The story
Fiesta de la Virgen de la Chiquinquira in Maracaibo
Every November, Maracaibo celebrates the Feria de la Chinita, an eight-day religious and cultural festival honoring the Virgen de Chiquinquira, patron saint of Zulia state, commemorating a 1709 miracle in which an image is said to have miraculously appeared on a wooden tablet found on the shore of Lake Maracaibo.
In 1709, according to the founding story still told across Zulia state, an elderly woman living along the shore of Lake Maracaibo found a small wooden tablet washed up near her home and, seeing nothing remarkable in it at first, brought it inside and hung it on a wall.