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Article: Shifting sands & colonial continuity
- Article from:
- Americas
- Article date:
- January 1, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright Organization of American States, Sales and Promotion Division Jan 1996. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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The Caquetios, a Caribbean Indian tribe who inherited Venezuela's parched western coast from the Arawaks, aptly named the region Coro, their predecessors' word for wind. And not just any wind, but one "that blows constantly," according to Venezuelan writer Arturo Uslar Pietri, "bending the trees, rippling the sea, grooving fine prints along the slopes of the dunes, slipping through the open streets and holding the flying turkey vultures motionless in space."
Situated midway between the Paraguanii Peninsula and the town of Coro, on the slender isthmus that joins that peninsula to the mainland, are the strange formations known as the Coro Dunes, a national park since 1974. Their beauty is the ...