Rugged Road To Cape Horn (1947)

[Music] the road to Cape Horn it will be a long time before Arnold and I forget that one you know Arnold of course if you've seen the first picture rough road to Panama it tells the first half of this story you will now see an attempted automobile trip from Washington DC to Cape Horn rough road to Panama tells the story as far south as the Panama Canal now in this picture we begin there and continue the unforgettable tracked down the Andes all the way to Cape Horn if you haven't seen the first film do so as soon as possible it will help you understand what is back of the story you now see the root of this present film takes us from Buenaventura here where we have landed from a boat which brought us down from the Panama Canal then on up to Bogota the capital of Colombia and south again to keep to Ecuador to Lima Peru and down to arequipa then we climb the Andes 16,000 feet in the sky and crossed Bolivia's desolate uplands and on down here to Buenos Aires then we follow south to Patagonia seemingly limitless papa to Magellan straits and this Chilean city of Marga Yanis and then as guests of the Chilean Navy arnout to Cape Horn in a storm to dramatize the route a little here is approximately what it looks like in vertical measurements only even this is tame substitute for seeing at firsthand these high peaks are not peaks of the mountains their altitudes of the actual passes over which you climb in your car with plenty more Canyon valleys and high ridges not shown in between this map shows only the principal elevations the geography of South America is perhaps the most dominating aspect of this part of the Western Hemisphere in fact it is difficult to imagine greater extremes of magnitude in any one continent of the world than are found here first are these high reaches of the Andes almost unbelievable to one who has not known great mountains by personal contact several of the high peaks of Earth are here aconcagua ojos de Salado Chimborazo and many others North America just isn't in it for Heights and depths compared to her southern neighbor then comes the great desert of Peru and Chile some 3000 miles long by car where you drive 75 to a hundred miles and never see a drop of water or a piece of Pulp that ever grew where you simmer in the heat in the day and where you freeze in the cold at night where you swear that desert sand is stacked five six and seven thousand feet high against the blue snow dotted spine of the Andes in the background next is the remarkable beauty of the lake and channel country of southern Chile in Tierra del Fuego as majestic and inspiring as any country in the world and as desolate great Peaks rise from frightening we narrow and deep channels of cold sea glaciers ice caps and Antarctic storms then back up the eastern side of the continent come the vast stretches of patagonian pampas I mentioned a moment ago where great herds of sheep graze with the wild and easily frightened guanacos and we're ostriches roam unmolested for the most part except for the story but Gauchos who run them down by throwing bolos around their necks waving their heads to the ground then on North from Argentina into the vast jungles of Paraguay eastern Bolivia Brazil and Venezuela jungles some of which still remain uninjured by white men and the tremendous spread of the Amazon the greatest river in the world so wide it looks like a flowing ocean whose waters travel 4,000 miles to reach the sea whose dangers to navigation in its many streams are small compared to those lurking in the Uncharted jungles that crowded shores from the Andes to the Atlantic hump these vast physical characteristics of the continent form such tremendous barriers to road building transportation and economic development as are difficult to understand by a people who never see them but after you've crawled over swept through and shivered in as much South American geography as have Arnold and I you develop a very healthy respect for the continent it wasn't until I tried to push our car up a 25% grade nearly three miles in the air down there that I found out how puny I was compared to the slope paralyzing effect of rarefied atmosphere and the greatness me but it's good for a man's soul to be deflated once in a while and South America can take adequate care of that deflation but let's get into the story itself you'll see more of this geography as we go along here we are then in front of the Customs House in Buenaventura the car still carries the terrible scars it received in Mexico and Central America but it's still going so we're eagerly ready for the Andes how little we know what climbing them in a car really means but we'll find out don't you worry about that we start immediately for Bogota the capital back up in the interior and about 9,000 feet in the air on the way we cross valleys climb ridges drop into deep canyons pass under waterfalls and begin to understand why Colombia is so famous for her varieties of agricultural products climate temperatures and vegetation it's a surprising experience to drive from the torrid zone to the Arctic Circle and back to tropic jungles again all in a few hours yet that is exactly what you seem to do as you cross the three main ridges of the Andes which ban up from the south across Colombia cutting her alternately in the cold cloud shrouded Heights and the broad lush valleys through which flow her big rivers Colombians are very proud of their country and her products we learned that when they begin telling us about Colombia grown coffee they think it's the finest in the world and some experts agree with them but that's what the Brazilians at the Costa Rican say about their coffee and the people in El Salvador so we let these pictures represent them all and leave the argument as to which coffee is best to the experts who drink it and to those who grow it on the tree coffee looks like lovely red cherries and that's exactly what it's called coffee cherries the tree grows best in deep shade at altitudes of 2,500 to 5,000 feet and you see large acreages of it on sloping mountains and ridges as you drive along after picking the cherries are sent to the mill for hulling processing and drying each morning we were at the Alvis Molino we see the carts come in loaded with sacks the cherries are then dumped into these small cars and later into the huge vats of the mill after several different processes which take off the cherry halls and other coverings of the real coffee bean the beans themselves just spread out on great patios to dry in the Sun when that process is completed they're sucked all the way back to the mill again through the 6-inch suction pipe here final cleaning is done to remove the bad beans and the rest full-bodied and full of flavor are sacked for shipment to your table appear in the United States of America some of the more farsighted of our Latin neighbor industrialists go to great lengths to provide high standard working conditions for their employees here for example the de Sola family have provided a fine day nursery for babies of women working in their coffee beneficio the mothers bring their babies in in the mornings pass them through a window two registered nurses and go back across the street to work four hours later they come back again to nurse the youngsters then cross the street once more and continue work and so it goes this woman nurses not only her own baby but also this one belonging to her friend who died when the child was born some bath time is really a circus and if you don't think these Indian youngsters are cute you should be around them for a few minutes this young senorita doesn't like Yankee cameramen in the least she was much more content with Don Juan Jr whom you just saw but pretty soon she gives up like all good children and is back in Baird along with the rest to sleep out the wait until mother's next appearance with something to eat from Colombia we finally enter Ecuador and I think it fair to say we of the expedition probably would vote Ecuador as being the most interesting country through which we passed certainly we want no argument with anyone who feels otherwise because the question obviously is open to debate but we're captivated with the country and this scene is a typical reason why we find these men making tile for the roofs of their houses and stop to photograph the process when we explain we want to show our countrymen in North America how our neighbors in South America live the faces of these men break into broad grins and from then on we have only to tell them what we want them to do as you've already seen they let the Bulls mix the mud by driving them and round a center state when the mixture becomes sufficiently stiff and sticky the fellows with a simple little frame and a big blob of the stuff proceeded to make a tile with the mud firmly packed in the frame they next slide it off very smooth indeed onto this curb form then to be sure it won't crack as it dries in the Sun the one chap sprinkles the ground with water while the other waits to place the thing in drying position when everything is ready he looks up at me asks if I'm ready then quickly pulls the farm free and there is a tile and here is the boy who drives the balls to mix the mud he says to me but why do you want to take my picture signore I'm not so beautiful perhaps this scene - will help you understand why we like Ecuador this cobblestone road is itself some 8500 feet up and look at the mountain peak behind it thousands of feet higher this is typical of the geography I mentioned right here almost on the equator are three peaks so high the snow on their summits never melts and along the cobblestone roads at their feet come an unforgettable caravan of people as colorful and interesting as any people in the world some of the fellows carry more on the inside than they do on the out like a chap over on the left these costumes brilliantly patterned and coloured knee-length ponchos in sharp reds and blues huge skin hats and the people themselves coming along leading carrying are driving their livestock home from market an indispensable activity in the lives of these colorful Americans once you see them along these high upland roads of the Andes you will never forget them the next thing of great interest to us in Ecuador is the equator the realization that we're actually at the middle of the earth the place where north and south begins we pulled to a stop of course and spend a whole hour here enjoying ourselves like boys wondering why the earth doesn't look different on the north side than on the south reading the inscription on the monument plaque tracing out latitude zero zero and zero which we probably should not do but which apparently many other people before a so we see no harm in it then Arnold always wanting to do things to remember stands and grins with one foot on the north side of the earth and one on the south and in back of him you can easily see one of those great mountains of the Equator so high the snow on its summit never melts and finally in Ecuador comes I'm sure the most memorable side trip of the expedition a visit down into the Colorado Indian country of the Pacific coast jungles these people live apparently in family clans with the father a sort of ruler over his children and in-laws the fellow with the big stomach is a medicine man for three days his group has been in the throes of religious ritual and he doesn't like the interruption of our arrival how do you like these Don Juan's and their haircuts we finally find another group not engaged in religious ceremony with us is Andre Roosevelt he said if we brought him along he could entertain the Indians with sleight-of-hand tricks while we got pictures so he entertains the Indians and I get the pictures here he shows them how to make him not disappear from the tide corners of a handkerchief it's a slick trick if you can do it the knot is tied securely checked waved back and forth for hocus pocus then checked again to be sure it's still there but when the handkerchief has shaken the knot has disappeared and the old man doesn't know where how do you like this for facial concentration and again those haircuts their hair is as black as the ace of spades but it's plastic tight to their heads cut straight off across their eyes then painted that gripping blood-red which they use on their bodies the men as you see use the accessory colour black while the women use only the diagonal stripes of red here Roosevelt shows them how to make a coin disappear and the old man doesn't understand how Yankees can make money go so fast I'm sure you'd like to know to where they get the faint which they use on their bodies it comes from the seeds of the clustered pods which grow on the achiote tree wild in the jungle to get the seeds the women go out gather armloads of the pods bring them in and stay some in their grass houses then about twice a week they shell seeds for the family paint job and when they finally have enough on this palm frond down on the ground everybody gathers around to paint himself up taking a handful of the seeds they spit in it then with their fingers they begin crushing the seeds mixing them with the saliva and then on it goes they keep themselves painted year in year out 24 hours of every day this is why they're called Colorado's / Colorado in Spanish means red in English and these people are red it's difficult to get the women to smile but now the lady seems to have found something to smile at and I guess you can hardly blame her and right here I think I'd better say nothing except perhaps to admit my face is plenty red when these women get through I'm not even sure it's all paint you know it takes us three days to get that stuff off and the last of it has to wear off and so we head on south now toward Peru with plenty to remember about Ecuador but we're not through yet with memory because on the way to Guayaquil we pass majestic old Chimborazo with his eternal poncho of snow draped about his broad head and shoulders we all have to remember him as a sort of exclamation point for all we've thought than said of Ecuador Peru is something of a shock oh we've been told of the great desert before so we should be prepared but after months of mountains and jungle to come almost without warning so to speak out onto a floor of sand we're not a stick of vegetation exists meets almost to be described as shocked you see on the north coast of the Gulf of Guayaquil is dense jungle and heavy rainfall and on the south coast barely fifty miles away is desert where it never rains and this desert stretches for some 3,000 miles south along the coast as we drive along now we come every few hours off the desert and into wide fertile valleys where streams have started down out of the Andes 75 100 150 miles away and try to reach the Pacific through the sand these valleys are irrigated and constitutes such a large total acreage we are told that agriculture is one of Peru's most important economies principal among the crops raised is sugar and much of it finds its way into export as with coffee cacao bananas etc sugar is raised in all the tropical Americas so we represent them all with these sequences there are many fine modern mills to be found along the way yet a tremendous amount of sugar is produced by smaller independent operation so picturesque and typical we choose to show them instead of the larger more mechanical operations here for example we see each morning this long line of bull carts heading out into the plantation where a small army of cutters is at work they cut the cane strip the leaves from it whack it into four-foot links and load it aboard their big wheeled carts where it is to be hauled back to the mill and crushed and the juice taken from it for the making of sugar it is interesting as it can be to watch the fellows work we follow them about get in their way joke with them so we can get the natural UNPO suis want take pictures of this operation and that close-ups of the men's faces as they work close-ups of the Bulls to show how they pull by the yokes fastened to their horns they have no harness as we know it they pull simply by following the boy as he leads them by laying his long driving stick across their yoke even the cart wheels intrigued us these are solid four inch slices of a great mahogany tree and always the men are friendly cooperative if a bit shy at times and get a great bang out of these visiting Yankees from North America who poke their cameras and their noses into everything finally back at the mill the carts are wheeled up to this dark pit where the cane is thrown down and fed through the crusher later the pom e which is what we used to call it when I was a boy in Old Mexico is spread out on the ground to dry and when that is done it is brought back to the shed again to be used as fuel underneath the huge baths in which the juice is boiled in the preliminary stages of making sugar as the stuff boils it refines and the men steam swirling all around them dipped the waste from the top when finally the sugar comes out of the centrifugal tanks inside the mill where I can't photograph it the fellows carry it out in these big wooden boxes and dump it on this tiled platform where they dry it in the Sun I watch them with their holes rakes shovels and sometimes even their hands and I finally ask the overseer if it's really good sugar huh the good Amenti it's good sugar he tells me with a big laugh you taste it signore you find out and so we all taste it but especially Arnold as we travel south now along the ocean we come to a long ridge of sand about 400 feet high so we stop to look it over Arnold decides to claim it and begins zigzagging up across its face since it's much too steep to climb head on while Kenneth really acting like a ten year old amuses himself by writing our names in sand down at the bottom but Arnold gives up reaching the top from starts back down I call to him and say come on Arnold run show us some action why don't you he yells back that if I think he's going to break his neck for my camera I can think again so he tries to keep himself under control as he comes down but it isn't easy for the face of that sand is steep when finally he plops into it alongside Kenneth he says to me if you're so brave and want somebody to run down why don't you to which I retort well if you think I'm afraid you're crazy but I'm willing to admit now that mr. Whittaker is not the man who is crazy I go up as he did zigzagging across the face of the ridge and when finally I reached the top I really put on the steam I come over the crest of the thing at a hard run and the instant I do I know I've made a mistake I can't stop Arnold changes the camera to slow motion so you can see what's going on but I assure you there is no slow motion going on inside my brain I'm frightened to death the speed of my run and the steepness of the sand make it impossible for me to control myself I try time and again to stop throwing myself at the sand but instead of stopping I roll over and over like something propels sideways from come to my feet again with my tie flying and my clothes up around my neck choking me and I lunge right on down the cliff when finally I reached the bottom all in one piece I'm a much humbler and a much wiser man I finally picked myself up and start over toward the camera Arnold calls out how do you feel brave boy to which I reply brother I feel terrible and he replies well brother you certainly do look terrible I'm no Colorado Indian but what hair I've got is full of sand and I do mean sand and incidentally the hair of my head is not all either if I live to be a hundred and fifty and do that many more expeditions I promise you I shall never relax in this boyish fashion again we followed the ocean all afternoon after that hanging on the sides of the sand and rock filled cliffs with the blue sea and the white breakers beneath us I still can't quite recover from the effects of the sand hill so I coax Arnold and Kenneth to stop early so we can sort of rest up about four o'clock we pull into the huddle sheltered spot between the rocks and pitch camp we've done it like this a hundred times before of course unloading our equipment setting up the beds Arnold fussing with a car and the drop light and Kenneth lighting the gasoline stove and beginning the evening meal I told you in the first picture that we pull no punches in these two films we do not purposely make ourselves look ridiculous as I just did back at that sand hill or even as I do here now blowing up my air mattress but what we do is what you might do under similar circumstances so this is just by way of warning you a little our whiskered faces our dirty clothes and hands our methods of relaxation to relieve tension and get a new perspective on things so essential to our daily well-being our way of eating yes and even the food we eat everything you see here is as real as the air you breathe like the making of old 77 for example as Kenneth calls this - it's a specialty of his developed up in Mexico where one night he surprised us by putting a huge pan full of it in the center of the table saying no use washing a lot of dishes every meal it takes too much time and waters too hard to get besides all your food goes to the same place anyhow so boy is sit down and enjoy ol seventy-seven and this is it boiling water noodles onion if you can get it peas corn and string beans for vegetables then salmon or corn beef or a boat for the meat course it's all here and we guarantee it for nourishment next morning we're on our way again heading south to more desert country to our Dada Kiba then suddenly we get a surprise almost as if we cross the fence into an irrigated pasture we enter a section where for perhaps half a mile or more a thick carpet of flowers has spread itself over the sand delicate little flowers looking like pansy colored poppies we can hardly believe our eyes then as suddenly as we entered it we leave the flowered section and continue across the desolate country once more it isn't until this happens several times that we learn that at certain seasons of the year clouds drift in from the ocean - apparently fixed our channels and precipitate enough mist to allow the flowers to grow just one more of the fantastic extremes which seemed so commonplace in South America this great climb up from arequipa is really something to behold as well as to experience up up up higher than we've ever been before in our lives on earth there seems to be no end of the climb or to the turns five thousand eight thousand ten thousand 12,000 15,000 feet and still we keep climbing our motor loses so much power in the rarefied atmosphere we wonder if we will ever reach the top but it keeps going the water in our radiator boils much sooner than down at sea level and we wonder if we brought along enough for replacement and still we keep going up our ears begin to ring a bit and our heads feel funny with the slightest exercise we know by now we're up in the air then finally at a point more than a thousand feet higher than Pikes Peak in Colorado we reach the pass and get out to look around walking is anything but brisk but Arnold comes up to read the sign Alto de Troya cuatro mil say siento snow Benton Metro so Briana veo Del Mar and in case you want the English of that it means this pass is somewhere in the neighborhood of fifteen thousand five hundred feet above the level of the sea almost three miles straight up still not satisfied Arnold and Kenneth get out the altimeter and sure enough that needle points to forty six hundred and ninety meters now we're satisfied or rather we will be when we get down again entering Bolivia at last we come almost immediately to the shores of Lake Titicaca highest navigable water in the world thirteen thousand seven hundred and seventy feet in elevation a hundred and thirty miles long and a thousand feet deep along the water's edge we see these large red winged flamingos as colorful and picturesque as the high country around them ears drab and desolate also here on the lake we find a family of Bolivia's Indians at work planting tilling their meager soil in the hope of harvest which will help them live in costume they're almost as colorful as the flamingos we just saw and their voluminous clothing is wrapped closely around them to keep out the cold of the high Bleak country we stop the car and come over to see what they're planting Irish potatoes well they should grow all right up here at the soil is any good and around the lake it's probably much better than elsewhere in this desolate rocky country we watch with interest as the women drop the already sprouted tubers then the man comes along with his wooden plow and covers them up but this appears almost prosperity compared to what we're to see now because back here off the lake are the usual rocky farms of the humble people of the uplands the llamas probably take your interest first just as they always do ours but now take a closer look at the rock fences and realize that all these rock have been picked by hand from the thin soil where a people are trying to grow a living we always stop to watch the loaded llama herds past what curious looking animals they are to us who are accustomed to motor trucks horses mules and tractors to do our heavy work but up in this high country there are a few roads over which such vehicles could travel even if they were available as late as 1940 there were only seven thousand one hundred for motor vehicles of all types in Bolivia a country as large an area as Illinois Indiana Michigan Wisconsin Minnesota Iowa and Missouri combined and in those seven states there were more than a thousand times that many registrations think that over for a moment also the fact that the only Road out to the coast is the one we just came over 16,000 feet in the air and then you begin to realize what a gigantic handicap geography becomes to transportation and the national economy in Bolivia of course this kind of pastime doesn't aid the country's economy much either but if you tried walking these roads 14 16 thousand feet in the air you'd probably be glad to lie down and take a nap too altitude does funny things to your ambition perhaps that's why the women carry the water and do so much of the work up here maybe they can stand the altitude better than the men down on the Papa we can't resist the temptation to chase guanaco x' with the car we get in behind them and they head out across the Pampas with the ease and grace of shaggy antelopes they never stop for fences we see them go over barbed wire six feet high and never even pause for the leap and when Arnold gets in behind them with the car there really is plenty of action we try also to come close enough to the roaming ostriches for pictures but even with telephoto lenses it's hard to approach near enough for a good shot these fellas can run too believe me and they appear to have as little regard for fences as do the guanaco and then we hit the mud a good thousand miles of it from comodoro rivadavia all the way to Magellan straits normally in the winter time this country is frozen solid but this winter July and August it has just rained for five weeks we are told every day drizzle drizzle drizzle this automobile medicine Mendoza and is to continue with us as a help and to guide all the way the Magellan straits and what a help it is six times in one day we back up to pull it once again up onto the road or out of the deep ruts in which it is stalled I think that at no time on the entire trip have we been so discouraged and disheartened as we are here I hope this scene begins to make you feel a little uncomfortable just for the sake of realism with that fender off the car we're blanketed with mud it's impossible to keep it off day after incredible day it's the same slip slide dig and worry our way southward our clothes are damp and soggy with the constant drizzle our feet are soaked and freezing wet from wading in the mud and water the weather isn't cold enough to freeze just cold enough and wet enough to give us double pneumonia and we all begin to feel as if we're contracting it if we could just see the Sun it would help but day after day goes by and it's just clouds and rain we feel as if we're breathing cloud instead of air and that adds to our discouragement and misery but we're determined not to turn back we've now come more than 15,000 miles so we're not going to let a little mud stop a short of our goal then one morning the Sun does come out for a few minutes and Arnold's irrepressible spirits rise with the light I'll be doggoned if I'm gonna drive a car I can't see out of he grouses and gets out and begins raking the mud off the back window it's a good two inches thick then he gets back in shakes his feet closes the door starts the car and heads on south toward Magellan straits south and still farther south and so at last we reach Magellan straits in the central plaza of the city of Magellan is where the townspeople give us a rousing welcome we christen our car out on the end of the pier fulfilling that pledge we made at the Panama Canal and then as guests of the Chilean Navy on the little hundred and twenty-five foot ship gallery know we head south down to remarkably beautiful beagle channel toward Lands End and Cape Horn our only remaining pledge still to be realized we're gone eight days and during that time we are treated to a panorama of majesty and magnificence the like of which must be unsurpassed anywhere in the world maybe that's an overstatement but I find it hard to believe for these cold mountains the deep purple blue channel the high winds beating the seasoned rock with ice and snow the sudden bursts of sun storm or wind all in a few minutes all seemed to me impossible being surpassed then without warning on August the 19th we come steaming out from behind Hall Island Kenneth is down on deck he lets out a yell look he exclaims Cape Horn we're here I asked the captain and he nod si Senor then we know we're really looking at Cape Horn that famous rock toward which we've been struggling for more than nine months and 16,000 miles we begin slapping each other on the back in celebration when suddenly we discover the honeymoon is over within five minutes and I do mean five minutes a storm blows up out of the southwest which turns that whole ocean into an angry sea of winds sheets of water and deep valleys of churning mill races for over an hour the storm rages the air is full of harsh sounds the roar of the winds the mountains of water breaking over the deck the clanking of chains the groaning of the boat the shouts of the crew and I guess the groaning inside of me I'm no sailor I admit it but I have plenty of company today Arnold Kenneth the first mate three of the five dogs aboard and several members of the crew it's a characteristic Cape Horn storm put on accommodating ly enough it seems that we might have a fitting climax for our story a climax in some of the worst water in the world finally as the storm lets up a little we round the southern tip of the horn we coax the captain down on deck with us and though we're still plenty wobbly and the waves are still plenty bad for us we shake hands around and then as a token of final victory we throw our arms in the air and yell hooray hooray we made Cape Horn [Music]