soggy grounds, surrounded by a horde of sharp-toothed voracious eels. The “rustles and bustles” represent the hectic activities of an elaborate feast for the flamingoes and the eels celebrating the arrival of a new mass of earth with rocks and debris brought by the distant glaciers that dissolve and die out in the waters of the summer sun exhausted by the effort, and leaving behind in its wake, the birthing of a tiny island in the high seas.

The process does not stop; on this piece of newly-formed land, simultaneously, there is also the tangled growth of bushes giving birth to leaping chirping insects, creepers, creeks of rivulet streams, and with it comes in sequence the native beech trees of the temperate regions, on the glossy leaves of whichone of the family.

* A former lieutenant colonel, Chavez spent much of his later military career conspiring with other leftist soldiers to overthrow the traditional political order.

* He led a 1992 coup against then-President Carlos Andres Perez that failed but launched his political career. A brief speech while he was being led away to jail - wearing his trademark red beret - electrified many Venezuelans and propelled him toward the presidency as a populist leader.

* After being pardoned, Chavez toured the country before winning a 1998 election and taking office early the following year. For many poor voters, he symbolized a fresh start after decades of governments widely seen as self-serving and corrupt.

* Private media and business leaders remained staunchly against Chavez, however, and in 2002 a group