With rubber boots and a sharp machete, Nidia Chavez goes into the plantation to harvest the "best" cocao in Venezuela, also known in her village as "black gold." The nickname is usually reserved for oil, which is also plentiful in the Caribbean country, but in Chuao, Northern Venezuela, everything revolves around cocao. "That is the black gold that we have here...we live from that," says Chavez, 43, after collecting three containers of the fruit. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES