Hello everyone! My name's Ygnali Monasterio, I am Venezuelan, I am 24 years old, I am currently studying 8th semester of Civil Engineering at Universidad de Oriente, Venezuela. I love meeting people, places and cultures.
The first 6 years of my dad's life he lived in a town called Birongo, all this before going to Caracas to study primary. My parents sowed in me, from my childhood, love and admiration for this town. Visiting Birongo gives me a great joy and it is my wish to share a little about this mirandino hiding place through my memories and experiences.
Birongo is located in the Municipality of Luis Brión del Miranda State, is a town that has a temperate and warm climate, with an exuberant and varied vegetation that covers its intermontane conformation, it constitutes a low mountain range located between the coastal mountains and the interior of Barlovento.
The people of Higuerote (capital of the municipality), Curiepe and Tacarigua de Mamporal have a human warmth equal to that of their climate. Most of them are descendants of African slaves who escaped from haciendas belonging to Spaniards of the colonial era. Birongo was really a refuge for them, a "hidden place of suffering" that is the meaning of their name, coming from the Yoruba language. With its characteristic and funny gua! !, a form of articulate expression, this reflects its beauty and peculiarity.
To get to Birongo, we started in Higuerote first and inevitably we went through the monument of the Drums of Curiepe. My heart accelerates until I reach the Simon Bolivar Square in the town, in one of the little houses in front of the square, there are my smiling relatives waiting for our arrival. We are greeted by my uncles, grandparents, my cousin Yorvis and my loving and tremendous great-grandmother Ramona (she is now 99 years old!).
After hugs and long talks, appear the immense desire to go down into the rivers, it is almost impossible to reach them by my father's stops greeting each neighbor who exclaim Luisito! to see it. Until finally we arrived, the beautiful vegetation, the crystal clear water, the beautiful stones ... in many occasions I even appreciated lazy and in the middle of so much happiness ... the sancocho, a rib cross, chicken and coyomo (river shrimps ) with a lot of cilantro and parsley, served in taparas. Every day, in Don Goyo's cellar, we tasted a delicious rice carato whose lid is a tangled tangerine leaf, accompanied by some delicious catalinas. Meanwhile, at the home of grandmother Ramona, chicharrón is prepared, and each meal is accompanied by rich avocados.
One of my uncles, Luis Beltrán, tells stories of the people and the family, often even to the beat of the drum, Pablo, Pedro and Porfirio accompany him with the odd joke or anecdote, while I can spend hours talking with Yorvis, who He is so hospitable and kind. Another of my uncles, Jenaro, makes fermented beverages based on rice, pineapple and cocoa, he works at La Flor de Birongo chocolate factory, factory responsible for producing excellent chocolates, I tell you that the consolidation of this association It was possible thanks to the support of the Empresas Polar Foundation, one of the most important companies in the country.
Another of the many attractions of Birongo is the Alfredo Jahn Cave, increasingly visited, especially by the fans of caving, science whose study is focused on the strangeness found within the underground cavities of this cave I have heard many fantastic stories that exalt its mysteriousness, it is said that in one of its wells inhabits a huge snake with one eye.
Birongo is a pleasant place to forget the agites of the tasks required in urban environments, it is a memory of what once was and what remains today, the black race that expresses itself freely, is culture, is history, is nature, is craftsmanship , it's gastronomy, it's music ... How proud I feel to live in this beautiful country that has this true ... hidden paradise.
