Orinoco River – Page 4 – The Pull Of The Land

Bocón, Caribe, Anchor Chain

September 14, 2019September 14, 2019 Richard Barnes

Having caught only one fish, and after trying for hours and catching nothing else, the boy set his bamboo rod on the barge and climbed down the iron ladder to the third or fourth rung from the ground from which he jumped to the shore where he scrambled to the large saltines can holding the lonely fish.

His father had placed the large “Nabisco La Favorita” can beneath what seemed to the boy to be the largest anchor chain in the world. It was fastened to a giant anchor screwed to the hill just beyond the shore, from whence it held the barge from floating away into the Orinoco current.

The cans I recall were red, but the shape and branding were as above. My father would use a large hand forged iron nail to punch holes into the can to allow air to circulate and thus lengthen the life of the fishes used for bait.

The nail looked something like this, only it was larger (as recalled by me as a young child). The head was large enough for my mother or father to hit it with the palm or fist to open cans or punch holes

The chain was large enough to provide shade for the fish as well as for the boy, who now crouched beneath it, watching the fish swim to and fro or at times just remain stationary.

He recalled the occasion when he had caught a piranha and his father had placed it in a can all by itself. They had taken it home to show his mother. Seeing the fish refused to move, his father, who did indeed know better, stuck his finger in the water to move it a bit only to see blood. He quickly pulled out and saw that the cannibalistic fish, having moved faster than sound, had bitten off the tip of his finger. They all had had a good surprise followed by hearty laughter.

In Venezuela, Piranhas are called “Caribe(s)”, after the Caribe Indians who ravaged Venezuela at the time of Columbus. As usual, current “scholarship” tends to preface their cannibalism with “allegedly”. However, contemporary accounts leave no room for doubt. One reason no Mayan or Aztec-like civilizations are found in Venezuela was the unrelenting warfare of the savage Caribes. Their tortures included holding subjugated peoples and biting (yes, biting) them to death, while also slicing them with sharp shells. It is no secret why the Piranha is known as the Caribe in Venezuela.

Piranha (Caribe). Not a fish to take home to mother.

The fish in the can under the chain was a Bocón, a “big mouth.” These were in great abundance in the Orinoco but usually during a certain time of the year. Clearly this day was not during that certain time of year, else the can would have been teeming with the fish, not just one.

He crouched in the shadow of the chain and contemplated the Bocón as it balanced itself lazily near the center of the can; his father remained on the barge, patiently waiting for the big one.

The barge was big, rusty, and seemingly abandoned. At least it was “always” there when father and son went fishing in or about that spot. Halfway across the wide Orinoco a dredging vessel and crew did its work. In 1952 U.S. Steel Corporation undertook the dredging of the Orinoco to allow deep water shipping which would eliminate the need to transfer ore from river boats to ocean going vessels. Once the dredging was done a few years later, the Bethlehem Steel closed its ocean port, Puerto de Hierro, and shipped ore from its Orinoco port, Palúa, directly to its massive steel works in Sparrows Point, Maryland. Puerto de Hierro was transformed into a Venezuelan navy base.

For years, Bethlehem Steel, and others, paid tolls to U.S. Steel for using the dredged river channels as its ships came to load and returned to the United States, laden with ore. After expropriation, the maintenance and usage of the channels continued, but by 2005, maintenance had suffered and deep sea shipping had become more intermittent, usually limited to high water seasons.

Dredging the Orinoco River. This photo was taken in the year 2000. Maintenance had to be kept up, otherwise the mighty river would soon render the channels unseaworthy. By 2005, shipping was limited to high water seasons.

The boy felt someone pushing down on him below the shoulders. He looked to his right, towards the barge and fleetingly saw his father holding the fishing line, facing the river, away from the boy. Fleetingly, because what was pushing him down unremittingly was the giant chain. The river’s undulation was bringing the barge down and that action was lowering the chain onto the boy. He yelled, but by then was crushed so tightly that no sound escaped his mouth. Not even a whisper.

From the corner of his eye he saw the shadow of his father jump from the barge to the shore and rushing up behind him. He saw that shadow grab the chain and seek to lift it. Lift it. Lift it.

He lost consciousness.

He opened his eyes as his father carried him running up the steep cement steps that led from the river back up to the camp. Then he lost consciousness again only to awaken in the camp hospital with the doctor saying that he was going to be OK.

We returned to the river to pick up our stuff and then headed for home. My father explained that he had heard nothing until a guard standing atop the stairs yelled at him, “Oiga! Su hijo le necesita!” (Hey! Your son needs you!”). That’s when my father looked to the chain and saw me, seemingly being flattened. I did not hear anyone saying anything, but I might have been passing out by then.

What surprised my father was that, in a day when everybody knew everybody, he had never seen that guard before, nor did he ever see him again. Not even when he finally reached the top of the stairs. There was no one around. In addition, of course, no man could have raised that barge from the river either.

When my father grabbed that chain and sought to lift it, it just kept bearing down, down. But Someone made the river swell. And the water rose. And so did the chain. He told me that, once the chain lifted from my back, I just fell to the side, doubled over like a clam. He thought for sure my back was broken, which I’m glad it wasn’t. Else carrying me up the stairs, although perfectly understandable, would not have been a good idea!

God lifted the tide and preserved my back from breaking. He also sent an angel to minister. I believe that if my back had been broken, that “guard” would have told my father and he would have called for an ambulance instead.

“Take heed that ye despise not [look down on] one of these little ones; for I say unto you that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.”

That’s as good an explanation as any.

This is the closest I can find on the “Bocón” that we used to fish in great numbers in the Orinoco. When we fished from the shores of the Orinoco or from the barges, we’d mostly catch smaller sizes than seen in the image, and we used them for bait as well as taking them home for grilling or frying.

The port of Palúa. The events alluded to in the post occurred beyond the ore bridge in the photo’s background.

Arial view of the port. Note the ore bridge on the right.

The Orinoco River heading across from the company port. Sailors compared this river to the ocean.

Orinoco, Casiquiare, Humboldt, and Monster Aguirre

August 9, 2019August 9, 2019 Richard Barnes

During the rainy season, about April to August, the Orinoco River rises 40 to 60 feet at Ciudad Bolivar, the capital of the state of Bolivar, also known as Guayana. I recall, in my boyhood, dangerously flooded city streets in San Félix, about 70 miles east of Ciudad Bolivar. In the plains, the waters expand great distances, up to 120 miles or more in some places. During the dry season, the river continuously drops, exposing vast tracts along its banks and many islands.

Alexander von Humboldt explored the Casiquiare River, which starts as an arm of the Orinoco and finds its way to the Rio Negro (Black River), a tributary of the Amazon, thus forming a “natural canal” between the Orinoco and the Amazon. The great explorer’s efforts in that area were cut short by Portuguese and Spanish authorities. Nevertheless, as much credit as Humboldt deserves, the channel between the Orinoco and Amazon rivers was known for centuries before his celebrated voyage: Spanish missionaries, which he was so fond of mocking, were well acquainted with it and often traversed it northwards from what is now Brazilian territory. Maps subsequent to the early missionary eras also note it, under various names.

As for Humboldt’s tendency to somewhat minimize Christianity, we must say that it was Christians who opened the doors to him. It was the monks, even the bad ones, who guided him. It was the mission Indians who led him and showed him the way — and did so without devouring him for supper, thanks to Christianity. In fact, besides some attempts at robbery, by unevangelized natives, we might add, the only obstacle to his endeavors was courtesy of, not the church, but politicians. He was expelled from Brazil because the Portuguese and Spanish civil authorities were not on good terms. But, ever the Enlightenment Man, he reserved his bile for Christ, not Caesar.

Be that as it may, others were at Casiquiare before him. In fact, two and half centuries before Humboldt’s great voyage, the infamous Lope de Aguirre formed part of an expedition headed east to the Atlantic Ocean from Lima, Perú. Aguirre was right out of central casting: hideously ugly and lame in one foot. The explorers were commissioned by the Marquis of Cañete with the purpose of verifying the truth or falsehood of fantastic reports by Indians, of various tribes, coming from the East, telling of the fabulous El Dorado. These stories were at times seconded by European explorers, such as the German, Felipe de Utre, who told the Spaniards in Perú of vast cities and great wealth further east.

So, the Marquis of Cañete appointed Don Pedro de Ursua as the Leader, but Aguirre murdered Don Pedro in his sleep and had himself named leader. Anyone who questioned or was not sufficiently enthusiastic about his leadership was promptly murdered, including Don Pedro’s concubine, Inés de Atienza, who was cruelly put to death.

The voyage continued, and a very bloody voyage it was. Indians along the way were massacred, and murders within the company continued as they made their way to the Atlantic Ocean, first ascending the Rio Negro, then following the streams of the Casiquiare and eventually the Orinoco. They killed, massacred, and slaughtered all along the long, bloody trek.

They eventually sailed across the sea to the island of Margarita where they committed the most horrible atrocities on the inhabitants without regard to age or sex, and murdered all of the officers of the Spanish government. Aguirre met his end in Barquisimeto, about 200 miles east of Caracas, where he was finally successfully ambushed, captured, and executed. His body was quartered and sent to various cities across Venezuela.

It must be noted that Simon Bolivar approvingly considered Aguirre’s acts as the first declaration of independence in the Americas. He wrote this about a man who, as his well-deserved capture and death approached, stabbed his own daughter, Elvira, to death, saying, “Someone I love so much must never be bedded by ruined people.” Compare his “declaration of independence” to that of the thirteen colonies, and you have a microcosm of the chasm between the two. And of the at times frustrating character of Bolivar.

As to the Orinoco, at places the shore is very broad and the jungle remains at a distance from the river. At other stretches, the jungle comes right to the river’s edge and even seems to invade or overhang it, as if to stake its claim over everything, even the wide Orinoco, whose name is believed to come from Orinucu, a Tamanak word meaning, so some think, “Great Water”. In fact, some tribes in the past called this river, Paragua, which also means “Great Water.”

Then there’s the Boto, or Amazon River Dolphin, known in Venezuela as the Tonina, the largest sweet water cetacean in the world. These were plentiful in my childhood, and their mighty antics in the middle of the river formed a delightful distraction. I recall during a trip down the Orinoco how they undulated, seemingly in majestic slow motion, upstream as the ship continued its journey. These fresh water dolphins seemed to fit perfectly in the Orinoco whose attributes at times resemble the ocean.

Much more about the Orinoco and Humboldt in future posts.

Pedro de Ursua. Aguirre murdered him and his widow in 1561.

Salto de Aguirre in Perú. Here, Aguirre faced grave danger and chiseled some mysterious symbols on a rock. He escaped to bring mayhem to Venezuela. To this day the symbols are venerated by many.

The Orinoco River Basin. Note the Casiquiare “Canal” to the south.

The great confluence of the Caroní and Orinoco Rivers at Ciudad Guayana

The Casiquiare River (also called Canal or Waterway)

Reproduction of map made in 1800 based on the observations of Alexander von Humboldt. Map traces the Casiquiare River’s route from the Orinoco to the Rio Negro (Black River) which in turn will connect with the Amazon. The inset to the bottom right traces the Maypures Rapids of which Humboldt wrote in thrilling prose.

Orinoco Tonina. Largest sweet water cetacean in the world.

Aerial view of Palúa, the Bethlehem Steel port on the Oricoco.

Tarpon fished from the Orinoco near Palúa, circa 1950.

En route to the Atlantic Ocean, circa 1960.

Life in an American Camp

May 18, 2019May 18, 2019 Richard Barnes

In the initial euforia of concessions by the Venezuelan government to American oil and iron ore companies, was any thought given to where these companies’ employees, many of whom would come from countries other than Venezuela, would live?

As it turns out, President Marcos Pérez Jimenez had given it much thought and had requested such companies establish “open cities” wherever possible. Puerto Ordaz, the crown jewel of Ciudad Guayana, whose impetus was The US Steel Company, was one result of the open city policy.

El Pao, where I was born, was more of what most folks think of when they conjure up images of an “American Camp.”

Jimenez understood that not all camps could be open cities. El Pao was deep in the Venezuelan jungle, relatively shut off from potential commercial centers, such as a major river, highway, airport, railway, etc.

On the other hand, the future Puerto Ordaz was situated at the confluence of two major rivers, one of which is the mighty Orinoco, the third or fourth largest in the world, measured by average discharge, meaning the river’s flow rate. I had to look this up and, from a layman’s perspective, this is probably the best illustration: “The volume of an Olympic-size swimming pool is 2,500 cubic meters. So the flow rate at the mouth of the Amazon [the world’s largest] is sufficient to fill more than 83 such pools each second.”

The flow rate at the mouth of the Congo and the Orinoco (second and third largest rivers) would each fill 16 such pools per second.

By the way, of the 10 largest rivers in the world, 5 are in South America.

As for El Pao, this area was explored by the Spanish 5 centuries ago. The Indians told them about a mountain which, when struck by lightning, would give off bright flashes. The Spanish investigated for themselves and confirmed the tales. They named the mountain, El Florero, meaning, Flower Pot, since the flashes looked like flowers on the mountain peak.

Actually, the area was rich in orchids and also an abundance of “purguo”, a tree which yielded very high quality rubber. In fact, the era in which the ore was discovered, was known as “la fiebre del balatá” (the balatá fever). Balatá refers to a natural gum of high quality found in the purguo. Mr. Aturo Vera, whom, years later, my father would often contract to drive us to fishing spots on the Caroní River, explored that area with his own father in the 1920’s. On one such journey, father and son espied a splendid ore specimen and took it with them to their home near the Caroní.

Word spread quickly and a miner, Simón Piñero, accompanied by his boss, entrepreneur Eduardo Boccardo, also explored and contracted an engineer, Frank Paglucci, to stake a claim. Mr. Vera, seeing all the excitement, also staked his claim, and rightfully so.

The ore was analyzed by American laboratories, found to be of extraordinary quality, and the Bethlehem Steel Company assigned their geologist, Earl H. Nixon, to the site.

On June 3, 1944 (3 days before D Day) , The New York Times reported, “The Bethlehem Steel Corporation’s big Venezuelan iron ore development, first disclosed as a prospect a few weeks ago, is now under way. Twenty American engineers and technicians are in charge, with some 600 native Venezuelans, skilled and unskilled, at work on the big project.” This project represented capital investments of $50 million ($1 billion in today’s money) and more in Puerto de Hierro (Iron Port), their deep sea port on the Atlantic.

By July, 1950, the first train load of ore was transported from El Pao to Palúa, the company’s river port on the Orinoco for transshipment to Puerto de Hierro. And in 1951, the seaport yielded its first shipment to the United States. The March 23 New York Times headline read: “First Cargo of Venezuela Iron Ore Arrives for Bethlehem Steel Plant; Sparrows Point Pier in Maryland Is Scene of Significant Ceremony Marking Start of 3,000,000-Ton-a-Year Shipments.” The article’s lead sentence read, “Vessels laden with iron ore have docked here for decades, but special significance attached to the arrival of an ore boat this morning.”

We’ll speak more of life in an American camp in future posts. For now, I’ll end this post by quoting some recent comments by folks who, when children, lived in Puerto de Hierro. This will give an idea of life in an American camp in Venezuela and also the pull of the land.

“That is the place of enchantment and he who has lived or even visited it will remember it for all of life. And I had the fortune of having been born there. Those good years of the 1950’s, 60’s, 70’s, 80’s…. The best …?”

“My! All those wonderful people who worked there are beautiful I tell you! I salute that wonderful and dear place and people!”

“The best town and the most beautiful place in Venezuela; the only beach with a diving board in the ocean. I developed my life there along with my parents and siblings. Eternal memories and the best times of my childhood and my youth. My best friends of my life were from there.”

“My beautiful town. I can never forget you, although all is different now.”

“What wonderful memories of my childhood, of my parents, of my siblings, of my neighbors who once lived and those who still live. I embrace you all!”

“My beautiful town. Now, it is not even the shadow of what it once was. How much sadness it brings me to see the ruin that it is now!”

“My town! I was born there in 1961. How I long to go and run there again. My adored land. Venezuela, how much sadness you bring me now! My dear Lord!”

“I could not have asked for a better childhood.”

Neither could I.

Puerto de Hierro on the Atlantic coast, in the state of Sucre. The Bethlehem Steel ceded this to the Venezuelan government and it is now a Venezuelan navy base.

The loading bridge over the Orinoco in the company port of Palúa. My father used to dive off that into the river. Folks called him Tarzan.

El Pao under construction in the 1940’s. Men carved a modern road and railroad out of this jungle.

Above is a 1940’s map. You’ll not see Puerto Ordaz thereon. It would grow across the Caroní from San Félix, at the spot between the Caroní and the Orinoco (the Caroní is that river which runs into the Orinoco at San Félix). El Pao is the spot denoted as “Iron Mining Area”.

The confluence of the Caroní and the Orinoco rivers. Yes, at this point, the Orinoco is carrying much soil as it continues its journey to the Atlantic. It clears up again miles downriver. Puerto Ordaz grew on the right. Notice the ore ships on the right. Before the bridges were built, we’d cross by ferry.

As the Caroní approaches the Orinoco the change in topography yields several series of rapids and falls. Above are the Cachamay Falls. An Intercontinental hotel was built here in the 1970’s.

Ciudad Guayana. Foreground is San Felix (Old Town); background, across the Caroní, is Puerto Ordaz (New Town).

Arturo Vera, second from right, accompanies Bethlehem Steel engineers arriving in 1934, in Ciudad Bolivar, the closest major city. Photo source: El Pao Yacimiento Pionero.

Arturo Vera. Died in 1990, age 88. I vividly remember him. As a child, I used to think he was a great driver as he’d drive us over seemingly impassable paths to places I could never find again, even if my life depended on it. My father would often remind me that Mr. Vera owned part of the area which became El Pao. He was an unassuming and kindly man. And a great driver!

Santiago Smith: The camp had many men like him: unusual backgrounds, hard workers, colorful, sometimes mysterious. I was privileged to know them in my childhood. Mr. Smith was born of English parents in the gold mining area. In the late 40’s that area began to be shut down and he and some companions had to look elsewhere for work. They came to El Pao. He worked and lived there until his death in 2010. He was close to a century by most estimates. Photo Source: El Pao Yacimiento Pionero.

Mining II

April 20, 2019April 24, 2019 Richard Barnes

To add to the prior post, I thought it good to tell a bit more about El Pao’s background and impetus as something of a microcosm of the myriad mining and petroleum camps dotting Venezuela in the 1950’s.

As noted in the Time Magazine article cited in the previous post, El Pao was a Bethlehem Steel iron ore mining camp built in the 1940’s in the Venezuelan southeastern interior, within a low and gentle mountain range in an area of dense, seemingly infinite jungles, just beyond the Gran Sabana prairies and plains whose boundaries seemed to melt with the sky.

The company, along with US Steel had negotiated concessions with the government of Marcos Pérez Jimenez, the shortest-lived of the numberless military dictatorships in Venezuela’s history. Actually, these concessions were signed prior to Jimenez’s official assumption of the presidency, but “everybody knew” he was actually in charge a few years before his official ascension in 1952. Perez Jimenez sought to enhance Venezuela’s independence by promoting oil and ore concessions and improving and expanding the transit infrastructure. He insisted, wherever possible, the companies build “open cities” as opposed to closed camps. US Steel did just that, which impelled the phenomenal growth of the thriving metropolis of Puerto Ordaz, at the confluence of the Orinoco and Caroní rivers. As for Caracas, it was modernized with skyscrapers, including the symbolic Humboldt Hotel, overlooking the capital city from atop Mt. Ávila. The hotel was named after the famous naturalist and explorer, Alexander Von Humboldt, who explored and studied much of Venezuela in the late 18th century. We’ll be seeing more of him in later posts. Construction projects were launched to build large public housing projects, bridges, and South America’s finest highway system, most of which would still be in use into the 21^stcentury, including the then spectacular La Guira – Caracas expressway in 1953 and the Tejerías – Caracas expressway in 1954.

Furthermore, his tenure saw the creation, in 1956, of cable car transport to the 6,000 ft., Mt. Avila, which stands like an imposing sentinel over Caracas. He also commissioned the building of the even more remarkable cable car system to the 20,000 ft. Pico Bolivar in the Andes in the western state of Mérida. Both systems were built by Swiss engineers and materiel. Venezuela was transformed into the most modern nation of South America: “modern” defined as excellent infrastructure, breathtaking skylines, and a rapidly growing middle class. Today, some old timers say it was the Dubai of the 1950’s.

A telling but quickly forgotten change imposed by Perez Jimenez was the revision of the official name of the nation. Since 1864 the country’s name was “United States of Venezuela”, reflecting Simón Bolivar’s admiration for the United States, but not his conviction that South America should not seek to emulate a similar type government because, as he put it, “the United States form of government will only work for saints, which is what they are [and what we are not]”; Marcos Pérez Jimenez, apparently understanding Bolivar’s admonition, changed the name to “Republic of Venezuela”, a name which stuck until, in the 21^stcentury, another authoritarian politician changed the name yet again, but left Venezuela’s 20 states intact. El Pao was in the large state of Bolivar, to the southeast of the country, bordering on Brazil to the south and British Guiana to the east.

Marcos Perez Jimenez ruled from December, 1952 to 1958, but his following persisted even after his death five decades later, in 2001.

A plebiscite was held in December, 1957 which Jimenez won by a wide margin, but which opponents insisted was a rigged exercise. He went into self-imposed exile in Miami Beach, in 1959, only to be deported later by the Kennedy administration, which vainly believed it could afford to break the United States’ promise of asylum in exchange for the applause of Venezuelan politicians: honor out; applause, in. But, as often happens with asymmetrical swaps, Kennedy succeeded with the former, weightier matter; and failed with the latter, transitory one.

Unbelievably, Jimenez was, in 1968, elected to the Senate, even though he ran in absentia from Spain; however, the Venezuelan politicians succeeded in overturning his election on technicalities. In 1973 his supporters nominated him for the presidency of Venezuela; however, the political parties amended the constitution, in effect prohibiting him from running for president again.

He never returned to Venezuela. Nevertheless, love him or hate him, his administration’s negotiations with the American steel and petroleum industries brought matchless prosperity to the country. This promise of future increase and liberality was reversed by the overturning of his economic policies, which tended to favor free enterprise locally coupled with pragmatic agreements with foreign companies, within a low tax and regulatory environment.

Amazingly, all major projects undertaken by the Perez Jimenez administration still stand, unsurpassed: either still in use, such as in the case of the magnificent, now barely maintained, and, therefore, in some places dangerous expressways, or as silent, empty monuments of a long past era, such as the Humboldt Hotel, alone and padlocked, alternating between stints as a reflector of countless brilliant sparkles of sunlight or as a lone sentry shrouded in clouds atop Mt. Ávila, reminding all who look and wonder, that historical eras ought not be facilely catalogued as bright or dark, evil or good. Much depends on who tells the story, how it’s told, of whom it is told, and, of course, by whom it is told.

But the foregoing was yet in the future. Most, if not all, Americans who came to Venezuela when Pérez Jimenez was either in power or was the power behind the throne, that is, from the late 1940’s through the 1950’s, were quite apolitical and gave little thought to the country’s civil government. Streets were safe, people were courteous, Americans were respected and admired, and work was abundant for both Americans and Venezuelans. What mattered to them, and to their companies, was that Venezuela became their largest supplier of iron ore, by far – ore ultimately incorporated in America’s magnificent bridges, skyscrapers, monuments, homes, and automobiles.

For those of you interested in Marcos Pérez Jimenez, you might want to check out the series of interviews (in Spanish) he granted not too long before his death. The link below is for the sixth of the series.

For those of you interested in the Humboldt Hotel, you might find the documentary linked below to be worth your while

Photo of construction of highway from The Orinoco River to El Pao

El Pao baseball team, circa 1950. IMCOV stood for Iron Mines Company of Venezuela, the Bethlehem Steel subsidiary which built El Pao. They began as inexperienced rag-tags and rose to be national AA champions.

If you liked to fish, you were in paradise.

Mining

April 12, 2019April 20, 2019 Richard Barnes

Any blog on Venezuela must include posts on mining. In the future, I hope to have a post or two from guests with more expertise on the more technical aspects of the mining industry in Venezuela and their complex engineering facets. Meanwhile, we can certainly post things of interest or of general introduction.

Depending on your sources, Venezuela was one of the world’s largest producers (some sources had it as the largest) of direct-reduced iron (iron ore which is reduced to a smaller form, usually pellets by means of a specially formulated gas). It was in the top ten of the world’s producers of iron ore, aluminum, and bauxite. And it still ranks as possessing one of the world’s largest known reserves of crude oil, second only to Saudi Arabia, although some say the United States has surpassed both.

It holds one of the world’s largest reserves of gold and was second only to South Africa in diamond production. Countless gems and precious stones have been mined there, especially in the interior state of Bolivar and the giant Territorio Amazonas.

The attentive reader will note the use of the past tense in the second and third paragraphs above. The past tense is used because extraction and production have suffered precipitous declines since the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. I would not be surprised by the discovery of vast new deposits and reserves, alongside the return of successful mining and production, once the investment climate improves. (Meanwhile, we should not be surprised by the intense interest focused on Venezuela by China and Russia.)

In 1956, Time Magazine had at least two issues on iron ore mining in Venezuela. The article in its November 19 issue began thusly:

“Inland from Venezuela’s Caribbean coast some 200 miles, the swift, black Caroni River plunges into the chocolate-colored Orinoco. Southward from this junction of two mighty streams lie jungles and sandy scrublands studded with low, reddish mountains. This poor-looking expanse is one of the world’s great storehouses of iron. West of the Caroni looms Cerro Bolivar, blanketed with 500 million tons of high-grade ore. Farther west lies another iron mountain, El Trueno, endowed with 150 million tons. On the other side of the Caroni, Bethlehem Steel Corp. gathers up 3,000,000 tons of ore a year from El Pao….”

Poetically and dramatically, the article captures the vastness of the country’s riches in iron ore alone. The country is “awash” with natural resources, even including coltan. We are told that Venezuela is one of only seven countries in the world that have known coltan reserves in sufficient quantities to export. It is a black mineral that is used in mobile (cell) phones and computer chips.

According to recent publications, metal production is at all-time lows; even oil has suffered catastrophically. Here is a recent headline from a technical publication which will suffice for all: “Venezuela’s Iron Ore Mines Operate At Less Than 10% Of Capacity“.

The iron mines of El Pao, where I was born, had massive structures such as a giant ore crusher which was loaded from trucks carrying about 30 tons of ore from the dynamite sites. The crusher ground the ore down to chunks of about 8 inches. Then its covered conveyer carried the reduced ore to a secondary crusher which crushed it further down to 2 or 3 inches. Finally, that ore was poured into 34-car trains which transported 4,500 tons of crushed ore 35 miles daily to the company port on the Orinoco River from whence it was shipped to a deeper water port on the Caribbean coast, transshipped to larger oceangoing vessels, and delivered to Sparrows Point, Maryland, the world’s largest steel mill at the time.

**Clearing through the jungles from the Orinoco to the camp site. Arduous work, which at times brought mishaps and frights**

**train loaded with ore headed to the company port, Palúa, on the Orinoco**

**Sparrows Point, Maryland. At the time, the largest steel mill in the world**

That accounts for a fraction of the investment required by one company to successfully extract and produce steel. To that, must be added roads, bridges, hundreds of houses for miners and their families, schools, churches, recreational facilities, commissaries, airports, and more. Multiply that by the dozens of American and European companies who came to Venezuela for iron ore, petroleum, and other minerals, and you begin to get an idea of the gargantuan investment made in the country in the first fifty or so years of the 20th century. For example, US Steel’s investment greatly surpassed Bethlehem Steel’s. And so did the oil companies’.

**Some of the home office staff bidding farewell to one of their number who was going on annual leave**

Circa 1958, my beloved aunt visited us from Miami, Florida. Although a busy homemaker, she was of that generation who would, nevertheless, find time to experience and appreciate the natural world that surrounds us. So, naturally, we would go on day excursions to different parts of Guayana. Once, in the interior, as we drove over a small stream she asked my father if he’d stop the car so that we could walk around a bit. We got out and made our way to that stream and my aunt promptly took her shoes off and waded in, carefully stepping on the rocks and smooth stones under the water.

“There are gems in this place,” she said.

I, regrettably, never learned why she thought that, although I do recall spirited conversations between my parents, my godmother, and my aunt about the possibilities. Then, all possibilities having been exhausted in conversation as we wandered around, we embarked and continued on our journey.

A few years later, my father brought a newspaper report noting that a gem mining concession had been granted in that spot, which became a profitable enterprise.

A country might be supremely rich in natural resources; it may have people, like my aunt, who can discern the riches under the surface. But if it discourages investment and healthy incentives, what can we say about all those natural resources other than, “Why cumbereth it the ground?”

Or, “Why bury your talent?”