carson; however, his interest was in fur trading, not mining. Of interest is the fact that Boggs, who was not only Carson’s brother-in-law but a good friend, was present at Carson’s death, when he uttered his last words, “Adiós, compadres [Goodbye, friends].”

Carson’s wife, Josefa, died a month before Carson in 1868, and Boggs became guardian to his children and also executor of his will. 

In learning about the Creede mining area, my attention was immediately drawn to John MacKenzie, a Canadian known as the “father of Bachelor”. He learned the prospecting and mining trade in the gold fields of Nova Scotia in the 1860s. He also successfully prospected for gold on the Essequibo in then British Guiana and also on the Caroní in Venezuela, areas now dominated by Tren de Aragua and other bands of robbers. 

MacKenzie’s health suffered in the damp, hot jungles of Venezuela and British Guiana and he returned to North America after several years. He successfully identified a number of mines in Creede including several in Bachelor, which he believed was perfectly situated for a picturesque town. His health finally gave out and he passed away in 1894. The Creede Candle reported his death:

“[He was] well known to nearly all the people of Creede camp and the mining men of the west…. He left no will …. Was unmarried and the only known relative is a brother in Halifax…. The death of Mr. MacKenzie removes one from the ranks of the old pioneers who was respected by all and held in the highest esteem as a man, a citizen, and a friend.”

Fred Ryden’s early childhood and youth were lived in Bachelor and, after Bachelor’s demise, in Creede where he still lived in 1952 when a Rocky Mountain News reporter found him and spent a day conversing and hearing his accounts of a life long since gone:

“It was the riches of the hills — the Last Chance, Bachelor, Amethyst, Commodore [mines] — that had brought the thousands there to build the stores, drink in the saloons, pray in the churches, learn in the school…. Fred Ryden went to grammar school in Bachelor, from 1893 to 1904 when his family moved down to Creede. And it was a sentimental picture to watch Fred try to find the exact spot where the old school had been. For there was nothing there now at all.”

Until relatively recently, Creede was home to families who first arrived a century before. One of these was John R. Jackson, whose grandfather, William T. Jackson, Sr., came to Creede in the 1890s during the silver boom. He and his house first made a home in a small cabin in Bachelor where he worked in the Last Chance and Amethyst Mines. Later, the family moved to Creede from where he worked the Commodore Mine. He died in his early 50s from silicosis, a common disease among miners of that era.

Jackson, Sr.’s son, “Billy” Jackson was born and spent his early childhood in Bachelor before the family moved to Creede, two and a half miles away. He too worked the mines, with a hiatus for service in WWI. He also contracted silicosis and had to resign his mining activities in the late 50s but remained in Creede, working as undersheriff and eventually as the city clerk. 

His son, John, followed his grandfather’s and father’s footsteps, working the mines, serving in WWII, and returning to the mines afterwards, eventually becoming a successful investor in the business. In the 70s he worked for the Freeport Exploration Company in Nevada as a prospector for precious metals. He retired and returned to Colorado where he wrote of the people he knew in the Creede mining camps and also wrote poetry. 

This multi-generational aspect is quite common in the mining industry. 

In my first post of this series I told about the violence in Creede and Bachelor, while mentioning that the camps were also home to decent, hard working families. One of the incidents could have been violent but was handled creatively and successfully. The account is taken from Boom Town Boy, by Edwin Lewis Bennett, as cited in Bachelor, Colorado by Charles A. Harbett:

“I saw two fights in Bachelor that spring and each was odd in its own way. 

“The first was not between men but between two women, one of them Irish and the other Cornish. They had been quarreling at each other for some time and, coming downtown that day, had run into each other and started jawing.

“Their husbands, fed up with the long feud, agreed that was the time to get it settled so they made the wives fight it out, Marquis de Queensbury, without any scratching or hair-pulling, but man style. Foster’s saloon was at the upper end of town, and the fight took place right out in front, so we had a ring-side seat. Occasionally one of the women would revert back to type and bare a claw or get a handful of hair but her husband would make her back up and start clean again, so it was a nice, respectable battle. 

“There were no rounds. The women were both fairly well padded and short-winded, and the time came when they were panting and taking wild, aimless swings at each other. As one had the makings of a good black eye and the other had a bloody nose, their husbands thought they ought to have it all out of their systems and stopped the fight. The battlers sat down on the bench in front of the saloon to rest and get their breath, and, one of them happening to mention that she had some beer on ice up at the house that might do them both good, they went there, leaving their husbands to get the groceries they originally started after. 

“After that fight each of them had one more friend than she had before and the husbands didn’t have to listen to any more name-calling.”

Children in such camps did not have difficulty finding excitement and adventure. In one example, Fred Foster recalls, he at 15 years old, and a buddy at 16 years old decided to go over the Continental Divide in the dead of winter to Spring Creek where his family had a ranch. They went by skis and it took them two days, and a mountain lion followed them part of the way. Imagine a 15-year-old and a 16-year-old setting out today to cross the Continental Divide in the dead of winter!

Similar to El Pao, both Bachelor and Creede had a Roman Catholic church and also a Protestant church, with a well attended Sunday school. 

Charles Nelson, one of the founders of Creede camp, a friend of Nicholas C. Creede and also of John C. MacKenzie, was known as an honorable and pious man. In the winter of 1890-1891, he built a cabin in Creede. “The first church services in the new camp were held in his cabin by the Reverend Sanderson of Denver in the summer of 1891. Nelson, upon hearing that there was a preacher in camp who could not find a place to preach, insisted that he use his cabin whenever he wished [cited from A Silver Camp Called Creede by Richard C. Huston].” 

After making his fortune in Creede camp mines, Nelson returned to his native Denmark where he died in 1919 after undergoing a major surgery:

“He made few enemies and many friends, to whom he was always loyal, standing by them to the finish. His death marks the passing of another one of those boom-day characters who did so much to make the state of Colorado famous. There are many old timers here yet, in the camp he helped to discover, who remember the things he did, and who will regret to learn of his death [The Creede Candle, February 21, 1920].”

The Protestant church in Bachelor at an altitude of 10,531 feet was known as the “highest church in the country”. 

To be continued.

John MacKenzie, 1838-1904

Ore house and chutes for the Commodore Mine, one of the most productive in the Creede – Bachelor mining camps. The Last Chance and Amethyst were even more productive.

Next to the Commodore Mines ore house.

Five sons further up the Bachelor Loop

Son, Jonathan. Note the ruggedly beautiful yet isolated landscape

Moose, near the Bachelor camp site

View from near Bachelor camp site

Creede: Part 1

Richard Barnes

Never underestimate the childhood experiences you offer your young ones.

Having been born in a mining (iron ore) camp, and having a father who’d take me “to the mine” and a mother who’d participate on “giras” [tours] of historical or natural wonders relatively nearby, I was not only born in what surrounded me, I was purposefully immersed in it. 

I don’t think my parents did this “intentionally” — I’ll have to ask them on Resurrection Day — but I do know they believed in the importance of gratitude. Therefore, they wanted their children to appreciate their birthplace and their heritage — in my case that would be both Venezuela and Spain as well as Massachussets and England. So as we grew up, we learned to respect, if not love, “where we came from”. 

We also learned, albeit intuitively at first, the tremendous capital — human and material — necessary to carve out a mine and camp and to provide sustainable living in the Venezuelan jungle.

So, although we never had much of an interest in engineering or prospecting or related fields, we certainly respected the immense effort and costs and sacrifices entailed in any mining operation.

Early in my career, I was in an economics conference in California where a gentleman spoke of miles of pipeline being laid from Alaska down to the 48 states. 

I do not recall exactly what his involvement in that multi-billion-dollar project was, but I do recall that he told of how he insisted his daughter accompany him on one of his trips to the project. She was in college and into all the trendy activism of the time. 

He wanted her to see the colossal efforts and investments required to enable her to turn on her blow dryer and to successfully turn on her car ignition. And the men working the required 10 to 12-hour days to make her creature comforts happen.

As I listened to him, I felt gratitude in my heart for my parents, who did similarly to that man, only my folks did not wait till I was in college to do so.

Another aspect of mining towns was the colorful nature of some of the men who worked there. This was an aspect that a child did not automatically pick up. Rather, it was something that grew inchoately over the years, in many cases long after the child had moved away from the camp and reflected on certain characters and, if lucky, was able to ask others, still living, about them. 

How many novels yet remain to be written and movies to be filmed!

So mines, any kind of mines, have always drawn my attention. I even once seriously considered accepting a position in mining operations in Senegal! Colleagues and friends advised me to wait on something like that. So decades later I was much better prepared to accept a position in Saudi Arabia.

In 1991 or thereabouts, during a family trip to Southwest Colorado, we were intrigued by a dot on the map, on the Continental Divide, that was labeled as having been a booming silver mining town in the late 19th Century. 

We decided to visit and we’ve been heading back there whenever we have an opportunity to do so, most recently after my son’s wedding last month.

To summarize, Creede is named after a man who was born around Fort Wayne, Indiana circa 1843. In infancy his family moved to Iowa territory and began farming. In his late teens he volunteered with the army and worked as a scout in cavalry campaigns against the Sioux. It was during this time that he traveled through Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, and other western areas. He also witnessed the discovery of gold in the Black Hills and that piqued what became his lifelong interest in prospecting.

The man’s birth name was William Harvey. After his service in the army his intention was to return to Iowa to woo a gal he knew “back home”. But he had been gone nearly a decade and upon returning he found that the girl had married his brother and was mother to a young child.

This discovery greatly rattled William Harvey, provoked him to change his name to Nicholas C. Creede, and spurred him in his resolve to become a successful prospector, which is (most of) the rest of the story.

His first strike was near Monarch Pass, on the Continental Divide in Central Colorado. He sold his strike and promptly struck another, which he also sold for a larger sum which he used to tour the areas he considered most promising and, as he went, to study and learn about prospecting and minerals. He clearly had the desire, energy, and intelligence to become a successful entrepreneur.

After several other strikes, Creede discovered what became known as the Holy Moses strike and this drew the attention of David H. Moffat, a well known financier and industrialist, one of the pioneers of Denver, Colorado. He and his partners not only leased the Holy Moses from Creede, but also partnered with him in his further prospecting. This arrangement became very lucrative for all parties and we can only imagine how encouraging this was for Nicholas C. Creede.

And this led to his greatest find: the Amethyst vein, from which several mines were developed, including the Bachelor, which we will see in later posts. The years of study, hard work, and wise dealings and associations finally rewarded Creede, as he was now a millionaire and even lived to see a town named in his honor: Creede, Colorado, sitting on the Amethyst vein. He was described as reserved, modest, and courageous.

The town of Creede was the last silver boom town in Colorado, growing from 600 inhabitants to over 10,000 by end of 1891. The boom was over by 1893; however, Creede was never a ghost town and continued to operate well into the 1960s, relying on other minerals in addition to silver.

While mining in the area was very successful, the town attracted men and women whose primary interest was to relieve the miners of their money while in turn making “easy money”. This unfortunate state of affairs — common throughout history — was, ironically, exacerbated by “reform” activities in Denver which pushed underworld characters and their businesses out of the capital onto Creede where their trades were welcome. 

So Creede (and Bachelor) were known as “having no night” and yet also had churches and, in Bachelor, even an opera house. 

If you visit the Creede Mining Museum, you will learn about Jefferson “Soapy” Smith, known as the king of the Creede underworld, whose brother-in-law happened to be the deputy sheriff. You’ll also be reminded of the notorious Robert “Bob” Ford, the murderer of outlaw Jesse James. Ford moved to Creede where he himself was murdered by Ed O’Kelley whose motive for doing so was never ascertained with certainty. O’Kelley served less than a decade in prison and, after release, moved to Oklahoma where he was killed in a shootout with a policeman.

Another resident of Creede was the famous buffalo hunter, scout, and lawman, Bartholemew William Barclay Masterson, better known as Bat Masterson. In Creede, however, Masterson ran a gambling operation while also betting on prizefighting. He eventually succeeded in journalism in New York City where he died in 1921, a few months after attending his last prize fight, where Jack Dempsey defended his heavyweight title. 

By the way, Jack Dempsey lived in Bachelor as a child. He likely learned how to fight there.

Creede’s population today is just under 300.

As for Nicholas C. Creede, he, sadly, did not marry well. He eventually moved to Los Angeles and died of an accidental morphine overdose in 1897. He suffered from chronic and severe stomach pain and took morphine frequently. The coroner ruled his death accidental, which most at the time considered a reasonable conclusion.

Creede and Bachelor are types of mining towns all over this earth as well as microcosms of society everywhere. Good, pious folks, living among genuinely bad or shady people. 

The names above are well known to us because of so many works of fiction and non-fiction, not to mention movies and television shows. Nevertheless, we must also remember that such were not the majority of these towns. They also had folks, like Mr. Creede, who were modest, reserved, courageous, and decent. 

To be continued.

Downtown Creede, Colorado

Creede, Colorado in 1892

Bachelor, Colorado, late 19th Century

Bachelor, Colorado, today

Nicholas C. Creede, c. 1843-1897

Bat Masterson, 1879-1921

Jack Dempsey, 1895-1983

When The World Was So New And All

Richard Barnes

There are days which are achingly crisp and clear. 

They are not restricted to a specific part of the earth. We’ve seen them “everywhere”. They are, however, restricted to certain days wherein precise weather conditions and time of day and season of the year on occasion cooperate in such a wonderful way as to gift us so marvelously. I am told that, in addition to outside factors, one’s own state of mind also contributes to how such days are beheld.

Invariably such moments remind me how new the world seems when we look back. And one is tempted to think that all was crisp and clear when one was a child. We know better, of course — or at least we ought to know better. However, if your childhood was blessed with a decent home — whether rich or poor or in between — you certainly should be grateful.

I recall visiting the El Morro fort in San Juan, Puerto Rico one late afternoon in 1978. It was one of those aforementioned, astonishingly clear days, about two hours or so before sunset. The beauty of the day was not due only to my personal inward peace; a television crew, which I later learned was from an advertising agency, was filming a lady on a horse. It must have been a shampoo commercial as her almost-waist-long hair reflected the sun’s rays as she rode her horse, with trees and fort and sparkling ocean in the background. Clearly the advertising agency knew this was a “perfect day” to shoot such a commercial in that spot.

(Lamentably, the trees are gone; my understanding is that they were removed in the early 90s to make the fort look “exactly” as it did in the 16th Century when it was built.)

But one need not be in an exotic location to enjoy such days. I’ve seen them as I worked on the property outside my home in Texas or as I drove grandchildren to a Puerto Rico mountain top or sitting on the low wall outside the camp club in El Pao. And you have seen such days also, I’m sure. We all have.

Invariably, such days tug me back to a vinyl record my father bought when I was not yet two years old. No, I don’t recall the day he bought it; as far as I am concerned, it had always been a part of my life; however, in writing this post I looked at the issue date: 1955.

It is Gary Moore’s The Elephant Child: Musical Adaptations based on Just So Stories For Little Children by Rudyard Kipling.

The second story in the album is “How The Camel Got Its Hump”. Like all such tales in Just So, “Camel” is an origin story. Moore delightfully channels Kipling as he unfolds the yarn about a world that is just beginning and has much work to be done. The horse, the ox, and the dog are doing their best to help the man; however, the camel just sits there in the desert doing nothing but saying “Humph!”

A recurring motif throughout the story is that “The world is so new and all” and this creature refuses to carry her weight. If you don’t know it, I’ll let you read the rest of the 2 or 3 pages; or look it up in Internet Archives and listen to Moore’s adaptation.

It’s the recurring refrain that comes to my mind on days of crispness and clarity: when the world was so new and all.

Robert Redford is quoted as saying, “Life is essentially sad.” I understand his meaning to be that happiness is a rare thing and when one encounters it one must grasp it for a moment, for it is too seldom seen. 

Mr. Redford’s is a sad philosophy of life, I am truly sorry to say. Yes, we may see much tribulation in life, as the apostle tells us. However, life can be joyful and its end, glorious and eternal, as per the Westminster Shorter Catechism.

I see the aforementioned days as reminders of God’s goodness. They are one of life’s gifts which cannot be explained with mere words; but are part of the joy unspeakable that is ours in Christ and in His Kingdom.

As for our childhood, yes, colors were bright then … but they are bright still, no? Sure they are.

We may have storms today … but we had them back then as well.

As we begin the new ecclesiastical year, celebrating this Advent Season, we could do worse than remember to be grateful for the days we have been given and to determine to make our remaining days worth the while.

So, in a sense, the world is as new and all today as it was in 1955.

Photo of El Morro Fort taken in 1977. Notice the trees along the driveway and to the right. These were cut down and removed in the early 90s.

Robert Redford (1936-2025). Photo taken in 2003

Birthday

Richard Barnes

“…No, it is impossible; it is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one’s existence — that which makes its truth, its meaning — its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dream — alone …. Of course, in this you fellows see more than I could then. You see me, whom you know ….” – Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

A great challenge, which I have not conquered, is to accurately convey the life sensations of the epochs lived in El Pao. To describe the people who played life-long roles in shaping my character — the person who I was and who I became. In this, I agree with Conrad: it is impossible.

I do not pretend to be a literary genius — guffaw, guffaw! — nor anywhere near a master of a vocabulary which can precisely portray the people I so longingly miss and love. All I can do is write snippets and recall persons and events which had an influence on me. 

But I do ask my readers to know that I love the people I grew up with in my childhood. I respect and honor them. Beginning with my father and mother and relatives such as aunts and uncles on both sides of my family. And friends — not only friends, but also their parents and grandparents. It is a great honor to be able to have called your father’s and mother’s friends your own.

Family bonds are critical, not only to the family, but to friends and acquaintances thereof.

These introductory thoughts are elicited by memories of one of my childhood birthdays. It may have been my fifth, but I can’t be sure….

Birthdays were pretty big deals in El Pao. 

I sat inside, on the living room window sill, watching my mother standing under the shade of the giant Araguaney, placing beans in a glass jar. I looked away, not because I didn’t want to win that contest, but because I was afraid someone might see me and call me a cheater.

I would not be able to explain my fear. I only sensed a profound need to not disappoint my father or mother and, in my mind, being publicly accused of cheating would have been a very great embarrassment to them and, so, to me also. I felt I represented my father and mother as much as they represented themselves and, therefore, I would second guess myself on occasions such as this, when I might be able to see my mother’s lips as she counted the beans or as she gave the total to Mrs. C. for recording.

I recalled, with sudden stomach turmoil, the Easter party earlier in the year when I had indeed seen Mrs. Y’s lips as she told Mrs. S, who then wrote the number down. I had closely observed the movement of the pencil in her fist as she wrote the number, confirming what I had read in the lips. I had repeated that number, 146, silently to myself throughout the following hour or so and when the guessing game began I astounded all when I loudly exclaimed, “One hundred and forty-six!”

No one had seemed to suspect me. On the contrary, they laughed and congratulated me on a perfect guess.

Sure. A perfect guess. But it hadn’t been a guess at all.

I soon apperceived guilt and wondered whether there were someone who had seen me looking and had guessed my dirty little trick. Anyways, I knew God had seen me. Except when my mind was on games and scrambling around, I was miserable the rest of that afternoon.

That was a feeling I did not want to entertain on this day.

So I looked at the balloons tied to tree limbs and overhangs and clothes lines, seeming to bounce against the breeze. I recalled watching my mother and Elena, their mouths forming embouchures, as they filled each balloon. I liked the colors: blue, yellow, orange, purple, red, and white.

Many were tied to the branches of the fustic just outside my bedroom and I remembered the yellow dye that seeped from any wounds on that particular tree. All these colors — blue, yellow, orange, red, and many whites — colors were the only differentiation between the numberless globes of cheer, which would be one of the memories of that day that would ever remain with me.

And these colors were perfectly limbate against the green. I loved the green of the massive Araguaney in our front yard and the dark green of the jungle around the mining camp where I was born five years before.

That green I could see from practically any point in the camp. Right now, I looked up a bit, a little beyond the balloons, and there it was. The green. The foliage painted the distant hills and mid-sized mountain green. To me, green was the color of freedom, of excitement and adventure, of danger, of a magnificent future, of poignant music and children’s laughter. It was a color which would forever remind me of not only this day but of all that comprised my entire childhood in El Pao.

Soon, children were scurrying and crawling over the birthday grounds as their mothers coordinated the various games which culminated with the striking of the Piñata.

Above photos are not of the party I recalled in today’s post. Am not sure where those photos are today.

Above was carnival and most of us wanted to be elsewhere.

La Sayona and La Llorona

Richard Barnes

Guest Post by Professor Cristóbal Lárez Velásquez

Mérida, Venezuela

Professor Lárez Velásquez was born in El Pao and currently works at the Polymer Group, Department of Chemistry, University of the Andes, in Venezuela. He has published numerous articles on chemistry and is also a full professor at the university.

Like myself, Dr. Lárez Velásquez is grateful for the nurture given him during his infancy and childhood in El Pao.

His post on his recollections about La Sayona and La Llorona is of a different kind. I do not recall ever hearing about La Sayona; however, I did hear about La Llorona from the maids and mining camp charwomen but was never interested in inquiring about her. 

Professor Lárez Velásquez does have a knowledge about the origins of the legends which I found entertaining as well as revealing about the superstitions which often grip folks of any land on this earth. 

Not to mention The Scarlet Letter nature of the origins of La Sayona.

Thank you, Dr. Lárez Velásquez!

Guest Post

In just about every town in Venezuela legends related to figures like La Sayona abound.

Briefly, La Sayona is supposedly a ghost or specter that arose when a very jealous woman named Casilda murdered her mother and husband suspecting they were having an affair. Her mother, in the agony of death, cursed her and henceforth, her tormented soul wanders without rest or peace, pursuing unfaithful men to conquer them and then murder them. 

Another legend is La Llorona (The Crying Woman). She is another mythical creature who haunts rivers, lakes, and lonely roads; she comes out at night, searching for her children who drowned. 

Such legends existed in El Pao and surrounding areas of my childhood, and persist to this day. 

Interestingly, many tales about some of these fabled beings were often narrated at wakes as late as the 1960s and into the 1970s. I learned several of them when we accompanied our parents to some of these events. It should be remembered that there was no electricity in the surroundings of El Pao at the time, so the lighting was quite eerie and, as the reader can imagine, the stories told at some wakes had a powerful, long lasting impact on many of those who attended — especially on the children.

One of these narratives told of a woman on fire who would emerge on black nights on the curve just above Vuelta de Correa, up the road leading to El Pao, near the entrance where the Navarro family lived. This woman would chase anyone who ventured alone there. Many people were afraid to walk there; even drivers in their vehicles hesitated to drive through alone on dark nights. 

My grandparents, Juan Velásquez and Gumersinda Rivas de Veláquez, had their grocery store near this site, in front of Mr. Mario Picarone’s old gas pump and a little further down from the bus stop. 

Whenever an incident related to this dreaded ghostly apparition occurred, the episode was recounted again and again in their grocery store. Obviously, the versions expanded with added color to some aspects as they were recounted by different narrators, some of whom felt so strongly about their yarns that it seemed as if they had experienced them personally.

For many years, it was also said in the area that on the San-Félix-El Pao highway, at the entrance to the Macagua dam, a very beautiful woman would appear inside the vehicles passing by. Nothing would happen if the driver, who was likely very frightened, treated her courteously. However, she would become terrifying to those who tried to seduce her. 

The fear was so great, according to the stories, that many fainted or went crazy for a few days. It was believed that these apparitions were meant to punish and discipline unfaithful men, because nothing would happen to those who behaved courteously and gentlemanly. In those cases, the woman would disappear as mysteriously as she had boarded the automobile. 

Many jokers (called “jodedores” in the “guayanés lexicon”), who fortunately have always been abundant in the area, even in the worst of times, said that these stories were told by the drivers to persuade their wives to forgive them for traveling in that area, which was known to be in the vicinity of several places of ill repute.

Unsurprisingly, in the wake of these stories, it was also common for some “brave” men to loudly express their desire for this woman to appear to them, to show them who was in charge, so they said. So, soon enough other places in the region were regaled by women appearing to lone drivers. For example, the place called Guayabal, on the El Pao-Upata highway.

As for El Pao itself, there is a story about its early years that seems difficult to imagine and paints a different picture as to the origins of the La Sayona legend. I knew this story first hand because one of the protagonists related it to me all the while assuring me it was true.

It is about a very tall being, dressed in a hat and a long white suit, who, midst the darkness and fog, which was quite thick in El Pao at that time, supposedly came down from Rankin High, around the back of the church, crossed the school road, and skirted the place known as “el bajo”, behind the houses where the telegraph and post offices later operated. 

If it sensed someone approaching, it [like Marley’s ghost] would drag chains that produced a terrific and chilling sound and continue walking quickly toward Las Casillas. There, it would wait to make sure it could ascend without incident to the front of Pasaje Bolívar, from whence it would pass to the back of the houses on Apure Street, and then walk quickly, dragging the chains again. 

It would reach the hospital steps, climb halfway up, and then descend through the center of what was, or later was, a playground with swings, reaching to the hospital road, crossing it and the road to the now disappeared Labor Office. Then it continued behind the houses on the Guardia Street until, finally, it reached the bachelors buildings and the police headquarters that were in those parts at that time.

There, it disappeared for a long time. Afterwards, the ghostly creature would reappear and return along the same path, always in darkness and under heavy fog, sometimes in a persistent drizzle.

The legend had been circulating in the camp for some time, supposedly told by some drunks whom no one believed, although later told by people who were going to work the night shift and had to pass near some of the aforementioned places along the way. And, it seems, a competition arose among some young people to follow the mysterious entity, which they began to call “La Sayona”, and if possible, to catch it.

One of these groups of young men, who were around 17 or 20 years old and drank liquor “encapillados (drank in secret)” in some of the many places in El Pao where they did so (without causing much of a fuss because otherwise people would complain and the Guardia would come), set out to catch La Sayona. 

According to my source, they were on the verge of success several times, but something always happened that saved her. The most common cause of her escapes seems to have been the fear that paralyzed all the young men with terror when La Sayona stopped, and began to rattle her chains. 

However, one day, when they were under the heavy effects of alcohol, two of them managed to catch and subdue her. And, finally, the secret of La Sayona of El Pao was revealed. 

The two “brave” ones negotiated with her and promised to keep the secret, for which they received a small, monthly gift from her. However, because these two “brave” men, true to blackmail in general, increasingly increased their demands, La Sayona decided to move out of the camp.

According to the story told to me by the man who supposedly caught La Sayona, she was a beautiful, married woman, unfaithful to her husband, who under cover of the El Pao darkness and fog would betray her husband in adultery.

Unfortunately for this story — or perhaps not — my source never revealed the identity of La Sayona of El Pao.

El Pao plaza in the memorable, dark fog. Photo provided by Profesor Lárez Velásquez, courtesy Alfredo Sánchez FB