Where History Loves to Kick your Butt to the End of the World

If you want to keep the Spirit of Dabucurí alive and meditate a bit further on homemade, well-rooted curses, here’s one for you: think how many of the people who gave Venezuela’s history its shape went on to die outside its borders. Let’s start right back in the War of Independence. A period of violence extreme enough to make 2017 look like the good old days. The famous guys who fell within the blurred boundaries of what was then Venezuela were nearly all soldiers. Asturian warlord José Tomás Boves got a spear through his belly at Urica (Anzoátegui), in 1814, months before his enemy José Félix Ribas got his head fried in Tucupido (Guárico). More…