The fifth episode of our "Panamericana" photo column leads to Venezuela. Passion plays take place here in the midst of lunar landscapes – with real whiplashes.
By Andrea Hernández Briceño (text and images) and Nora Ströbel (translation and image editing).
A man sells hairy Mucuchies puppies on the Pan American highway. His cheeks are red, like most Andeans’, and he haggles with customers for the best price. William says that up until this year very few visitors have come, the economic crisis and Covid-19 pandemic has gone through all regions these past five years without mercy.
His customers have traveled from other regions to celebrate Holy Week in Merida, where the dramatization of the Passion of Christ is famous. This state is one of the most Catholic in the country. No matter how small the town is, there will be a church in the center of it. And all social and economic life revolves around it.
The variant of the Pan American highway connects the center of Venezuela to Colombia. It crosses the country and climbs up to the beginning of the Andes, the 8,900 km mountain chain that extends from north to south of South America through seven counties.
The highway and the mountainous backbone of the continent intersect in Venezuela. This junction is dotted with small rural towns that take pride in their religious celebrations, each competing to be the most pious and extravagant at the same time. This contest comes alive during April, when the most daring enact the extreme twelve stages of the Passion of Christ.
Some of the actors have been doing it for years and the proudly bare the scars from the whippings. They say that it is an honor to be Jesus and to draw blood. Especially this time, when there are more visitors than the past years of pandemic and deep economic crisis. There are more spectators and the costumes are new.
Old ladies, drunkards, babies on the shoulders of their parents and a woman on a wheel chair climb to the highest rocks to see the Living Passion from above the fog while a drizzle wets their hair and the Mucuchies barks blend with the cries of the devout. The cosmic paramo, also known as tundra, rises. It is strange to see the Passion of Chist in this moon-like foggy landscape so far away from the original stage 2,000 years ago.
Panamericana: Die Passion Christi im Páramo
