Full.Circle.With.Michael.Palin.09.Peru+Colombia
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00:00I'm going to play a little bit of this song, and then I'm going to play a little bit of this song, and then I'm going to play a little bit of this song, and then I'm going to play a little bit of this song, and then I'm going to play a little bit of this song, and then I'm going to play a little bit of this song, and then I'm going to play a little bit of this song, and then I'm going to play a little bit of this song, and then I'm going to play a little bit of this song, and then I'm going to play a little bit of this song, and then I'm going to play a little bit of this song, and then I'm going to play a little bit of this song, and then I'm going to play a little bit of this song, and then I'm going to play a little bit of this song, and then I'm going to play a little bit of this song, and then I'm going to play a little bit of this song, and
00:30then I'm going to play a little bit of this song, and then I'm going to play a little bit
00:59and we have nearly a week of river travel ahead of us.
01:05Our guide, Barry Walker, can barely take the binoculars from his eyes.
01:09If you're a bird spotter like Barry,
01:11then Peru, with 2,000 species, is a land of opportunity.
01:20But the forest is attracting attention for more than its natural beauty,
01:24as I'm soon to find out.
01:26So, here we are on the Camaseo, Michael.
01:29It's the Camaseo River.
01:31And see over here, here's one of the old oil exploration centres.
01:37Abandoned now, of course, but...
01:39First piece of modern equipment I've seen on this stretch of the river for a long while.
01:44Looks like a painted palm tree.
01:46Badly painted palm tree.
01:48What is the significance of that, then?
01:50Was the drilling abandoned here?
01:52Well, they've done the exploration.
01:54They've got some capped wells in here.
01:57So, for the last few years, everything's been abandoned around here,
02:02but very soon the crews are going to come in and actually start getting the gas out.
02:08Has the exploration damaged the environment much yet, or is that going to happen in the future?
02:13We'll find out. Just around the corner here, there's a settlement,
02:16which I think we'll call in at, and that'll give us a real idea
02:19of how much influence the exploration people have had.
02:22I'm sure that when they start getting it out,
02:25it remains to be seen whether we're negative or not.
02:32We pull in at a Machigenga Indian village.
02:37There is a definite protocol for visiting.
02:40We must first find the headman and ask his permission.
02:46The village is being swept for the feast of St John the Baptist.
02:49Missionaries must have come through here, as well as oil men.
02:54Has he encountered many foreigners like this,
02:56just coming out of the blue up the river?
02:59Well, no, he's quite surprised to see us,
03:01and initially I think he thought we were the advance party of the petrol people
03:06who donated, when they left, these sheets of corrugated iron.
03:10He was saying that it's much better using that than it is making the thatch.
03:14You see the old thatch building here, and it's a lot of work to put it together.
03:19The headman has another role today,
03:22as referee in an inter-village soccer match.
03:30The whole of South America is mad about football,
03:33and the Amazon jungle is no exception.
03:38The headman has a job to do,
03:40and he has a job to do, and he has a job to do.
03:43The whole of South America is mad about football,
03:45and the Amazon jungle is no exception.
03:48The match is one of the feast day attractions.
03:52Oh! Nice try.
03:57A man with no boots on.
04:02The football boots seem rather unevenly distributed,
04:04but it makes for some interesting tackles.
04:14In the next match, between the local women,
04:17there's not a football boot to be seen,
04:19and the game's a lot more exciting.
04:35Children here grow up hoping that one day they'll be as good as their mothers.
04:40Half-time refreshment is a bowl of masato,
04:43a festive tipple made from the fermented juice of the yucca plant.
04:49It's a bit like giving Manchester United martinis.
04:54I decide a drugs test is in order.
04:57Yeah, and how's it made? They ferment it?
05:00Well, it depends. I'm not quite sure how they're making it here,
05:04but in many communities, it's the job of the women to make it.
05:08It's the job of the women to chew it and spit it into a pot,
05:11and the enzymes from their saliva starts the fermentation process.
05:15But in more contact places where they have access to sugar,
05:19they prefer to use sugar these days.
05:21Do they have sugar here? I'm not sure.
05:25Doesn't look like it.
05:29Cheers. I'm game for anything.
05:31It's lovely, isn't it?
05:39Hint of dry, sort of slight raspberry-ish.
05:42Sort of like mildly alcoholic raspberry yoghurt or something.
05:47I think that's sort of 96th saliva.
05:52At the festive meal, the families gather round,
05:55grace is spoken, and they tuck into the day's delicacy,
05:58tapir meat wrapped in banana leaves.
06:09CHATTER
06:16The presence of plastic bowls, containers and T-shirts
06:20show the village is modernising.
06:22The old ways are looking increasingly out of place.
06:32It's time for us to leave the party,
06:34get back to the river and find a camp for the night.
06:39MUSIC
06:46The morning dip looks idyllic but could be dangerous.
06:50If you pee in the river, there's apparently a small fish with barbed teeth
06:54which latches onto the urine stream and swims up your penis.
06:58Give me a piranha any day.
07:08The tropical rainforest is one of the richest natural environments in the world
07:12but, as I find out, it doesn't take kindly to intruders.
07:17I've got the machete. Do you want the traditional machete?
07:20I don't think so. I think we can get through.
07:22It's just over to where the trail widens out down here.
07:25People still use machetes, or is it just in movies?
07:28People do when they're cutting trail
07:30but when you're in known territory, they're not really necessary,
07:34although it might be on this little bit.
07:36Here, lend it to me a second.
07:43Thanks.
07:51Whoa!
07:56Here we go. The trail widens here.
07:58Ah, right. Here we go.
08:00Barry is a man with a purpose.
08:02He's here to find rare and exotic birds.
08:05I think I'm a bit of an embarrassment.
08:07Looks like...
08:10I made a mistake. I just rested my hand on a tree
08:14and there must be an ant trail going up.
08:25I think I more like it.
08:27This is a good primary forest here.
08:29This is very good indeed.
08:32What can you hear? What's that one making here?
08:35Oh, that's the plain-winged ant shrike.
08:38That lives in the sub-canopy.
08:40It's quite vocal at dawn and dusk.
08:43Yeah.
08:50White-bred ant birds.
08:52There's a few other callers, but they're not...
08:56I think we should drive further down the trail.
08:59Don't touch any trees.
09:03Let's see if we can get through here.
09:07The trouble with such a rich and fertile environment
09:10is that you can't actually see anything.
09:14The birds, I presume, have the same problem.
09:16They stay way above us where they can fly around
09:19without banging into trees all the time.
09:33After a while, one day becomes much like any other.
09:37The forest seems endless.
09:39The climate degenerates hot and uncomfortable.
10:03It's six days before we reach a settlement.
10:07Is this it?
10:08This is it.
10:09Sir Power.
10:10Sir Power.
10:12Civilisation.
10:13Civilisation. Lots of boats.
10:15I'm sure about it.
10:16I bet you can get beer here.
10:18Cold beer, maybe.
10:19Maybe. Maybe there's a fridge, yeah.
10:2190-degree beers we've been drinking.
10:23The biggest place we've seen for a while.
10:25Under canvas, I think.
10:32Sir Power fits the description by the Amazon explorer,
10:35Colonel Fawcett, of somewhere that looks a dump on the way in
10:39and a metropolis on the way out.
10:44It's a bit of a bit of a mess.
10:46The road is long, it's not very easy to get around,
10:49there's no place to stop,
10:50and there are no cars to be seen.
10:52It's a place of convivial and infectious idleness, but it does have an airstrip and
11:11there are no queues at the terminal.
11:18A Russian-built cargo plane puts down here every now and then with military and civilian
11:23supplies for this jungle outpost.
11:25It could be our way out.
11:41As refuelling begins, we look around for an airline official to talk to.
11:49Barry finds the co-pilot who bears a passing resemblance to a certain film star.
11:54He seems to have a grip on things.
12:00He promises to squeeze everyone in so long as we don't mind sitting on the cargo.
12:05After a week on the river, we'll sit on anything.
12:07Barry.
12:08That's it.
12:09Time to go.
12:10Thanks ever so much.
12:11Yes, I'll see you...
12:12Great times.
12:13Memorable days.
12:14From Cusco onwards and London.
12:15Come to my location.
12:16Have a great trip.
12:17Have a great trip.
12:18It's been a pleasure.
12:35We fly north over a vast, largely unbroken swathe of forest.
12:51It's a 600-mile journey that would have taken 10 days by boat.
12:55Our destination is Iquitos, capital of the Peruvian jungle.
13:02By now, the Urubamba has become the Amazon.
13:05It's the dry season and the world's greatest river is low,
13:09scarcely reaching the bank on which the city is built.
13:12For a place entirely surrounded by jungle and with no road communication with the rest
13:18of Peru, Iquitos is surprisingly stylish.
13:26It owes most of its faded charm to the rubber boom of the 1880s.
13:35The new houses of the rubber barons showed old-world taste.
13:45Iquitos is two towns in one.
13:48The Europeans live up on the hill and the Indians down by the river
13:52in a shanty town called Belen, short for Bethlehem.
13:56It's a great street-vending city in the world.
14:02We have a good market here, you know.
14:04That's rather nice, isn't it?
14:07This is a bandstand that was brought from France in the early 1900s.
14:14My companion, Jorge, comes from uptown Iquitos but clearly loves the bustle of Belen.
14:20It doesn't always look like this.
14:23When it floods, how much of this is going to be underwater?
14:27Where we're walking now?
14:28Somewhere like about two metres.
14:29Above our heads?
14:30Yeah, about here.
14:31And the big boats, like the colectivos, also come directly over to the plaza.
14:37This is what we call the Peruvian Venice.
14:39You see the canoes here and there, you know, all the time.
14:44Plenty of things for sale here, and the shops and stores are full.
14:48What about the services here?
14:50I mean, does the town provide sanitation or electricity or...?
14:54Oh, yes.
14:56The city provides electricity, as you can see here, the wiring.
14:59They also have potable water, but there is no sewage system here yet.
15:05Everything is right down onto the floor, as you can see on the other side, too.
15:08You see all these little houses there?
15:09Yeah, there's a lot of rubbish just standing.
15:11It must be bad for disease.
15:14We have here a very high percent of infant mortality, you know,
15:17somewhere like...anywhere like 18% to 20% infant mortality in the first five years,
15:22caused mostly by parasites.
15:29This is one of the ways they make the conditions tolerable.
15:32A do-it-yourself distillery makes aguardiente, sugar cane spirit.
15:40The city council wants to move people out of here,
15:44but the locals refuse to go.
15:46They like their shops and their market,
15:48and I have to admit, there are things here you'd never find in Safeway.
15:51This isn't...fish is the...
15:53That's when the river lowers, you find...
15:55You see catfishes here, piranhas, vicious piranhas here.
15:58That's a piranha. Yeah, look at the teeth.
16:00These teeth here are sharp as a razor blade.
16:03The Indians in the Amazon, they use the jaws of the piranha fish
16:06for sharpening their darts, you know, to shoot the animals with a blowgun.
16:11A lady called Julia is a one-woman cigarette factory.
16:15She rolls about 3,000 pieces of this tobacco here.
16:183,000 pieces a day? Yes, a day. A day?
16:21Yeah, and each roll has 100 pieces. Yeah.
16:23And it costs about four soles.
16:25Wonderful tobacco shops. Yeah.
16:27Can you buy these elsewhere in the city, or do you have to come here?
16:30No, you have to come here, also to the other place in the market,
16:33you know, you can buy units, you know.
16:35Yeah. They're strong?
16:37Very strong. You want to try?
16:40If I don't smoke, I'll probably blow my head off, one of these.
16:43Well, you can try. You can try. You'll like it, you know.
16:46No, you're late.
16:48You've got to smoke a little.
16:50Yeah.
16:52The future shaman of the Amazon.
16:54God, it's just... Oh, wow.
16:56It's very, very strong. Very bitter.
16:58The closest comparison would be with the gitanes from France.
17:04Bless you all.
17:07You have to walk quite a ways to get here.
17:09Quite a way in the dry season to get to find the river.
17:11Man, it takes...
17:13It's almost about a kilometre and a half before we get here.
17:15Is it, down that street? Yeah.
17:17This is the tributary of the Amazon, called Itaya.
17:19Yeah.
17:21Now it's very low, but yet it gets much lower, too.
17:24It gets lower than this?
17:26Yes, but this is one of the main entrances to the city.
17:29River transport remains basic.
17:31Goods are carried on backs
17:33and passengers squeeze on and off public ferries called colectivos.
17:38Though you can splash out on a water taxi.
17:43The rise and fall of the river each season
17:45does not encourage an air of permanence.
17:53Ten years ago, Frenchman Didier Lacasse
17:55came to the rainforest
17:57to research the healing properties of jungle plants.
18:04He stayed, set up a medicinal garden
18:08and has become a shaman, a traditional healer.
18:11A leaf from this bush here. Yeah.
18:14He uses the leaves of many plants,
18:16but the most effective of all his potions
18:19is the root of the ayahuasca,
18:21which is pounded into a paste.
18:24It's then boiled up into a powerful brew.
18:27Is it important for the healing
18:30that there is a hallucinogenic experience?
18:33Yes, it's very important.
18:35It gives a vision, it helps you to see,
18:38and when you see, you have the power to heal, basically.
18:42The seeing is the basis for healing.
18:46Didier's herbal surgery has many elements of religious ritual.
18:50He is the high priest.
18:52The ayahuasca is the sacrament.
19:05Despite the intensity of the experience,
19:08Didier has allowed us to film what goes on.
19:11Now he's drunk the ayahuasca.
19:13I ask him how long he'll feel able to answer my questions.
19:18Five minutes, ten minutes?
19:21You will be hallucinating,
19:23so presumably you will be seeing things that we can't see.
19:27Yes.
19:28Can you control that?
19:30You have them in their place
19:33and you're aware of the situation here at the same time.
19:37There is a certain amount of control, obviously.
19:43It's the skill of the shaman to be able to control
19:47this flow of energy, of hallucination,
19:51that would turn someone else crazy, probably.
19:55So we learn how to control that craziness, if you can say.
20:01Didier's style may be unfamiliar,
20:03but the powerful properties of the plants he's using are not in dispute.
20:07The rainforest is alive with drug companies looking for the secrets.
20:11But Didier prefers to treat and cure local people.
20:20Eventually, it's time for each patient to come forward for a consultation.
20:31The consultation is like a séance,
20:34in which the shaman uses his newfound insight
20:37to sense what is wrong with the person before him.
20:41The shaman is now ready to begin his treatment.
20:45He's going to use his newfound insight
20:48to sense what is wrong with the person before him.
21:11Then he asks for me to come forward.
21:33The chanting sets up a pleasant aura of spiritual relaxation.
21:38I feel comfortably out of place,
21:41as an Amazon Indian might at choral evensong.
21:53Well, let's say this is a song
21:56that you can carry with you
21:59along your many journeys that you will be taking.
22:03So it's for a good night,
22:07Didier administers a blessing,
22:09wishing me good luck on my journey,
22:11and the hope that when I meet people,
22:13they will always be good friends.
22:18This seems the right note on which to leave.
22:29The El Arca, a British-built riverboat,
22:32first sailed the Amazon in 1882.
22:35Today she's taking us out of Iquitos.
22:41She makes a weekly trip downriver
22:43and will drop us off at the Colombian border,
22:46now only 300 miles away.
22:51It's hot, it's cramped, but a childhood dream has come true.
22:55I'm on the Amazon.
23:05MUSIC PLAYS
23:29The people from a local village come out to meet us.
23:33One of them carries something I've rarely seen in the Amazon,
23:36a wild animal.
23:38What is this, Victor?
23:40This is an ocelot.
23:41An ocelot?
23:42Yeah.
23:43They don't grow too big, just this size, like this.
23:47Yeah?
23:48This is like two or three months old.
23:51Yeah.
23:52Can I hold him?
23:53Wait.
23:54Oh, yes.
23:56There we are.
23:58That's a first, isn't it?
24:02It's very, very sleepy.
24:04Oh, yes, I know.
24:06These species are in danger now.
24:09Yeah.
24:10So they are always chasing away because people are killing them.
24:14So they are always hiding.
24:16You know, people from Iquitos are coming down here
24:19looking for this skin, so they pay cheap.
24:22So they're hard to find now.
24:24Really.
24:25If you want to find, you have to go way into the jungle,
24:28walk hours, days together.
24:31What do you think happened to its parents?
24:34I think they already killed its parents.
24:37Yeah.
24:38What do you think will happen?
24:39You have to sell it.
24:40You have to sell it.
24:41$200.
24:42$200.
24:44I want an ocelot.
24:45I can't take it.
24:46I've got to go to Alaska.
24:47You'll die of cold there, won't you?
24:51Near the village is a lagoon,
24:53which seems as close to a Garden of Eden as you're likely to get.
24:58Everything from giant lily pads to giant spiders
25:01seems to flourish here in extraordinary profusion.
25:04And for once, you can actually see the birds.
25:28I'd like the Amazon to stay like this, just as I'd imagined it.
25:32But it's changing.
25:41Deforestation has reduced rainfall here by 120% in a generation.
25:46And if there's oil and gas to be found, more trees will have to go.
25:58The unceasing heat of the days
26:00and the hothouse stickiness of the nights saps the energy.
26:13Before the river lulls us into total lethargy, it's time to move on.
26:18After three weeks on the Peruvian river system,
26:22we've now reached a crossroads.
26:25The Amazon here has brought us to Peru on this side,
26:28Brazil over there and Colombia over there.
26:30We can't really carry on with the Amazon.
26:32It goes on 2,000 miles into the Atlantic.
26:34So we're going to head north through Colombia
26:37and back up towards the Pacific, wherever that is.
26:43There are only two ways out of the Colombian frontier town of Leticia,
26:48by river or by air.
26:50A river journey back to the Andes will take at least two weeks.
26:54We board a plane to take us across the equator to Bogota.
27:06We could be said to have swapped one jungle for another.
27:09Colombia's capital is the biggest city we've seen since Sydney.
27:13It has a reputation for being one of the most violent places on earth.
27:18To try and find out why, I go to see Tim Ross,
27:22a British journalist living and working here.
27:27This is Herman, the driver, who regularly takes us around.
27:29How do you do?
27:30This is the car we always use for the streets.
27:32It's the most unobtrusive.
27:34I'm told you do a great city tour.
27:36Well, the city is great. I think it's fun.
27:38But it's not a city exactly with tourism.
27:40That has ended here because of the problems and dangers.
27:43A city with one of the world's highest per capita homicide rates,
27:46like 100 murders per 100,000 population here,
27:48like 50 times the British murder rate.
27:51So it's not exaggerated.
27:53It's not exaggerated. This really is a dangerous city.
27:55Not just for murder and obvious major violence,
27:57but the petty things, the pickpocket, the snatch artist,
28:00the man who grabs a wristwatch, grabs your glasses off your face.
28:02Some people try to grab them off you.
28:04Anything they can sell for drugs, particularly.
28:06It's a city with a major, major drug problem,
28:08and that's what's crippling it.
28:09You've worked here a long time. You know the streets.
28:11Oh, yes. Herman's worked with me for a long time.
28:13I work the streets particularly.
28:14Usually on foot when it's a matter of filming,
28:16then we take fine old Dodge Dart.
28:17It takes us out there unobtrusively.
28:19It's great.
28:27The troubled streets to which Tim takes us
28:29are only six blocks from the presidential palace
28:32in the heart of downtown Bogota.
28:41His advice to us generally is to stay in the car.
28:44But this corner, he says, is safe enough.
28:49What's going on here?
28:53Tim is well-known round here.
28:55He's reported on these streets for 20 years.
28:57The death squads work this area consistently.
28:59They come around at night killing people.
29:01Now, this next street ahead here, they've actually put posters up.
29:04Who are the death squads? Who do they compose them?
29:06And what justice are they dealing out?
29:08I mean, justice, bullets in the head.
29:10But it's shopkeepers, off-duty policemen,
29:12by-the-door policemen, police officers.
29:14It's the police.
29:16It's shopkeepers, off-duty policemen,
29:18private security guards,
29:20people who have been mugged and are fed up with it,
29:22go back with a gun and kill street people.
29:24Vigilante.
29:25Vigilante squads, yeah.
29:26And do they kill people?
29:27They do, regularly.
29:28What, for a rape?
29:29Sometimes three, four, five, six cases a week.
29:31Two or three people a night killed.
29:37Armed police patrol neighbourhoods
29:39reduced by the drug trade to war zones.
29:42Tim knows many of the casualties.
29:46¿Qué fue? ¿Chuzada?
29:47Puñalada.
29:48It was a knife stab.
29:50They had to open it up to stitch him up inside.
29:52Wow.
29:53Fue profundo y fuerte.
29:55¿No?
29:56Corazón.
29:57It touched the heart.
29:58Yeah.
29:59Who did that and why?
30:00¿Quién lo hizo? ¿Por qué? ¿Qué pasó?
30:02Atacarte.
30:03Atacarte.
30:04Up on 7th and Main Street, just to rob him.
30:06But he's a street person, a drug abuser.
30:08I mean, mire ese boleto.
30:10There's the stains of drug use,
30:12marijuana and bazooka, that bright orange.
30:15You're lucky to survive that.
30:19Look at the scars.
30:22That's typical of the transvestite male prostitutes,
30:25the self-mutilation.
30:27He has AIDS.
30:29He has AIDS.
30:30He has to go back to the foundation,
30:31which deals with AIDS patients, yeah.
30:33Would he accept that?
30:34Yes.
30:35He wants to persuade his friend.
30:36The trouble is to persuade the friend to come in with him,
30:38so he doesn't want to leave him.
30:39Ah, yeah.
30:42Listo, pues.
30:43Okay, cuide de mucho.
30:47I've got a small bill, because...
30:51I've only got a small bill.
30:52That's all I have.
30:53¿Listo?
30:54Por almuerzo.
30:55Listo, chinazo.
30:56Cuide de la fundación.
30:57VenÃ, nos vemos ahÃ.
30:58Listo?
30:59Listo, pues.
31:00Allá nos vemos.
31:01Okay.
31:02Bye-bye.
31:03Bye.
31:09Back in the car, we head for the most notorious street of all,
31:13Caye Cartouchet, Bullitt Street.
31:15This is the area where they start recycling.
31:17You see all the recyclers here,
31:19grubby and grimy-crusted people all over these streets.
31:21One of the main activities is consuming drugs
31:23and obtaining the money with which to consume drugs.
31:26That is what their lives revolve around.
31:28It's the syndrome of getting high, coming down,
31:31finding a way to get high all over again.
31:33Around the clock, they sleep for as...
31:35Only the time never comes.
31:38Only the time necessary to recover enough
31:40to get on with another day of obtaining scrap and garbage,
31:44selling it, getting their drugs.
31:47I mean, the sort of people you're seeing around...
31:49See over there, this guy smoking there, right there in the cap?
31:52Yeah.
31:53And the people sitting next to him, they're all bazooka addicts.
31:56Sigue, sigue, sigue, sigue.
31:59Left-hand side here is stronger, but we can't really...
32:02If you can shoot across Herman's shoulder,
32:04you'll see these people there.
32:07No pares, Herman, no pares.
32:09Sigue suave, suave.
32:15SÃ, hombre, gracias.
32:18Man on the left just warning us,
32:20be careful around there or they'll rob you blind,
32:22they'll rob you of everything.
32:25If they see someone like this going through,
32:27do they see it as a target, something to rob?
32:29Yes, yes, yes.
32:31They were already yelling insults at us.
32:33Now they're throwing rocks.
32:36Now they've already started getting hostile, which is normal.
32:39They assume we're either death squad or police or something.
32:43Stabbings are frequent.
32:46They use broken bottles on each other's faces.
32:48A squabble can start for nothing.
32:50A squabble over, I don't know, 50 cents' worth of marijuana.
32:54Why are they so particularly bad in Colombia?
32:59It's a producing country.
33:01They produce drugs here.
33:02Wherever you get drug production, you get drug consumption.
33:04The United States is always blamed,
33:06the United States and Europe are blamed for the drug trafficking problem
33:08because of the demand there.
33:10What the Colombian government ignores generally or tries to downplay
33:13is the desperate level of substance abuse, drugs and alcohol.
33:16We've got a million alcoholics in a country of 36 million population.
33:19You've got an estimated 900,000 solvent abusers.
33:22That means sniffing gasoline, sniffing petrol, sniffing glue,
33:25all these legal things.
33:27It's a vast problem.
33:29Bazooka, cocaine base, nobody's done any proper survey work.
33:33The desolation is matched by political inertia.
33:36There is money, but those who have it are not prepared to share.
33:41Tim, I'm off to, or I've been recommended
33:44a rather eccentric restaurant called Margarita del Ocho.
33:48Do you want to come along?
33:50No, I'm not going there, I'm afraid.
33:52That's owned by the Ochoa family,
33:54who are renowned for their involvement in the Medellin cartel,
33:57drug traffickers, and I was warned against going there.
34:02I was warned against them some while ago
34:04when there was an attempt to kill me
34:06for another documentary I had done.
34:08I'm sorry, I was only going to buy you lunch.
34:10Thanks, but that's somewhere...
34:12Is it a serious drug connection to that?
34:14Serious drug connection. One member of that family.
34:17It's run by old Fabio Ochoa, the fat man, as he's known.
34:20One of his sons just got out of prison
34:22after getting a five-and-a-half-year sentence
34:24to the great distaste of the United States,
34:26where he would have done a double-life sentence.
34:28He's known as one of the biggest drug traffickers in the world.
34:31The sign says restaurant,
34:34but once inside, Don Fabio's priorities are clearly elsewhere.
34:38It's easier to get a horse than a waiter.
34:44The Spanish legacy seems to have created an obsession with horses.
34:48There are 700 on the premises.
34:51Children learn to ride before they can walk.
34:54Don Fabio's daughter sets an example.
34:58Then comes the moment I'm not sure I've been waiting for.
35:04Don Fabio has granted us a rare interview.
35:07I keep the questions friendly, partly for my own safety
35:10and partly because I'm overawed,
35:12as would anyone be interviewing Marlon Brando for the first time.
35:22The place, he says, symbolises a tradition,
35:26a hundred years of tradition for the Ochoa family.
35:29From it have come some of the finest horses in the world.
35:37I ask him if a demonstration of horsemanship is on the cards.
35:41He seems delighted to be asked,
35:43though it throws his bodyguards into something of a spin.
35:47They appear from all sides and rush to help him up,
35:50at least two to each limb.
35:56MAN SPEAKS IN SPANISH
36:12The raising of Don Fabio is not an elegant sight,
36:15but once he's in the saddle, he's a changed man.
36:26MAN SINGS IN SPANISH
36:41Lucky diners can sit back and watch the Paso Fino
36:44performed by a magnificently trained horse,
36:47whilst enjoying bits of other animals that were not so fortunate.
36:56MAN SINGS IN SPANISH
37:05This is a family business run by the family.
37:08Don Fabio's new wife flashes the sweet smile of success.
37:20They're opening similar establishments up and down the country.
37:23It's clearly big business.
37:25And it's legitimate.
37:35It's not recommended to drive through the mountains west of Bogota.
37:39There are currently believed to be a dozen armed guerrilla groups
37:42operating there, each seeking to control its own area of influence.
37:47One of the bitterest battles
37:49was fought for control of this mountain, Cosques.
37:533,500 people lost their lives in the fighting.
37:57But then the stakes were high.
38:00This is the Colombian Wild West,
38:02the largest, richest, most dangerous emerald mine in the world.
38:11Cosques Mountain is being slowly and painstakingly ripped apart
38:15in the search for emeralds.
38:18They call this Black Land,
38:20and a lot of hard work goes into finding very little.
38:24We're here at exactly the right moment.
38:29Unlike diamonds, which have to be fashioned,
38:32an emerald comes out of the ground bright green and fully formed.
38:37That's what it looks like, yeah?
38:39Yeah?
38:40That's good.
38:42Bueno.
38:43This, I'm told, is a good piece,
38:45worth around $10,000.
38:58Down at the bottom of the mountain,
39:00beyond the company fences, a stream runs out of the mine.
39:04This is where the cuaqueros, the scavengers,
39:06are allowed to sift through the crumbs from the rich man's table.
39:156,000 people live on the mountain.
39:18Only a third of them work for the mining company.
39:28In conditions of almost intolerable heat and discomfort,
39:32men, women and even children scour the black silt
39:36for a glimpse of something that might change their lives.
39:45Crowds cluster round the head of the stream
39:47like rescuers at the scene of a disaster.
39:51CROWD CHATTER
40:13The cuaqueros search largely in vain, but always in hope.
40:21CROWD CHATTER
40:26Surprisingly, I see no fights or arguments amongst them.
40:32Though these people may be desperately poor,
40:34they help each other out.
40:37Or maybe it just came on a good day.
40:46At the top of the mountain,
40:49the cuaqueros have their own shanty community
40:51with shops, bars, kitchens, cafes, brothels and banks.
41:07It's up here that the most important part of the whole process takes place,
41:11the buying and selling.
41:13Hundreds of emerald dealers in four-wheel drives
41:16grind up the mountain each morning.
41:22Those who've struck lucky bargain with the hard men from Bogotá.
41:40Experts.
41:43Trying to find out what to look for.
41:52Serious money is changing hands here.
41:55It's worth remembering that 50% of all the emeralds
41:58bought from scavengers on this remote mountaintop
42:01will be sold abroad as the last word in luxury.
42:13Right.
42:21I feel the pressure building up.
42:23Now they're asking me to put my money where my mouth is.
42:26$1,000.
42:28$10,000.
42:30$10,000.
42:34$10,000.
42:38American Express?
42:41Don't make me...
42:44I think it means that won't do nicely.
42:59Not all Colombia is a battle zone.
43:02The guerrillas and drug barons don't seem so interested
43:05in what Colombians call the zona cafetera, coffee country.
43:11I hitch a ride in one of the American Army jeeps they call willies.
43:16They use them to carry coffee beans
43:18from the plantations down to the markets
43:21and occasionally to help travellers down from the mountains to the sea.
43:26The coffee country around Armenia
43:28lies about 3,000 feet above sea level.
43:31It's lower and warmer than Bogotá,
43:34but positively chilly compared to the thick tropical heat
43:37of our next destination.
43:39Cartagena de Indias
43:41is one of the best-preserved colonial cities on the continent.
43:48The Spanish treasure fleets
43:50used to load up here on their way to Europe.
43:53These mighty walls were built to protect their cargo.
43:57Cathedrals and churches were built
43:59to give thanks to the Almighty for being on Spain's side.
44:04With wealth came a desire to run their own affairs
44:07and the first South American state independent of Spain
44:10was set up here by Simón BolÃvar, the Liberator, in 1811.
44:23Protected by its great sea walls,
44:25the houses of the old town haven't changed much in 300 years.
44:30It's quite a shock to find that it's like this because of neglect,
44:34because the developers could make more money
44:36out of building a new town nearby
44:38than out of messing about with the old.
44:45In the 19th century,
44:47the development of the old town
44:49led to the development of the new one.
44:51The new town was built
44:53to provide for the needs of the people.
44:55The new town was built
44:57to provide for the needs of the people.
45:01Much of the hard work of preservation
45:03has been done by enlightened individuals.
45:10Jacqui Bazille is from an old Cartagena family.
45:13She and her husband decided to eschew the comforts
45:16of a modern apartment and move back into the heart of the city.
45:22You had to sort of start from scratch, didn't you?
45:26Yes, you buy the facade
45:28and then inside it's an old crumbling house
45:31and you have to start from scratch.
45:34Why do you think they remained?
45:36Most cities have changed a lot and modern buildings have gone up.
45:39Did somebody deliberately stop Cartagena from changing?
45:43No, I think it was just we were lucky
45:46that the mayors and all the governmental people
45:49just didn't think about the old city.
45:52They wanted new places to be developed.
45:56So they saw this city like a church,
45:59like an old thing to be left there
46:02and then about 30 years ago only,
46:06the city started to be looked at.
46:10Nobody had looked at it before.
46:12As someone who's just passing through here for a few days,
46:15what would you recommend for me to do
46:17to get the sort of feel of Cartagena?
46:20Well, to start warming up.
46:23Maybe a chivator.
46:25Chivator, what's that?
46:27Which is a bus, a typical bus that we have in all Colombia.
46:30They run from south to the north
46:33and here they've become a place with music,
46:36drinks, where people from all over meet.
46:39So it'd be probably quite a good thing for inhabited Englishmen.
46:42No, for everyone.
46:44Colombians get together and afterwards they know what to do.
46:53One, two, three.
47:13How many do they have, just one bus or lots of buses?
47:16Lots, like ten.
47:18Ten buses?
47:19Yes.
47:20Do they get full?
47:22You can have one night, you can have ten of these incredibly noisy...
47:25Going around the city.
47:26Drunken parties going around the city.
47:28At the very end of the evening, what do they do?
47:30They dump you all on the side of the...
47:32By one o'clock you start having fun.
47:34What's the time?
47:35It's ten.
47:36Ten?
47:38Three hours to go.
47:39Three hours to go.
47:40Before I start to have fun, right.
47:41I just stay rather quiet.
47:42Anyone got a book today?
47:52MUSIC PLAYS
47:58Nine weeks and a day since setting foot on Cape Horn,
48:02we've reached the other end of South America.
48:08The last lap of my journey is in sight.
48:11That is, provided I survive tonight.
48:15MUSIC PLAYS
48:21MUSIC CONTINUES
48:51MUSIC FADES