Departures (2008–…): Season 3, Episode 7 - Ecuador - full transcript
(upbeat music)
- [Scott] We're on route to Ecuador
and we just sort of felt like,
we hadn't seen enough of South America.
It's a big continent.
There's a lot to see.
And Ecuador provides
a lot in a small area.
(upbeat music)
There are some major spots
that we we wanted to see.
Before we head to the Amazon,
we wanted to get to the Galapagos islands.
We're gonna meet up with José when we land
and he's gonna take us out
of the big city of Quito
and out into nature.
Every step in this world trip
has taken us further away from home
to places we never expected to see.
- [Justin] Two years ago, I
would never have understood
how much this journey would change me.
- [Scott] This is why we travel.
This is the reason that we're out here.
(upbeat music)
- We're taking a bit of a
different approach this time
and wanting to have a wild adventure
to really kickstart this country.
We knew from the get-go
that we were in good hands
and we were gonna have
a good trip with José.
He did a lot of studying for ecology,
conservation, things like that.
We were able to get ourselves
deep into the Cloud Forest.
Of course, at the hands of José,
he knows how to pick the
places to really experience it.
You get to see right away
that he's really proud of his country.
In order get across the canyon
and to get to our rappelling.
We need to cross on a kind
of huge cable car, I guess.
(engine roaring)
Interesting to see how
they've rigged it up
to get this thing across the canyon.
- There's a clutch and everything, right?
So he can just shift up.
And there's like pieces
of it all over the place.
Feels like a ride at a carnival
or something, you know?
- Yeah.
- Kinda make shift, you know what I mean,
not sure how good they installed it.
- You don't wanna go inside?
Being above the trees
and being able to see
the landscape around you.
It was just a fantastic
way to get things going.
(soft music)
We're gonna hike to a point
where we can actually
rappel down a waterfall.
Hopefully get some really good vistas
and see some stuff along the way.
- Over 1600 species that
we can find in this forest,
mainly Cloud forest.
- is the common potoo.
It's a nocturnal bird.
And right now it's right
in the middle of the sun
that's coming up.
But, it's best defense is camouflage.
- That's the most incredible camouflage
I've seen in my whole entire life.
It looks like a part of the log
and I sat here forever
and then realized, like, that's a bird!
- Right here is called the angel trumpet.
This one has a very
powerful hallucinogenic.
It's extremely potent.
It can go through your course
just by rubbing it in your arm.
You can have a little bit just
to have a sense of the take.
I promise you, you won't be tripping out.
- [Justin] Will you try some?
- No.
- The important thing to acknowledge here
not to be afraid of all
these things is that
this plants are here to
give us certain power.
That's how our people used
to do it for hundreds,
thousands of years.
- The cool part about being
in Ecuador is, I mean,
you don't just wander
through these rainforest,
you know, these cloud forest.
You just get involved with them.
- You okay?
I haven't done this in a long time.
So I could come back a little bit.
You know, it's all about placing your feet
in the right Spot.
It's always scary from the top.
(upbeat music)
- I really get the
feeling that, with José,
that he shares the same sorta appreciation
for the world around you.
He knows where to go and
he knows how to show you.
- Welcome to the Mindo Ropes and zipline.
- José when you're
telling us we're gonna see
a bit of the Highlands.
This isn't what I was expecting.
- One of my best suggestions
to enjoy the cloud forest.
- It's around 65 kilometer per hour.
- This is by far the best
perspective you'll ever get
from the forest.
- Once you start breaking on this,
you're gonna feel some
heat in these gloves I bet.
- We'll catch you guys in the other side.
- He's lost some speed?
- Still going.
All right. Let's give it a roll.
- Definitely this is the
closest feeling to flying.
- This is where we're gonna be living
for the next little while.
So, let's enjoy it.
(laughing)
- Am I allowed to do this?
This is okay.
- [Scott] It's Refreshing
when you get off the plane
and you're greeted by
a friendly face saying,
"Hey, let's go do something
fun and let's get out there."
If you're lucky
that you actually made the decision
to come to this country.
Smell the fresh air and see
the tiny little micro-climates.
You really do realize where
you are and how lucky you are.
How much of a special place this is.
- We haven't been here 24 hours
and I've already, you know,
accomplished something
I've always wanted to do.
So, all in the first day.
The most perfect live
I've ever seen my life.
It just gives you that feeling.
It feels that you're just flying
through the trees with the birds.
It's such a great experience.
(soft music)
(Car whizzing by)
To get the night started off,
to get everybody pumped up,
we're jumping off a bridge.
We're jumping off the system bridge
that cars are gonna be going by.
I think there's a freeway
that's underneath it.
You know, it's just..
- Hey Miles, if you have the equipment,
you can jump up whenever you want.
So we're lucky enough
that José has gonna do,
try some test jumps today.
And if you guys are up for
it, I mean, we can go for it.
- That's good.
- Test jumps.
- Best safety in the third world man.
It can't get any better than this.
- The way it works is that
they just set up ropes
and they just jump off.
And there's no law that
says you can't do this.
So they're doing it.
- I'd say it's a hundred meters, maybe.
Somewhere between two and 300 feet.
- Look at that. Single knot.
- [Andre] All right, that's good to know.
- Wow.
Maybe a bad idea. I don't know.
- As all good friends
will normally suggest
to you at one point or
another in your life.
Why don't we go jump off a bridge?
And, what my mom told me about that
is a little hazy, right now.
I think she said,
"Always jump off a bridge
if your friends ask."
- Okay guys. So, am gonna test the ropes.
So, do it.
Okay.
(yells)
- [Justin] Here he comes again.
(screaming)
- Nicely done, man.
- [Justin] Good job, man.
- How do you feel.
- This is the way to start the night.
So who's next?
- Sorry.
This ensures it can be an open casket.
- My heart is just pounding.
So, let's do it.
- [José] Whenever you want.
- [Justin] Last words?
- Nope, no last words.
Nothing. I can't think
of damn thing. All right.
- [Justin] Ready?
- Oh shit.
(laughing)
- Can't wait.
- If you want to grab the rope, it's okay.
You can grab it from here.
- [José] Don't think of it, jump
- Yeah. The more you think
the more it gets worse.
- This is scary jumping this way.
I really don't wanna do it now.
- [Everyone] Four, three, two, one, soar.
(laughing)
- Okay. One more.
- We're pushing you this time.
- [Everyone] Five, four,
three, two, one, go.
(screaming)
(guitar music)
- Oh my God, that was
absolutely priceless.
Andre, you should do it.
Come on man.
- [Andre] No.
- Come on.
- Wonder if anyone knows about
my massive fear of heights.
Okay. I'm like, man, my
heart's just pounding.
- It's awesome man.
- Yeah.
- Yeah. I don't know if
you wanna do back backers,
it's just pretty scary for some reason.
Frontwards...
- See you guys later.
- I think Andre did it the best way,
just to do it.
- So you see is a green
product, it's ecological.
Everything comes in bikes, goes in bikes.
- These guys are nuts.
They just carry their ropes
and then just tie it up to a bridge
and get the party going.
From here we're gonna fly out
into the Galapagos islands
to experience one of the
most unique ecosystems
on the entire planet.
- We were too anxious to
kinda wait around for the bus
to leave the airport.
We touched down in Galapagos
so we just jumped in
the back of this truck.
- Anything I've ever
read about this place,
it always just depicts how animals
and humans can co-exist in the same place.
There's not too many places on this earth
that actually experienced that.
The best part about traveling around.
You get to fulfill boyhood
dreams like I have just now.
Stepping on Galapagos islands.
Absolutely fabled places on earth
that people just don't get to.
- This morning, we're going
to dive with some hammerheads.
We're gonna go to a spot
called Gordon's Rocks.
- Sick. Sick on the
biggest day of the trip.
- I mean, if you're feeling lightheaded,
that's a bad thing to go diving with.
- This doesn't make any sense.
Cause I've been, there's
nothing I haven't eaten
that was different.
But something went in my system
and my body did not want it in there.
- So this is the day I would say you have
to be a hundred percent to go dive in.
Like, if you're not a hundred percent,
then you shouldn't be going.
(guitar music)
We just carved outside of the main channel
on the North side of Santa Cruz Island
in the open water on the
East side of Santa Cruz.
- I am completely psyched now.
I can't believe we're gonna do this.
The hammerheads are waiting.
The weather is perfect.
Seems like everything is going well.
Well beside Justin being not here.
But all the positive vibes
are lining up together.
- Pile of volcanic rocks over there.
That's Gordon rocks.
That's our dive site for today.
So hopefully there's a lot
of big fish waiting for us.
- Hammerhead sharks, hammerhead
sharks like the white meat,
especially from Canada.
- Come and get it.
- Well, it's been two hours
since the guys have left
and I feel fine now.
A thousand and one, a thousand and two.
I'll show you where I
spent my whole night.
The living laboratory of evolution.
They don't teach you
some stuff about birds.
13 species of Darwin's finches
evolved from a single....
(gentle music)
- I was so preoccupied with seeing shark
that I really didn't take notice at first
of just how much was around us.
Eventually you start
to see this definition
between the sea floor
and these dark figures,
these silhouettes of
what can be nothing other
than hammerhead Sharks.
It's a dive experience
that I will remember
for the rest of my life.
If you really want to experience
truly one of a kind
ecosystem on this earth
and you're willing to respect it
and give it time to learn from it
then yeah, this is a special place.
We've come up to the Darwin
research station here.
Someone from this station, Christophe,
has been doing a lot of research here
on and off over the past 15 years or more.
Being able to show us around here
and kind of tell us what we're looking at.
Probably one of the most iconic
of all the animals to see
on the Galapagos islands,
which is the giant tortoise.
With tortoises like these,
like obviously we can get close to them
because they've never
really developed that fear.
- That's the peculiarity
of Galapagos animals.
They just evolve without predators
and well they don't know fear.
- Have you noticed the time you spend here
and there has there been a change,
have you seen something?
- One of the last places in the world
where we had this kind
of relation to nature
and which is not the spring.
- They may be slow, but
they are intimidating.
Got a racer number, 58.
- After yesterday, I
never expected to be able
to beat the record of getting
that close to an animal.
It's easy for these guys
to grow to this size.
All you need is a lot of time
and without any real predators, you know,
it's easy to grow to the ripe
old age of 150 years old.
- This is how magical this place is. Wow.
- You know, these islands just came up
out of the ocean as a volcanic eruption.
They were never attached to
the continent at any point.
So, how did all this stuff get here?
How did these guys get here?
They figured that they
were probably a lot smaller
and they actually just got washed across
all the way from the mainland.
- It's just kind of sad to know that
when did they first started
studying this tortoise
there were like 15 species
around the islands.
Now we have 11 left.
- This island has a lot
of stuff going for it.
Not only are there tortoises here
but there are the marine iguanas.
From the landscape to the environment
and the vegetation around us you'd think
that we were walking through
Arizona or something.
- [Justin] I actually think
there's some magic here
because this island is very unique
and it's very unique to the world.
Some of the most amazing
types of species of animals
are here, in this area.
- This is the only species of iguana
that have aquatic behavior.
That live by the water.
That's one of the things
that amazed the most
to Charles Darwin was that.
To see iguanas by the ocean swimming.
- You're able to get to these animals.
That again, just have no fear of humans.
The only time that there's
been an interaction
between these animals and humans is
just been in the time.
It's spitting. It's spit on me.
- When they're on the lava rocks,
they're almost impossible to see.
They're almost invisible.
Not invisible, invisible.
- The camouflage is kind
of like unexplainable here
'cause they really have no
predators to fear about.
- Maybe it's because black absorbs the sun
and since they're in the water,
they're cold-blooded,
that kinda heats them
up a little bit more.
- Yeah, most of them are theories
and yours is a really good theory.
- There you go.
Diamond junior, DJ.
- The kids are gonna call you doju.
- [Scott] What made these
islands special were
obviously these plants and these animals
that are extremely unique
that evolved and developed on their own
without any kind of influence from man.
At least initially.
But, as we've seen,
and as we've learned with
our time here in the islands,
because of so many growing problems
and the increasing numbers
of residents and visitors
and the footprint that we leave,
extinction is rising
and the animals are slowly disappearing.
- You don't have to travel
to the other side of the world
to realize that there are
problems happening right now.
What was once a, island where no one came,
everybody's coming.
And because of that
the animals are suffering.
Us being here are we part
of the problem, sorta?
You know I think the best thing you can do
is ask questions, right?
- There's a lot more to the highlands
than just the pure nature itself.
There's a lot of culture
that's been here for a long, long time.
- (indistinct) the car, we get out
and there's like this parade going on.
And, apparently they're
worshiping the sun god
which is kinda weird
because the sun's not
out right now. But hey.
(guitar music)
- They're inviting us
to the party you know.
This is a conglomeration of
communities getting together.
This whole week is a lot
of drinking and enjoying.
The festivities are back.
This big group just takes over a house
and takes all the booze and the food
and then keeps going
and find the next house.
This keeps going on all night long.
See how they are getting
in the house right now.
(traditional music)
- Just looking for the open door house
and we're going in and we're raiding that.
- [José] I don't know,
they plan on going probably all night.
- I guess that's the idea.
You go until the sun comes up again.
- Well, we were driving
in the right direction,
it's paid off.
(traditional music)
- She's the owner of the house
and she's inviting you to
enjoy her very own recipe
of this chicha drink apparently prepared
from four days before.
And she wants you try it.
- It's like Halloween for grown ups.
You know, instead of candy
you come in, you get,
this sort of like, come in, here I am,
playing a song, I'm entertaining you.
Okay. Now give me booze and
food and am out of here.
In the spirit of Inti Raymi,
in celebration of the
sun and of the harvest
and good health and just an
overall appreciation for life.
It seems a celebration of life.
(joyful music)
In the morning, we were headed to town
and see a lot of the
different indigenous groups
take to the square.
(gentle music)
This morning, as soon as you get up
and even last night you can hear
that Inti Raymi is
still alive and kicking.
- This is about to get crazy here. Wow.
(gentle music)
- It's a bunch of communities
split up in two groups.
The guys from Kalera
and the guys from Topo.
- The way the police are decked out
you can pretty much tell
that there's gonna be
a boiling point reached
at some point today.
- This is a day where they release
all the little troubles
that they have in between their community.
- Ecuador obviously got its
name derived from the fact
that the equator runs right through it.
And a lot of people seem to feel
that charges Ecuador with strange energy.
- (indistinct) is one of the head chiefs
of the police force.
He's telling us that past years
there'd been some debts in terms of,
on this festivity.
The Inti Raymi gets
pretty rough sometimes.
That's why there's over
400 policemen today
trying to keep the order.
Of course, sometimes it gets out of hand.
That's why you can see all the tear gas,
all the cute bombs, all
the equipment heavy,
heavy armed police force.
(speaking foreign language)
- The last thing we wanna do
is float around this world
and see it all through
rose colored glasses.
It's that's just not the way it is.
Kinda scratch the surface a little bit
and you kinda understand the
world a little bit better.
- Moonshine.
If somebody picks up a
fight the fight will begin.
But this particular
group are pretty friendly
they don't wanna fight.
They're just dancing
and celebrating the Pachamama.
- It's just such a bizarre
sight. You know what I mean.
Everybody, from towns all around the area,
everyone's come down to gather.
They're all gathered on
the steps of the church.
The statue of Jesus Christ
looking out over the main square.
- [Justin] I find with
traveling you become connected
with the places you've been to.
And you feel for it.
It's not just a name on a map.
It's a part of me.
- [Scott] The longer you're here
the more divides you seem to find.
Every different region of this country
has their own struggles and problems.
Which makes it all the more interesting
and all the more amazing.
The fact that this country
stays together and stays proud.
This beautiful diverse land
with so many different geographic regions.
It gives way for so many different people
and obviously ways that both plant, animal
and human have adapted to that.
- [Justin] Now we're going to
the other side of the country.
We're going right into the Amazon.
- I think we've learned from the past
that the road can only take us so far.
For this trip in order to get
deep enough into the Amazon,
we're gonna need to go as
far as the road can take us.
And then from there take a plane.
This is a town of Shell.
It's a small town
right at the beginning
of the Amazon itself.
People came out here and settled this area
because of the oil that
was discovered out here.
The prosperity of that
gave the town an airport
and it gives us a chance to use this
as a hopping point to get
much deeper into the Amazon.
We got about a one hour flight
to get where we're going.
And soon we'll be amongst
the Huaorani tribes.
Weather changes quickly we
just wanna get in the air.
Right now the pilot is gonna fly low
so that we can get a really good look
at the surrounding area, the canopy,
and even below the canopies.
Some of the rivers that
are running through here.
It's amazing.
- Could you tell the
pilot to have some fun.
Do whatever he wants.
Let's feel some jeez.
(speaking foreign language)
(screaming)
(upbeat music)
- I usually sleep during
flights, not that one.
- We are now officially
in Huaorani territory.
We are in the middle of the Amazon.
- This guy is..
Is he picking us up on the way back?
I hope so.
(aircraft buzzing)
- This is Moi. He's the Huaorani leader.
Hey, this is the Anila.
This is Moi's daughter.
(speaking foreign language)
Hey, Moi, speaks a little bit of English.
- How are you?
- Nice to meet you.
- They'd been battling against white men
because, for them,
white men they come here
to eat their souls, pretty much.
And I can't blame them
because they've seen loggers,
they've seen oil companies come in
and they haven't had
a really good contact.
Right now they're starting
to get into this whole ecotourism deal.
And hoping that there's gonna be a change
and kinda like a new type of
relationship with white people.
- Moi has invited us to his house.
Just to sit down and
chat with him for a bit.
We're kinda interested to
find out a little bit more
about how they've
maintained a life out here
in the middle of the rainforest.
- So he says he's got four daughters.
One of them lives in Argentina,
the other one in Washington DC
and the other one in Africa.
So he earned because of
his family tradition,
through his father's work,
he won five scholarships for all his kids.
- Just how long has he lived here?
(speaking foreign language)
- [José] Four years.
- [Justin] Just four years.
(speaking foreign language)
- He says he wants to make make friends
with Barack Obama now.
He says that he thinks he
is gonna be a good friend.
- [Justin] Bush no good?
- There's an original Huaorani spear
that his father used to,
use for killing, for
battle, for territory.
This spear has actually killed people.
And the reason why they
put feathers of birds
is so this spear will fly
into the enemy like a bird.
- We just brought in a new blow dart gun
and he actually put a dart into this one.
Okay. Now I'm all set to try these loaded,
I'm gonna try to fire it
into the bananas there. Wow.
- The veins of a palm leaf to
make the darts, really sharp.
And they also use a type
of poison called Curare
which is made out of different herbs.
But it's the main vine that has the toxin.
And it's a very powerful muscle relaxant.
- With that muscle relaxant
that they put on those darts.
The last thing you wanna do
is take a really deep breath
too close to it.
Or else you are like...
(gulps air)
And now we've graduated
into a much larger,
a much more real sized up blow dart gun
that the Huaorani would
actually hunt with.
With Moi doing it, hopefully
a lot more lung power as well.
So we're gonna see how far we
can actually shoot this thing
and what kind of accuracy we can get.
- So this one has the poison, the Curare.
So if it goes inside
the monkey will break it
and leave the poison inside.
And with the temperature of the body
it will melt down and
go into the bloodstream.
- He also said he can take
like four or five monkeys out
before the whole group
of monkeys even realize
what's going on.
- It's a nation of warriors and hunters.
It's in their blood.
Yeah, absolutely. It's in their blood.
I mean, that's how they have
survived for hundreds of years
in this forest.
- Could one dark kill
a man can kill a man?
(speaking foreign language)
- In five, from three to
five minutes you're dead
after getting this on
your bloodstream. Okay.
- Make sure you put
the right end in there.
(speaking foreign language)
Wow.
In order to try to protect
the Huaorani tribe,
the Huaorani territory
and the Huaorani culture
they've had to adopt modern philosophies
like introducing
ecotourism into their area
in order to protect themselves
and their land from the oil companies.
- They leave very very little footprint.
They do a really good waste management.
They have an organic farm.
Is there a certain thing, certain details
that make a real ecotourism project work?
- That's one of those
low emission ones, right?
They've done everything they can
to keep the culture and
minimize the impact.
- These guys might turn a small profit
but if they decided to,
oh, let's sell our land.
And you know, start drilling and drilling.
How much money they can make?
They can make millions upon
millions upon millions, right?
But they don't, they said, no,
we're not gonna do that.
Instead. We're gonna
build something on here
so nobody can destroy this land.
And that way it can be here forever.
(soft music)
- We found out that
the chief of the tribe,
his father has just passed
away as of yesterday.
- We're expecting the
delivery of his father's body.
He has invited us to join the ceremony.
- Well, it's really turned
into a full-out rain now.
Moi seems to be adamant
about the fact that
that rainbow is a really good omen.
- Here comes the plane.
(plane buzzing)
(gentle music)
Well for Huaoranis they
don't see death as we see it.
They kinda like have dealt
with death all their lives.
They have the highest rates of homicide
amongst any tribe in the world.
Most of the issues they
solve through spears.
As you can see, if my father
would have died yesterday,
I could have been, I'll be crying
or probably mourning for a week.
But for them it's something different.
(rock music)
- You can believe whatever you want.
But, the second that plane's
wheels left the ground,
it started to rain and
it's pouring right now.
Like, I know, I don't know what to say.
- We will take it, but
yeah, the casket is inside.
Just thought that you are hot here.
So, I'm not sure what's going
to happen now at this point.
(speaking foreign language)
- So, right now they're
speaking on Huaorani
in their own tongue
and they are explaining how
things went in the hospital.
Kinda like the autopsy.
- I feel pretty weird being here for this.
I mean, you know, it was just by chance
that we happened to be, you know,
making arrangements to come in.
And now that I'm here, I
feel like a real outsider.
- [Justin] When it comes to deaths,
it's one of those things
you're not too sure,
you know, how to really take it
and how you're supposed to deal with it.
You know, back home I kinda
understand what the customs are.
But when you're here on
this side of the world,
things are done differently.
- (indistinct), Moi's father and family.
They were one of the best
warriors that took care
and that defended the Huaorani territory
from the Napa river to the North,
to the Curaray river to the South,
trying to cherish the natives.
How good of a warrior is how well
they protected their own land
Moi's father was one of the first ones
that started battling
against the invasion of other tribes,
the invasion of the loggers,
the oil companies.
(speaking foreign language)
- Moi's father is gonna be
buried out in the jungle here.
So they've actually have
a spot picked out for him
and we're just kinda making our way
through like the forest right now.
- Moi's father, they've picked a place
to bury him out here in the rainforest.
He has a grave beside a
few other graves here.
And so he'll be placed with other family.
I can only assume.
I know, yeah, funerals,
never an easy thing to
go through, you know.
Obviously for these people,
we don't even know Moi's father
but it's just, it always has
show an emotion in the air.
- They threw in like a little
rabbit, a little bunny.
You throw them in there as offerings.
- [Scott] That was something different
than we've seen before.
- Those cute little bunnies
just tossed in there.
(soft music)
- Guess that was one of
(indistinct) weapons.
When he used to battle
against the other tribes.
- When you've just arrived to a place
and you don't know anybody.
Someone of great
importance has passed away,
it's just like, wow,
you are just kinda thrown right into it.
I'm really interested to see everything
and see how everything happens.
But at the same time,
I definitely wanna give them their space,
let them grieve, you know, let
them do what they need to do.
It's gonna be a few hours at the least
going down this river just
to get to the nearest road.
Which will give us access
to get to the nearest town.
Which will then give us access
to get to the nearest airport.
Moi and his father and
all of their people.
Are trying to stay away from modernization
in order to still preserve
as much of their culture
and as much of their
way of life as possible.
- Moi's trying to find that balance.
He's trying to save his land
and still yet welcome people in.
(speaking foreign language)
He's cut around the corner.
It's nice, scenic, the
beautiful cruise on the Amazon.
All of a sudden, as soon as
you hit the bridge in this area
you see pipelines.
Just running right through.
(Lorry rumbling)
(upbeat music)
- Ecuador as a whole
is a wonderful microcosm of other things
and issues and problems
that are happening in
other places in the world.
Issues with extinction, tribal disputes,
government, oil companies.
But people are fighting back
and they're fighting back proud.
- Great, good trip dude. Awesome trip.
Whenever I find a home
wherever that may be,
you're gonna be welcomed to come.
- [Andre] Try to mess.
- Andre, you're a good man.
- I walk away from a country like this
with an experience
but also in a different outlook.
- [Justin] Some of the
best experiences we've had
have left us with more
questions than answers.
(upbeat music)
- We're leaving South America
and we're heading back into Africa.
Ethiopia is a country where unfortunately
there are images in my
head that I can't shake.
- [Scott] We're on route to Ecuador
and we just sort of felt like,
we hadn't seen enough of South America.
It's a big continent.
There's a lot to see.
And Ecuador provides
a lot in a small area.
(upbeat music)
There are some major spots
that we we wanted to see.
Before we head to the Amazon,
we wanted to get to the Galapagos islands.
We're gonna meet up with José when we land
and he's gonna take us out
of the big city of Quito
and out into nature.
Every step in this world trip
has taken us further away from home
to places we never expected to see.
- [Justin] Two years ago, I
would never have understood
how much this journey would change me.
- [Scott] This is why we travel.
This is the reason that we're out here.
(upbeat music)
- We're taking a bit of a
different approach this time
and wanting to have a wild adventure
to really kickstart this country.
We knew from the get-go
that we were in good hands
and we were gonna have
a good trip with José.
He did a lot of studying for ecology,
conservation, things like that.
We were able to get ourselves
deep into the Cloud Forest.
Of course, at the hands of José,
he knows how to pick the
places to really experience it.
You get to see right away
that he's really proud of his country.
In order get across the canyon
and to get to our rappelling.
We need to cross on a kind
of huge cable car, I guess.
(engine roaring)
Interesting to see how
they've rigged it up
to get this thing across the canyon.
- There's a clutch and everything, right?
So he can just shift up.
And there's like pieces
of it all over the place.
Feels like a ride at a carnival
or something, you know?
- Yeah.
- Kinda make shift, you know what I mean,
not sure how good they installed it.
- You don't wanna go inside?
Being above the trees
and being able to see
the landscape around you.
It was just a fantastic
way to get things going.
(soft music)
We're gonna hike to a point
where we can actually
rappel down a waterfall.
Hopefully get some really good vistas
and see some stuff along the way.
- Over 1600 species that
we can find in this forest,
mainly Cloud forest.
- is the common potoo.
It's a nocturnal bird.
And right now it's right
in the middle of the sun
that's coming up.
But, it's best defense is camouflage.
- That's the most incredible camouflage
I've seen in my whole entire life.
It looks like a part of the log
and I sat here forever
and then realized, like, that's a bird!
- Right here is called the angel trumpet.
This one has a very
powerful hallucinogenic.
It's extremely potent.
It can go through your course
just by rubbing it in your arm.
You can have a little bit just
to have a sense of the take.
I promise you, you won't be tripping out.
- [Justin] Will you try some?
- No.
- The important thing to acknowledge here
not to be afraid of all
these things is that
this plants are here to
give us certain power.
That's how our people used
to do it for hundreds,
thousands of years.
- The cool part about being
in Ecuador is, I mean,
you don't just wander
through these rainforest,
you know, these cloud forest.
You just get involved with them.
- You okay?
I haven't done this in a long time.
So I could come back a little bit.
You know, it's all about placing your feet
in the right Spot.
It's always scary from the top.
(upbeat music)
- I really get the
feeling that, with José,
that he shares the same sorta appreciation
for the world around you.
He knows where to go and
he knows how to show you.
- Welcome to the Mindo Ropes and zipline.
- José when you're
telling us we're gonna see
a bit of the Highlands.
This isn't what I was expecting.
- One of my best suggestions
to enjoy the cloud forest.
- It's around 65 kilometer per hour.
- This is by far the best
perspective you'll ever get
from the forest.
- Once you start breaking on this,
you're gonna feel some
heat in these gloves I bet.
- We'll catch you guys in the other side.
- He's lost some speed?
- Still going.
All right. Let's give it a roll.
- Definitely this is the
closest feeling to flying.
- This is where we're gonna be living
for the next little while.
So, let's enjoy it.
(laughing)
- Am I allowed to do this?
This is okay.
- [Scott] It's Refreshing
when you get off the plane
and you're greeted by
a friendly face saying,
"Hey, let's go do something
fun and let's get out there."
If you're lucky
that you actually made the decision
to come to this country.
Smell the fresh air and see
the tiny little micro-climates.
You really do realize where
you are and how lucky you are.
How much of a special place this is.
- We haven't been here 24 hours
and I've already, you know,
accomplished something
I've always wanted to do.
So, all in the first day.
The most perfect live
I've ever seen my life.
It just gives you that feeling.
It feels that you're just flying
through the trees with the birds.
It's such a great experience.
(soft music)
(Car whizzing by)
To get the night started off,
to get everybody pumped up,
we're jumping off a bridge.
We're jumping off the system bridge
that cars are gonna be going by.
I think there's a freeway
that's underneath it.
You know, it's just..
- Hey Miles, if you have the equipment,
you can jump up whenever you want.
So we're lucky enough
that José has gonna do,
try some test jumps today.
And if you guys are up for
it, I mean, we can go for it.
- That's good.
- Test jumps.
- Best safety in the third world man.
It can't get any better than this.
- The way it works is that
they just set up ropes
and they just jump off.
And there's no law that
says you can't do this.
So they're doing it.
- I'd say it's a hundred meters, maybe.
Somewhere between two and 300 feet.
- Look at that. Single knot.
- [Andre] All right, that's good to know.
- Wow.
Maybe a bad idea. I don't know.
- As all good friends
will normally suggest
to you at one point or
another in your life.
Why don't we go jump off a bridge?
And, what my mom told me about that
is a little hazy, right now.
I think she said,
"Always jump off a bridge
if your friends ask."
- Okay guys. So, am gonna test the ropes.
So, do it.
Okay.
(yells)
- [Justin] Here he comes again.
(screaming)
- Nicely done, man.
- [Justin] Good job, man.
- How do you feel.
- This is the way to start the night.
So who's next?
- Sorry.
This ensures it can be an open casket.
- My heart is just pounding.
So, let's do it.
- [José] Whenever you want.
- [Justin] Last words?
- Nope, no last words.
Nothing. I can't think
of damn thing. All right.
- [Justin] Ready?
- Oh shit.
(laughing)
- Can't wait.
- If you want to grab the rope, it's okay.
You can grab it from here.
- [José] Don't think of it, jump
- Yeah. The more you think
the more it gets worse.
- This is scary jumping this way.
I really don't wanna do it now.
- [Everyone] Four, three, two, one, soar.
(laughing)
- Okay. One more.
- We're pushing you this time.
- [Everyone] Five, four,
three, two, one, go.
(screaming)
(guitar music)
- Oh my God, that was
absolutely priceless.
Andre, you should do it.
Come on man.
- [Andre] No.
- Come on.
- Wonder if anyone knows about
my massive fear of heights.
Okay. I'm like, man, my
heart's just pounding.
- It's awesome man.
- Yeah.
- Yeah. I don't know if
you wanna do back backers,
it's just pretty scary for some reason.
Frontwards...
- See you guys later.
- I think Andre did it the best way,
just to do it.
- So you see is a green
product, it's ecological.
Everything comes in bikes, goes in bikes.
- These guys are nuts.
They just carry their ropes
and then just tie it up to a bridge
and get the party going.
From here we're gonna fly out
into the Galapagos islands
to experience one of the
most unique ecosystems
on the entire planet.
- We were too anxious to
kinda wait around for the bus
to leave the airport.
We touched down in Galapagos
so we just jumped in
the back of this truck.
- Anything I've ever
read about this place,
it always just depicts how animals
and humans can co-exist in the same place.
There's not too many places on this earth
that actually experienced that.
The best part about traveling around.
You get to fulfill boyhood
dreams like I have just now.
Stepping on Galapagos islands.
Absolutely fabled places on earth
that people just don't get to.
- This morning, we're going
to dive with some hammerheads.
We're gonna go to a spot
called Gordon's Rocks.
- Sick. Sick on the
biggest day of the trip.
- I mean, if you're feeling lightheaded,
that's a bad thing to go diving with.
- This doesn't make any sense.
Cause I've been, there's
nothing I haven't eaten
that was different.
But something went in my system
and my body did not want it in there.
- So this is the day I would say you have
to be a hundred percent to go dive in.
Like, if you're not a hundred percent,
then you shouldn't be going.
(guitar music)
We just carved outside of the main channel
on the North side of Santa Cruz Island
in the open water on the
East side of Santa Cruz.
- I am completely psyched now.
I can't believe we're gonna do this.
The hammerheads are waiting.
The weather is perfect.
Seems like everything is going well.
Well beside Justin being not here.
But all the positive vibes
are lining up together.
- Pile of volcanic rocks over there.
That's Gordon rocks.
That's our dive site for today.
So hopefully there's a lot
of big fish waiting for us.
- Hammerhead sharks, hammerhead
sharks like the white meat,
especially from Canada.
- Come and get it.
- Well, it's been two hours
since the guys have left
and I feel fine now.
A thousand and one, a thousand and two.
I'll show you where I
spent my whole night.
The living laboratory of evolution.
They don't teach you
some stuff about birds.
13 species of Darwin's finches
evolved from a single....
(gentle music)
- I was so preoccupied with seeing shark
that I really didn't take notice at first
of just how much was around us.
Eventually you start
to see this definition
between the sea floor
and these dark figures,
these silhouettes of
what can be nothing other
than hammerhead Sharks.
It's a dive experience
that I will remember
for the rest of my life.
If you really want to experience
truly one of a kind
ecosystem on this earth
and you're willing to respect it
and give it time to learn from it
then yeah, this is a special place.
We've come up to the Darwin
research station here.
Someone from this station, Christophe,
has been doing a lot of research here
on and off over the past 15 years or more.
Being able to show us around here
and kind of tell us what we're looking at.
Probably one of the most iconic
of all the animals to see
on the Galapagos islands,
which is the giant tortoise.
With tortoises like these,
like obviously we can get close to them
because they've never
really developed that fear.
- That's the peculiarity
of Galapagos animals.
They just evolve without predators
and well they don't know fear.
- Have you noticed the time you spend here
and there has there been a change,
have you seen something?
- One of the last places in the world
where we had this kind
of relation to nature
and which is not the spring.
- They may be slow, but
they are intimidating.
Got a racer number, 58.
- After yesterday, I
never expected to be able
to beat the record of getting
that close to an animal.
It's easy for these guys
to grow to this size.
All you need is a lot of time
and without any real predators, you know,
it's easy to grow to the ripe
old age of 150 years old.
- This is how magical this place is. Wow.
- You know, these islands just came up
out of the ocean as a volcanic eruption.
They were never attached to
the continent at any point.
So, how did all this stuff get here?
How did these guys get here?
They figured that they
were probably a lot smaller
and they actually just got washed across
all the way from the mainland.
- It's just kind of sad to know that
when did they first started
studying this tortoise
there were like 15 species
around the islands.
Now we have 11 left.
- This island has a lot
of stuff going for it.
Not only are there tortoises here
but there are the marine iguanas.
From the landscape to the environment
and the vegetation around us you'd think
that we were walking through
Arizona or something.
- [Justin] I actually think
there's some magic here
because this island is very unique
and it's very unique to the world.
Some of the most amazing
types of species of animals
are here, in this area.
- This is the only species of iguana
that have aquatic behavior.
That live by the water.
That's one of the things
that amazed the most
to Charles Darwin was that.
To see iguanas by the ocean swimming.
- You're able to get to these animals.
That again, just have no fear of humans.
The only time that there's
been an interaction
between these animals and humans is
just been in the time.
It's spitting. It's spit on me.
- When they're on the lava rocks,
they're almost impossible to see.
They're almost invisible.
Not invisible, invisible.
- The camouflage is kind
of like unexplainable here
'cause they really have no
predators to fear about.
- Maybe it's because black absorbs the sun
and since they're in the water,
they're cold-blooded,
that kinda heats them
up a little bit more.
- Yeah, most of them are theories
and yours is a really good theory.
- There you go.
Diamond junior, DJ.
- The kids are gonna call you doju.
- [Scott] What made these
islands special were
obviously these plants and these animals
that are extremely unique
that evolved and developed on their own
without any kind of influence from man.
At least initially.
But, as we've seen,
and as we've learned with
our time here in the islands,
because of so many growing problems
and the increasing numbers
of residents and visitors
and the footprint that we leave,
extinction is rising
and the animals are slowly disappearing.
- You don't have to travel
to the other side of the world
to realize that there are
problems happening right now.
What was once a, island where no one came,
everybody's coming.
And because of that
the animals are suffering.
Us being here are we part
of the problem, sorta?
You know I think the best thing you can do
is ask questions, right?
- There's a lot more to the highlands
than just the pure nature itself.
There's a lot of culture
that's been here for a long, long time.
- (indistinct) the car, we get out
and there's like this parade going on.
And, apparently they're
worshiping the sun god
which is kinda weird
because the sun's not
out right now. But hey.
(guitar music)
- They're inviting us
to the party you know.
This is a conglomeration of
communities getting together.
This whole week is a lot
of drinking and enjoying.
The festivities are back.
This big group just takes over a house
and takes all the booze and the food
and then keeps going
and find the next house.
This keeps going on all night long.
See how they are getting
in the house right now.
(traditional music)
- Just looking for the open door house
and we're going in and we're raiding that.
- [José] I don't know,
they plan on going probably all night.
- I guess that's the idea.
You go until the sun comes up again.
- Well, we were driving
in the right direction,
it's paid off.
(traditional music)
- She's the owner of the house
and she's inviting you to
enjoy her very own recipe
of this chicha drink apparently prepared
from four days before.
And she wants you try it.
- It's like Halloween for grown ups.
You know, instead of candy
you come in, you get,
this sort of like, come in, here I am,
playing a song, I'm entertaining you.
Okay. Now give me booze and
food and am out of here.
In the spirit of Inti Raymi,
in celebration of the
sun and of the harvest
and good health and just an
overall appreciation for life.
It seems a celebration of life.
(joyful music)
In the morning, we were headed to town
and see a lot of the
different indigenous groups
take to the square.
(gentle music)
This morning, as soon as you get up
and even last night you can hear
that Inti Raymi is
still alive and kicking.
- This is about to get crazy here. Wow.
(gentle music)
- It's a bunch of communities
split up in two groups.
The guys from Kalera
and the guys from Topo.
- The way the police are decked out
you can pretty much tell
that there's gonna be
a boiling point reached
at some point today.
- This is a day where they release
all the little troubles
that they have in between their community.
- Ecuador obviously got its
name derived from the fact
that the equator runs right through it.
And a lot of people seem to feel
that charges Ecuador with strange energy.
- (indistinct) is one of the head chiefs
of the police force.
He's telling us that past years
there'd been some debts in terms of,
on this festivity.
The Inti Raymi gets
pretty rough sometimes.
That's why there's over
400 policemen today
trying to keep the order.
Of course, sometimes it gets out of hand.
That's why you can see all the tear gas,
all the cute bombs, all
the equipment heavy,
heavy armed police force.
(speaking foreign language)
- The last thing we wanna do
is float around this world
and see it all through
rose colored glasses.
It's that's just not the way it is.
Kinda scratch the surface a little bit
and you kinda understand the
world a little bit better.
- Moonshine.
If somebody picks up a
fight the fight will begin.
But this particular
group are pretty friendly
they don't wanna fight.
They're just dancing
and celebrating the Pachamama.
- It's just such a bizarre
sight. You know what I mean.
Everybody, from towns all around the area,
everyone's come down to gather.
They're all gathered on
the steps of the church.
The statue of Jesus Christ
looking out over the main square.
- [Justin] I find with
traveling you become connected
with the places you've been to.
And you feel for it.
It's not just a name on a map.
It's a part of me.
- [Scott] The longer you're here
the more divides you seem to find.
Every different region of this country
has their own struggles and problems.
Which makes it all the more interesting
and all the more amazing.
The fact that this country
stays together and stays proud.
This beautiful diverse land
with so many different geographic regions.
It gives way for so many different people
and obviously ways that both plant, animal
and human have adapted to that.
- [Justin] Now we're going to
the other side of the country.
We're going right into the Amazon.
- I think we've learned from the past
that the road can only take us so far.
For this trip in order to get
deep enough into the Amazon,
we're gonna need to go as
far as the road can take us.
And then from there take a plane.
This is a town of Shell.
It's a small town
right at the beginning
of the Amazon itself.
People came out here and settled this area
because of the oil that
was discovered out here.
The prosperity of that
gave the town an airport
and it gives us a chance to use this
as a hopping point to get
much deeper into the Amazon.
We got about a one hour flight
to get where we're going.
And soon we'll be amongst
the Huaorani tribes.
Weather changes quickly we
just wanna get in the air.
Right now the pilot is gonna fly low
so that we can get a really good look
at the surrounding area, the canopy,
and even below the canopies.
Some of the rivers that
are running through here.
It's amazing.
- Could you tell the
pilot to have some fun.
Do whatever he wants.
Let's feel some jeez.
(speaking foreign language)
(screaming)
(upbeat music)
- I usually sleep during
flights, not that one.
- We are now officially
in Huaorani territory.
We are in the middle of the Amazon.
- This guy is..
Is he picking us up on the way back?
I hope so.
(aircraft buzzing)
- This is Moi. He's the Huaorani leader.
Hey, this is the Anila.
This is Moi's daughter.
(speaking foreign language)
Hey, Moi, speaks a little bit of English.
- How are you?
- Nice to meet you.
- They'd been battling against white men
because, for them,
white men they come here
to eat their souls, pretty much.
And I can't blame them
because they've seen loggers,
they've seen oil companies come in
and they haven't had
a really good contact.
Right now they're starting
to get into this whole ecotourism deal.
And hoping that there's gonna be a change
and kinda like a new type of
relationship with white people.
- Moi has invited us to his house.
Just to sit down and
chat with him for a bit.
We're kinda interested to
find out a little bit more
about how they've
maintained a life out here
in the middle of the rainforest.
- So he says he's got four daughters.
One of them lives in Argentina,
the other one in Washington DC
and the other one in Africa.
So he earned because of
his family tradition,
through his father's work,
he won five scholarships for all his kids.
- Just how long has he lived here?
(speaking foreign language)
- [José] Four years.
- [Justin] Just four years.
(speaking foreign language)
- He says he wants to make make friends
with Barack Obama now.
He says that he thinks he
is gonna be a good friend.
- [Justin] Bush no good?
- There's an original Huaorani spear
that his father used to,
use for killing, for
battle, for territory.
This spear has actually killed people.
And the reason why they
put feathers of birds
is so this spear will fly
into the enemy like a bird.
- We just brought in a new blow dart gun
and he actually put a dart into this one.
Okay. Now I'm all set to try these loaded,
I'm gonna try to fire it
into the bananas there. Wow.
- The veins of a palm leaf to
make the darts, really sharp.
And they also use a type
of poison called Curare
which is made out of different herbs.
But it's the main vine that has the toxin.
And it's a very powerful muscle relaxant.
- With that muscle relaxant
that they put on those darts.
The last thing you wanna do
is take a really deep breath
too close to it.
Or else you are like...
(gulps air)
And now we've graduated
into a much larger,
a much more real sized up blow dart gun
that the Huaorani would
actually hunt with.
With Moi doing it, hopefully
a lot more lung power as well.
So we're gonna see how far we
can actually shoot this thing
and what kind of accuracy we can get.
- So this one has the poison, the Curare.
So if it goes inside
the monkey will break it
and leave the poison inside.
And with the temperature of the body
it will melt down and
go into the bloodstream.
- He also said he can take
like four or five monkeys out
before the whole group
of monkeys even realize
what's going on.
- It's a nation of warriors and hunters.
It's in their blood.
Yeah, absolutely. It's in their blood.
I mean, that's how they have
survived for hundreds of years
in this forest.
- Could one dark kill
a man can kill a man?
(speaking foreign language)
- In five, from three to
five minutes you're dead
after getting this on
your bloodstream. Okay.
- Make sure you put
the right end in there.
(speaking foreign language)
Wow.
In order to try to protect
the Huaorani tribe,
the Huaorani territory
and the Huaorani culture
they've had to adopt modern philosophies
like introducing
ecotourism into their area
in order to protect themselves
and their land from the oil companies.
- They leave very very little footprint.
They do a really good waste management.
They have an organic farm.
Is there a certain thing, certain details
that make a real ecotourism project work?
- That's one of those
low emission ones, right?
They've done everything they can
to keep the culture and
minimize the impact.
- These guys might turn a small profit
but if they decided to,
oh, let's sell our land.
And you know, start drilling and drilling.
How much money they can make?
They can make millions upon
millions upon millions, right?
But they don't, they said, no,
we're not gonna do that.
Instead. We're gonna
build something on here
so nobody can destroy this land.
And that way it can be here forever.
(soft music)
- We found out that
the chief of the tribe,
his father has just passed
away as of yesterday.
- We're expecting the
delivery of his father's body.
He has invited us to join the ceremony.
- Well, it's really turned
into a full-out rain now.
Moi seems to be adamant
about the fact that
that rainbow is a really good omen.
- Here comes the plane.
(plane buzzing)
(gentle music)
Well for Huaoranis they
don't see death as we see it.
They kinda like have dealt
with death all their lives.
They have the highest rates of homicide
amongst any tribe in the world.
Most of the issues they
solve through spears.
As you can see, if my father
would have died yesterday,
I could have been, I'll be crying
or probably mourning for a week.
But for them it's something different.
(rock music)
- You can believe whatever you want.
But, the second that plane's
wheels left the ground,
it started to rain and
it's pouring right now.
Like, I know, I don't know what to say.
- We will take it, but
yeah, the casket is inside.
Just thought that you are hot here.
So, I'm not sure what's going
to happen now at this point.
(speaking foreign language)
- So, right now they're
speaking on Huaorani
in their own tongue
and they are explaining how
things went in the hospital.
Kinda like the autopsy.
- I feel pretty weird being here for this.
I mean, you know, it was just by chance
that we happened to be, you know,
making arrangements to come in.
And now that I'm here, I
feel like a real outsider.
- [Justin] When it comes to deaths,
it's one of those things
you're not too sure,
you know, how to really take it
and how you're supposed to deal with it.
You know, back home I kinda
understand what the customs are.
But when you're here on
this side of the world,
things are done differently.
- (indistinct), Moi's father and family.
They were one of the best
warriors that took care
and that defended the Huaorani territory
from the Napa river to the North,
to the Curaray river to the South,
trying to cherish the natives.
How good of a warrior is how well
they protected their own land
Moi's father was one of the first ones
that started battling
against the invasion of other tribes,
the invasion of the loggers,
the oil companies.
(speaking foreign language)
- Moi's father is gonna be
buried out in the jungle here.
So they've actually have
a spot picked out for him
and we're just kinda making our way
through like the forest right now.
- Moi's father, they've picked a place
to bury him out here in the rainforest.
He has a grave beside a
few other graves here.
And so he'll be placed with other family.
I can only assume.
I know, yeah, funerals,
never an easy thing to
go through, you know.
Obviously for these people,
we don't even know Moi's father
but it's just, it always has
show an emotion in the air.
- They threw in like a little
rabbit, a little bunny.
You throw them in there as offerings.
- [Scott] That was something different
than we've seen before.
- Those cute little bunnies
just tossed in there.
(soft music)
- Guess that was one of
(indistinct) weapons.
When he used to battle
against the other tribes.
- When you've just arrived to a place
and you don't know anybody.
Someone of great
importance has passed away,
it's just like, wow,
you are just kinda thrown right into it.
I'm really interested to see everything
and see how everything happens.
But at the same time,
I definitely wanna give them their space,
let them grieve, you know, let
them do what they need to do.
It's gonna be a few hours at the least
going down this river just
to get to the nearest road.
Which will give us access
to get to the nearest town.
Which will then give us access
to get to the nearest airport.
Moi and his father and
all of their people.
Are trying to stay away from modernization
in order to still preserve
as much of their culture
and as much of their
way of life as possible.
- Moi's trying to find that balance.
He's trying to save his land
and still yet welcome people in.
(speaking foreign language)
He's cut around the corner.
It's nice, scenic, the
beautiful cruise on the Amazon.
All of a sudden, as soon as
you hit the bridge in this area
you see pipelines.
Just running right through.
(Lorry rumbling)
(upbeat music)
- Ecuador as a whole
is a wonderful microcosm of other things
and issues and problems
that are happening in
other places in the world.
Issues with extinction, tribal disputes,
government, oil companies.
But people are fighting back
and they're fighting back proud.
- Great, good trip dude. Awesome trip.
Whenever I find a home
wherever that may be,
you're gonna be welcomed to come.
- [Andre] Try to mess.
- Andre, you're a good man.
- I walk away from a country like this
with an experience
but also in a different outlook.
- [Justin] Some of the
best experiences we've had
have left us with more
questions than answers.
(upbeat music)
- We're leaving South America
and we're heading back into Africa.
Ethiopia is a country where unfortunately
there are images in my
head that I can't shake.