Los Llanos

Before the Spanish, the plains were home to peoples such as the Pumé, the Guahibo and the Achagua, who hunted, fished and farmed the river banks. The Spanish brought cattle and horses, and by the 18th century the llanos were a frontier of huge ranches, Capuchin missions and free-roaming herds, worked by llaneros of mixed Spanish, indigenous and African descent. Humboldt passed through Calabozo in 1800 and studied its electric eels.

In the independence war the llaneros were decisive on both sides. In 1814 the royalist José Tomás Boves led plains horsemen from Calabozo in a campaign of great brutality that crushed the Second Republic. After his death José Antonio Páez won the llaneros over to independence, and in 1819 at Las Queseras del Medio in Apure his lancers turned on the pursuing Spanish cavalry with the cry "¡Vuelvan caras!" — "turn and face them". Páez became the dominant caudillo of the new republic.

For the next century the plains stayed poor and remote, marked by civil wars, malaria and cattle barons, a world described in Rómulo Gallegos' novel "Doña Bárbara" of 1929, set in Apure. The 20th century brought roads and the Calabozo irrigation scheme. Under Chávez, land reforms from the 2000s expropriated a number of large ranches, and since the 2010s the plains have shared the national crisis, with Apure's border becoming a zone of armed conflict.

The llanero is a national archetype: a horseman, cattle-driver and singer, proud, laconic and tough, and the plains are regarded by many Venezuelans as the source of national music. Joropo, played on the bandola or harp, the four-stringed cuatro and maracas, is Venezuela's national dance, and the llanos are its heartland. Singers compete in the contrapunteo, an improvised duel of verses, and the poem "Florentino y el Diablo", a sung duel between a llanero and the devil, is known across the country.

Coleo, in which riders chase a bull and topple it by the tail, is the signature sport, with arenas in towns across the plains. Traditional dress includes the liquiliqui suit, the straw hat and alpargata sandals.

Religious festivals follow the Catholic calendar and the ranch year, with saints' days marked by joropo dances, horse races and coleo. The plains also keep a strong oral tradition of ghost stories, among them La Sayona and El Silbón, told on ranches after dark.

The llanos are thinly populated. San Fernando de Apure is the main river town of the south, San Juan de los Morros, Calabozo, Valle de la Pascua and Zaraza are the chief towns of Guárico, and San Carlos is the capital of Cojedes. Beyond them lie vast ranches, small villages and indigenous communities along the rivers.

Cattle raising is the core of the economy, along with rice around Calabozo, maize and sorghum, fishing on the rivers, and oil in southern Guárico. Ranches follow the seasons: in the rains cattle are moved to higher ground, and in the dry season they are rounded up, branded and driven to market.

The crisis has hurt the plains badly: fuel shortages stop tractors and trucks, power cuts are long, and many young people have left. In Apure the presence of armed groups and smugglers shapes daily life near the border. Days begin before dawn with black coffee and work in the cool hours, and slow down in the midday heat.

The plains' signature is beef. Carne en vara is beef skewered on stakes around an open fire and roasted slowly. Pisillo, the emblem of Guárico, is shredded salted and sun-dried venison, beef or fish fried with garlic and sweet peppers, and it is also made with capybara, the chigüire, whose meat is traditionally eaten during Lent and Holy Week; according to a legend, the Catholic Church once granted a special dispensation allowing it.

The plains produce much of the country's cheese, and fresh cheeses such as queso de mano, a soft stretched cheese, accompany cachapas, sweet corn pancakes. Rivers supply fish, fried or stewed.

Coffee is drunk strong and black all day, and the ranches make sweets from milk and papelón, raw cane sugar.

The wildlife ranches of the llanos are among the best places in South America to see animals in the open. On Apure hatos such as El Cedral, near Mantecal, jeeps and boats reach lagoons crowded in the dry season with capybara, spectacled caiman, anacondas, scarlet ibis, jabiru storks and herons, while the endangered Orinoco crocodile survives in a few rivers. In Cojedes, Hato Piñero, now Hato San Miguel, combines a working ranch with a wildlife reserve.

The Apure river, a major tributary of the Orinoco, flows past San Fernando de Apure, whose river port and bridges face its wide brown waters. River dolphins can be seen in the Apure and its neighbours. Further south, Santos Luzardo National Park protects savanna, gallery forest and white sandbanks between the Cinaruco and Capanaparo rivers, near the Colombian border.

The plains of Guárico and Cojedes form the northern llanos. San Juan de los Morros, at their northern edge, is known for the rocky peaks of Los Morros; Calabozo stands beside its reservoir and rice fields; and Aguaro-Guariquito National Park protects plains and rivers in the south of Guárico. San Carlos, in Cojedes, keeps colonial buildings in its centre.