El Ingenio River. Guatire, Miranda State/Venezuela
This weekend two childhood friends showed up at my house unannounced, they are like my brothers. For me it was a pleasant surprise, after greeting each other hugging and kissing we sat in the dining room to taste a Chinese food they brought, after lunch we went to a Bodegón where they bought a box of black polar beers with their respective ice, a bottle of whiskey and a bottle of sevillana (wine).
Then we passed by looking for a friend and went to a nearby river here in the city of Guatire. Miranda State/Venezuela.
We arrived and settled in a good place where there were not many people, they took out the chairs, the cellar with beers, whiskey, glasses and a big bugle that they had in the car to listen to music.
After a while we took turns to go for a walk around the river to get to know it a little better, first I went with one of my friends and when I came back the other two went.
We spent an extraordinary day talking about a thousand things from our childhood and the present, we could not miss the subject of the Pandemic, for which we were more separated, we had 3 years without seeing each other, so there were many topics to discuss. We talked, listened to music and laughed a lot.
At about 5pm, I suggested to pick up everything and leave so that it would not get dark with us in that river, so we did, we put everything in the car and when we were finishing to leave, my friend's family arrived in two cars, which were parked right where we were.
They asked us what we were going to do, and we answered that we were on our way out. They invited us to the Velorio de la Cruz de Mayo, a tradition that the Guatireños have, the day of the Cross is exactly the 3rd of May, but there are many devout groups and during the whole month of May they celebrate it
We saw each other's faces and my friends who come from Caracas, which is the capital of my country Venezuela, responded that for them it was something of General Culture to learn and accepted the challenge to go up without a car on a road at dusk for 45 minutes to get to the place where they were going to do the mass to the cross of May (they call it the wake of the cross).
So we left the cars parked and we all went up together, the road was quite clean and it was still clear, but it started to get dark and we lit up with the lights of our cell phones, I was particularly a little scared, but as we went up with local people I calmed down
We walked a lot, we had to cross two streams with a stream of water and many stones, we had a big scare because one of the ladies who accompanied us (my friend's aunt fell passing one of the rivers, thank God it was just a scare, although she hit her knee and wet her shoes and pants).
We continued our journey and after a long time walking we arrived at the place; it was a house on the bank of the river, the ceremony was in a large courtyard where it was conditioned with chairs for everyone, there was a specific place where there were several crosses decorated in different ways and a huge pot of soup for everyone.
According to the Tradition, the State of Miranda has the strongest drum beat than any other place. It is not danced, but it is sung to the Cross all night long, until the candles are extinguished, that is why it is called velorio " (This was told to me by one of the gentlemen present at the ceremony).
After the ceremony they began to sing to the cross, taking advantage of the fact that everyone was on their backs we decided to leave after a while, we did not wait for the soup because they told us that the soup was for the sunrise, they are traditions.
We went down little by little, we all got our feet wet because no matter how hard we tried to pass the rivers through the rocks, we always stepped where it was not meant to be, hahaha. We arrived quietly and safely to the car and went to a place that here they call "THE STREET OF HUNGER " we ate hamburgers, drank soft drinks and went to the house to rest.
My friends stayed at my house since it was too late to take the road to Caracas, the next day I made them a good breakfast, they bathed, had breakfast and left. It was really a unique experience and without planning it, every day we learn something new and that's great
All photos are my own.
I used Deepl translator.