WINGS OVER THE ANDES

[Music] this is Peru the golden Empire of the Incas well it looks more like Newark or Freud an airport through the romantic kingdom conquered and looted by Pizarro but this is plain unromantic hard work we are bound through andean skies for strange regions of the unknown but first we've got to load the plane this is the shippi Johnson expedition off for the wild lands of the inner enemies we expect almost anything we expect astonishing wonders and marvels and we find this as we fly wings over the Andes we are going to find weird perils a forgotten symbol of the Incas and the great wall of coral we're going to swoop down into the valley of 40 volcanoes and find something we little expect the feast of the airplane in the Lost Valley we're off whirling through the sky bound for those Andean town we have two planes flying side-by-side on a jaunt like this it's a good idea to have two planes at least you feel more comfortable there are no landing fields up here if one plane is forced down well the other can at least fly back and tell the world about we are flying high in the realm of the conquer in the rarefied atmosphere twenty thousand feet above sea level so our planes are equipped with superchargers and we must carry containers of oxygen to keep from passing out the change in density of the atmosphere played queer traits the rectangular tins of gasoline were forced out of shape and became almost wrong from the cabin window we take some of the highest motion pictures ever made from an airplane pictures of Andean glaciers such as it would be impossible to take from the ground we feel the same thrill that Pizarro and his men and armor must have felt when they first sighted the mysteries and of the Empire of the Incas and then across the main rain on a lofty plateau we find those vast citadel machu picchu it's called it covers the whole top of that mountain down there the Inka emperors built it as an eastern bulwark of their empire an outpost against the savages of the end be enforced when the Spaniards came the beautiful Inca girl the virgins of the Sun fled here to escape the invader this inca citadel had been swallowed up by the jungle lost it was forgotten until an American Explorer came some years ago and cleared away the green tangle but now it's white granite walls are almost covered again and then we look down upon a series of green amphitheaters like a flock of bowls without the coeds and Coonskin coats later we hear from a priest the bees were used by the Incas for their dramatic spectacles or were they simply agricultural terraces no one knows horseshoes in the sense of time moving wash you sound you strangely symmetrical sand dunes they are blown by the ceaseless tradewind geologists tell us that they travel at the rate of 60 feet a year so we take their word for it we land in front of one just to see how big they are it's 25 feet high and 175 feet from tip to tip the fine grains flow right through the tiniest fittings of our motors and cameras they do a perfect job of sandblasting our propellers - and the tiny particles of quartz strike our faces like a Thousand Needles well these dunes cover the floor of Peru for more than 200 miles the strip of Jews is about ten miles right there not far from the coast and then we come upon an extraordinary wall it runs from miles and miles across the country it's built a bun cut stones cemented together with mud it stretches beyond the horizon far back into the mountain Great Wall and few travelers have ever seen it is believed to be older even than the Incas the Chi Mo's are said to have built it erase conquered by the Incas the chimú had reached a high stage of civilization along about the time when Europe was emerging from the dark ages a mighty mysterious relic of de mantequilla here and there we find the massive port well this wall tells a strange story of empires forgotten by people who themselves have been forgotten then we fly on in the direction of the city of the side hoods called the capital of Peru the days before the Spaniards came and built Niemann the present capital here the Inca emperors and their followers worshipped the Sun the Virgin's of a son lived in the rectangular buildings of the flyover the most beautiful were chosen for a great honor to be the brides of the ink today was called the city of the Sun is a Christian city with great cathedrals and convents and monasteries here today we find the familiar romantic life of old Spain the natives are fascinated by our airplanes they are fascinated much as they must have been when the Spaniards came of their shining armor and blunderbusses as we fly down one of the crowded streets the people behave like the world train course watch them turn we have flown over dizzy heights of the ante we have seen the Citadel of the Inca the horseshoes in the sands of time and the Great Wolf oh and now let's stop for a moment and do a little sightseeing landing up here at this altitude the rather dangerous business one other flyer had been in this field he was killed he was a fool be inclined take off his plane Tintin climb fast enough in the rare air he plunged head-on into the mountain well for today we're not going to be explorers of the perilous unknown we're just sightseers from owen tourists on the hoof let's do a travel on this old cathedral was built in the 17th century the Spaniards were great builders but they fought among themselves in the end Pizarro's companions around him through with their swords while he cursed them for being traitors and as a dying gesture the Conqueror of Peru with his finger in his own blood traced across on the floor how the Incas fit of the stones for their own temples is one of the mysteries of their lost civilization they use no cement and you can't push a razor blade between the stone since we are temporarily tourists with our Codex handy we can't possibly miss the world-famous Lama of Peru they call it Yama long live English no tourists would ever pass up the Lama any more than he would pass up the camel in Arabia or the elephants piling teeth on the road to Mandalay in Inca days this little cousin the camel would use both for religious purposes and for transportation the worshiper huge sacrifice colleges to the solar did nowadays they're used only for transportation the llama will carry a little anywhere up to 100 pounds if you put more than that on his back he'll lie down and spit at you he's the delivery wagon of Peru and it's curious to see a delivery wagon wearing pajamas as a matter of fact the natives make everything but pajamas out of llama wool it's woven into clothing and in a soft blanket which come in mighty handy in the high end she holds the spool of wool with her toes for some wear sandals made from an old automobile tire that's where the old iron goes knobby tread non-skid balloon Sanders in Paris the tourists never missed a study in Seoul market in Baltimore its Terrapin all-american in Cuzco the tourists never misses Ramos to come but old boy he wishes he had it seems to us as if the Kuzco cook had put some of those old automobile tires in the llamas to the boys and girls in Cusco have excellent table manners excellent table manners for two reasons because they haven't any tables and because they never eat with their knives they haven't any knife as for bananas in cream they haven't any cream but they have plenty of bananas and other fruits to send up from the lower altitude little Carmen Dolores on the left is not choosing the flageolet she's nibbling a stalk of sugarcane the banquets of the descendants of the Incas make us think longingly of Mike Murphy's dish of corn beef and cabbage on the outskirts of cusco we come upon a scene that takes us back to Bible times a thousand years ago but this sort of wheat production needn't cause the Dakota the Argentina Russia to lose any sleep the South American Indians like the ancient Israelites and Philistines flash their wheat bun hands and let the wind blow the chaff away their idea of mass production estimate forces who is good this is their modern way introduced by the Spanish conquerors it's tough on the outside horse he travels about eight times as far as the others but he'll be promoted someday ah here's the scene that has the real biblical touch the noble ox clouds round and round helping the mother Peruvian farmer obtain grain for his Peruvian bread the youngster doesn't believe in taking the bull by the horns a stumble but that's a normal tape their proportions of wood and a small cross bashing of wheat stocks blesses the proceedings during the harvesting season all the members the family take part in the work and that's about the only season when they do throughout most of the year the men leaves the joys of work to support sing about to the women that seems to be a noble idea shared by most primitive people where did she get that hat no not from parents it was handed down from the days of the Incas I mean the style not the hat it's made of grass worn only by the pure blood in that's the wheat is loaded on the Peruvian wheelbarrow off it goes to the family store fine regular soldiers but back in the hills they do as David did they taste a rock at you with a slingshot well this is one of the great days of the year here and it is an all Catholic country the people come from miles around Cusco for the great procession at the feast of Corpus Christi in the Andean Hillman and the city folks of quiz go by with each other for the honor of carrying huge floats mounted on eucalyptus long here goes the venerable image of Santiago st. James the same Saint who appeared in this closet and turned the tide of battle again flying on flying south we passed the aristocrat of the Andes el misti the most famous volcano in all of Peru el misti means the gentlemen but like other gentlemen el misti goes on a bus now and then and there's anything brother gentlemen it's hard to realize that that crater is a half a mile away it's realm is 19200 feet about Cena this is the first time anyone ever influence over the crater of El mystic in fact we fly inside the walls of the crater get some pictures no one had ever ventured there the deadly fumes are too strong if you tried it on foot and attempted to keep away from the poisonous vapor the winds might change in a flash and you'd never get out the sulfur fumes are so strong in the plane that we have to use our oxygen tanks and as we gasp and sputter we are reminded to being a prince whose father wouldn't let him marry the girl he loved so they jumped into the grunting call we were told that Inca virgins of the Sun were thrown into this Inferno to keep el misti from lighting up nestling at the foot of el misti is arequipa whose name means stay a while probably named by the ancient inca Chamber of Commerce it is called the - of the city of silver and on the outskirts of the city of silver we pay a visit to a Peruvian outdoor Madison Square Garden for Olympia we're invited to attend the heavy weight thugs not boxers but boards each man likes his own bull and bets on what you bet depends on what you've got to bet but it also depends on how many jolts of chichén you have under your belt this is a champion well if you drink a quart of teacher you may even think that you're one of the contestants and want to go out and throw the ball folks comes from hobbles and haciendas barn there and all the spectators consider themselves expert on the subject of bull in these heavyweight bout no one has heard except the fans who have bet on the local losing boys they don't start trading punches right off the bat they will surround by each other's sparkle openings and then they go to it grunting snorting bellowing the earth shakes as they pawn put each other back and forth they're like - snorting railroad engine not in collision but simply each attempting to shove the other off severe panel fear but it's a real fight the referee doesn't try to pull them apart when they get in a clinch finally the hometown boy says uncle gives up turns tail and runs away whereupon a new champion is crowned in error people of the city of silver and now having taken it all the sights were off for the valley of volcanoes we exchanged cloud climbing airplanes for mountain climbing yields the probiem fuel is his artery as any of the mule family was this different what he doesn't see he doesn't worry about we pile on our equipment but the mules never bombed out they were blindfolded when it was done yes we have exchanged earthen doctor compasses and superchargers for stirrups and spurs rudder bars for reins and that considerably less than 100 miles an hour we take off for a jump in the footsteps of the Spanish dawn where we are headed for the chances of a happy landing are a lot better if you're on a mule we're going where there are no landing papers for days and days we jog along dusty sometimes dangerous trails twenty-eight days in fact we cross mountain stream swinging on suspension bridges we cling to precipitous mountain walls slower traveling than by plane but less danger of a tailspin and after many days on the trail we come to the valley of volcanoes it's more than 40 miles long and in it are more than 40 volcano this tortured space of Earth represents some type tiny convulsion in distant time think of the fireworks when the demons of the underworld sent all that lava spreading from all these volcanoes four towns were buried under the streams of boiling wrong that's the theory of geography but the names of the towns around the entire valley floor is the twisted bass of Louisville like a massive pool collapses it's one of the strangers in one place where Robert dam delivers the results a green lake as though an emerald to the giant into the molasses this valley of volcanoes looks as though it might be a valley of the moon in the Lee of two volcanoes that announces 13,000 feet at the old town of Dunkwa and double means running water the members of the expedition have been unable to find out anything about the valley beyond the fact the town of and agua the head of it is mentioned in some 17th century documents the craters are all quiet now so we climb one volcano its relative down into the very crater we gaze back at the giant Peaks but where their snowy summits into the cloudless andean skies few travelers have ever been here why the may he didn't even know that 40 volcanoes were in their mouth they thought they were healed they had only looked up at them and knocked down at them as we do this is the bottom of the crater here we pitch our tents we find me this makes North scorpion it's too desolate even for them the only plant life is some dreary struttin cactus which seems more forbidding and deathlike of the naked lava to celebrate our arrival in this crater of the valley of volcanoes the members of the expedition solemnly open the can of beans and staged a banquet the cattle butter had vanished on the journey over the mountain so the only way to get into the beans is by means of the old Broadway stunt Chesley the gentleman who looks like a master of ceremonies at a rodeo is Valentine Van Buren the topographer the surveyor of the party the gentleman with the spinach who is filling himself with beans it's not a Bolshevik spy he's a member of the expedition who forgot his razor in fact he's one of the heads of the expedition Robert shipping it on the list now is Chuck Johnson lieutenant Johnson the other head of the park not far from the encampment in the crater we come upon a burial cave an eclipse we call it the Cave of scones perhaps the natives fled here during the days when they were persecuted by the Spaniards or they may have taken refuge here in the higher slopes of the valley when all those 40 volcanoes were dunking flaming lava at any rate we come upon hundreds of human skeletons a Peruvian dog had attached himself to the party of the mascot he had never been in them altitude lower than 7,000 feet he chased what he thought was a ball it turned out to be an ancient skull the skull perhaps of some great sage among the primitive men are some renowned Wyatt along the trail on our way from the belly of volcanoes we cross a mountain torrent by a Potter del Toro or Fox's bridge a suspension bridge made of woven grass fibers in the small sticks a real engineering think the masterpiece bridges like this are found all through the high Andes the method of making them probably dates far back to the dim past before the days of the Incas of course they don't last as long as a steel suspension bridge they have to be repaired every rainy season and the footing is nothing to secure and to the traveler this is a bridge of side crossing is a nerve-wracking job for everybody but the mules mules haven't any nerves I guess but the mules are not exactly mountain goats at that maybe you think a mule is always dizzy but they get dead here in high altitudes up here 18,000 feet above sea level and you once became so exhausted in the thin air that the boys had the whole smelling salts to their nostrils I mean the Mules nostrils holding smelling salts to amuse nose cutter in the background dominating the scene with the highest mountain in all further mouths Cora for 24,000 feet high and this is the trail that leads us to our final goal we have seen the citadel of the Incas Great Wall through the valley of the 40 of our King now we have come through desolate wild barren country to a lonely remote region where we are to encounter another surprise the feast of the airplane the people of the rest of the parol hardly even though they're there because of plagues famines and earthquakes the region is now almost a volcano one morning we came out and found our cook going through a weird performance at first we thought it was an Inca hula-hula but it turned out that our charming cook was simply doing her daily dozen improving her figure and husking wheat to make bread for us all at the same time as senior a shippi put it she was a matey with lots of culture but it was all the physical this does seem like an unceremonious way of preparing biscuits for breakfast mother never did it like this mother never shucked wheat with her cards the girls in the Lost Valley were six or seven skirts at a time how do we know well we were told yes and we were told that from the day they are born they never bathe they had a skirt a year they keep wearing them all except those that disintegrate and fall off no wonder they look husky they sleep in them never take them off the scenery isn't dreary if you look up beyond the graceful eucalyptus trees Tara the symmetrical snow-capped peaks of the Cordilleras this church the largest in the Lost Valley is a tribute to the energy of the Franciscan friars they must have expected a real estate boom it's built of stone blocks three or four feet thick the massive buttresses are to protect the church against earthquakes between earthquakes and volcanoes no wonder the real-estate boom never got anywhere the sexton unlocks and opens the creaking door the priest enters there now only two priests in the law spell they used to have an interesting custom here when the village authorities needed money they would heard the young unmarried people into a church and lock them in for the night in the morning they would pull a couples out two by two that meant they were married and they had to pay a marriage fee [Music] tradition has it that this church was once entirely adorned with gold leaf and filled with statues bought from Spain we still see traces of that lost blood but most of the statues have disappeared and the woodwork has been chiseled away by the marauding in the pride and joy of the natives is their statue of Santiago patron saint of a Spanish fighting men of old 400 years ago the ancestors of the Andean Indians tremble before the old couple cried Santiago in Spain and now comes the snorting dragon out of the sky we had arranged for one of our planes to pick up a message two poles were rigged up on top of the church between restrain with a message on it the pilot drops a wire will await the dangling weight hits the string winds around it picks up the message watch how it's done in answer to the message the plane later returns and drops supplies food socks cigarettes and so on but he can't land with strips of white cloth laid on the ground the party of the valley signal to the singing plane they tell how they intend to lay out a flying field in the Lost Valley an airport in Vale that time forgot now comes a bit of shippi Johnson diplomacy there wasn't a single level of space what but what was covered with borders the natives were tremendously excited by the Thunderbird they wondered headed feathers like the Condor or wool like the llama edit feet like the toucan or a bill like the Pelican we tell them we'll give them a close look at the Thunderbird but there are a few small ceremony that they'll have to perform ceremonies consisting of moving stones pushing a few big rocks around and we still further excite their worship by purchasing a large supply of chicha then we perform a few magic rites of our own I mean we get out the transit and level and survey the proposed flying field to the great astonishment of the neighbors the handsome high priest of the transit is Val van kuren the Indians think he's going through a part of the mystic ritual then follows the great stone rolling ceremony in the Lost Valley push it up Tony or you'll never see the Thunderbird again and Tony pushes hard how would you like to catch that one in your hat [Music] oh boy well the Indians in this valley hadn't done so much work since their ancestors fought the Spaniards in the days of yore making an Arabs almost anywhere is a tough job here we're at an altitude of 12,000 feet the air is thin the rocks are hard yes the air is thin with the hope of seeing the Thunderbird is strong the rocks are hard but so is the cheetah The Lost Valley may be short on the tricks and gadgets of modern civilization it may lack electric lights radios and plumbing movie shows but anyway it's going to have a first class flying team I don't know whether in the end it's the woman who pays and pays and pays but it certainly is the woman who works and works and works I wonder what the boys and girls are going to do with this Airport after shipping and Johnson are gone it might make a good landing place for condors or they might use it to hold beer parades chicha parades I should say near the landing field there was a deposit of white chalky material it turned out to be magnesium too far from civilization to be of commercial value but it did come in handy the boys added an artistic touch to the flying peel by outlining it in magnesium white at the end of each day the Navy's paraded back to town military formation or what they call military [Music] there was one wheelbarrow in the van the chauffeur of that wheelbarrow certainly has a low watch him but the load is in the wheelbarrow and now came the festival of the airplane in the Lost Valley there was a grand parade a beer parade to chicha parade headed by the local Jimmy Walker [Music] while through the air zap Underberg came winging to take its place against of honors with the occasion there was beauty too much music [Music] occasionally a man from the lost belly will serve in the peruvian army because of the rarefied air in the end is they have a tremendous run capacity so in the army they are signed up those beakers and then they soon take french leave from the Army and they carry away as many musical instruments as they can lay hands on so there was a blaring of bugles and trombones a piece of the airplane and from across the giant month comes the plane weight is over the end our brand-new landing field work beautifully neither the Newark Airport north Droid New London nor labor Jade parents could have served the purpose any better the whole countryside gathered to see the strange land they came in long gala processions from all 14 villages of the lost battle they worked too hard and game and they played on Google they rub their eyes to be sure the teacher wasn't making safing but they found that the Thunderbird didn't show any signs of fighting also that it didn't have feathers like the Condor or wool like the llama or flaws like the toucan or a bill like the pelican [Music] they also had music on the heart maybe it wasn't a heavenly heart maybe the members of the orchestra don't exactly look like cherry of inland Seraphim but the local high-altitude florodora sextet finds it something to get dizzy about just the thing [Music] the traditional standard of the lost values raised solemnly alone it looks like a bunch of pie plates but that isn't in that silver blended pieces of antique Spanish sole presiding over the piece of the airplane in the Lost Valley with his Excellency the L cut in the mirror the local Jimmy Walker he seems to be in good form what's the reason can't cheat you the women are kept busy dispensing the local brew which the elk are they has brought plentifully his Excellency the mayor arranged for a gift to be presented to the men who command the Thunderbird at first we thought he was kidding us he was the gift was a kid a tiny goat the kid is introduced to our regular mascot the Peruvian condor chaser that has long been a member of the expedition and now comes the grand climax of the feast of the airplane in the los alamos speech by his exalted excellency the al-qaeda's fellow citizens are it's the mayor we're here to greet these great Americanos who jump over mountains all down precipices and make people are old strong [Music] while Johnson and shippi the dogs of the goat listened spellbound are almost spellbound although I'm afraid the two mascots are not interested in the Eurasian consists of all authority here and now we're all we have seen the citizens of the Incas the Great Wall of pearl the belly of 40 Bala Quila and the feast of the airplane the Rockefellers we had northward homework in the machine that an Indian woman called fiery cross accompanied by heaven picture [Music]