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The Afro-Venezuelan carnival of a southeastern Bolívar mining town — madamas, calypso and a heritage found nowhere else in Venezuela.
The Carnaval de El Callao is unlike any other in Venezuela. Rooted in the Afro-Venezuelan and Trinidadian communities who came to work this southeastern Bolívar mining town in the 19th century, it blends calypso rhythms sung in patois, elaborate costumes and a matriarchal tradition of storytelling.
Its most iconic figures are the madamas — elder women in bright Antillean dress who anchor the celebration and pass its traditions down through generations. UNESCO inscribed the carnival on its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in recognition of that living memory.
This is mining-town culture worn out loud: brass, drums, diablos and revellers filling the streets for weeks, a distinct thread in Venezuela’s cultural fabric.
