GUACA, Venezuela–People from Guaca are sharing their stories after spending months on the shore retrieving precious jewelry from the sands.
There have been no official explanations so far as to where these “sea gifts” might have originated, but local stories about pirates have helped.
A 25-year-old local fisherman Yolman Lares was the first to reveal the precious “gifts”.
“I began to shake, I cried from joy. It was the first time something special has happened to me,” he told The New York Times, describing the moment he found a gold medallion with an image of the Virgin Mary.
Rumors had spread rapidly, and soon people started to retrieve jewelry, mostly gold rings. Villagers have been selling the treasures to buy food.
“This is God, setting his agenda,” believes Ciro Quijada, a local fish plant worker.
Mysterious jewelry from the sea started to appear in the sands of the small Venezuelan fishing village months ago.
The discoveries, including hundreds of gold and silver rings, medallions, ornaments and even nuggets, brought a lot of joy to the small village of Guaca, where local people have been struggling through the economic crisis and COVID-19 pandemic.
A laboratory examination claims that this jewelry can’t be more than 70 years old, and yet no one has any idea of where it came from.
Without any explanation yet as to where the jewelry could have come from, locals are enjoying imagining long-gone sailors and pirates. Some of them even claim that the rings are cursed and shouldn’t be touched.
Locals have sold their treasure for up to $1,500 a piece – a tremendous economic boon to the village which has been undergoing hard times during the pandemic.
