A disillusioned writer follows her partner from Los Angeles into Venezuelaâs wilderness, expecting little more than an awkward holiday. Instead, she is pulled into the unknown: a country marked by political unrest, raw beauty, and quiet danger. From uneasy nights in a remote jungle villa to serpentine rivers, towering waterfalls, and the sudden loss of their guide, the journey moves steadily beyond travel and into a reckoning with what it means to move through unfamiliar places without control. Becoming Still reveals how travel can unravel us and restore us, and how stillness, even in the wildest places, can guide us home.
A disillusioned writer follows her partner from Los Angeles into Venezuelaâs wilderness, expecting little more than an awkward holiday. Instead, she is pulled into the unknown: a country marked by political unrest, raw beauty, and quiet danger. From uneasy nights in a remote jungle villa to serpentine rivers, towering waterfalls, and the sudden loss of their guide, the journey moves steadily beyond travel and into a reckoning with what it means to move through unfamiliar places without control. Becoming Still reveals how travel can unravel us and restore us, and how stillness, even in the wildest places, can guide us home.
âIâm not a freak,â Ricardo said to us, âbut Iâve been in this so long and Iâve seen so many strange things that my choice is to believe.â
It was 2011, and we were gathered around Ricardo on a boulder at the edge of a plateau, high above the vast expanse of Venezuelaâs Gran Sabana. The afternoon heat shimmered around us and in the distance, the clouds began to lift, unveiling the crests of KukenĂĄn and Roraimaâtwo of the oldest mountains on Earth, the timeless, flat-topped mesas of the Guiana Highlands known as tepuis. Behind us, the sun declined into the horizon. To our north were the great tepuis, to our west the Canaima National Park, and to our south the vast Amazonas. We were in the middle of nowhere, and it seemed as though time had stopped. As we listened in awe to Ricardoâs tales, I had no doubt that the Gran Sabana was a mystical land.
***
Only a week earlier, I was in Los Angeles, sitting with my laptop on the balcony of my seventeenth-floor apartment, staring out into a very different landscapeâthe lightly snow-capped San Bernardino Mountains. Directly below my balcony, heavy traffic drifted by on the 101. My days consisted of applying for writing jobs, entering contests, waiting for replies, and, between those tasks, writing. A few years ago, I had walked away from a promising career as a software engineer and taken up writing because I did not want to spend the rest of my life in front of a screen. I didnât know then that I would spend more hours in front of a computer than any engineer I knew, most of whom logged off when the workday was done. If I didnât check the market blog one morning, I feared I could lose the opportunity of a lifetime. Try as I would, I could not get a job as a full-time writer. As my depression deepened, my boyfriend, Rohan, and his best friend from middle school, Samir, put forth a proposal: Venezuela for Christmas.
The idea sounded ludicrous. Although as an avid traveler and travel writer I had recently added Angel Fallsâthe worldâs tallest waterfallâto my bucket list, the past year had been hectic. And from the little I knew about Venezuela, it was not only a dangerous and wild place where weâd have to rough it, but also one that was in the midst of a major political upheaval. I would have preferred a relaxing break on a Caribbean island.
I told my friends to count me out.
Samir was nearing the end of his medical studies in the Caribbean and was under pressure to marry an Indian girl his family had chosen. Meanwhile, he was in a relationship with Anne, his American girlfriend, and was keen to have one last adventure with her. A fervent traveler that he was, Samir had planned everything meticulously. In a Lonely Planet guide to Venezuela, he discovered a small, family-run tour company that piqued his interest. The proprietorsâtwo brothers named Luis and Ricardo, specialized in offering experiences that steered clear of conventional tourist paths. Samir contacted them with a request for an experience that was raw, immersive, and genuine. Together they designed a journey that resonated more with the spirit of the land than with the transient travelers themselves. However, Samir had missed one important detail in his planning: He couldnât tell his parents he was traveling with his American girlfriend. They didnât even know he had one. For a cover story, it was imperative for Rohan to go on this trip. And Rohan wasnât going to be the third wheel. So, before I knew it, I had been convinced into going.
I began to get reluctantly excited. I learned that Venezuela is one of the richest countries in the worldârich not only in its oil reserves and mineral wealth but also in culture, exemplified by its charming Andean villages. The landscape, too, is very diverse. The country boasts the longest coastline in the Caribbean, the largest lake in South AmericaâLake Maracaibo, the mysterious unspoiled jungles of Canaima, magnificent panoramas of the Gran Sabana, snow-capped mountains, and, of course, my bucket list item, Angel Falls. The plan was to travel through Caracas and Angel Falls together. After that, Samir and Anne would go on an eight-day trek to reach the top of Mount Roraima, while Rohan and I would visit the Gran Sabana.
A month later, Rohan and I stood in the arrival halls of the Caracas Airport with our cameras, a bunch of lenses, and our heavy backpacks with sleeping bags tied to the sides, staring at a wide blue board that read Bienvenido a Venezuela. Welcome to Venezuela. The airport buzzed with voices and sunlight poured through the glass walls, doing little to hint at the unexpected challenges that were about to unravel. It all felt bright and ordinary. We had come for a short trip, some photographs, and a bit of adventure, but Venezuela had its own plans.
Becoming Still: A Tale of Inner Reckoning and Wild Places by Sej Saraiya is a travelerâs tale of a journey to unexpected places of beauty and understanding of both the physical and emotional experiences. When the author agrees to join her boyfriend on an off-the-beaten-path trip into the backcountry of Venezuela, she not only discovers a beautiful, less-visited region of the world but new insights about herself and her partner. Her story is engaging and points out the realities of how most tourists experience new places, people, and cultures only superficially.
Stories of traveling to remote and exotic locations and what is encountered there are often the only way many people will ever experience that place for themselves, but this vicarious travel can still be satisfying and inspirational; BEING STILL certainly fulfilled this for me. The authorâs writing style, often confessional, often self-deprecating, is warm, easy to read, revealing, and personable. She deftly conveys the feelings she had while traveling, deficit in the local language, through unknown places, perfectly telegraphing her emotions and reactions â unease, alarm, fear, disappointment, and joy â as she and her companions encountered wild terrain and uncertain local conditions without a trusted and reliable safety net.
Saraiya relates her discoveries of the beauty and added value inherent in âslow travel,â the practice of immersing oneself in the life, food, and culture of a new location, choosing fewer destinations in favor of a deeper connection with a place and its people. So many travelers, unable to pick up and go for many reasons, want to make the most of their limited vacation days and dollars, so quick, superficial tourism has become the norm for âonce in a lifetimeâ trips.
I thoroughly enjoyed the authorâs descriptions of the sights and included photographs; however, the pictures in my ebook edition were often dark and difficult to see clearly. Many of the sites she visited were remote and required rough transportation with few amenities on arrival, and I empathized with her unease at the more loosey-goosey travel arrangements and accommodations. Her overnight stay at the home in the remote Venezuelan countryside and the odd family dynamics of the host were tense and riveting reading, as were many other incidents on this same trip. I admire the authorâs ability to get beyond the strangeness and fear of the unknown and bond with her fellow travelers, hosts, and local people. My only complaint is that the story ended too soon; I wanted more.
I recommend BECOMING STILL to readers of travel stories, especially those who wish to get out on their own, see new places, and meet new people.