Venezuela 

This past summer during the month of June, my husband, our seventeen year old daughter Mary, and I had the opportunity to take a ten day trip to Caracas, Venezuela, where our oldest daughter Margaret and her husband Jose are living. They had mapped out quite a sightseeing trip by car for the five of us, and it certainly proved to be a fun time and a wonderful experience! During our stay we not only saw Caracas, but also the city of Puerto La Cruz, which is further east along the coast line. From Puerto La Cruz we took a four hour ferry boat ride out to the free port island of Margarita and spent several days there swimming, sunning, snorkeling, eating raw oysters (in numbers way beyond good sense!) and visiting curio shops. 

Some "not so fun" things happened, too, like having $200.00 stolen from our hotel room while we were out. Then another time we almost got sent to jail for three days because we weren't carrying our passports with us as we went through a road check. We also hit a terrible pot hole right in the middle of the road and wiped out the transmission underneath the car. Then finally each of us, one by one, succumbed to the "Green Gleep" -- too much native food! But we survived and came home refreshed and rested.

Now tell me, has an insulator collector ever been known to visit a foreign country and not make a pest of himself (herself) in an effort to see what kinds of insulators there are and, hopefully, to be able to bring some specimens home? I doubt it! I tried to keep from constantly mentioning it, I really did, but of course that proved to be impossible. As we sped down the road from Caracas to Puerto La Cruz, I could see, for most of the way, two lines of metal poles, one on either side of the road. One line was of telephone poles with clear glass insulators (with an occasional aqua), and the other was a power line with dark brown ceramics. 

We went by them just fast enough to make it impossible to distinguish the various shapes. I was even offered a front seat and tossed a pair of binoculars, in hopes that it would satisfy my curiosity, but after snapping my neck several times going by the poles, I gave that up. My husband (who does not see the attraction) said, "If we ask them to stop, it will be like asking the captain of an ocean liner to pull over to some island so you can get out and fish". Fortunately, there were enough stops for other reasons at some places that happened to be near telephone or power poles, so I was able to make out several shapes and sketch them. During one stop to pick wild bananas along the side of the road and to admire the colorful birds called turpials that some native boys were selling, I saw some aqua and clear CD 154's and some clear 155's. Further down the road we pulled over to a small stand where casabe was being sold. This is a flat bread made from the root of the yucca plant. Very close by was a telephone pole with clear CD 197's and 203's. The binoculars do help when you are standing still! These looked so much like U.S. glass insulators! I was further convinced of this when I saw clear CD 106's and 122's on poles along the side of the road that followed the beach resort called Playa Colorado (Red Beach) just outside Puerto La Cruz.

At various other spots I also saw several styles of power insulators -- mostly brown ceramic -- which I will show examples of at the end of this article. There were, in addition, green glass suspension discs (French?), clear glass bell shaped suspension discs (Pyrex?), along with two different styles of shackle or spool insulators in porcelain. I even hung out of an upstairs restaurant window right over the main street of Puerto La Cruz trying to get a closer look at some brown ceramic insulators perched on a power pole right about eye level. They looked so very Japanese, but I could not make out any markings. My son-in-law, who happens to be a real camera hound, finally became interested in this cause, so we were able to take pictures, using a telephoto lens, of just about every different kind we saw. At this writing, the pictures are still in Caracas; but when he and Margaret come back to the States to visit in January, I should be able to get them, and then I will share them with you. 

There was one really thrilling moment of discovery, and I came upon it all of a sudden in a most beautiful setting. We had been driving along the road toward Caracas just after a rain, and the sun had just come out. On both sides of the road were lush green banana trees, cocoa trees, coffee beans, wild orchids, and parakeets and parrots flying around in a wild riot of color. Everything was fresh and green and dripping with moisture. For miles I had been following the power lines and seeing nothing but brown ceramic insulators, when suddenly I noticed that in their places were the same shaped insulators, but these were a beautiful lime green glass! There was only about a mile and a half of these, and I just insisted on stopping for a picture. My first thought was that they were French -- they looked it -- and the shade of green was so like Folembray! I was simply enthralled, And oh how I wanted to be able to steal one. But that is impossible on a power line still very much in use -- and especially on a very tall metal pole! But they were beautiful! These were located near the little town of Barlovento, a colony of blacks who are descendants of the original black slaves brought over to Venezuela from Africa. They have never mingled with the native Venezuelans, but keep to themselves. Most Venezuelans are not very dark, and it is startling to suddenly come upon a village inhabited by very black skinned people. I shall never forget discovering those beautiful green insulators -- and so few of them -- in that beautiful setting right out of a dream. 

We were able to spend a weekend in Caracas before our plane left for the States on Sunday, and I was all fired up and determined to use that time to find out whatever I could. Remember that from the insulators I had seen, my guess was that they were from the U.S.A., Japan and France. 

Jose called the power company in Caracas, which is called C.A.D.A.F.E. This stands for Compania Anonima de Administracion y Fomento Electrico -- or loosely translated -- Electrical Promotion and Incorporated Company of the Administration (or government). When he was connected with one of their engineers, Jose explained that his mother-in-law from the States is an insulator collector (how embarrassing) and she wants to know whether or not the insulators used on the power lines were manufactured in Venezuela. If not, then where do they come from? His answer came back (and I stood 20 feet tall!): "All are imported from either Japan or France -- none are made here". He could not tell us which manufacturers, however, but did give us the name of a distributor for C.A.D.A.F.E. who might be willing to sell us a couple of insulators. We did call these people, but were told to call back on Monday and they'd see! With our plane leaving on Sunday, that was no good, but Margie and Jose promised to follow through for me on that, and hopefully we'll see those in January, too. 

Next came a call to the telephone company called C.A.N.T.V., which stands for Compania Anonima Nacional Telefonos de Venezuela -- or National Incorporated Telephone Company of Venezuela. these people told us they were only putting in underground cables now, but that the telephone insulators we had seen on the existing poles were indeed from the U.S.A. Again they suggested we come to the technical division of C.A.N.T.V. on Monday, and perhaps one of their 500+ engineers would be able to give us some insulators. Again Margie promised to follow through on this for me, and we came on home to Houston without any insulators, but grateful for some real leads and some information, at least. 

On the night of August 21, just about two months later, we received a phone call from one of Margie's friends, who lives in Houston, but had been down to visit her, and had brought back two insulators she'd sent us. We dropped everything we were doing and drove to her house to see what they were. Inside the newspaper wrappings were two glass insulators from C.A.N.T.V. -- both U.S.!! -- a CD 162 Hemingray 19/Made in U.S.A. with R.D.P. (aqua), and a clear CD 1049 dead end insulator embossed with a few numbers only. We were disappointed, but at least here was proof that they used glass insulators imported from the U.S.A.

Shown below are various drawings taken from Japanese catalogues (NGK and OTK). These Japanese manufacturers may have been the source of those found in Venezuela, but since we saw no markings we can't be sure. The general shapes are the same, however. All those we saw were brown porcelain, with the exception of #1 and #2, which we also saw in green glass, and which were of French manufacture, but we don't know which manufacturer -- not yet. Perhaps Jose's telephoto picture of #1 -- the green glass power insulator we saw near Barlovento will show some embossing when we study the picture close up -- will sure let you know!

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