📍 Lopinot Valley, Lopinot Recreational Grounds.
Description
The festival is an engaging community celebration of the Cocoa Panyol Heritage. It blends music, food, dance and community spirit. Festival visitors enjoy lively parang music performances, traditional dances, and local culinary delights such as wild meat and cocoa-based delicacies.
Brief History
The Cocoa Panyol Festival commemorates the heritage of an ethnic group that traces its ancestry back to Venezuelan Spanish-speaking cocoa estate workers along with mixed heritage communities referred to as Cocoa Panyols. The culture of this group, including its food, music (particularly parang, vibrant Spanish-influenced folk music popular during Christmas) and rural traditions in cocoa growing villages, such as Lopinot has been preserved through the years. Emerging from this heritage, the Cocoa Panyol Festival draws on this important part of the community’s heritage and culture.
Points of Interest
Parang music is a key element of the festival and is performed by lively bands. Local dishes are served including pastelles, wild meat and cocoa-based delicacies.
