A Venezuelan boy chases pigeons at the Plaza Bolivar in Caracas. After a brief walking tour of central Caracas, Cuba s Fidel Castro last year admonished Venezuelans for allowing development to run rampant over the city s Spanish colonial gems. He cited Havana s prized Old City as an example to follow.
Truth is, according to Venezuelan historians, there was little of colonial Caracas to begin with.
Visitors to this sprawling capital with 4 million inhabitants should understand that Caracas has always embraced the new, the modern and, in recent decades, the North American. Established in 1567 as Santiago de Leon de Caracas, this city is sandwiched between a Caribbean mountain range to the north and the Altos de Pipe range to the south. Its tiny center once gave way to rolling farmland and ranches. On side streets, the persistent can find vestiges of the colonial era in the form of brick homes, remnants of Spanish masonry and a hillside monastery. Change came with oil.