For less than two minutes on live television, Chávez transformed himself from an unknown colonel into the most important political figure in Venezuela.

In this episode, we tell the story of the coup that changed Venezuela forever: the chaos of that night, the soldiers who followed Chávez, and the country that made his rise possible.

Welcome to The Guacamaya—the podcast about Venezuela, power, and the long history that led to the crisis we see today.

In this initial episode, I explain what this podcast is, why I’m making it, and what you can expect in the episodes to come. We’ll go beyond headlines to understand how Venezuela changed, how authoritarianism took hold, and why its story matters far beyond its borders.

Because to understand Venezuela today, we have to understand how we got here.