Venezuela - Hacienda Chuao (Chuao Plantation)

"The Chuao Plantation produces a variety of cocoa that is famous throughout the world, and is unusual because it has a well documented history going back to the 16th century and a weath of archaeological evidence and monuments from the colonial era. Another unusual feature is that it is populated by the descendants of slaves brought from Africa Shortly after the Europeans arrived in South America, who preserve a traditional way of life that has been lost in other parts of the American continent. The Chuao Plantation is located in the valley of the same name surrounded by one of the most important cloud forests of the Venezuelan coastal mountain range. It forms part of the first national park created by government decree (13 February 1937) which was originally called "Rancho Grande" but was renamed Henri Pittier National Park in 1957, in honor of the scientist who proposed and worked for its creation. Today the Chuao Plantation belongs to the "Chuao" Farm Workers Company, consisting of 40 partners who share a provisional collective title deed, and covers an area of approximately 200 hectares. The land is distributed in a rectangular north-to-south strip from the beach to the foothills, 200 to 400 meters above sea level where it penetrates the Henri Pittier National Park with the category of Special Use Zone in accordance with the Ordinance Plan and Regulations for Use of the park set out in Decree 350 of 24 November 1995. As a cocoa-producing plantation located in a strategic ecological niche of the coastal mountain range and the Caribbean Sea with more than 400 years of tradition and continuity, Chuao is a case par excellence for the in-situ con ion of traditional genetic resources and the species of trees used to provide cover for the cocoa plantations, as well as being a cultural landscape representative of a productive activity of enormous significance in the historical process of the societies of northern South America. Both the production activity and the social life of the people of Chuao revolve around that historical monuments, the most important of which are the church, the House on the Hill (Casa del Alto), the Patio where the cocoa is dried and the Pardon Cross (Cruz el Perdón), The Church was built in 1785, replacing an old chapel and it was declared a National Monument on 2 August 1960..." Source: UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List

Multiview of Choroni and Chuao. Chuao Plantation is famous for cocoa. Postcard was written on July 14, 2011 and arrived in Penang on August 11, 2011. Thanks to Caolina of Venezuela.