Botero’s 1999 bronze work with dark brown patina, fetched $938,500 at the sale late on Tuesday and Sanchez’s 2005 acrylic on canvas “Buscador de Paisajes,” (Landscape Searcher), sold for $626,500, Christie’s said.

“The energetic, selective market for Latin American art was highlighted by modern masters such as Botero,” said Virgilio Garza, the auction house’s Latin American art chief, of the sale which totaled $13.6 million for 61 works of the 79 on offer.

A 1981 Botero painting, “Nun Eating an Apple,” which Christie’s described as a whimsical representation of Original Sin, showing a portly nun with a bible in her left hand and the forbidden fruit in her right, went for $602,500.

“The apple can represent temptation,” Garza explained. “She looks like she’s almost being caught, with her eyes glancing outside the frame.”

Sanchez’s record-setting work shows a miniscule man contemplating an overwhelming forest. Willowy trees form a canopy over a creek and a patch of light blue sky and a pink stripe on the horizon shine through breaks in the foliage.

Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo’s 1970 oil and sand on canvas “Tres personajes en un interior” (An Interior with Three Characters) was another highlight of the sale. It sold for $698,500.

A Diego Rivera painting, “Portrait of Linda Christian,” was another favorite, fetching $578,500. It was painted in 1947, the year before the Hollywood actress married actor Tyrone Power and played opposite Johnny Weissmuller in his last Tarzan film, “Tarzan and the Mermaids.”

Christian, who was born in Tampico, Mexico, and died last year, also played a Bond girl in the 1954 television version of the Ian Fleming novel “Casino Royale.”

Among Brazilian works, Ibere Camargo’s 1957 oil on canvas “Jogos de Carreteis I” (Set of Spools I) set an auction record for the artist, going for $422,500, about triple its $120,000 to $180,000 pre-sale estimate.

Other records were set for Cuban-born Carmen Herrera’s “Amarillo Dos” (Yellow Two), an acrylic on wood relief sculpture, executed in 1971, which fetched $170,500, and for contemporary Colombian artist Olga de Amaral, whose 1998 “Montana” (Mountain), a tapestry of painted woven fabric, went for $103,300.

(Editing by Patricia Reaney and Kenneth Barry)

The Monday evening sale also set records, at prices above $1
million each, for Mexican landscape artist Gerardo Murillo,
Chilean Claudio Bravo and pioneering Venezuelan kinetic sculptor
Jesus Rafael Soto.

“This evening sale demonstrates the demand for Latin
American art across all periods and mediums,” said Axel Stein,
director of Latin American art at Sotheby’s.

The $19.3 million in art sold included works drawn from four
centuries.

“Portrait of Moctezuma II,” which was painted in the late
17th century sold for $1.65 million, a record for Latin American
colonial art, Sotheby’s said. The only other colonial work of
the same scale and subject is in a museum in Italy, Stein said.

Moctezuma II was an Aztec chieftain killed by Spanish
conquistadors. The portrait shows him as melancholy, his head
downcast. But Sotheby’s said X-ray images reveal it originally
depicted him with his head erect, with a more assured
expression, that was later modified.

Matta’s 1943 “Nada” (Nothingness) fetched $1.82 million. The
work includes plant-like forms that hurl outward with their
stems ringed by sloping rays. A butterfly-like shape ejects
multicolored beams.

“Matta opened a whole new world. He was as interested in
what was going on inside matter as he was in cosmic realities,”
said Stein. “No surrealist had ever gone there because
surrealism had been about how the mind works and what happens in
dreams.”

Another highlight of the sale was a sweeping 1942
landscape, “Manana Luminosa” (Luminous Morning), by Murillo. It
sold for $1.65 million, setting a record for the artist better
known as Dr. Atl.

At 10-feet (3-meters) wide, “Manana Luminosa” is one of his
largest landscapes. It shows a semi-arid plateau, framed by
craggy rocks up close and snowcapped volcanoes in the distance.

“Angelis,” by Claudio Bravo, who died last year, fetched a
record for the artist’s work at $1.51 million. The 1999 painting
resembles high-resolution photographs and is a study of drapes
tied in a loose knot. Folds, pleats and wrinkles are depicted in
minute detail.

Venezuelan Jesus Rafael Soto’s 1960 sculpture “La Scie a
Metaux (The Hacksaw),” also sold for more than $1 million. Made
of paint, plaster and metal on hardboard, it is an early example
of kinetic art, in which even a slight change in viewing
position creates a perception of vibration.

The $638,500 sale of 1971 “Recticularea Cuadrada” (Squared
Rectangular Area) set an auction record for Venezuelan abstract
sculptor Gertrude Goldschmidt, known as Gego. The work is a bent
grid made of stainless steel and iron.

Art experts hope that record sales of post-war and contemporary art this week will have a spillover effect and fuel demand for Latin American art during three days of sales at Sotheby’s and Christie’s.

“Just thinking of what just happened, of $1 billion of art sold in three short days in New York City is quite a phenomenon,” said Axel Stein, head of Sotheby’s Latin American department. “We’re very interested in seeing what the result of that will be” for Latin American art.

Sotheby’s top-priced lots, at between $1.5 million and $2 million, are Matta’s 1943 oil on canvas “Nada” (Nothingness) and Mexican Dr. Atl’s “Manana Luminosa” (Luminous Morning), a 10-foot (3-meter-wide) 1942 landscape of a semi-arid plateau dotted by snowcapped volcanoes in the distance.

Another highlight at the sale is expected to be a colonial portrait of Moctezuma II, the Aztec chieftain killed by Spanish conquistadors.

The anonymous painting, “Portrait of Moctezuma II,” from the final quarter of the 17th century, is expected to fetch at least $1 million. The only other colonial work of the same scale and subject is in a museum in Italy, said Stein.

Matta’s “Nada” shows plant-like forms hurling outwards with their stems ringed by sloping rays. A central butterfly-like shape ejects beams in slices of green, red, turquoise and bright sky blue.

“Matta opened a whole new world. He was as interested in what was going on inside matter as he was in cosmic realities,” said Stein. “No surrealist had ever gone there, because surrealism had been about how the mind works and what happens in dreams.”

At Christie’s, the top-priced lot is a bronze sculpture by Colombian Fernando Botero, “Horse,” done in 1999, which has a pre-sale estimate of $700,000 to $1 million.

Another Botero work, his 1981 painting “Nun Eating an Apple,” will also go under the hammer. Christie’s described it as a whimsical representation of original sin showing a portly nun, with a bible in her left hand and the forbidden fruit in her right. Its estimated sale price is up to $700,000.

Mexican master Diego Rivera’s “Madre e Hijos” (Mother and Children), is expected to fetch $800,000. Painted in 1926, it depicts a barefoot boy standing next to his sister, who is ensconced in their mother’s lap. The children show a gravitas beyond their years.

Christie’s estimates its total sales on November 20 and 21 will be between $17.28 million to $23.97 million.

“We look forward to more landmark auction moments for the Latin American sale,” said Virgilio Garza, head of Christie’s Latin American art department.

Sotheby’s expects its sales on November 19 and 20 to total at least $20 million.

(Editing by Patricia Reaney and Leslie Adler)

Art experts hope that record sales of post-war and
contemporary art this week will have a spillover effect and
fuel demand for Latin American art during three days of sales at
Sotheby’s and Christie’s.

“Just thinking of what just happened, of $1 billion of art
sold in three short days in New York City is quite a
phenomenon,” said Axel Stein, head of Sotheby’s Latin American
department. “We’re very interested in seeing what the result of
that will be” for Latin American art.

Sotheby’s top-priced lots, at between $1.5 million and $2
million, are Matta’s 1943 oil on canvas “Nada” (Nothingness) and
Mexican Dr. Atl’s “Manana Luminosa” (Luminous Morning), a
10-foot (3-meter-wide) 1942 landscape of a semi-arid plateau
dotted by snowcapped volcanoes in the distance.

Another highlight at the sale is expected to be a colonial
portrait of Moctezuma II, the Aztec chieftain killed by Spanish
conquistadors.

The anonymous painting, “Portrait of Moctezuma II,” from the
final quarter of the 17th century, is expected to fetch at least
$1 million. The only other colonial work of the same scale and
subject is in a museum in Italy, said Stein.

Matta’s “Nada” shows plant-like forms hurling outwards with
their stems ringed by sloping rays. A central butterfly-like
shape ejects beams in slices of green, red, turquoise and bright
sky blue.

“Matta opened a whole new world. He was as interested in
what was going on inside matter as he was in cosmic realities,”
said Stein. “No surrealist had ever gone there, because
surrealism had been about how the mind works and what happens in
dreams.”

At Christie’s, the top-priced lot is a bronze sculpture by
Colombian Fernando Botero, “Horse,” done in 1999, which has a
pre-sale estimate of $700,000 to $1 million.

Another Botero work, his 1981 painting “Nun Eating an
Apple,” will also go under the hammer. Christie’s described it
as a whimsical representation of original sin showing a portly
nun, with a bible in her left hand and the forbidden fruit in
her right. Its estimated sale price is up to $700,000.

Mexican master Diego Rivera’s “Madre e Hijos” (Mother and
Children), is expected to fetch $800,000. Painted in 1926, it
depicts a barefoot boy standing next to his sister, who is
ensconced in their mother’s lap. The children show a gravitas
beyond their years.

Christie’s estimates its total sales on Nov. 20 and 21 will
be between $17.28 million to $23.97 million.

“We look forward to more landmark auction moments for the
Latin American sale,” said Virgilio Garza, head of Christie’s
Latin American art department.

Sotheby’s expects its sales on Nov. 19 and 20 to total at
least $20 million.

Both Chile and Peru have large rainy-day funds and their government debt is a relatively small fraction of their economic output at about 20 percent or less, Shelly Shetty, head of the sovereign ratings for Latin America, told the Reuters Latin America Investment Summit in New York.

The two Andean neighbors have the fiscal flexibility to cope with a potential drop in capital in-flows, sharply lower prices for metals – their main exports – and volatile swings in exchange rates, Shetty said.

Colombia, Brazil and Mexico can also counter any shock waves from abroad, but to a lesser extent, she said.

Among the other large Latin American countries, Argentina and Venezuela would be the hardest hit by slowing global growth and a fall-off in commodity prices – oil in the case of Venezuela and soy prices for Argentina.

A slowdown in China will hurt the region’s economies, especially those with large, commodity-based export sectors. A rule of thumb says a 1 percent decline in China’s growth rate will cut growth by about 1.2 percent in the commodity exporters, she said.

The regional economies most exposed to China – the world’s largest growth driver this past decade – are Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Peru and Venezuela, according to Fitch.

As for the impact of Europe’s crisis on the region, trade exposure to Europe is concentrated more in the southern cone region of South America – Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Peru – than Mexico and Central America, Shetty said.

“Our view is still that Latin America as a region is well placed to withstand external shocks that might emerge from the intensification of the euro zone crisis,” said Shetty.

“Having said that, it’s also true that Latin America would certainty not be immune to what goes on in the euro zone.”

Brazil is less exposed than Chile, whose economy is more open, she said. But Chile, which has the highest investment grade rating in Latin America, has a history of being fiscally prudent when necessary, she said.

“Trade exposure to Europe really varies across the region and that’s an important point to make,” she said.

Government debt in Chile is about 10 percent of gross domestic product, while in Peru it is about one-fifth of GDP – exceptionally low when compared to leading Western economies, which have ratios at least several times higher.

Peru’s fiscal stabilization fund is more than $5 billion, or about 3.5 percent of GDP.

The market value of Chile’s Economic and Social Stability Fund (FEES) stood at $13.156 billion at the end of 2011, according to Chile’s budget office. That is equivalent to just under 6 percent of the GDP.

In Shetty’s view, since the financial crisis in 2008, most of Latin America is in a better position to withstand external shocks, Shetty said.

Foreign reserves, for example, have grown to about $750 billion from $500 billion several years ago, giving countries greater ability to withstand exchange rate swings, she said. The debt burden in Argentina, Peru and Brazil has also declined in recent years.

“If you look at our own ratings, we’ve actually upgraded quite a few ratings since the crisis,” she said.

(Additional reporting by Luciana Lopez in New York, Terry Wade in Lima and Alexandra Ulmer in Santiago; Editing by Andrew Hay)

Setting an auction record for Lam, the 1944 “Ídolo (Oya/Divinité de l’Air et de la mort),” fetched $4.56 million from a South American collector, more than doubling the late artist’s previous top market price.

“We were thrilled with the new record price achieved for Wifredo Lam, which was one of nine new artist records set during the Wednesday evening auction,” said Axel Stein, head of Sotheby’s Latin American art department.

Lam fused surrealism with santeria, which like Haiti’s voodoo, borrows from the Yoruba pantheon. Within the painting, at least six of the santeria deities can be discerned, said Stein of the work, populated by human-animal hybrids.

An Afro-Cuban, Lam’s godmother was a santeria priestess. But the artist began to explore the religion in his work after a 1940 trip to Haiti and Cuba with French surrealist leader Andre Breton. Lam died in 1982.

Overall, Sotheby’s Wednesday sale achieved a total of $21.8 million, its highest-ever result for an evening sale of Latin American art.

Demand was brisk for Venezuelan art, with records set for three of its 20th century artists: Jesus Rafael Soto, Armando Reveron, and Gertrudis Goldschmidt, also known as Gego.

Soto’s top-priced work, which sold for $1.02 million, was “Sin Titulo (Vibración Amarilla Y Blanca),” consisting of paint and metal wires on masonite, executed in 1960.

Reveron’s record was his 1946 “Desnudo detras de la mantilla,” a 1946 work of tempera, chalk and charcoal on burlap. It sold for $872,500.

Goldschmidt’s 1985 “Dibujo sin papel,” made of steel rods and threads, set a record for the artist, fetching $602,500.

For Sotheby’s, the auction’s biggest disappointment was the failure to sell of the top lot, Mexican Diego Rivera’s 1939 painting “Niña En Azul y Blanco.”

Sotheby’s pre-sale price range estimate was between $4 million to $6 million.

But the highest bid Wednesday evening for the painting was $3.7 million, falling short of the minimum, or “reserve,” price set by the seller.

However, soon after the auction ended two Latin American buyers stepped forward to see if they could negotiate to buy the work, an oil on canvas, said Stein.

“We’re working hard on finding a home for (it),” Stein said. He said the work may be sold within the next few days.

(Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

“It is a long overdue recognition for the artist, who is one
of the most influential artists of the 20th century,” said
Virgilio Garza, Christie’s Latin American art chief.

The Tuesday evening auction totaled $23 million and set
records for a dozen other artists.

An oil on canvas, the 1944 “La revolte des contraires” is a
vortex of canary yellow rhomboids, rippled by undulating black
lines and pocked by eruptions of prismatic colors.

“The lines serve as a skeleton of the painting; the thin
washes create an ethereal feeling, almost like it’s levitating,”
Garza said. “The outburst of colors are almost volcanic.”

In Matta’s eyes, the painting represented a mental
landscape, he added. “It is surrealism through abstraction.”

“The liquid drip in the painting is part of his
breakthrough,” he said of Matta, whose students in New York
included Jackson Pollock, who won later renown for forsaking
brushes for drip painting.

For a Latin American artist, the $5 million price of “La
revolte des contraires” ranks as the third highest sold at
international auction, Christie’s said.

Only Rufino Tamayo’s “Trovador,” sold for $7.2 million at
Christie’s in 2008, and “Roots,” a painting by Frida Kahlo sold
at Sotheby’s in 2006 for $5.6 million, have fetched
more.

Among other artists who set auction records on Tuesday was
Brazilian Candido Portinari, whose 1950 oil on canvas “Navio
Negreiro” sold for $1.14 million.

Portinari is a towering figure in 20th century Brazilian art
and his work is considered a national treasure, Garza said.

In “Navio Negreiro,” he stylizes the deck of a ship as a
geometric maze, confining masses of slaves mainly to the edges
of the vessel. Between them are minuscule blood-red men, who
appear to be overseers with their arms raised.

Also setting an auction record was Argentine Emilio
Pettoruti, whose “Concierto,” a 1941 oil on canvas, went for
$794,500.

Influenced by Italy’s Futurist movement and Cubism,
Pettoruti was a founder of the Argentine avante-garde,
Christie’s says.

“Concierto” shows the brilliance of sunlight, portrayed in
butter-yellow-hued triangles, spilling into a darkened room with
a tabletop cluttered with a vase, open book and wine bottle
topped by a black cork.

Rivera’s 1939 “Niña En Azul y Blanco” (Girl in Blue and White), which portrays the girl in indigenous dress enveloped by an oversized shawl, could sell for up to $6 million at Sotheby’s.

“She pops forward in the painting from a background that is like a sky by (Claude) Monet … whom he knew in Paris,” said Sotheby’s senior specialist Carmen Melian about the swirling backdrop of white, pink and violet brush strokes.

Mexico’s national heritage laws bar the export of Rivera works, boosting the value of work sold abroad.

The Latin American sales could also benefit from the record-breaking New York auctions in early May, which were led by the $120 million sale of Edvard Munch’s “The Scream,” the highest price paid for a work of art sold at auction.

“The ripple effect of the ‘The Scream’ brings optimism to all categories of the market,” said Axel Stein, a Sotheby’s vice-president. “It brings a sense of security that otherwise fluctuates depending on the season and economic situations.”

Virgilio Garza, Christie’s Latin American art chief, agrees.

“The market is very energized. It always helps when you come on the trail of such successful sales, at least the excitement trickles down to us.”

Christie’s estimates a total sale of $22 million to $31 million on Tuesday and Wednesday and Sotheby’s says its total could reach more than $35 million on Wednesday and Thursday.

Surrealist art collectors are expected to join bidders for work by Cuba’s Wifredo Lam, Chile’s Matta and British-Mexican Leonora Carrington, who all lived in Paris in the 1930s and were shaped by surrealism.

Lam blends surrealism and Cuba’s santeria religion. Like Haiti’s voodoo, santeria is rooted in African Yoruba dieties, such as Ora, the namesake of his 1944 painting “Oya/Divinité de l’Air et de la mort.” Sotheby’s expect it to sell for between $2 million to $3 million.

Christie’s top lot is Matta’s 1944 “La revolte des contraires,” with an $1.8 million to $2.5 million estimate.

“It is a mental landscape, this idea of the mind being a space that is continually in flux,” said Garza. “The liquid drip in the painting is part of (Matta’s) breakthrough.”

Matta taught Jackson Pollock, who won renown for forsaking brushes for drip painting.

Carrington’s toy-like 1945 “La Cuna (The Crib)” is expected to fetch between $1.5 million to $2 million. Made of wood, cloth and rope, its centerpiece is a diminutive sailboat, decorated with her surrealist touches such as a bird playing a harp.

(Editing by Patricia Reaney)

(Reuters) – Perched 9,350 feet above sea level, Quito is a gateway to sweeping Andean panoramas and a UNESCO world heritage monument.

The centre of the capital of Ecuador, which takes its name from the nearby equatorial line, is a living museum of Spanish colonial architecture, freshened by over $300 million in recent restorations.

FRIDAY

6 p.m. – Board a cable car to climb to 13,500 feet for a bird’s eye view. Looming above is the summit of the Pichincha volcano, which belched ash as recently as 1999.

7 p.m. – Soak in colonial-era ambience with a drink outdoors at Tianguez, at the foot of twin-towered San Francisco monastery, whose facade recalls Spain’s Escorial.

8 p.m. – Dine at nearby Hotel Majestic. As a guitar duo strums folk tunes, try turnover empanadas made from yucca root and banana flour, spiced with Pico de Gallo sauce using peppers, onion, and garlic. Grab a window table for a view of the cathedral. Its floodlit cupolas are sheathed in a checkerboard of green, beige, yellow and white tiles.

9 p.m. – Head to La Ronda, a cobblestoned 1,000-foot (300 metre) walkway, festooned with red geraniums in vases fastened to wrought-iron balconies. Live music pours from a profusion of bars. Handicraft stores and art galleries are open late.

To warm up drink canelazo, stirred in knee-high ceramic pots resting on fire-lit grills. Brewed from sugarcane-derived liquor, it is flavoured with cinnamon, lime and oranges.

SATURDAY

8 a.m. – Ride the rails to Cotopaxi, Ecuador’s highest active volcano. The newly restored train trundles on a route away from populated areas, offering unspoiled views.

9 a.m. – At the Tambillo stop, order a $1 breakfast of steaming corn cobs, fresh white cheese and nearly 1-inch beans.

10:40 a.m. – At Boliche take a guided drive up Cotopaxi to a 14,760-foot (4,500-metre-) high perch. View glaciers slashed by lava-reddened earth. Rest on the soft volcanic ash, bathed by moist breezes wafting up from the Amazon jungle. More than a dozen mountain ridges fan out below.

2 p.m. – With weekend traffic light, zip back by taxi to central Quito within 45 minutes.

3 p.m. – Visit La Compania. Some guidebooks describe it as one of Latin America’s most beautiful churches. Walls gleam with gold leafed carvings under a windowed blue pastel dome. A vaulted nave is crisscrossed by countless Arabesque geometric shapes.

4 p.m. – Tour the Santo Domingo church which is blends Renaissance, Moorish and Baroque styles.

6 p.m. – Dine at high-end La Choza, which features highland specialties, including locro de papa which is a creamy rich potato soup with avocado slices. Caldo de patas has a tender cooked beef hoof.

9 p.m. Check out the La Estacion club for blends of rock and highland Andean folk music (<www.laestacion-quito.com>).

SUNDAY

9 a.m. – The equator runs about 10 miles north of Quito. A 100-foot high (30-metre) monument claims to sit on the equator. Topped by a globe, it is the hub of an equatorial theme park called “Middle of the World.”

The 1736-1744 equatorial mission by French scientists is documented in a nearby pavilion. Its finding upheld Sir Isaac Newton’s assertion that the globe slightly bulged at its middle. 11 a.m. – Over 100 yards (metres) away, the Inti Nan museum also claims to straddle 0 0′ 0” latitude. On separate sides of the line, it shows whirlpools drain in opposite directions. In nearby Catequilla the equator runs through pre-Inca ruins, according to Google Earth and GPS readings. Non-profit research group Quitsato (<www.quitsato.org>) can arrange a visit.

2 p.m. – Abutting Quito’s largest park is the Chapel of Man, a domed art temple housing monumental work by the late Oswaldo Guyasamin, Ecuador’s most famous artist, who was brought to world attention in the 1940s by Nelson Rockefeller.

(Reuters) – Caribbean heat mingles with Andean cool in Caracas, which is nestled against a verdant mountain range, cresting at over 9,000 feet (2,765 metres).

Languidly tropical by day, the Venezuelan capital’s climate turns brisk after sundown. The perfume of the lush greenery infuses the evening breeze, encouraging outdoor dining.

Bold modern architecture studs Caracas’ narrow valley, lined by the El Avila mountain. A national park, El Avila divides Caracas from the Caribbean Sea. Layered in multiple forest habitats, it has about five percent of the world’s bird species.

Reuters correspondents with local knowledge help visitors get the most of out of a 48-hour visit.

FRIDAY

5 p.m. – Upon arriving in Caracas, which is one of the world’s most crime-ridden capitals, visitors should take hotel taxis, go to cab stands or call a taxi service. The Metro, which carries 1.8 million passengers a day, is also a good way to get around.

Enter the national park in Sabas Nieves in the heavily policed Altamira district. Hike 1,000 feet up to a clearing for bird watching. No binoculars are required.

Spot the Inca Jay, one of the Avila’s estimated 500 avian species. Known here as querrequerre, the bird has a powder-blue tuft and nape. Its tail is apple green and sunflower yellow.

7 p.m. – Dine at the Tarzilandia restaurant by the Sabas Nieves entrance, accompanied by the trills and chirps of resident macaws, parrots and long-beaked tucans.

9 p.m. – Go for drinks at 360, a three-tiered rooftop bar, capped by a circular counter. With its skyward views, it seems a planetarium. Sample some of the gourmet-grade rum Santa Teresa 1796.

SATURDAY

9 a.m. – Visit the Central University of Venezuela, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Created as a “Synthesis of Arts,” the campus core has curving, cantilevered and covered walkways. Its 30 monumental art works include murals by Fernand Leger and Wifredo Lam, set against sculptures like Jean Arp’s bronze “Cloud Shepherd.”

Alexander Calder’s “Floating Clouds” undulates from the Aula Magna auditorium’s walls and shell-shaped ceiling.

11 a.m. – Art museums beckon nearby: Museo de Bellas Artes, Galeria de Arte Nacional and the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo.

Look for the young Camille Pisarro’s drawings of El Avila, hatched in strokes of spindly black.

Don’t miss Armando Reveron’s ethereal coastal landscapes, dominated by misty hues of brown and gray, dabbed with blue. Walk past sculptures of Jesus Rafael Soto and Carlos Cruz-Diez to see colours vibrate in syncopated-like rhythm.

2 p.m. – Head to El Hatillo, an Andean village outpost, whose red-tiled-roofed buildings survived Caracas’ high-rise encroachment. Lunch on the canopied balcony of “Mi Pequena Suiza,” a Swiss restaurant. It overlooks a bamboo-dotted ravine, a block from the tree-shaded central plaza.

3 p.m. – Browse El Hatillo’s 10 art galleries and 14 handicraft shops, including Hannsi. The size of a small museum, it has life-size Amazon human totems and even larger animal carvings and dugout canoes. Hundreds of baskets are from five tribes. Latticed, knee-high baskets compress into suitcases.

6 p.m. – Stroll on the mile-long Sabana Grande Boulevard, a pedestrian mall. At El Gran Cafe, try Venezuelan coffee, typically prepared eight ways, with milk poured from ornamented Italian steamers.

Outdoor restaurants offer the Venezuelan staple “arepa.” A warm yellow corn meal bun, it is stuffed with a choice of filling. Try arepas with melted white cheese such as “queso de mano” or “queso guayanes.” Also common are “cachapas,” crepe-like corn pancakes, a dark mottled brown.

11 p.m. – Time to “rumba” or “rumbear” — local jargon for night clubbing. Salsa is king at Sabana Grande’s “El Mani es Asi.” An upscale option, offering a sophisticated sound system, is Juan Sebastian Bar, in El Rosal, a nearby district.

SUNDAY

10 a.m. – Take a cable car to the top of El Avila, which takes barely 15 minutes. El Avila’s enigmatic shapes have drawn painters for centuries, including Pisarro.

As a youth, he lived for months in a mountain hamlet, Galipan, which you can reach by awaiting trucks at the cable car summit. Pisarro also drew the vegetation; there are over 1,000 kinds of plants on El Avila.

12 p.m. – Lunch at Rucio Muro, which features live “llanero” music from the Venezuelan heartland, strummed with four-string guitars punctuated by the beat of shaking maracas.

2 p.m. – Amble around Caracas’ central Plaza Bolivar square, ringed by whitewashed neo-gothic and neo-classical buildings, and nearly 1,000 metres (3,300 feet) above sea level. The gold-domed 1870s Capitolio Nacional is home to Congress.

An epic Venezuelan touch is the massive mural coating the cupola in the Elliptical Salon. Painted by Martin Tovar y Tovar, it depicts Venezuela’s decisive independence victory at the Battle of Carabobo. Some viewers say its fighters appear to advance, as one walks round, gaze upwards.