Naming the city Coro is thinking about how beautiful it is to walk through its stone streets, with large mud brick houses, immense windows with beautiful iron work structures and large arched wooden doors. It is a walk into the past, where it seems as if one were going to come across women and men dressed as in yesteryear, who could tell us the history of one of the first cities in America.
Irene Revilla // Correspondent lapatilla.com
These unique characteristics of Coro were considered for granting it the title of World Heritage Site in 1993, granted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). In 2005, after 12 years of government absence in the care and maintenance of the architecture of this city in Falcón State, it was placed on the list of “heritage at risk.”
In 2008, Coro was evaluated again and UNESCO made some recommendations for its safeguarding and protection. This 2023 marks 30 years since it was declared World Heritage and 18 years since it was included in the risk list, and very little progress has been made.
Two decades lost
Falcón has had Chavista governors throughout the last 20 years and each one has committed to comply with the requests made by UNESCO to remove Coro and La Vela from the list of world heritage sites at risk.
The idea was to convert these areas into an international tourist destination, attracting visitors and history lovers which, along with other attractions in the region, would be a step for this western Venezuela State to stop depending on oil and public policy plans and handouts, and thus this new income would be directed towards historical, heritage and cultural touristic areas.
However, many things remained as only promises. A palpable example is that 15 years have passed since UNESCO made recommendations to the regional and municipal government to conserve their heritage, and these have not yet been fulfilled.
With the celebration of the 30 years of the declaration, UNESCO again visited the Historic Center of Coro and the Port of ‘La Vela’, but found repair and restoration works that were just beginning and that did not come close to accomplishing the list of priorities that had been requested 15 years ago. Among the suggested fixes and the most important is solving the serious problem of the drainage of runoff waters that has damaged houses and emblematic streets, because when it rains, the water has no outlet. This includes sewage and rainwater flows.
The Historic Center and the importance of its three rings
Hilario Colina, Assistant Engineer III of the Municipal Heritage Institute, explained that this important area located in the heart of the city of Coro, includes three areas of great importance: what is known as the ‘first ring’ is the Unesco designated zone; the second is the area of historical and artistic value, which are the streets that surround the Unesco area and that must still be preserved so that the protected area is surrounded by an area that matches its architecture.
The third ring is the zone of controlled architecture, where the regional and municipal government also has jurisdiction and prevents the construction of modern cement structures in order to care for and maintain the essence of the area.
Colina highlights that the little income that comes to the heritage fund is invested in the Unesco area, leaving aside the other two rings that are also very important because if they were left abandoned, they would damage the specialness of the most important area. “That is, one depends on the other two.”
Cement patches
In the Unesco zone, some adjustments are being made, among them the change of slope on Urdaneta Street so that the drainage has a better slope and the water can flow normally, as well as the lifting of the asphalt layer. The work began on October 19th of this year according to the mayor’s office record, but lapatilla.com visited the site on December 13th, and there were no workers in the area and the work was still unfinished.
On the same street, adjacent to the Miranda mayor’s office, the ‘adoquines’ are being changed, which is a rectangular brick that paves streets adjacent to the stone streets and that are characteristic of this area.
A worker in the area explained that the placement consists of aligning them and putting sand from the Médanos de Coro in the joints so that little by little they mesh until they are completely stable.
Despite this work, which undoubtedly provides a refreshment to the recently painted facades of the place, part of it looks like a simulation of the cobblestones. However, Luis Felipe Díaz, representative of the Heritage Institute of the Falcón State, explained that this year there has been a little more progress in fulfilling the tasks entrusted by UNESCO and denied that it is a simulation of the pavement, but rather that It is structural work to ensure the drain slope works properly.
“Unesco and the entire regional team were at the celebration of the 30th anniversary of the heritage declaration and tangibly verified the work being done in terms of drainage.”
Continuing with UNESCO’s requests, he said that the two disaster risk plans have already been fulfilled, both for the Historic Center of Coro and La Vela, a meticulous work carried out by Civil Protection officials and the Miranda firefighters.
He highlighted that, in addition, interventions were carried out in the houses in the Unesco zone and the second ring. “The Mural festival was developed, which is about 17 artistic expressions of Venezuelans that were captured on the Alameda promenade. Interventions were made in the Casa del Sol, Nazareth, ‘Museo Guadalupano’, ‘Casa de la Catedral’, San Gabriel church, ‘Club Bolívar’ and the balcony of ‘Los Arcaya’.”
He also said that through the Venezuela Bella Plan, the streams in the four axes of Coro have been cleaned and cleared up and waste and white water leaks have been repaired.
In ruins
When walking through these streets it is easy to see deteriorated houses, others that have completely collapsed and some abandoned. Certain houses have been attended to with a primary plan, but are awaiting improvements.
Some are owned by the government, but others are owned by Coro families who say they cannot maintain them, because it is too expensive. That is why they have gone from the traditional ‘bajareque’ (wattle), rammed earth and adobe to cement blocks to restore their houses.
Such is the case of a house located on Urdaneta Street next to the Reyes family, which had its façade supported with wood supports for many years. This puts the safety of children and adults walking through the area, which by the way is a school zone, at risk.
The family decided to rebuild the façade with blocks simulating those in the area, because the remodeling, applying the ancestral technique with mud and working with expert craftsmen, amounted to 12,000 dollars, money that they do not have and with which they could buy a new and modern house somewhere else.
A memorable past
Niobis Yoris, a 74-year-old teacher and Coro native, remembers that it was a very beautiful city. “I loved those houses with zaguán (a central passageway leads from a front door to a patio or a courtyard), it was the place before the living room, you entered and found an open space, without a roof, full of bushes and flowers. A beauty! I also remember the trade that was carried out, the people of ‘La Sierra’ came to sell their green produce, fruits, vegetables from recent harvests. Everything looked fresh and pretty,” she said.
She recalled with nostalgia that there are no longer any houses with such beauty, many have been modified, because maintaining them is expensive and the purchasing power of Venezuelans is not enough for that. “They are inherited houses, from generation to generation, but if there is no plan to help the owner preserve it, I highly doubt they will last, because it is very expensive and with the money to remodel just one area, one can buy a new house. There are many things left to do, we must give credit to the owners to maintain that history, many houses have fallen down, others (owners) are not in the country, and those who live in them are quite deteriorated.”
Such is the case of the Durán family, who lives in a house on Comercio Street between Garcés and Buchivacoa, where the multi-workshop that bore the family name operated for many years and where they repaired sewing machines. This family is still suffering the consequences of the 2010 rains, where a large part of the house collapsed and although they still live in it, much of it is uninhabitable.
Diosmar Durán, one of the youngest daughters of the family, has already reached the age of majority and currently has a daughter. At the time of the tragedy, she remembers that a commission from the mayor’s office and the governor’s office visited them, relocated two more families that lived in the house and promised to return for them. After 13 years they have not been able to obtain permits to remodel the façade, much less help to leave the place.
“We lost the workshop that was in the garage, in addition to almost the entire house. We have made improvements with cement to two rooms where the five people who still live, here live in. During this time they have come to inspect, review and promise, but it doesn’t go any further. “They promised us a relocation and they didn’t deliver,” she said.
She regretted that her house looks as if it were abandoned, since the façade has been falling little by little, but they do not have the money to restore it with the adobe technique and they have not had government support either.
They even asked for permits to intervene inside the home and they were not given it. “This is protected, they don’t let us do any intervention, but they sell the corners to the Arabs so they can open their businesses. What’s the point of being a heritage site if the houses are falling down and it looks more like a street in a ghost town,” she pondered.
The La Patilla team tried to find out how many houses need intervention, but the information could not be obtained from government agencies. It is only known that in all three rings there are houses in very poor condition. Some had plastic protection on the roof since the 2022 rains and they are still covered with the same material awaiting repair by the government.
The House of Poetry is over
The House of Poetry, which is part of the Historical Center of Coro, stopped receiving funding in 2013, and five years later the NGO IAM Venezuela published a complaint about the deplorable conditions of the house. “The headquarters of the House of Poetry in Coro, is in a deplorable state. Dirty and smelly, anyone who wants to enter will have to knock several times until someone comes out to meet them. It is open and alone. Its walls and floors look filthy, it has some broken lattices and reeks of cat urine. But no poetry. That one left a while ago,” reads the report published in 2018. It shows that poetry went out before the indolent eyes of the rulers, because five years later it is already closed and even its sign was removed.
Choir Historical Archive at risk of being lost
Another concern for teachers and historians is the Coro Historical Archive, since its headquarters was also forgotten and little by little it has collapsed, to the point that the archives and history of Venezuela and the Caribbean are kept inside a room in this place, waiting for the authorities to prepare an appropriate space.
There have been multiple complaints that have intensified since November 2022, when it was demanded that they look for a place for the historical memory of Coro and the Caribbean or, otherwise, all this would be lost due to the conditions in which the headquarters is located, located on Comercio Street, and where there are documents dating from 1640 to 1965.
Luis Felipe Díaz, representative of the Heritage Institute of Falcón State, highlighted that they received a visit from Jorge Berrueta, Director of the General Historical Archive of the Nation and Director of the National Library of Venezuela.
A project was introduced for the rehabilitation of thisi property and at the same time work tables were installed to move the archive to a space in the Francisco de Miranda University and the Alonso Gamero University in order to digitize some documents, this while waiting for an emergency fund of to make improvements to the Santa Ana building and move the documents back into their proper place.
Coro and its people long for a municipality that serves as an example in the conservation of culture and history, that poetry returns and is a center for unity. Let us not only hope that Coro and La Vela get off the list of ‘heritage at risk’, but also that this will serve to promote tourism that provides benefits to everyone and not just a few.