From waterfalls to lowlands, grasslands to highlands Venezuela has it all. Its cuisine too is an eclectic mix of Spanish, Italian, French and Portuguese.

Amid Venezuela’s oil industry decline, Lake Maracaibo has been coated with oil slicks. Now, one group is hoping to save the lake — one haircut at a time.

The pollution of Lake Maracaibo is decades old, but now it’s being felt on its coast with its bad smells, oil spills and microalgae, said Briceño, the professor at the University of Zulia.

Residents who live near Venezuela’s Lago de Maracaibo, or Lake Maracaibo, don’t have to wonder about that scenario—they experience lightning storms for an average of 260 nights a year.

A boy walks between stilt houses, on the water’s edge of Lake Maracaibo in the Santa Rosa de Agua neighborhood of Maracaibo, Venezuela, Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2023.