For those who have not yet heard of Santa Bárbara de Zulia, it is a city in Venezuela located in the extreme west of the country, specifically in the southern sub-region of Lake Maracaibo, a region historically characterized by its extensive history of livestock and agricultural production, mainly of the items Banana, Cambur, Sugar Cane, Corn Oil Palm, Cassava, Patchita, Cocoa Porcelain, Milk, Guava, Loquat, among other fruit trees of equal or greater economic and nutritional importance.
In the collective imagination of those of us who currently live in Santa Bárbara de Zulia, sailing in Steam engine Canoes is a symbolic reference that promoted the development of our region. During the first 60 years of the 20th century, this means of transport represented the greatest technological advance in river transport for the south of the lake, since it allowed the transfer of cargo and passengers by connecting the Escalante River with Lake Maracaibo.
Fig. 2 River and lake route of the canoes from Santa Bárbara to Maracaibo and vice versa. The image was designed by the author:, incorporating in the background Image taken from Google Maps
In the field of river navigation, the canoes were elaborated and perfected with state-of-the-art technology, with the purpose of facilitating navigation in shallow water bodies, hence, in Venezuela the construction of these vessels with steam engines (external combustion engine, with technology to transform the thermal energy of a quantity of water into mechanical energy), wooden structure and in the form of a sail, had the objective of creating economic dynamism in those regions of the country that had no land connection, neither by road nor by rail.The importance that the canoes had in connecting the inhabitants of our prodigious Santa Barbara de Zulia with Maracaibo, the current capital of the state of Zulia, in addition to the exchange of agricultural goods, was the arrival of men and women who began buying land on the banks of the Escalante River, and decided to undertake and build large commercial establishments that helped the economic development of our sub-region.
The arrival of the canoes to our shores, from the social, commercial, industrial, scientific and technological points of view, meant the beginning of the historical evolution of Santa Bárbara de Zulia, to the point in which many indigenous people in a nomadic condition, decided to settle down definitively near the margins of the river port, which triggered the strengthening and the political territorial division of the region, to later constitute the figures of municipalities and parishes, later and in a progressive way to create centers of primary and secondary education, centers of health, governmental institutions, and most important the construction of highways, and the raising of infrastructures for the processing and industrialization of the Milk, Meat, Flour, Oil, Juices and Sweets.At present, Santa Bárbara de Zulia is the most populated, modern city and the one of greater influence of the agricultural, cattle and agro-industrial sector of Venezuela, to the point of being catalogued like the Pantry of Venezuela,its vertiginous development has been unstoppable, and to the date it counts on a university system of vanguard, being the National Experimental South University of the Lake "Jesus Maria Semprum" its icon and route for its technological scientific development.
I love these lands and all their splendor, as much as I love my family.
OBSERVATION
✔ The cover image was designed by the author:
Original manuscript, uploaded from the Project HOPE community website