The Museo de Historia y Artesanía sits in a restored period house in the centre of the town. The collection is modest but well-presented: ship's manifests from the 1843 crossing, settlers' tools and clothes, family photographs, and examples of the original crafts brought from the Black Forest — woodcarving, weaving, blacksmithing. Labels are in Spanish, with some German.
The story it tells is striking. A botanist, Agostino Codazzi, persuaded the Venezuelan government to bring in European immigrants to develop the Cordillera de la Costa. The first group of 374 left Endingen in 1843; barely 200 reached Colonia Tovar after a disastrous crossing and a longer overland march. They lived in near-complete isolation for a century, intermarrying within the colony and preserving an archaic dialect of Alemannic German that lasted into the 1960s.