La Guaira, << lah GWY rah, >> is one of Venezuela’s main ports and the capital of the state of Vargas. It lies on the country’s Caribbean coast at the foot of a mountain called Cerro El Ávila. Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, is about 7 miles (11 kilometers) inland from La Guaira. A freeway links the two cities.
From the 1500’s through the 1800’s, La Guaira exported large amounts of cacao and animal hides. Today, imports dominate La Guaira’s shipping trade, as wealth from Venezuelan oil has fueled a demand for foreign products. La Guaira’s main tourist attraction is the well-preserved former headquarters of the Royal Guipuzcoana Company of Caracas, a Basque firm that monopolized colonial trade in the area during most of the 1700’s.
Spaniards founded La Guaira about 1589. During its early history, the city was attacked by pirates many times. In 1743, during the War of the Austrian Succession, English ships attacked La Guaira. The completion of a railroad in 1883 improved travel between Caracas and La Guaira. In 1902 and 1903, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom blockaded La Guaira and other Venezuelan ports for three months to force Venezuela to pay its international debts. In 1908, United States battleships occupied La Guaira’s harbor to assist a successful government take-over by General Juan Vicente Gómez.
In 1999, mudslides caused by torrential rains killed several thousand people in La Guaira. The Venezuelan government tried to resettle displaced families on farms inland. However, many people returned to the city because of better jobs and services in nearby Caracas.
