Los Testigos, 2015

Los Testigos is an archipelago of six islands in the Venezuelan Caribbean, eighty kilometers northeast of Margarita. No hotels. No restaurants. No marinas. No landing strips. A hundred and seventy-four people live there, fishermen whose families have worked these waters for generations. Each family owns a beach. One island is left to the wild goats and the bobos, thousands of seabirds that fill the sky.

I stayed two weeks with Felix, my friend Braulio's cousin. We slept in hammocks ten meters from the shore and bathed in rainwater from barrels. Most days Felix fished, and the catch was always good. Some days he crossed to isla Chivo and hunted a goat with his rifle. Every night he got drunk, played the guitar, and sang boleros about lost love.

One night I found out the man asleep in the hammock beside mine was a Pran, a notorious prison gang leader in hiding. I never dared photograph his face. Only his feet, dangling from the hammock.