The little bus of Choroní

Choroní is a beautiful Caribbean beach destination, with white sand, turquoise waters and dense forests tumbling down from the surrounding mountains. Getting there involves crossing Venezuela's Coastal Range, following a winding road through humid rainforest and beneath enormous clumps of bamboo.

Our first surprise that weekend had something to do with bamboo, as it happens. When we arrived at the place where we thought we had booked our accommodation, all we could see were little shacks in an area known locally as ranchitos – Venezuela's equivalent of a shanty town. Driving through all that mud in our hire car, a Toyota Yaris, was hardly reassuring.

Eventually, we found our accommodation, and the welcome we received could hardly have been more Caribbean. We were greeted by a chap with a bare chest, a shaved head, a large ring dangling from one ear, a glass of rum in his hand and a macaw perched on his shoulder. You could easily have mistaken him for someone who had wandered off the set of Pirates of the Caribbean.

When we told him we had a booking, he simply asked: "With bamboo or without bamboo?" We were rather taken aback. He then explained that the cabins came in two varieties: concrete block or bamboo. With the story of the Three Little Pigs fresh in our minds, we opted for concrete. Even so, the windows were made of bamboo, and the door latch could be opened from the outside! In the end, however, it turned out to be an unforgettable tropical experience. We spent more time relaxing in the garden hammock than inside the cabin itself.

Choroní lies within Henri Pittier National Park, whose forests are home to one of the richest bird habitats in the world, with around 600 different species recorded. It is a wonderful place that deserves far better protection. Decades of environmental degradation have taken their toll, and its extraordinary biological diversity is now seriously threatened.

On our first evening, as we made our way down towards the village, we were surprised by the sight of a small bus emerging and disappearing into the mist. I thought it might be a French Goélette, the predecessor of the Estafette. But with so little light and the speed at which it was moving, the only photograph I managed to take made it look more like a ghost than a van.

Despite being more than fifty years old, it was still running up and down the road all day, packed with tourists and local passengers. Long before Venezuela's political and economic situation deteriorated to its present state, the country was already full of cars and vans more than forty years old. Very few of their owners regard them as classics, though. To them, they are simply the working vehicles they rely on every day.

There was something about that little van, operating as a minibus on the Choroní–Puerto Colombia route, that I found particularly amusing. The Goélette was manufactured between 1947 and 1965. In France, you can still find a few abandoned in farmyards, but I don't think I had ever seen one that had survived in working order and was still earning its keep. Its shape has something of the delivery vans of the 1920s about it.

After all those years, it had almost certainly acquired some newer engine along the way, heaven knows what. As the photographs show, its conversion into a bus was also a more recent addition, as were the wheels and rear lights.

Since I hadn't been able to get a decent photograph in the dark, I decided to wait along Choroní's main street. Among the brightly coloured colonial houses, a steady stream of vehicles from another era kept passing by. While I waited, I spotted a few Beetles, Ford and Chevrolet pick-ups, pairs of Venezuelan-built Dodge Darts, and plenty of cars that looked as though they had driven straight out of the television series Starsky & Hutch.

Eventually, as if straight out of a Spirou comic strip, the Goélette appeared. The driver pulled over, giving me just enough time to take a few photographs while he loaded and unloaded a group of surfers. Then, under the blazing sun, it disappeared down the road once again.

Every day in Venezuela I would see dozens of old vehicles, some of which would have been the envy of more than a few collectors. And yet, for some reason, this little bus had a particular charm that made it especially dear to me. I wonder whether it is still running around Choroní today.

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