Villagers rejoice as gold washes up on Venezuelan shore

Raking his hand through the sand, he pulled up a gold medallion with an image of the Virgin Mary.

The village of Guaca was once at the center of Venezuela’s fish processing industry but is now reduced to penury by the lack of gasoline and the closure of most of its small fish-packing plants. Amid such misery, the valuable find seemed like a miracle. “I began to shake, I cried from joy,” said Lares, 25. “It was the first time something special has happened to me.” At home, Lares told his father-in-law, also a fisherman.

Word of the discovery spread swiftly, and soon most of the village’s 2,000 residents had joined in a frenzied treasure hunt, combing every inch of the waterfront, digging around dilapidated fishing boats, even sleeping on the beach to protect their few square feet of sand and the untold fortune the plot could contain.

Since late September, their search has turned up hundreds of pieces of gold and silver jewellery, ornaments, and golden nuggets that washed up on their shore, offering the villagers a baffling and wondrous — if short-lived — reprieve from Venezuela’s seemingly endless economic collapse. Dozens of villagers said they had found at least one precious object, usually a gold ring, with unconfirmed reports that some had sold their discoveries for as much as $1,500.

No one knows where the gold came from and how it ended up scattered along a few hundred feet of Guaca’s narrow, workaday beach. The mystery has merged with folklore, and explanations draw equally on legends of Caribbean pirates, on Christian traditions and on the widespread mistrust of Venezuela’s authoritarian government.

The jagged coastline around Guaca, on Venezuela’s Paria peninsula, is punctuated with bays and islands that have long given refuge to adventurers. It was on this peninsula, in 1498, that Christopher Columbus became the first European to set foot on the South American continent, thinking he’d found the entrance to the Garden of Eden.

Later, this sparsely defended coastline was regularly raided by Dutch and French buccaneers. Today, it is a haven for drug and fuel smugglers and modern-day pirates who prey on fishermen. Did a storm disturb a pirate treasure chest or break open up a sunken colonial frigate? Did the bounty come from modern smugglers heading to nearby Trinidad? For weeks, Guaca was rife with speculation.

Government opponents said officials may have sprinkled the gold on the beach to calm protests by local residents against the terrible living conditions. Others fretted the government would send soldiers to confiscate their treasure. Some villagers called the gold a blessing, others a curse that would doom anyone touching it. The source of Guaca’s treasure may never be known. The villagers almost immediately sold the objects they discovered to buy food. The village’s situation has looked up since the appearance of gold.

Sardines have come back to Guaca’s shores after a four-month absence, and the gasoline supply has improved slightly.