The surface of Lake Titicaca covers 5,000 square miles of the Andes.
It's the highest lake in the world.
The lakeside town of Copacabana
is a half-day's travel north from the Bolivian capital La Paz.
The Spanish colonised Bolivia 450 years ago.
As important as the wealth they took away was the religion they brought with them.
Copacabana is a very important place for Catholics.
Miracles happened here. There's a shrine to the Virgin in the cathedral back there.
Also you're expected to do a pilgrimage if you come here
in honour of the Virgin... past the stations of the cross -
this is number three - up to the top of the hill, Cerro Calvario.
And as I started at just over 12,500 feet, it's a test of faith, I tell you.
A test of other things, too. My body is not happy living life at two and a half miles above the sea.
At this height, oxygen is less easy to absorb.
Every step I take requires 40% more effort than at sea level.
The scenery, mind you, is at least 40% more spectacular.
My efforts are rewarded by a personal audience with the Dark Virgin of the Lake.
Her miracles brought fame and fortune to Copacabana.
The Spanish Catholics were not the first to sense the spiritual qualities of this place.
Before them, the Incas believed that the sun god, creator of the world,
sprang from the bottomless blue waters of Lake Titicaca.
The lake straddles the two countries of Bolivia and Peru,
and at San Pablo Tiquina, its narrowest point, there's a ferry service.
Vehicles go on one boat and foot passengers on another,
both under the beady eye of Don Eduardo Avaroa,
whose likeness on the quayside must qualify as one of the world's least impressive statues.
It's a gesture of defiance rather than glory,
for in the war that it commemorates, Bolivia lost its entire Pacific coastline to Chile.
People here are less Spanish than the Chileans.
More than half the Bolivian population is pure Indian.
0n the other side of the water lies the nerve centre of the Bolivian navy.
Undaunted by losing their coastline,
they maintain a strong presence on the Bolivian half of the lake.
This is the Portsmouth of Lake Titicaca, and some of the fleet, at least, is in.
These patrol boats may only be needed to keep an eye on smugglers,
but they're symbols of Bolivian hopes that one day their Pacific property will be returned
and Lake Titicaca will no longer be their only coastline.
The boats that have plied the lake for most of its human history were made from totora reeds.
They still grow in thick, lush beds around the shoreline.
The skills of the Indian boat-builders are kept alive by the Esteban family.
The head of the family, Paulino Esteban, helped the Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl
construct two reed boats which they sailed across the Atlantic.
- This is from the reed, as well? - Si.
The same reed that you make the boat from, you make the twine from.
(PAULINO SPEAKS SPANISH)
That's the before and after, yeah.
Years of experience. Yeah, that's beautiful.
Strong enough to sail the Atlantic.
Normal ships would have rivets, but they just have this twine which holds the whole lot together.
- OK? OK? - Yeah.
Oh, we're going to test it? Yeah.
I ask if I can test-drive one of his boats.
We don't have time to cross the Atlantic, but Paulino offers me a trip round the bay.
Here? In about the middle? It's very precarious.
- Bueno? - Si, si.
Peru!
It's like being on a great water-borne sofa.
A boat like this costs $40 - on the lake, no extras.
It doesn't waste fuel, costs nothing to run, and is made from constantly renewable resources,
which I suppose explains why they're dying out.
Unfortunately, there are no boats to take us across to Peru.
We shall have to drive to the frontier at Kasani.
Then we shall run along the Peruvian shore to catch a train from Juliaca
which will carry us over the Andes to Cuzco.
A dirt road gives way to a cobbled road, which vibrates us gently through the village of Kasani
towards our 14th international border.
This may look like a farmyard entrance, but this chain separates Bolivia from the world
or, in this case, from Peru.
In all my travelling, it's the least daunting border I've come across.
But still, chain or no chain, formalities have to be gone through.
Because we're the only people crossing out of Bolivia,
they're delighted to see us and make sure the formalities last as long as possible.
Four hours later, there's nothing more they can think of to keep us here.
0ur chain is removed and we're released into Peru.
0ur first stop in Peru is Puno,
home to three of the original Lake Titicaca steamboats.
0ne is being restored by an Englishwoman called Meriel Larkin.
Her family were once Clydeside shipbuilders and it's still in the blood.
She spends a few months in Peru every year and lives on board.
Hello?
- Hello? Anyone aboard? - Hello!
- Hello, Meriel. Michael Palin. - Very nice to see you. Welcome aboard.
- Thought you might be out on the lake. - Another year and we'll be there.
How did the ship originally get here to Lake Titicaca?
It was meant for promoting the area, bringing out the local produce,
and they brought it in pieces and each piece had to be designed so a mule could carry it.
The maximum a mule could carry was about 400 pounds.
Having built it and packed it in packing cases, they brought it to Arica.
- So that was how many pieces? - 2,766.
- All these bits... Very heavy, solid cast iron. - All iron.
- Went over the Andes. How long did that take? - It took about six years.
- Can I have a look around? - Yes, please do. Come up to the bridge.
Meriel hopes that the Yavari, named after a local river,
will soon be restored to her former glories, which were considerable.
I want to show you... This is the original binnacle.
- Brass. - Lovely.
The wheel is in the museum in Arequipa. We hope to get that back.
And this is the original chain steering.
This chain led out through that hole. The other one went out through there and back to the stern.
- So the wheel had direct... - Pretty heavy wheel to turn.
- Heavy wheel. - To move that chain each time.
- (MICHAEL) Shall we go below? - Yes, let's go below.
The machinery is a little more sophisticated in the engine room and only 80 years old.
- Brass and copper fittings. - This was installed in 1913.
It's a Swedish Bolinder four-cylinder.
- Is it a steam engine? - Semi-diesel, actually.
It replaced the steam engine that the ship was equipped with originally.
That proved so unsatisfactory... It was run on dried llama droppings, the only fuel available.
When the crew reached any little port,
they had to hurry ashore with their bags and fill them up and fill up the cargo hold.
- They had to extend the hull... - With llama droppings. Sorry "yama" droppings.
- "Yama" droppings. - Do they still use them in the fires?
For fuel? Yes, very much so.
Let me take you to the aft deck. The hull - we're very lucky.
Being iron, because of the altitude and because of the lake being freshwater,
the corrosion is absolutely minimal, so it's in really good condition.
0n behalf of all those mules that carried it here,
I can only hope Meriel gets the support she needs to relaunch the Yavari.
(TRAIN WHISTLE BLARES)
The next day we have considerable trouble launching ourselves out of Juliaca station.
0ur Cuzco-bound train seems to have been waiting for a long time. Rumours abound.
Could be a problem. We've heard there's... not a strike, but a go-slow.
If there's a strike, we can all stay at home and go to bed, but it's gonna be a go-slow.
Um... the journey's 12 hours, anyway, so we'll see what happens.
It could be a lot longer than that. More information as it arrives.
Despite the sunshine, it's midwinter in the southern hemisphere and bitterly cold.
Men wear modern jackets, but the women keep warm with traditional shawls and layers of skirts.
An air of lethargy hangs over Juliaca station. Nobody's going anywhere.
Then, suddenly, the stillness is broken by an orgy of shunting.
(HIGH-PITCHED WHISTLE)
Hard to tell what's go-slow and what isn't. In this situation, it's do as the Romans do.
Climb aboard and hope that the sheer weight of demand will persuade them to run the train.
And it works. A few hours late maybe, but we're on our way to Cuzco.
(TRAIN WHISTLE BLARES)
Armed guards are a reminder that terrorism is still taken seriously in Peru.
Shining Path guerrillas were once active here.
You're never far from a market in South America,
and where there's a market, there's usually a fiesta.
(TRAIN WHISTLE BLARES)
Around lunchtime, we pull into a station and not a moment too soon.
This isn't the kind of train with a restaurant. For a hot meal, it has to be platform food.
There doesn't seem to be much around.
I've been up since five o'clock. I need more than a stuffed llama.
Feeling a bit hungry now.
Asado?
Ugh!
Oh, a little tasting first.
Perfectly done. Mm.
Very good. Roast lamb. Can I have a little bit?
Don't worry about them, it's me...
Roast lamb in brown paper. Oh, thank you! Sunday lunch. How much? Cuánto es?
- Cuánto es? - Cinco.
Cinco. There we go. Don't bother them. Hey! Ooh, that's...
Very expensive, that!
Grabbed by a parrot!
He's never been assaulted like that before. There's five. And leave him alone, please.
We are climbing steadily now towards the top of the pass - over 14,000 feet above sea level.
The dry grassland may look unexceptional,
but, geographically, this is one of the key points in all of South America.
In the marshland here, just at the watershed of the Andes,
is where the Urubamba River rises which becomes the Amazon.
It's the river we'll be following for the next three weeks right through Peru
and, hopefully, to the borders of Colombia where it is the Amazon River.
This is where the big rivers begin.
We're now in the land once dominated by the Incas.
They were the last of a series of civilisations
that flourished in these mountains hidden from the world
until the first Europeans found their way here 450 years ago.
]Cuzco - founded by the Incas who called it "the navel of the earth".
They made it the centre of their sun worship
until the Spanish conquerors arrived and stamped their own mark on the city.
We've arrived in the middle of the Catholic festival of Corpus Christi.
(BRASS BAND PLAYS)
The Spaniards are caricatured as having wide hats, long moustaches,
big noses and drinking problems.
The fact remains that fewer than 200 Spaniards overthrew the Inca empire.
Now a largely Indian population parades the statues of European saints.
This is the most important Catholic celebration in Cuzco, which involves the whole population.
- Yeah. - Everybody participates in the celebration.
- They're each bringing their own statues? - Each bring their own statues.
They are taken through the main square and then taken to the church,
and then brought out in a procession around the square.
- (MICHAEL) They look incredibly heavy. - They are.
Some of them could weigh almost one ton.
- (MICHAEL) What are they made of? - They are made of wood and plaster.
But the support is silver.
- (MICHAEL) Right. A silver base. - Yes.
- Who carries them? - People from the different parishes.
People who stay close to the church.
They think that by participating in this they are going to be blessed and going to be protected.
(MICHAEL) Are they vying with each other? The band seem to be playing...
(MAN) They seem to follow the rhythm of the band.
- (MICHAEL) Extraordinary thing to see. - People fight to be one of those.
(MICHAEL) Just then we were being pushed out of the way. It's a very serious business.
Ironically, much of the weight that makes these effigies so painful to carry
is made up of the precious metals that the Spanish once looted from the city.
When the saints have been paraded to all the churches,
my companion Wilbur and I have the square more or less to ourselves.
Quite out of breath after all that. That was a great stroke of fortune.
But now we can see the square cleared a bit. What does the square sort of mean?
- Was this originally Inca? - Yes.
- This was the former square of the Incan city. - Yeah.
- And, you know, Cuzco was the capital. - Yeah.
So the palaces of the Incan rulers were arranged around this square.
What we've just seen, the Incas would've made their own ceremonies like that here.
Yes, something similar to what we have seen.
- Different religion. - Different religion.
The Spanish not only grafted their festivals onto existing ceremonies,
but built their churches on top of Inca temples.
The Inca walls have withstood all the great earthquakes to shake the city
and many of Cuzco's streets are still built on Inca foundations.
(CHURCH BELL RINGS)
Spanish colonial architecture is better preserved in Cuzco
than almost anywhere else in South America.
I'm leaving all this behind for the day and taking a taxi ride beyond the city
to the old Inca heartlands.
Granjas. Granjas?
- Muchas granjas aqui. - Si.
Ah, si. I've got my phrase book working. Granjas. Farms.
We're heading towards the Sacred Valley, a fertile buffer zone between Cuzco,
the mountains and the jungle beyond.
Watered by the Urubamba, fields produce 360 varieties of potatoes
and rich crops of maize and barley.
Farming here is not high tech - horses are still used for threshing,
though sheaves of barley have been successfully fitted with legs.
At the end of the valley, where the river disappears into ravines,
the Incas built granaries on the side of the mountains
where the grain would be kept cool, dry and safe.
They built a temple, too, and a system of terraces from which, in 1536,
the army of Manco Inca gave the Spaniards a rare bloody nose.
All this served an empire that lasted little more than a century.
Up a side valley, a road laid less than two years ago
leads to villages where the purest descendants of the Incas still live.
They raise llamas or "yamas", as I must learn to call them.
They live in stone-walled houses with thatched roofs.
They dress as they have done for hundreds of years and speak the language of the Incas.
This must have been how it was before the Spaniards came.
(DOGS BARKING)
The women here use modern dyes to enrich the colours,
though the method of spinning and weaving hasn't changed for centuries.
Things will change faster now the road is built.
Electricity has arrived and a new school is promised.
The outside world has found them out and for the people here,
the future could be different.
The Pacific coast of Peru is largely barren
and thick with cold sea mist at this time of year.
So we've chosen to go north by an inland route.
It will take us up the Amazon River system to the jungle city of lquitos
and from there, by boat, to Colombia's borders.
Then we'll cross the Andes one last time to reach the north coast of South America.
We're going to need a lot of help.
I've been given the address of a pub in Cuzco run by an Englishman living in Peru.
In between pulling pints, Barry Walker runs a travel outfit,
and he's prepared to take us on.
What are we in for?
A lot of adventure. It's going to be a bit arduous, I think.
We've been in mountains up to now almost all the way up from Cape Horn.
I suppose we're going down to sea level?
We're going to slide over the east slope down through the cloud forest.
A major Amazon tributary, but it's very little travelled. Very few foreigners do the route.
- And what are conditions like? - Hot, humid, sticky, buggy.
- You know it well? - But beautiful.
Well, no. I've never been down that river before and I'm quite looking forward to it.
- It'll be a new experience for me. - I've been here before.
This is someone who's never been there. Well, cheers, anyway.
- Here's to it. We'll both learn something. - If the boat doesn't turn over, we'll make it.
0ur adventure begins - almost conventionally - on a train out of Cuzco bound for Quillabamba
a hundred miles north.
(TRAIN WHISTLE BLARES)
Not that any train in the Andes is ever conventional.
The line runs out of Cuzco in a series of zigzags,
for the sides of "the navel of the earth" are very steep.
The city itself lies at 11,000 feet and we have to climb another 1,000 feet just to get out of it.
0ur speed is so leisurely, local children have time to get on and off and work the coaches.
The city slips away and village life takes over.
(PERUVIAN MUSIC)
All human life is here, Barry, on this train.
Local train to Quillabamba - everyone uses it. It's the only means of transport on this stretch.
I wish they had smella-vision. There's a wonderful sort of odour of onions pervading the coach.
Why's that? Is it a local speciality?
We've come through the onion town, Antor, which is famous for the onions it produces.
- They're loaded on here to go down the line. - Most of them are up here.
- I think most of them are around our seats. - So we go on to Quillabamba?
Yep, end of the train line is Quillabamba. That's where we leave the train.
After that, we've got seven or eight hours on very rough roads to get to our boats.
You say that with a slight smile, Barry.
(BARRY) It's a rough road. It's a rough road.
(RHYTHMIC PERUVIAN MUSIC)
The railway runs alongside the Urubamba River, following its twisting course
through gorges that grow steeper and steeper.
70 miles from Cuzco, there rises above us one of the great cities of the world.
A city where no one lives.
This is the Inca stronghold of Machu Picchu,
hidden beneath the forest for hundreds of years until an American, Hiram Bingham,
stumbled across it in 1911.
- Incredible location. - Certainly is.
Why did they build up here? Extremely difficult to get everything up here.
One reason is because the sacred Urubamba River down here
does almost a complete loop right around the ruins here.
This promontory looks out over this astounding mountain scenery in the cloud forest.
What are we standing on now? Would these terraces have been used for growing food?
It's not really sure what was grown here.
It's presumed that the sacred foods were here. For example, maize for brewing sacred chicha.
Chicha being the corn alcoholic beverage of the Incas, which is still drunk today.
Take a look at this wall here. This is some of the finest stonework you can find.
If you look down the course of it, it's flared out at the bottom, which is an anti-seismic device.
Yeah. So obviously they live in an earthquake zone.
That's right. They were very conscious of it and all their buildings reflect it.
- What was this the wall of? - Behind here is what is called the "torreón".
It's the only round building in the complex, which was an astronomical observation centre.
Machu Picchu has a powerful presence,
a sense of mystery that makes the hairs stand up on your neck
as you walk amongst living quarters that seem so recently abandoned.
No one knows for sure what happened here, why the city was built
and why it was deserted so soon.
It's quite dizzying up here. This is the classic picture-postcard view.
- How much of what we can see is restored? - In fact, quite a lot.
When Bingham found it, many of the walls were tumbled down and they've been reconstructed.
- Did the Spaniards ever find it? - That's the most important thing about this site.
It's the only large Inca archaeological site known
that the Spanish, in fact, did not find.
The existence of the Intihuatana,
the ceremonial stone that measured the position of the sun,
is taken as proof that the Spaniards never came here.
Every other one they found in Peru, they destroyed.
The mountains that surround Machu Picchu are good at keeping secrets.
0nly the cloud on their summits indicates the rainforest that lies beyond.
The railway ended at Quillabamba. We're now on our way to Kiteni, where the road ends.
Alongside us, the Urubamba is wider and stronger.
As we drop down into the foothills of the Andes, the bare fields of the high plateau
are a fast-receding memory, and the heat is back.
At the end of a long day, we reach the end of the trail.
The grubby little settlement of Kiteni, where the main street is a patch of waste ground
and there's a whiff of sewage in the air.
Kiteni is the highest navigable point of the Urubamba.
From here, the river makes a sharp right turn and flows due north.
About 50 miles upstream, it passes out of the Andes and into the Amazon Basin,
but first we must negotiate rapids that run through a ravine known to the Indians
as the Pongo de Manaique.
We've watched the Urubamba growing from a muddy bog in a mountain field
to a river that will be our way home.
The hand-picked boatmen pack all we need to be self-sufficient.
For the next eight days, we will be eating, sleeping and tackling the white water together.
So is he taking our boat?
- (BARRY) Yes, he's driving us. - Two men per boat?
Two men per boat. One on the front indicating the tricky bits of the route.
Right, yeah.
(BARRY) Got the spare motors, I'm glad to see. One for each boat plus two spares, just in case.
- (MICHAEL) Spare outboards? - Yeah.
- Really? Where are they? - Under that green tarp there.
Nearly there, Barry. The water is only about 10 yards away now.
This is the most nervous part of the trip for me. I've read so many accounts of early explorers.
I'm a bit nervous, going down here, but the boatmen say it'll be OK.
- Well, I'm excited. I am excited! - So am I.
Closer and closer. I just wanna go.
Soon after ten in the morning on a grey, rain-beckoning day, my wish comes true.
We set out on what are for most of us completely uncharted waters.
Just to make me feel more nervous, Barry makes me don a life jacket.
It's very narrow.
Landslides come in here, so this is a bit... a bit dodgy here.
- Yeah. - Here we go!
Ohhh!
That's the side that's just come away.
Look at this! Whoa! Big wave!
Conditions on the river can change quickly from docile to lethal.
If there's too much water, boats can be swept out of control.
If there's too little, rocks and shoals close to the surface can flip us over.
(BARRY) Wow! We just missed a rock by the skin of our teeth there.
Whatever the state of the water, Gustavo looks reassuringly calm.
A tiger heron couldn't care less.
There seem to be a few more rapids than we were promised.
When I ask if we've reached the Pongo,
Gustavo smiles inscrutably and shakes his head.
Halfway through the day, we pass into the territory of the Machiguenga Indians.
They stand and watch us from villages built where the rainforest has been cleared.
I wave, but they don't wave back.
Maybe it's understandable - on tributaries higher up the river,
there are Indian tribes who've only just come into contact with white men.
As we draw closer to the Pongo, the clouds build up, the trees grow taller,
and Barry comes over all ornithological.
It's a bit of a bird safari for you.
Is that the main reason you're so excited about doing this new bit of river?
Not particularly the birds, doing a new river, but the birds are very interesting.
Right here, there are more species of bird per square mile than anywhere else on the planet.
Peru has about 1,700 species
and a lot of them are concentrated in this forest here.
Are there any bird species that are "intelligent" in the sense that they interact with man? Is it...
Perhaps the parrot family are more intelligent than the rest.
They seem to catch onto things pretty quickly.
Hello, miss. I 'ave this parrot that I bought not 'alf an hour ago in this very boutique.
Yeah, we know all about that.
Ahead of us, the Pongo looks more and more like the entrance to a dark, threatening tunnel.
The river turns from glassy smooth to fast and slippery, as the level falls sharply
and we begin to slide down the last few miles of the Andes.
Then, just as I think we're being incredibly brave...
(BARRY) That's the way to go!
Look at that. We've taken the soft option.
- He almost went down. - It's probably our wake.
He's completely unanchored just on a four-pole balsa raft.
I don't think I'd like to go that way.
Just balancing himself.
Well...
...I feel more secure now in a wooden boat.
I'm glad YOU do!
Oh, no!
- These are still the approaches, is that right? - (BARRY) Yeah.
(BARRY) And it's like this. 15 minutes of whirlpools and turbulence.
(MICHAEL) Here we go. This is the start now. These great, tall, sheer walls.
It is extraordinary. It's a sudden change of the landscape. It's suddenly sheer and it's raining.
Look at that. Isn't it incredible?
As if to offer us one last warning of mortality, one final reminder of who's boss,
the elements mix together a fierce cocktail of wind, rain and foaming current.
Glistening granite walls loom ahead like slowly closing doors.
- Tricky one. - He's got to get it just right.
If he messes up, we could be into that rock or that rock.
Very narrow now. This whole river just squeezed in.
- It's getting narrower up ahead, too. - Yeah.
This must be just incredible in the rains.
(MICHAEL) The rock is black, the weather's clouded over, it's drizzling.
Someone described them as the gates of hell.
I expected the Pongo to be dangerous, but never to be so beautiful.
Rocks, which look as if they've been blasted apart,
rise from the river like the buttresses of some half-submerged cathedral.
After the noise and chaos of the rapids, the river has fallen still and quiet.
The only sound is from the water pouring out of the jungle,
carving a weird and wonderful architecture on the canyon walls.
In the Pongo de Manaique, I feel I've come as close as I ever will to a lost world.
The dramatic beauty of the Pongo passes in less than half an hour.
The current that was so angry now sweeps us imperiously past the last two granite portals
and out of the Andes.
Gustavo, magnificently unimpressed, is already looking for a campsite.
I'm afraid I'm not much help.
A sandbank, hopefully free of jungle creepy-crawlies,
is chosen as our home for the night.
River travel, I've decided, is one per cent beauty and 99 per cent practicality.
The need to eat, sleep and dry out plays havoc with your sense of wonder.
As darkness wraps itself around us
and our camp seems to shrink to a tiny speck in the Amazon rainforest,
I feel a distinct need for the cocktail cabinet.
Barry, let's celebrate the passing of the dreaded Pongo.
- Yes, indeed. - You know how things are built up in your mind.
I've been worrying about it for the last three nights. Ridiculous.
For a while, I labour under the delusion that I'm through the worst,
then the doubts come flooding in.
Are there any nasty things lurking about in the bushes or in the forest?
Wild animals. Crocs, anything like that here?
Yeah, we have caimans here, which are members of the alligator family.
But they're normally in the water in the evening and come out on the beaches during the day.
- And I definitely wouldn't provoke any jaguars. - How do you not provoke a jaguar?
Hello, you're an extremely nice jaguar. Of all the animals, I think you're severely underrated.
Leopards get all... Panthers get all the publicity. Black panthers, leopards.
All you've got is a car firm that almost went into liquidation - saved by Ford.
Or now sold to BMW. I don't know, maybe it's sold to McDonald's since I was away.
(BUZZING)
It's like "Insect Corner" in here!
Hello. On "Insect Corner" tonight, we have 43 types of moth, four bugs...
Anyway... cheers.
- Here's to a good first day's travel. - Here's to getting through the Pongo.
Ooh, actually, rum and horsefly's damn good.