Araya
Araya is a town located on Venezuela's Caribbean coast, on the easternmost extremity of the Araya Peninsula.
Araya Fortress
The Araya Fortress is a beige-brown stone masonry fortification. The fortification was built in order to defend Araya and the Araya Peninsula against Caribbean pirates. The Spanish Empire only focused on the pearls that could be found off the coast. This area has the largest salt planes in the country which urged the Dutch and the English to start extracting the salt, since it was an important product at that time.
When the pearls extracting came to an end the Spanish used the fort to control the salt planes against the English and the Dutch. The fort was then abandoned after a hurricane destroyed the area and the salt reserves were lost.
External links
Media related to Araya (Venezuela) at Wikimedia Commons- Images of Araya fortress