Peru is home not only
to majestic landscapes,

scenic roads, tasty delights,

and the grandfather of
all tall cacti,

it also happens to be home of
the little known Amazon Desert.

Funding for
        The Desert Speaks

was provided by
Desert Program Partners,

representing concerned viewers
making a financial commitment

to the education about and
preservation of deserts.

And by the
Stonewall Foundation.

Additional funding provided by
The Nature Conservancy.

♪ music ♪

The Amazon, the world's
largest river system,

begins its journey high
in the Andes of Peru.

More than 3,000 miles from its
mouth, its main tributary

flows through wild
and varied desert,

home to civilizations
thousands of years before

the arrival of the Incas.

The geology of the Amazon
desert is so convoluted,

twisted, faulted, that I
need the help of my brother,

Dick Yetman, a geologist,
to make sense of it all.

My Argentine friend,
Axel Neilsen, will bring

an international
cultural perspective

to the people we meet.

As we wind our way through the
mountains east of Cajamarca,

we crown out at a pass
over 10,000 feet.

Here we catch our first
glimpse of the Amazon.

It lies 7,000 feet below us.

In Peru, it's called
the Rio Marañón

and the canyon through
which it flows is deeper

than the Grand Canyon.

Buenos dias!

A donde van.

Gracias.

A donde van.

Excellente.

Buena suerte.

How many dollars do you
think they spend a year

maintaining this road?

150.

So I suppose that helps.

It also makes it
really a rough road.

The circulation of goods

between the eastern
slopes of the Andes

and the Andean highlands and
the coast, the maritime coast,

was very important
throughout Andean history

and I could say that it is

even one of the hallmarks
of Andean history

is this intensity of
inter-regional trade.

I'd called this
country vertical.

Oh, man, that's a long ways
down and very slowly now

we will, you'll, we'll
get out of the fog zone.

That valley's another 3,000
feet below us, possibly?

Well, it's possibly that much.

We know that at the beginning,

in the time of the
hunter-gathers,

this is between 10,000 years
ago and about 4,000 years ago,

some of these groups were
combining their economies,

resources from the lowlands
and from the highlands.

When the economy shifted to
agricultural and pastoralism

and therefore these populations
settled and became sedentary.

(Spanish speaking woman)
Si, hay blanca, roja,...

Y cada uno es diferente?

Es diferente.

So this is sufficient here
for, almost for one family

for a year, they need
a little more land,

but they don't sell these.

These are raised for the family.

They don't take the time to
separate out the varieties.

They come out in various colors

and each color has
its own flavor

and own place in the diet.

These fellas use the oxen
in tandem, two pairs,

so that they can cover
the field more quickly.

They're from the
same family or clan

and working working
together like this,

they can do a field in
about a quarter of the time

as it would be if they were just
to do it with one pair of oxen

at a time.

It is hard to settle in
this very steep landscape

but this is an ideal place

for economically
diversified economies

because you can access resources
from very different environments

with a relatively
short distance.

Archeologists have always
paid too much attention

to the highlands
and to the desert

mainly because the archeological
sites are easier to find;

those environments and
perishable materials, like

textiles and wood, preserve much
better, so, what we find is,

archeology is much
more impressive.

But we, we know that these
eastern slopes of the Andes

and the forest
played a major role

in all the history of
the Andean highlands.

When we get to the Marañón,

its origin is about 500
miles south of us in,

still in Peru.

So it flows north?

So it's flowing
north for 500 miles

and then another 100
after the bridge.

That is, my gosh,
that's a long way down.

Look at the strike of
that limestone down there.

If we focus on the
last 4 or 5,000 years

we see a shift in the
direction of influence

between highlands
and lowlands

in the eastern
side of the Andes.

At the beginning, the lowlands
were much more important

because, through the lowlands,

some of the technologies,
like ceramics,

and some of the important
highland crops, like corn,

were introduced into the
rest of the Andean area.

Later on, say a thousand
years ago approximately,

we see a reversion
in this trend.

Highland civilizations, which
were more organized politically,

perhaps technologically
more sophisticated,

began to exert an
influence on the lowlands.

Just in case some
skeptics should question

whether the Amazon really
flows through desert or not,

I'd like to present
a living proof.

This is the Sonoran Palo Verde,
a native of the Sonoran Desert

and for many people,
the proto-typical plant

of our great Sonoran Desert

here on the Rio Marañón in Peru.

As an example of evolution
here in the Rio Marañón Valley,

this young browningia cactus,
this species is found only here,

has these potent spines
up to 3 inches long.

These are an effective
deterrent against herbivores,

that is, mammals that
would eat plants.

By the time the browningias
have become adults,

generally about 20 year or so,

they have lost most of those
spines so that their exterior

is just as smooth as can
be, and I can stroke it

without any fear
of being impaled.

They no longer need those spines
because they're tough enough

to withstand the
attacks of herbivores.

However not all columnar
cacti lose their spines.

But this cactus, in addition
to maintaining its spines,

develops this felt-y surface
that's called a cephalium

and it has an interesting role

of protecting the developing
flowers and fruits

so that predators can't
get at them and eat them

before they're ripe.

When they ripen, they open up,

the pollinators have an
easy way to get at them.

Until that time,

they're protected under
that wooly cephalium.

It's surprising to
find this bombax tree

growing here in
the Amazon desert.

These get grotesquely big

and grow in all sorts
of weird contortions.

They're a very tropical tree.

They don't grow in
the Sonoran Desert

but right on the margins.

You can find a close relative
of this tree growing,

so for my purposes, this
is a good desert tree.

This little flower is a close
relative of the poinsettia.

It's actually a member
of the genus jatropha

and one characteristic of
warm New World deserts

is an abundance of
plants in this genus.

This cactus is a member
of the genus armatocereus

but I call it the
sausage cactus.

In addition to looking
kind of strange,

it has a very unusual use.

Local people say that if you
cut off a piece of an arm

and drop it into a
bucket of muddy water

from the Rio Marañón, within two
hours all the mud and impurities

will have dropped
off into the bottom

and you can drink the water.

It's a natural water purifier.

Five hours later and 8,500
feet below where we first

spied the river,
we reach its edge.

Across from us lies
the sultry, buggy,

parasite-ridden
village of Balsas.

Well, this is a river,
this is a large river

and we're in a desert.

Why is it oxymoronic to
have a river in the desert?

I don't know, it, it isn't,
there's, all over the world,

the Nile is a river
in the desert.

But there's something
different here.

Now you tell me that this is
granite, right, the basement?

This is the basement
of the whole complex

which is really wonderful
because we've been traveling

through limestone and sandstone
for the last two days.

Yeah.

Thousands of feet of it and now

we get into the intrusive bottom
which actually came underneath

and melted into the rock
that was already there.

And those two huge
ranges then, each of them

captures the rain, one
coming from the Atlantic,

the other anything
coming into the Pacific,

very little of it
makes it down here.

So is, is that why
it's in the desert?

Maybe when a place
doesn't get much rain,

maybe that would be a desert.

Hey, look at the
loading in that water.

My gosh.

Look at all the sediments.

You couldn't get a
glass of this water

and I bet it would take a day
for it to settle out completely.

Yeah, it's real,
real fine stuff.

That is a lot of materials
being transported.

And it's gotta come
from somewhere.

Why?

Well, gravity.

That's, that's the way I
was taught gravity works.

So all those, all the Andes
are being worn down by rain

and they are being lifted up

by the plate tectonics
you described.

It's weird but we are now about
500 miles north of the origin

of the Rio Marañón.

So what's collecting
from all that basin,

bringing all that sediment here.

It's got 3500 miles to
go to reach the Atlantic.

Cuantos años
tiene el puente?

(talking in Spanish)

Oh I thought thought this bridge
only was 10 years old

and the bridge operator tells me
it's actually forty years old.

So Balsas has not
had Balsas operating

for the last 40 years.

Before that, everybody
had to cross on rafts.

This great band of sandstone
that we see up here,

which is probably a
thousand foot thick,

as it gets off to the south,
it suddenly just drops

straight off, almost vertical.

And this is one example of
the great tectonic movement

that takes place
here in the Andes,

the mountain building.

This is one of the
examples of how it's done.

The forces that make this
mountain building happen

are compression of sediments
from one side to the other,

as well as forces
within the earth

which are pushing
up at the same time.

It's something that happens over
such a long period of time,

but it does demonstrate
the plasticity

that these rocks have.

Two years ago when
I was traveling

in the Rio Marañón region, I
noticed up on this hillside

a strange cactus.

I didn't know what it
was, and later on,

I was able to identify it and
subsequently found that

DNA studies have traced
this to a very primitive

cactus that matter of fact,
it is the grand-daddy,

the original cactus from which
all of our columnar cacti

are evolved, including our
beautiful saguaro cactus.

This fits in perfectly
with the discovery

that the Rio Marañón is a hot
spot of evolution of cacti.

Adelante, vamanos. Tell me if
I'm wrong but it seems to me

the people in Chachapoyas
are lighter skinned

and certainly look different
from elsewhere in the Andes.

Yes.

Tradition has it that the women
from Chachapoya were known

for their beauty and that
the Incas took some of them

to serve as concubines
for the kings

and some of them to
serve as acllas,

this is virgins of the
sun, the chosen ones,

for sacrifices and, you know
for weaving the special clothes

for the Inca and other
special chores like that.

I've heard that the
Spaniards reported

that Chachapoyans had
light colored eyes

in addition to skin?

Yeah, that's, that's a
mystery and light hair

and that sort of gave way to
all sorts of speculations

about you know, transatlantic
contact before Columbus.

Chachapoyas has a
different flavor to it,

a different feeling than
other places that we've been,

southern, central
and northern Peru.

Yes, and very different from
the people of the highlands.

Yeah.

Although, look, we're
over 8000 feet here

so it's not at sea
level by any means.

I see all this forest and
I think we're the lowlands

you know but you're right,
actually we're quite high.

Look, almost every
building around the plaza

is a travel agency
or a cyber café.

Yeah, big time
attraction for tourists.

They know the two things
that tourists need,

tours and internet.

Write home.

Write home, that's right.

Hey, we're in Chachapoyas.

But the reality is that
Chachapoyas is the only

colonial town in the cloud
forest and I have to

break the news to you that
we're going to go back down

to places where there
are more cacti.

Oh, okay.

Now I know you should
rejoice at that, but I,

I'd like to see you
a little bit happier.

Hey, I'll follow you.

Okay.

The water that enters
the Amazon is a massive

amount of water from a
very complex system.

The Andes have so much
limestone in them

that they create such
a tremendous aquifer

which holds so much water
and to release that water

gradually into these rivers
which drain this vast system.

These north-south trending
canyons seem to have

formed along faults between
these blocks of mountains.

So the mountains dip apart
like this and then they

can go up or down
depending on the forces

but it creates a weak zone
and the rivers seem to be

carving themselves
along those zones.

When we see water released,

virtually into the air as this
one is, it means that there is

a great amount of hydrostatic
pressure on that water

from a great elevation,
from a great distance.

2,000 miles downstream
we're goin' to be

out of the mountains,
like we are now.

We're out of the Sierra,
we're in the foothills

and there will be a lot more
vegetation so the water

will be flatter but maybe
broader, and of course

the volume will have
increased tenfold

by the time we reach that point.

Let's cross the Urubamba.

As it's now, it's
the dirty Urubamba.

Yeah, it was clear.

Buenos dias, señora.

(talking in Spanish)

So this cart is
the main,

the transportation for
the entire village here.

This is looking like
a sediment river now.

Yeah, yeah.

So the bottom would
be sandy here, right?

It's not cutting
anymore, it's carrying.

It's carrying its load on down.

This woman is
exceptionally strong, too.

Dang.

(talking Spanish) Ah.

So she does this whenever
anybody wants to cross

and basically it's just
for families here.

But I get the feeling she
only does it when she goes.

She never does it
when she stays here.

I wonder if I can get one of
these at home?

Right.

To across Granite
Creek in Prescott?

No, to cross my carport.

You don't suppose she
was going to do that

just to take a load
of bananas across?

Gracias, señora.

So the Urubamba can be crossed
with the proper engineering.

We've been traveling about
4 hours this morning

on a very tough dirt road
but we're in the Amazon

so we can take our time and if
we have to drive after dark,

what the heck, we're
still in Peru.

(music playing)

We've come through desert and
cloud forest,

plenty of mud and dust, now
it's time to let nature's power

clean our cars, gravity flow
hose courtesy of a waterfall.

It's not often that you
find the right combination

It's not often that you
find the right combination

of a waterfall to give
hydropower to move a wheel

which then turns a larger wheel,

they put a belt on and
they've got power to operate

all of their tools here,
doesn't cost them a thing.

All they have to do is cut
the wood, bring it here,

nature takes care
of everything else.

(music playing)

We've driven now from

10,000 feet in the cloud
forest to about 1500 feet

in the Amazon Desert
along the Rio Marañón.

The similarities between
this Amazon Desert and the

southern Sonoran
Desert are uncanny.

In a Sonoran Desert, as
here, you have a lot of

this sort of croton bush
which is a toxic member

of the poinsettia family and we
see a lot of different members

of the bean family
that have all sorts of

thorns and spines on them,
but most of all we see

a proliferation of cacti and
most of them great cacti

just as in the Sonoran Desert.

I feel like I'm at home
but I'm in the Amazon.

In the Sonoran Desert a little
cactus called the pincushion

is quite common.

Here, they don't have
those along the Amazon,

instead they have this.

It's called the mellow cactus.

When they become adults, the
green part quits growing.

This upper part, which is called
the cephalium or the head,

continues to grow
and grows and grows.

And each year puts out fruits,

these little wonderful
pink fruits.

Believe it or not, it tastes
like a cherry tomato.

The only cactus fruit
I've ever tasted

that has that specific twang.

Before we cross the lower
bridge over the Marañón

and begin to wind our way up
and out of the Amazon Desert,

it's only appropriate
that we stop

and treat ourselves to
the sweet juice of a fruit

surprisingly suited to
this hot dry climate.

Apparently this region
produces, what they claim,

are the sweetest and juiciest
pineapples in the world.

And apparently they
don't export very well.

They don't travel.

Yeah, they don't travel well;
they rot or they damage,

so it's the only place you can
get them is right around in here

and I'm glad that we're here.

I gotta have more.

That's good.

That's good bass.

Yeah.

Isn't that wonderful?

Hey, Yetman, do you
realize that both times

that we've crossed the
Marañón/Amazon on a bridge,

it's been in the desert.

And did you realize it would
ever be this dirty in Peru?

I didn't.

That carrying the Andres
down to the Atlantic.

If you take all the water
that's in the Amazon basin,

that's one-fourth of all the
fresh water in the world.

If you were to get in a kayak
here at the Marañón Bridge

and do 50 miles a day, how long
do you think it would take you

to reach the Atlantic?

I think it would
depend on how long

my insect repellant would last.

That's true.

I would, well look,
I'll give you an answer.

You couldn't do it in 60 days,

cause it's more than
3,000 miles from here.

Where the Rio Marañón
heads to the northeast,

the river has cut a gap
through the Andes,

making for the shortest
and easiest passage

across the whole range.

This meant the people from
the Amazon could trade

with people from the highlands
in the desert coast to the west.

It also created a most
unusual desert ecosystem.

Where the Marañón has
created this unusual habitat

has become a cross roads, making
for one of the most important

human historical and
natural historical places

in the entire Amazon basin.

The coastal deserts
of Peru were home to

elaborate civilizations
long before the Incas

arrived.

Oh that would be
something, you know if I

found something. Treasures
from the colossal to the

minute can still be
found as well as ancient

traditions that are
still in practice.

Next time on The
         Desert Speaks .

(speaking Spanish)

Well,
I always wanted to walk

my way to Balsas
anyway, bye guys!

(speaking Spanish)

Funding for
        The Desert Speaks

was provided by
Desert Program Partners,

representing concerned viewers
making a financial commitment

to the education about and
preservation of deserts.

And by the
Stonewall Foundation.