Wheels Across the Andes

you you once more we take you with us on a journey of exploration wheels across the endings from the Pacific coast of Ecuador across the high backbone of South America to the sky high waters of lake titicaca in bolivia and the survivors of an ancient civilization in historic peru much of our journey is through the most mountainous country in the world much of it is good road superbly engineered and safe much is not good after rainstorms it is almost impassable [Music] sometimes indeed a riverbed is better than the road now we are on our way toward the jungle in a few hours we shall be down into timbered country into green and moist valleys and misty lowlands we plan to visit an amazing tribe of jungle Indians the Colorado's who live deep in the rainforest you we have left all roads behind us against all advice my son David boasts that if I will let him take his time he will drive into the Colorado country well here he is taking his time and not a bit discouraged he may have slowed down a bit but he's still moving here is our first poll errado Indian obviously on his way to the little town we have just left the world over the American cigarette is a symbol of goodwill and friendship and easy introduction now let me explain this fellow's appearance that's not a hat or a helmet on his head it's his own hair plastered down with a sticky red colouring matter called a chevy colorado means red and not sure if they is what makes the Colorado's read his hands are not dirty they're dyed blue he's not particularly dressed up this is the everyday costume of a Colorado you can see that his teeth all sword dyed black I try to make him show us his dental decorations a little more clearly but he seems to be both high-strung and ticklish here are a father and son whose nerves are under better control people leapt and Ramon other names he politte who speaks a few words of Spanish will be a valuable friend and advisor during our stay with the Colorado's he is greatly impressed by the dodge power wagon but he says it's useless to try to push on with the cars we have a broad river to cross and must go on foot he promises to meet us with horses on the other side of the river to impress he police still further I try to make him listen and talk over the radio telephone which provides communication with our base camp but he doesn't get the idea at all and it's beyond my abilities to explain it to him in his native language what he and Ramon want is a fast ride in the power wagon and this they get [Music] so we proceed on foot through the jungle of our childhood dreams gorgeously colorful steamy and mysterious smelling like a hothouse alive with a million sounds of birds and insects out of the tangle of undergrowth through which we cut our way trees rise to what seems a fantastic height above us you we come to the river which people each said we would have to cross he told us there would be a bridge at dusk we find the bridge and insecure contraption of steel cable and tree branches the broad river rushing over its rocky bed the threatening jungle on either side the sky heavy with the darkening clouds of an approaching storm this is one of the most memorable scenes in all my experience [Music] the next morning we find EEP elite faithful to his promise with our horses and with him are his wife Philomena and his daughter Rosita [Music] this is the way in which long years ago travelers and explorers missionaries and traders made journeys sometimes of many weeks through the hot and unhealthy jungle personally I'm more at home at the wheel of a car I'm glad that I waited to be born until the age of the automobile when we have set up camp the mere routine of peeling potatoes fills the Colorado's with amazement they watch our simplest activities with endless curiosity a source of never-to-be-forgotten wonder is one of our cameras on the ground glass focusing screen they see the whole camp alive and upside down meanwhile people eats people in their turn are demonstrating for us the matter of the Colorado's daily life I am fascinated by these Indians of unknown origin and history the whom there are said to be less than 1000 left they are a sturdy and independent people who clearly do not wish to adopt any other tribes dress or way of living their faces reflect a strong individuality in sharp contrast to other Indian tribes of this region they are far indeed from being primitives they have their own arts and crafts know how to spin by and we've wool and make their own garments the Colorado's build simple but ingenious and efficient presses to squeeze out the juice of the sugar cane which they cultivate in jungle clearance this like all their activities is a family effect with the leaves removed the sugar cane stalks are fed one by one between the rollers of the machine philomena guides them while it takes all the strength of people eat and Ramon to turn the rollers against the heavy pressure in this machine there is not a nail or a piece of metal but it does its work the tough fibrous cane is crushed a simple banana leaf with a hole through the center collects the sweet solution to fill the homemade earthenware jar people with so much ingenuity and skill to easily develop a more complex way of life along the lines of what we call progress but the Colorado's do not seem to wish to do so they seem to prefer to go their own unsophisticated way why not the jungle gives them all they need presently visitors arrive for a fiesta to celebrate our coming Colorado SAR ever full of surprises the musical instrument they carry is what they call a marimba but I recognize it immediately as a central african zilla phone polydor the witch doctor is another of our good friends he shows us the achiote seeds and how easy it is to obtain from them the red dye with which the Indians paint their faces and their bottoms using the mirror we gave him he applies a new coat of paint and next he shows us how to insert a matchstick into the hole which every Colorado has on the tip of his nose everyone is busy dressing up the blue dye also comes from a plant and is apparently especially favored by the women but it's the red Archie update thigh which gets into everything even the puppy dogs courtesy demands that the leader of the expedition should also be decorated unfortunately the red paint caused a painful irritation and it took a week for the blue stripes to wear off we have set up sound recording equipment to record the playing of the marimba I am intrigued by this instrument born in the depths of the Congo in Africa which was carried centuries ago to the west coast of Ecuador and which has now penetrated unchanged so far into this alien jungle the Colorado's have watched us work without a flicker of understand but now we are playing back to them the recording we have just made music which they just heard being played is now coming out of this box and it seems to them to be a wondrous deed of gods or demons it is the older people who look like children among the Colorado's and the children like our little Rosita to look at the adults should meanwhile david has made good his boast and triumphantly brings the power wagon all the way into camp he has brought with him wonders which the jungle children have never seen they are overcome with shyness [Music] Oh some of the youngsters happily experiment with the sweets and toys [Music] the little girls shyly play with a dog a blue eyed doll made in sweet the only doll I could find in the city of ketone back on the road again a road boldly cut out of the rock out of the walls of ravines and canyons we are crossing one of the two main chains of the Andes be cordial run angry the black cordillera [Music] you we have planned at last above the highest rail point2 bleak summits with pockets of snow finally just under the snow line we reach the top of the pass itself a breathtaking panorama of snow-capped mountains is now before us they cordillera blanca or white cordillera as we descend again to the valley of wireless we get nearer and nearer to the Peruvian giants of the Andes most spectacular of all wass Quran 22,000 feet high evening forms the twilight glow slowly invades the grapes no peace you a few days later we start out to climb a mountain one of the many minor peeps around us it is unnamed on the maps and probably still unclimbed we have all had bad cases of sriracha mountain sickness since we reach these unusual altitudes some people suffer so distressingly from sriracha that they cannot remain at all in these high valleys of the Andes most travelers get very sick for a few days and then gradually adapt themselves this has been the case with us the present outing is to celebrate our recovery as well as to serve as training for the future our first day has been good but now the weather clearly is spoiled by the time we have made camp snow is falling and the prospect is gloomy for tomorrow next morning snow is still falling it is bitterly cold although we are within a few miles of the equator coffee and hot oatmeal for breakfast we start off with little hope of a clearing of the fog but we have climbed only a few hundred feet when the clouds live [Music] the edge of the glacier clear ice deep blue treacherous under a fresh layer of snow broken with many glittering crevices and caves and pools of milky blue water the crossing of the glacier requires the utmost caution almost on the slope with a top in clear sight we have our only near accident half an hour later the last steps are cut [Music] the last few feet are covered and the top is reached [Music] we fly a great deal on this trip everyone does in South America most air minded of continents sometimes for hours we zoom low over the immense unbroken haunting frightening green held of the Amazon jungle [Music] and again with oxygen we saw at eighteen twenty or 24,000 feet over the Andes always when we fly over near the great icy peaks I look for one thing just under the snow line the clearly marked pathways mysterious and fascinating to me who made these paths no Indians of today live that high no wild animals these worn pathways at the edge of the snow are a riddle which I long to solve on the high plateaus of Peru Bolivia and Argentina yamas carry loads at 16,000 feet and more herds of alpacas supply wolf here wild pequeños Rome seldom seen but we had luck one morning and got these pictures these animals relatives of the camel are built for altitude their lungs and hearts are far larger their blood more abundant and far richer in red cells than that of most animals a little tame bacuna was brought to us one day a graceful and delicate thing and for a while it was the expedition's mascot that it was especially constructed to live at high altitudes proved not to handicap it in the least when later we brought it to cielo it is today living happily with some of our good friends in lima in the Peruvian capital i found the government concerned with the same problem which intrigued me that of adaptation to light that high altitudes I found that Peruvian doctors had done pioneer work in research in this field I told them of some of the things that had most astonished me of the spirited game of association football which I had seen played by Indian mine workers on a sodden field at an altitude of nearly 16,000 feet I could scarcely drag myself around in the thin air and yet after a lively game the players that shown no sign of strain the doctors told me those Mountain Indians like the Yama and vicuna have enormously enlarged lungs more blood blood far richer in red cells than the Indians of the plains we have traveled the boundary of Peru to Lake Titicaca it is not only the largest lake in South America but it is by far the highest navigable lake in the world with an altitude of twelve thousand six hundred forty four feet imagine a lake a hundred and forty miles long in 69 miles wide on top of Pikes Peak to live comfortably around this beautiful lake you must take care to be born and raised here for only in this way can you grow the necessary Superman lungs and blood supply the city of La Paz the highest city in the world Denver bows to being a mile high the pass is almost three miles above cielo in the past they have enough energy to have bullfights but they are comedy bullfights I suppose the Bulls also have to be raised here to feel equal to this clown [Music] say that was good let's see that again [Music] believe it or not to get to the La Paz airport you climb 1,000 feet above the city La Paz airport is the most beautiful I know anywhere with a backdrop of great mountains it is the highest commercial airport in the world with an elevation of 14,500 feet to land and to take off loaded planes in this thin air is not easy but when Agra's pilots have been doing it daily for many years we take off with the government medical mission to a place where I'll have a chance to observe research on high altitudes hundreds of Indians from the mountains and from planes have had certain characteristics systematically measured and recorded here a technician measures the lung capacity of a typical indian from titicaca over 5 liters where the average among the Indians of the lowlands would be scarcely 3 a group is being put through a measured amount of physical work two minutes by stopwatch of breaking up hard ground immediately after measured exertion measurements are made of blood pressure and of popes for comparison with blood pressure and pulse under conditions of rest at the request of North American doctors we make sound recordings of the beating of the heart we have also been asked for recordings made after extreme exertion this is the finish of a quarter mile race at 14,000 feet after this race blood pressure is almost what would be normal at sea level [Music] a few days later we have reached a point on the pan-american highway which I have been impatiently awaiting here to road branches off into the mountains I have convinced myself by many hours of study of maps of Asia and of North and South America at the end of this road is the highest point in the world which can be reached by Road we have borrowed oxygen masks and made up our minds to establish with the Power Wagon a world record the altitude record for automobiles at the end of the road we pause for final adjustment of the carburetor our altimeter checked by radio confirms the figure given on the maps the end of the road is at 17,000 feet now we leave the road to climb further we have set our hearts on reaching an altitude of 18,000 feet the loose slippery slope is far from a good surface we have no special gasoline for this grueling test the patches of snow throw us off every few yards given a road we could sail right up 15 minutes after leaving the end of the road the needle of the altimeter touches 18,000 it is very decidedly cold up here and we do not linger it takes us less than 50 minutes to come down again [Music] the region of cuzco was the center of the old Inca civilization which flourished amazingly in Peru before the coming of the Spaniards to this day their lives around cuz go an indian population full of character and color with a heritage of traditions dating back to the days of the Incas before the Spanish conquest and Christianization pagan and Christian traditions are inextricably mixed the Indians are deeply religious their religion is associated with all their activities we are attending the yearly fiesta Saints Day here on the Hacienda of an Old Country Estate gaiety and dancing will continue for several days but the Fiesta begins with prayers to the virgin and to the Saints absorbed in prayer rarely conscious of the camera the Indians present a wonderful variety of types and costumes and of emotions it would be difficult not to be moved by the stillness and the intensity of this scene of devotion the Fiesta will begin as soon as the church service is over with a small hand camera we begin to look for candid shots a gossiping girl with thick black braids vividly decorated ponchos and hats characteristic of this region the cattle buyer for the farm and his wife both of them in their Sunday best and a farmer's wife with a good-humoured weather-beaten face music costumes and dances all are old and traditional [Music] the meaning of many of these dances is lost in antiquity I tried vainly to get an explanation of this one suggestive obviously of whipping the different masks are readily identified by the spectators these rounded faces we are told represent Indians this group with its narrow faces dapper blond mustaches pointed noses and little beards represent the Spaniards the conquerors [Music] these creatures were the sheepskin headdresses are it seems the wild beasts of the jungle we've also been told that the woollen mask on the face and the black cross identify the inquisitors so you can take your choice but about this group there can be no doubt these are the lawyers with their high hats their books they're inquisitive noses which seem to be always unhappily covered with warts and their mannerisms traditional and much enjoyed caricature of the legal profession [Music] their books are all important and constantly consultant equally indispensable are their noses necessary to the turning of the pages this lawyer is putting the young Indian kneeling before him through some solemn initiation this is the direct way to make knowledge penetrate the human mind we see now while it's poor Indian looked somewhat apprehensive but the effect does not as yet appear to be sufficient so let's give him another treatment for good man for our last chapter we will cross the Peruvian border into believe you to see a strange religious pageant ad hablada the dance of the devil's the colourful costumes the intricate symbolism of this age-old ceremonial dance are extremely interesting to the traveler who's fortunate enough to be a spectator but it's difficult for even the trained archaeologist to follow the thread of the story preceded by a mysterious infant an archangel and the chief of the devil's gamble in obviously on the best of terms followed by sin and temptation and a wonderful retinue of lesser devils these masks are among the most beautiful and imaginative in the work I have never seen anywhere such genius for the grotesque such vivid color [Music] this spectacular pageantry provides a dramatic conclusion to our adventurous journey on wheels across the andes [Music]