Socialist Dreams & Beauty Queens - author interview

It's always good to see a new book about Venezuela, especially a travel book, and Jamie Maslin's "Socialist Dreams and Beauty Queens" does not disappoint.

The author not only takes his readers on a journey to the capital Caracas and the tourist isle of Margarita, but also heads south to the jungles of the Gran Sabana where he treks up Mount Roraima and takes a canoe to the highest waterfall in the world, Angel Falls. He even camps out on the shores of Lake Maracaibo to experience the natural phenomenon of all-night lightning storms known as Catatumbo Lightning.

What makes Maslin's account different is that he learns most about the country from the strangers he meets couchsurfing, a friendly bunch of Venezuelans and expatriates who not only show him around their respective towns and teach him a few basics in Spanish but also give him a sofa to crash on.

So what did the author really learn about Venezuela? What were the highs and lows of his trip? And what tips does he have for those wishing to visit Venezuela or publish a travel book of their own? I put these questions to the author and this is what he had to say:

Your first travel book "Iranian Rappers and Persian Porn" took you around Iran, a country that few tourists visit or know much about. What made you choose Venezuela for this latest book?
I first decided to visit Venezuela after flicking through a dog-eared National Geographic magazine in the dusty confines of a second hand book store in London. Whilst doing this a photograph stopped me in my tracks. Rising up from the magazine was the most magnificent flat-topped jungle plateau jutting ominously out of a sea of Amazonian mist. Even before reading where it was located, I knew, there and then, that I would have to visit the place one day. On turning the page I discovered that the mountain was Roraima and it was in Venezuela.

Couchsurfing is quite a new phenomenon. What turned you on to it and how easy was it to travel around Venezuela relying on the hospitality of others?
I first heard about Couchsurfing whilst trying to find a place to stay in New York which I travelled to on my way to Venezuela. I had to do some book promotion there and needed to find accommodation for about a month before continuing to South America. Despite contacting the limited friends I had in the U.S. I initially struggled to find a place to crash, it was then that one of my friends suggest Couchsurfing. In the end I didn't need to couchsurf in New York but it gave me the idea to try it in Venezuela, which, with the exception of Caracas was relatively easy to use to find a place to stay – Caracas, for some reason, proved tricky, although not impossible to find willing and available couchsurfing hosts. It's such a great website that I've now used it all over the world and have made some great friends and been shown incredible kindness and hospitality through it.

How difficult was it to travel without any Spanish? Are there things you could have done before your trip to have made it easier?
Couchsurfing was the key to travelling in Venezuela with zero Spanish. One of the things you can do on the couchsurfing website is select people who as well as speaking the local lingo also speak English. This is what I did, which made my trip a hell of a lot easier than it would have been otherwise. I discovered soon after arrival in Venezuela that quite a low percentage of the general populace speak English.

That said, there were times when some rudimentary Spanish would have made my life a lot easier, and I really should have brushed up on it before going. On one occasion I was trying to get pills for malaria but, like a complete numpty, ended up with a jab for yellow fever instead. As anyone who speaks Spanish knows, yellow fever is fiebre amarilla, it was the “amarilla” bit that was my downfall. On asking at the hospital for Malaria tablets I received in response what I incorrectly heard as a confirmatory “Amalaria.” It was only after afterwards when I met up with my couchsurfing host in the evening that I discovered my schoolboy error – they'd been saying “amarilla” not “amalaria” and I got jabbed up with an unwanted vaccine unnecessarily.

You spent time in the capital Caracas, on the island of Margarita and in the south visiting Angel Falls. What were the highlights of your trip?
Climbing Roraima was magnificent and exceeded all my expectations, as did Angel falls. Venezuela has some truly world class scenery and no shortage of it. I got to see a little of the famed Catatumbo lightning too but unfortunately not at its best. It's something I'd love to return and see when it's really firing.

Were there any low moments when you questioned what you were doing, or got fed up?
I got quite badly ill during my trip – shortly after getting the yellow fever jab! So obviously that wasn't the best of times. One low moment occurred on my second day in the country when I was arrested by the [local Caracas] Policia Metropolitana for not carrying my passport on me in the street. I ended up getting berated for the next couple of hours at a makeshift police station by a stumpy little cretin of a cop who drew his pocket knife and mimed slitting my throat – nice chap. Other than that the rest of the trip was top draw.

Any tips for budding travel writers considering following in your footsteps around the world and producing a book of their own exploits? How do you go about getting published, for example?
Getting published is no easy task. You've got to have a tenacity bordering on obsession and refuse to take “no” for an answer. Unless you're incredibly lucky, you're going to get a ream of rejection letters, so you've got to keep at it. If you get knocked down ten times, damn-well get up eleven. Re-write, re-edit, try every agent, try every publisher and if you have no success domestically try those abroad. Then try them all again. And again.

Once you've got your manuscript written a good place to start is the Writers and Artist's Yearbook, which lists all the agents and publishers in the UK, US and elsewhere. Different agents and publishers have different submission guidelines, all of which can be found in the book. Most will require a cover letter and synopsis of the work which, if they like, they will then request a small sample of. If this meets with their approval, they’ll then generally ask for a bigger sample or possibly the whole book. Even if all this goes well, they still have to feel really strongly about the book’s potential. If they do, hopefully they'll make you an offer.

However, there exists something of a catch 22 situation in the book business, in that without an agent a lot of publishers won’t look at your submission, and without any published work a lot of agents won’t consider taking you on. There’s no real answer to this dilemma other than to keep getting your work out there to both and then hopefully you'll succeed.

Another bit of advice a friend of mine who writes scripts once told me was that when you’re happy with what you’ve written and you think that it’s finished and ready to be submitted, well, the chances are, it isn’t. On the whole I agree with this, so get other people to read it and then re-edit until it is as good as you can possibly get it and then, and only then, submit it.

You devote a portion of the book to discussions about the pros and cons of President Hugo Chavez with the people you met couchsurfing. Did your impression of the political situation in Venezuela change at all during your trip or when writing the book?
I think if anything visiting Venezuela affirmed my belief in the importance of engaging people from all walks of life in the political process. It was very refreshing to see and meet so many people who were politically active, either for or against Chavez.

What tips would you give anybody wanting to visit Venezuela?
Read the superb Bradt Guide to Venezuela, it's got everything you need to know! Other than that I would probably add a word of caution; be wary of the cops, especially in Caracas. As my couchsurfing host there told me, “If you see the police coming, cross to the other side.”

What's next for you? Any more travel books in the pipeline?
I've recently returned from a trip hitch hiking over every land mass from Tasmania to the UK. It took over a thousand lifts through Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, China, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey, Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Austria, Germany, and France to get me home to England. I'm currently writing up this adventure and am contemplating continuing the journey next year across the Atlantic, North America and the Pacific... We'll see.

Jamie Maslin's book "Socialist Dreams and Beauty Queens: A Couchsurfer's Memoir of Venezuela" is published by Skyhorse Publishing and is available in hardback and Kindle editions.

To purchase Socialist Dreams and Beauty Queens in the UK click here -in the USA click here.

Video of a talk about Venezuela I gave in London

This is the video of an illustrated talk about travel and tourism in Venezuela I gave at the Venezuelan cultural centre, Bolivar Hall, in London on 7 July.

Exploring Venezuela: A Land of Natural Wonders in Words, Sounds and Pictures
In this illustrated talk, Russell Maddicks, the author of the Bradt Guide to Venezuela will highlight some of the most fascinating areas of Venezuela to visit and what you can expect to see and do.

Drawing on his experience of adventuring in Venezuela for more than 20 years, the author will take you to:

* The "Lost World" mountain of Roraima and the unique ecosystem of its summit

* The thunderless lightning phenomenon in the south of Lake Maracaibo known as Catatumbo Lightning

* The magical mountain of Sorte where devotees of Maria Lionza practice a syncretic religion unique to the country

* The record-breaking and awe-inspiring waterfall of Angel Falls, known as Kerepacupai-meru to the local Pemon people.

One of the 17 most megadiverse countries in the world, Venezuela is home to Caribbean beaches, dense rainforests, high Andean valleys, mysterious table-top tepui mountains, and seasonally-flooded plains that are literally teeming with birds, beasts and creepy-crawlies.

From the anacondas, capybaras and crocodiles of Los Llanos, to the jaguars, monkeys and tarantulas of the jungle, a well-planned trip to this fascinating country can reap rich rewards for wildlife watchers.

Venezuela is also alive with the sound of folk music, from the Afro-Venezuelan tambores of the coast, to the harp-driven Joropo songs of Los Llanos and during his talk the author will present several examples of the music to be found in the regions he discusses.

There will be a live group performing traditional folk music, an opportunity to sample some of Venezuela's excellent local rum and Gillian Howe of Geodyssey - a tailor-made travel company specializing in organized trips to Venezuela - will be on hand to offer her own expert tips and advice on travelling in Venezuela.

Bradt Guide to Venezuela - come and meet the author

Writing a guidebook can be a lonely business, hours and hours checking facts and then even more hours writing them up to make sure your guide is as up-to-date and useful as possible.

So it's nice to have a chance to meet your readers and get some feedback on what they like about the book and what they think you could add.

That's why I'm so excited about meeting my public at an event being planned for 7 July at Bolivar Hall, the Venezuelan cultural centre in London.

It's designed to appeal to anybody interested in travelling to Venezuela as well as those who simply like to see beautiful images of unique destinations, such as Los Roques, Choroni, Los Llanos, Canaima, Angel Falls and Mount Roraima.

The main focus of the evening will be illustrated talk covering my favourite places to visit, what to see and do and some background on history, folk music, gastronomy, fauna and flora.

But we'll also have some excellent Venezuelan rum to get everybody in the mood and music from Los Llanos to bring a little bit of Venezuela to London.

The date is just provisonal for now but as soon as it's confirmed I'll post something here with the full details.

Mini meltdown as Venezuela guide hits the shelves

My first book, the Bradt Guide to Venezuela, came out at the end of December, but due to the Christmas rush it took a while to get out to high street bookstores like Waterstones and W.H. Smith and was constantly selling out on Amazon.co.uk due to unexpected demand.

So imagine my surprise and delight when I walked into my local branch of Waterstone's on Broad Street in Reading this morning and found a copy on the bookshelves, wedged (ironically?) between guides to the USA and Vietnam.

It's every author's dream to get published and see their work in print and I freely confess that it was a magical moment when, after months of feverish writing, editing and fact-checking, the finished book dropped through my letterbox in December and I could finally hold it in my hand.

However, nothing prepared me for the rush of blood to the head when I saw my humble guide to Venezuela in the travel section of Waterstone's.

So thanks to all the super-friendly staff at Waterstone's for humouring me as I snapped away like a Japanese tourist and posed the book around the store as if it was a supermodel, because it really did make all the hard work and frantic travelling and sleepless nights worthwhile.

The whole point of the exercise is to try and raise Venezuela's profile as a tourist destination and provide travellers with all the information they need to get the best out of their trip to this fascinating and beautiful country.

Readers of the book should have all the information they need to master some basic Spanish, learn something about Venezuela's history, music and culture and be able to succesfully organize a trip Angel Falls by canoe, mount an expedition to Mount Roraima or simply spend a week basking in the warm crystalline waters of the Los Roques archipelago. 

Earlier in the week I had my first ever book signing, writing a short dedication for Jorge Franca, a good friend who has been a keen supporter of the blog and the book for some time now.

Jungle Adventures on the Casiquiare in New Book

In 2005, the writers Richard Starks and Miriam Murcutt travelled to the remote jungles along Venezuela's border with Brazil and Colombia to explore for themselves the mysterious Casiquiare Canal, a river joining the waters of the Orinoco River with the Amazon River via the Rio Negro. They travelled with Lucho Cherry Navarro, who organizes trips to the Casiquiare on a boat called the Iguana, which once belonged to the French oceanographer Jaques Cousteau.

The reason for their trip was to clear up some of the persisting myths surrounding the Casiquiare and to publish their findings in Geographical, the magazine of the Royal Geographical Society.

In the end they came back with so much material that the only way to do it justice was to write up their travels in a book and so in October 2009 they published: "Along the River that Flows Uphill: From the Orinoco to the Amazon".

Recently, I caught up with Richard and Miriam to hear more about their experiences in Venezuela, especially their visit to the Yanomami village of Viruinave, on the Casiquiare, and their frightening brush with FARC guerrillas in Colombia.

The photos, shot on the Orinoco and in the Yanomami village of Viriunave on the Casiquiare, are all copyright to Richard Starks and Miriam Murcutt.

Question: After publishing your first book together about US pilots in the frozen wastes of Tibet what made you opt for the heat and humidity of the Venezuelan jungle?

Richard: The book really began life as a magazine article. A few years ago - in 2005 - Geographical, the official magazine of the Royal Geographical Society in London, commissioned us to write an article about the Casiquiare, a strange river in Venezuela that is unique among rivers in that it is the only one in the world that manages to flow over a watershed - the watershed that separates the Orinoco and the Amazon river systems.
The magazine wanted an article about the peculiar geography of this river, because by flowing over a watershed, the river appears to flow uphill, and that, of course, is not possible.
Anyway, to write the article, we travelled by boat along the upper Orinoco and then down the full length of the Casiquiare to reach the Rio Negro, which runs into the Amazon near Manaus.
We then wrote the article. But so many things happened to us on our journey that when we came back we realised we had more then enough material for a book. So we wrote "Along the River that Flows Uphill".
It wasn't intended to be an antidote to our trip to Tibet - it just worked out that way.

Question: Was it a good choice for your second collaboration? Did you connect with Venezuela and find the adventure you were looking for?

Miriam: "Yes" is the short answer. We did connect with Venezuela - not so much with Caracas, which is where we flew to in order to begin our journey, but certainly with the rest of the country. I've been studying Spanish for several years now and I have to admit to a bias in favour of Spanish speaking people. We've travelled a lot in both South and Central America, and we've always had positive experiences.

Question: One of the most dramatic episodes in the book is your meeting with the Yanomami Indians both on the Orinoco River and the Casiquiare Canal. The image of the Yanomami fostered by anthropologists in the 1970s and 1980s is of a warrior tribe of "Fierce People". More recently, they have been seen as victims of exploitative missionaries, disease-spreading miners, vote-hungry politicians and those very same anthropologists. Did your understanding of the Yanomami change after spending time with them?

Miriam: We felt privileged to see the Yanomami, as it's highly likely that their way of life will radically change in the very near future. I should say that we visited the Yanomami only in villages along the Orinoco and the Casiquiare, where the river traffic brings them into contact with the modern world - we did not visit any of the nomadic tribes that live in the jungles of Venezuela and Brazil.
It was still possible to see how they used to live - especially along the Casiquiare, which is much more remote than the Orinoco - but at the same time we caught a glimpse of their future, as they adopt many of the goods that are already changing their way of life - things like plastic buckets, steel machetes, T-shirts and shorts. Until recently, everything they made and used was biodegradable, but now they're beginning to have a litter problem.
I can't say that the Yanomami we met lived up to their reputation for violence, although they were not an overtly friendly people. It's true, as we relate in the book, that we did have a run-in with a Yanomami Indian who threatened us with a poison-tipped arrow, but that was more our fault than his.

Question: The Casiquiare Canal was described in detail by the German scientist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt who travelled from the Rio Negro to the Orinoco in 1800. Did you learn anything new on your trip to dispel any of the myths surrounding this "monstrous error of geography", as one geographer described it?

Richard: In the 18th century, no-one believed that a river could flow over a watershed, so the Casiquiare was indeed dismissed as a 'monstrous error of geography', as we say in our book. Humboldt was not the first European to travel along it - that honour belongs to a Jesuit priest called Father Manuel Roman who paddled the river in 1744 - but he was the first to report on his journey and be believed. Humboldt described the bifurcation - the point where the Casiquiare leaves the Orinoco - in quite dramatic terms, but in fact there's nothing really there to mark the spot. The Casiquiare just slides off to one side of the Orinoco and disappears into the jungle. There's no real fanfare.

Question: So how does the Casiquiare join the Orinoco to the Amazon?

Richard: A certain amount of confusion was created by the translated description of Humboldt's journey. He wrote that the Casiquiare "changes direction", which a lot of people assumed meant that it changed the direction of its flow - sometimes flowing out of the Orinoco and into the Negro, then sometimes reversing itself and flowing the other way. This is still a popular misconception, which you will find in many Internet searches for 'Casiquiare'. In fact, the Casiquiare flows in one direction only, and what Humboldt meant is that the river changes direction because it meanders, and that's quite a different thing.
As for a full explanation of its behaviour, we deal with that in our book.

Question: Humboldt describes his passage down the Casiquiare as one of constant torture from moquitos and black fly, the feared "jejenes", that leave a nasty, raised bloodspot under the skin. What was the most uncomfortable part of your trip?

Miriam: It was all uncomfortable!
Basically, we were travelling on a river boat through the jungle. There were always insects, especially when we got off the boat and went on land, and all of them seemed either to bite or sting. It was also the rainy season - we had to go then, because in the dry season, the Casiquiare shrinks in size and can only be effectively travelled in a canoe or some other small boat. That didn't mean it was always raining - although when it did, it rained in sheets - but it did mean the humidity was extremely high. So you always felt wet or clammy. You never quite got entirely dry.

Question: You also mention a brush with guerillas from the FARC, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, in San Felipe, near San Carlos de Rio Negro? In the book you seem to respond quite calmly to the situation but was it scary?

Richard: That's right. FARC tried to kidnap us and hold us for ransom when we were foolish enough to stray over the border into Colombia. It was extremely frightening for both of us, but like a lot of events like this, it seems more frightening when we look back on it than it was at the time it occurred. Everything happened so quickly, and we were so focused on the best way to react that we didn't think through all the consequences. It's only now, when we reflect on what might have happened, that we appreciate how lucky we were to have escaped.
Over the past 20 or 30 years, FARC has kidnapped literally thousands of people. Most of their victims have been Colombians, which is why they don't get much international attention, and they are held in the most appalling conditions - literally chained to trees or to each other for eight, ten, twelve years. Maybe even more.

Question: You mention Lucho, the owner of the boat who took you from Puerto Ayacucho to the Casiquiare and Rio Negro, how did you get in touch with him and is the trip you took something that others could do?

Miriam: Before we went on our journey, we searched for possible guides on the Internet and in some of the more out-of-the-way guide books. Lucho is one, but there are others - people who, for a fee, will take you along the Casiquiare. It's possible for anyone to make the journey we did, but as we indicated, the time of year determines the size of boat you can travel on. In the dry season, you'll likely have to travel in a bongo - a kind of large, dugout canoe - and camp on the river bank. Only in the rainy season will you find a boat large enough for you to sleep on.

Question: One of the main problems of a long boat journey is boredom. How long were you on Lucho's boat? Did you ever fall out? What did you do to while away the hours?

Richard: We never had any problems with the other people on the boat. There were a lot of them, so the boat was crowded, but we all respected other people's space. We read a lot, and we wrote a lot - either the article we were there to complete, or in the journals we kept which later formed the backbone of our book. I suppose it could be considered boring, but the jungle is so strange, at least to us, that it's endlessly fascinating. Also, of course, we were able to get off the boat and visit a lot of communities along the way. This helped break up our journey, and also gave us a lot of good material for our book.

Question: For anybody who reads your book and wants to visit the Casiquiare, what advice would you give them?

Miriam: Plan well, and know what you're getting into. Consider going in a group of four or more, rather than just two. If something goes wrong you have more back-up.

Richard: Don't go into Colombia - at least not in the part near where Colombia, Brazil and Venezuela come together. It's almost entirely lawless, and to a large extent under the control of FARC.

Question: Richard spends much of the book lamenting the lost days of the great adventurers, especially his heroes, the Welsh explorer Henry Morton Stanley and David Livingstone. Now people can Google Earth any spot on the planet, are there still great adventures to be had?

Richard: There are always great adventures to be had. One person's great adventure can be just another day in the office for somebody else.
I think nowadays the thing to consider when planning an adventure is the amount of risk you might possibly face, and whether or not that risk is worth taking, given the reward you hope to get. This is something we had not really considered before, but our brush with FARC made us think seriously about the level of risk we were prepared to accept. That's one of the themes that runs throughout the book - you want to push the envelope as people say, but not push it to the point where it breaks.




To purchase "Along the River That Flows Uphill: Between the Orinoco and the Amazon" click here: