Qualla: Monumento a la Virgen de la Paz

Monumento a la Virgen de la Paz: Introduction

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rjcastillo, CC BY-SA 3.0. You can climb inside the Virgin and look out through her eyes. Forty-four meters above the hilltop called Pena de la Virgen, after ascending more than 200 wide steps through the hollow concrete interior, visitors reach the fifth and highest lookout -- set into the face of South America's tallest statue. From there, on a clear day, the view stretches across the entire state of Trujillo, south to the ridges of the Sierra Nevada de Merida, and north to the gleaming surface of Lake Maracaibo. The Monumento a la Virgen de la Paz stands 46.72 meters tall, weighs 1,200 tonnes, and sits at roughly 1,600 meters above sea level in the Venezuelan Andes. It is the second-tallest statue in the Americas, the fourth-tallest depicting a woman anywhere in the world, and one of the least visited tourist attractions in Venezuela.

Image: Rjcastillo | CC BY-SA 3.0

Monumento a la Virgen de la Paz: Where a Goddess Became a Virgin

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Carlos Arevalo, CC BY-SA 4.0. The hilltop where the statue stands was not always a Christian site. Before the Spanish arrived, this land belonged to the Eskuke people. It was here that the Cacique Pitijoc, of the Cuicas ethnic group, led an indigenous uprising against the colonists. The uprising failed, and t...

Image: Carlos Arevalo | CC BY-SA 4.0

Monumento a la Virgen de la Paz: The Legend of Pena de la Virgen

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bobjgalindo, CC BY-SA 4.0. According to local tradition from the late 1550s, a young woman began appearing in the town of Carmona, walking through the streets each afternoon to buy candles. Some men in a grocery store asked why she was always alone. She answered: "I am not alone, but with God, the sun, and...

Image: Bobjgalindo | CC BY-SA 4.0

Monumento a la Virgen de la Paz: A Colossus of Concrete

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Fernanda Vanessa, CC BY-SA 3.0. The idea for the monument came from Betty Urdaneta de Herrera Campins, First Lady of Venezuela and a native of Trujillo, along with state governor Dora Maldonado de Falcon. On December 21, 1983 -- during the bicentennial year of Simon Bolivar's birth -- the statue was inaugurated...

Image: Fernanda Vanessa | CC BY-SA 3.0

Monumento a la Virgen de la Paz: Overlooked and Overlooking

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Veronidae, CC BY-SA 3.0. Despite its staggering scale and its significance as a symbol of the state's patron saint, the monument draws remarkably few visitors. During Easter 2010, the Trujillo government counted just 11,000 people at the site, while the Jose Gregorio Hernandez sanctuary nearby received c...

Image: Veronidae | CC BY-SA 3.0