Michael Palin has reached 100. Not in age, of course; he is still 18 years short of a century, and looks much younger than his 82 years. The Monty Python star-turned-global explorer is back from his 100th country. And a mighty strange and seductive one it was, too.
“I’m glad to have been to Egypt and Moldova, to Iraq and Mali, but none has the same alluring cadence as Ven-Ez-Ue-La.” That is how he introduces the book that accompanies his latest Channel 5 series: Michael Palin in Venezuela.
What were the producers thinking? Even by his usual standards, this journey was absurdly perilous.
The Foreign Office does not believe that the troubled South American nation should be on anyone’s itinerary. “Venezuela has one of the highest murder rates in the world,” it warns. “Armed robbery, mugging, carjacking and burglary are all very common and often accompanied by extreme violence.”
The US State Department adds to the impression that no one in their right mind would consider a visit: “Do not travel to or remain in Venezuela due to the high risk of wrongful detention, torture in detention, terrorism, kidnapping, arbitrary enforcement of local laws, crime, civil unrest, and poor health infrastructure.”
Venezuela wasn’t always so dysfunctional. I was lucky enough to explore the country on a couple of visits in the 1990s and found it joyful and chaotic in equal measure.
The national airline, Viasa, was the standard way to reach anywhere in South America – from Brazil to Peru. Backpackers could break their journey at the capital, Caracas – and explore everywhere from the Andes to the world’s highest waterfall. There were regular flights on British Airways, too. Cabin crew and pilots loved these assignments, because they enjoyed the best part of a week on the Caribbean beach near Caracas airport.
Then Venezuela’s luck ran out. From political chaos, the left-wing populist Hugo Chavez emerged. The economy began to implode. BA abandoned Caracas in 2005. After Chavez died of cancer in 2013, his successor was the current incumbent: Nicolas Maduro. The president’s stranglehold on the country continued after a rigged election last year. But that wasn’t going to stop Palin becoming our man in Caracas and beyond, with a TV crew in attendance.
“There are very real risks in visiting a dystopian paradise,” he says in episode one – and proceeds to be detained by the intelligence service in episode two. His comedy roots come to the rescue, when the men with rifles and body armour who were guarding the team discover an old Monty Python episode on YouTube.
“As they watch the Fish Slapping Dance I sort of know that, whatever else happens, we shan’t be spending the night in jail.”
I look forward to the final episode, to be screened on Tuesday. But that will not be Palin’s finale. “I will keep doing this as long as people want me to do it,” he told me. “It’s just the magic of travel.”
So what keeps him going? “Love of the job. Love of curiosity. Love of the world. The extraordinary good fortune I have to be able to go to travel to almost anywhere in the world and persuade someone to pay for me to go there.
“I have to pinch myself that I can still do this. So much in this film is just jaw-dropping. It makes you feel brighter, sharper, mentally and physically much more alert.
“And it’s going to the source. That’s the thing. To go there and see these places yourself is an enormous satisfaction and I shall carry on until the triple-lock pension tempts me.”
Could Venezuela be turning a corner? As I reported in June, tour groups are resuming, albeit in small numbers. But I won’t be returning for a while.
We fearful travellers are fortunate indeed that a great documentary-maker is prepared to take us into the unknown, and introduce us to the people and the wonders. Long may Palin continue.
The third and final episode of Michael Palin in Venezuela screens on Channel 5 on Tuesday 30 September at 9pm. The first two episodes are available online. The book of the series is published by Hutchinson Heinemann, price £20.
