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00:00I'm Steve Bashaw, a naturalist and explorer.
00:08Watch it roll!
00:10The thought of that coming down in my head, the helmet won't make any difference.
00:15You will all be dead in an instant.
00:17Whoa!
00:21With an expert team,
00:23That's a tight landing spot then there.
00:25I'm pushing deep into South America's pristine jungle.
00:29This is the last great rainforest left on the planet.
00:33Who knows what we're going to find here?
00:35Taking on dangers and hardships that have thwarted generations of explorers.
00:40Ah, it's so close!
00:42To find a lost world of natural treasures.
00:45No way!
00:48Never before seen by human eyes.
00:54We came here looking for lost worlds.
00:57We found one!
01:11Never seen anything like it.
01:13We've flown for an hour now over forests and there's just been nothing below us.
01:17And miles and miles in every direction.
01:19Mountains that have never been climbed.
01:21Rivers that no one's ever been down.
01:23And you could just drop a pin in the map and find a place that no human being has ever been to before.
01:28Since the time of Christopher Columbus,
01:32Every generation of explorer has been drawn to South America's forests and mountains.
01:39Many arrived in search of El Dorado, a mythical lost city of gold.
01:47But the primeval landscape we're flying over has repelled even the most determined pioneers.
01:53South America's Guiana Shield stretches over 2 million square kilometers.
01:59It's home to one of the largest pristine jungles on the planet.
02:05We're heading into its heart.
02:07It just looks like adventure, doesn't it?
02:11Does kind of make you think what would happen, though, if the plane went down?
02:14I don't want to think about that.
02:16Station Bravo, Sierra is approaching for landing 3.5 miles.
02:20Coming in.
02:22Oh, my days.
02:28This remote landing strip was built in the 1950s during a large-scale operation to push into these forests.
02:37We are hell and gone from nowhere.
02:40These relics are all that remain of this bygone era of exploration.
02:53It's perhaps not the kind of thing that you want to see.
02:57It's almost like a... a warning.
03:02Now I want to succeed where so many turned back
03:06and lead an expedition into this lost world,
03:09from the mountaintops down into the lowlands,
03:12in search of places where humans are still to set foot.
03:17But I'm not in search of gold.
03:19My treasures are the natural wonders still waiting to be discovered.
03:28This landing strip will be our base camp.
03:31From here, with the help of expert jungle pilots and local knowledge,
03:37we'll head to the start of our expedition.
03:43And where we're going is somewhere very special indeed.
03:50This is the Tafelberg.
03:51It means table mountain.
03:53And for good reason, the top of it just looks like a great big flat tabletop.
03:58It has vertical rock walls hundreds of metres high.
04:03One of the few people to have set down here before
04:06is field biologist Vanessa Cadoso.
04:09It looks pretty amazing.
04:13Vanessa was part of a scientific survey over six years ago
04:16that studied the flat tabletop.
04:19But the sheer sides have been a barrier to exploration below.
04:23Mountains like these are full of waterfalls.
04:27Gorges, canyons.
04:30Some of the most stunning and beautiful places you'll ever see.
04:34And because it's so difficult to move around on them,
04:36many of these places have never before been explored.
04:40Our objective is to find a route down into unknown territory.
04:44Joining me is Aldo Cain.
04:51He's a ropes expert who will help us reach the most inaccessible parts of this mountain.
04:57Oh, that's a tight landing spot down there.
05:00All good?
05:01Yeah, he's a good pilot, isn't he?
05:02Yeah.
05:03All right, sir?
05:04Hey, hey!
05:05What a view.
05:06Very, very dramatic.
05:07Yes.
05:09Amerindian trail cutters Mani and Uwawa
05:11Hey, hey!
05:22What have you?
05:28Very, very dramatic.
05:30Yes.
05:34Amerindian trail cutters Manny and Uwawa have also joined us.
05:38They were on Vanessa's previous expedition.
05:41Where is the closest village?
05:47Wow. Is that walking would take like ten months?
05:51Ten months?
05:52Yeah.
05:54The closest village is ten months away.
05:56Yeah, I think it's very far then.
05:58I can honestly say this is the most remote I've ever been.
06:01Yeah.
06:06So Uwawa, he's calling a monkey.
06:08So when they do this, when there's a group nearby, they hear that, then they start calling back.
06:14That's cool.
06:28Monkeys are calling back.
06:29It's a tantalizing taste of the discoveries waiting for us below.
06:39We follow Manny and Uwawa down a cola brown river drawn by a thundering roar.
06:45This waterfall is what we've been looking for.
07:06An entry point to an unexplored gorge.
07:10And the valleys and forests beyond.
07:18What do you think?
07:19I think it's incredible.
07:22It is the lost world, isn't it?
07:24It'd be amazing to get down there and have a look.
07:27Yeah, it makes my tummy go a little bit funny standing here, I have to admit.
07:30I'm quite glad I'm hanging on to something.
07:33It's too late in the day to attempt to descent.
07:38So we set up camp.
07:42Looks like no rain tonight.
07:45No rain, definitely no rain.
07:47Unquestionably.
07:48I mean, it's not like we're a thousand metre high mountain in the middle of the rainforest.
07:52Why would it rain here?
07:53It's never going to rain here.
07:55Dry season.
07:56Incidentally, I think this mountain gets 12 metres of rain a year.
08:0112 metres?
08:0212 metres.
08:03In the UK we measure our rain in centimetres.
08:06Finally, we can take a moment to enjoy our spectacular surroundings.
08:19Look at that!
08:20Can you see him?
08:22There are two tiny hummingbirds.
08:25And they're right below me right now.
08:28I honestly did not expect this.
08:30He is darting in and out of the water of the waterfall.
08:36That's just so beautiful.
08:41Honestly, I could sit here and watch this for hours.
08:44As darkness starts to fall, we're keen to find out what other animals inhabit these isolated table tops.
09:02So we head out with expert biologist Vanessa.
09:06He's amazing looking, isn't he?
09:11Look at those eyes.
09:12I like your eyes, yeah.
09:13Beautiful.
09:14Yeah.
09:16So this is a little scorpion.
09:18Obviously, I have no idea.
09:20I didn't stay at school long enough to work out what this is.
09:24It'll definitely give you a bit of a sting, something of that size.
09:26Yes, it will.
09:27It will.
09:28It will.
09:29I've seen big marines flowed by...
09:31Oh.
09:32...by small sloping stings before.
09:34Wow.
09:36Good spot.
09:40Some of the animals here are not always what they see.
09:45Ah!
09:46I need a bigger stick.
09:48In this part of the world, it's always best to be cautious.
09:51Whenever you see a snake that has any kind of combination of black, yellow, and white bands.
09:58Because it's either a highly venomous coral snake, or it's something that's imitating that coral snake.
10:05And it's very, very difficult to tell for 100% sure.
10:12You just need to settle down a little bit.
10:15Most animals would have to be pretty brave to take a chance at knowing which is which.
10:25This one here, by looking at the size of the eyes and the scales between the eyes and the nose, is non-venomous.
10:33But by taking on those same colours, everything else leaves them alone.
10:40A bite from a real coral snake out here would be very bad news.
10:45We all check our tents cautiously before we turn in for the night.
11:01This morning, we're hoping to be the first people to explore this gorge.
11:06But in the cold light of day, the drop looks even more daunting.
11:10I think it looks really exciting. I think it looks very committing.
11:15There is zero chance of a rescue. We're completely on our own.
11:20Situation normal.
11:21Situation normal.
11:26Aldo and I need to recce the route.
11:30Graham, the cameraman, will be joining us, as he's most experienced on the ropes.
11:36The thing about rigging is more just problem solving and there's never a right or a wrong answer.
11:42Unless it fails.
11:43Set.
11:44It takes over 100 metres of rope to reach the bottom.
11:55Yeah, that's good.
11:59Slung below me, I have enough kit to recce the gorge for two days.
12:10I'm heavily laden and need to tread lightly on this fragile rock face.
12:14Lots of moose rock here, mate.
12:18It's pretty loose down there, to say the least.
12:23Whoa!
12:25I hadn't mentally prepared myself for this bit to be dangerous.
12:30Erm, and if I'm honest, it's freaking me a little bit.
12:35Coming down here, the ropes are going through rocks that are massive and are very, very loose.
12:40And any of those come down onto our heads.
12:43And the helmet won't make any difference.
12:45You will be dead in an instant.
12:47Watch the rope!
12:48Oh, that rock just bounced down right where our ropes are.
13:00So I have to do a lot of checking when I get down there.
13:05Our ropes are lying on a ledge that's still 30 metres short of the bottom.
13:10If the rockfall has damaged them, our descent will be over.
13:15I'm doing good, buddy!
13:17I'm just down to where those rocks impacted our ropes.
13:20So I'm going to give them a good-looking over.
13:29Aldo, go ahead.
13:30Oh, but the rope's working.
13:31Yeah, the rope's a little bit gritty.
13:33Erm, and you can see where it's taken the impact, but it hasn't cut through the core at all.
13:37I'm fine carrying down on them.
13:39Understood, keep me posted.
13:41The final section is straight down the line of the falls.
13:46Here, the power of the water has scoured the rock face clean.
13:51The rock that I've got my feet on right now, it's incredibly ancient sandstone laid down about 1.8 billion years ago.
14:00The most remarkable thing about this rock, though, is that you don't find any fossils in it, none whatsoever, because it was formed before there was any life on Earth.
14:11It completely blows my mind whenever I think about it.
14:14This rock is some of the most ancient left on the planet.
14:23This place is straight out of Arthur Conan Doyle's Lost World.
14:28A book I read as a boy about an expedition to a tabletop mountain where prehistoric animals still roamed.
14:34But it's stupefyingly beautiful. There is an incredible rainbow just directly below me.
14:47That was fiction. This reality is even more fantastical.
14:52We came here looking for lost worlds.
14:56We found one.
15:02Graham and Aldo follow my route down.
15:07It just gets better and better.
15:10Check this.
15:11Now we want to push further and reach the jungle at the end of this gorge.
15:17Oh, wow.
15:19That's where I think we need to go.
15:21If we can push out through that gorge today.
15:24Once we're at the bottom, I think it heads down and out into the forest.
15:29Just rig an abseil up, down into the next section of the gorge.
15:33We're still running low on kit, so we're just making and doing with what we've got.
15:38Got my first proper look down our gorge.
15:46It looks pretty grim and intimidating.
15:49But doable.
15:55I want to get moving.
15:56I'm starting to get quite cold.
15:58So I'm quite keen to push on down through here.
16:00See if we can find somewhere to pan.
16:02Oh, that's cold.
16:03Oh, no.
16:18Our way is blocked by a five metre drop.
16:21But we've used up all our rope.
16:23Oh, it's just tantalising. It's right there in front of me.
16:27I can see the sunlight off ahead.
16:29And the way out of the gorge, we can't get there.
16:33End of the road!
16:35With light fading, we'll have to spend the night in this gorge and try to find a new route into the jungle tomorrow.
16:43So here, we've got a spot that we can sleep.
16:48Or a spot that we can at least lay down for the night.
16:52Whether we actually sleep or not is another thing.
16:53We've been wet and cold all day.
16:58Now we can finally change into some dry clothes.
17:02No, I really am about to get naked.
17:04That's where we were just...
17:21That's where we were just standing.
17:23That's where I was just taking the ropes in the way you just climbed up.
17:46This gorge is an accident waiting to happen.
17:49But for the moment, we're trapped.
17:58Topside, topside. Aldo, over.
18:00Aldo radios up to our producer, Anna, with an update.
18:04Go ahead, Aldo. It's Anna here.
18:06We're fine.
18:08We are tucked under a bit of an overhang.
18:12OK, and the plan is?
18:14The plan is we have to spend the night here with...
18:17Right, it goes.
18:18And then we'll probably head up plus light in the morning. Over.
18:21Roger that. I'll keep the radio on.
18:23Let me know when you've made a decision and when you're on your way.
18:26Over.
18:29It's going to be a long night.
18:31And we're not alone.
18:39That's it.
18:40That's it.
18:43So, this is why you should always shake out your boots whenever you're on expedition.
18:51I've been drying mine out because they were soaking wet and I picked one up and this wriggled out of it.
18:56It's a Scolopendra centipede.
19:00They're venomous.
19:02And when they bite, it really, really hurts.
19:06So, it has a nerve toxin, which is incredibly painful.
19:12They're properly creepy.
19:14And this one was in my boots.
19:19Scolopendra belonged to a family of animals that were amongst the first to walk the earth, 420 million years ago.
19:29As we turn in, I can't help thinking what other living dinosaurs are waiting to be discovered in these ancient forests.
19:45We're up early to start the long climb back to safety.
19:48Oh, yes.
20:00Absolutely incredible.
20:02What a place.
20:04These table mountaintops have so many wonders.
20:09So many nooks and crannies where people have never been to before.
20:11And it feels very, very special going into one for the first time.
20:17But to reach the unexplored lowlands, we need to find a safer route.
20:25With Manny and Uwawa guiding us, we head off across the tabletop.
20:29So, this must be the river bed that runs to the top of the falls, I guess.
20:39Yes, it is. This is the river bed.
20:42The nearby gorges all look unstable and strewn with rock fall.
20:47So, we make a new plan.
20:55This looks like our right.
21:00We're returning to base camp.
21:05The pilots will fly west to scour hundreds of kilometers of dense forest in search of a new landing site.
21:12OK, all right.
21:17Yeah. Fingers crossed.
21:23Aldo and I are heading east.
21:28Though the interior of this ancient forest remains untouched,
21:32at its edges, our modern world is starting to encroach.
21:36We're checking out reports that gold miners are pushing into these forests.
21:44It's way bigger than I expected.
21:49We're heading in on the ground to try and meet these modern day perspectives.
21:54I have some friends here who have contacts that hopefully can get us to the right place to see what's going on.
22:00The mines in this area are operating illegally, so we've agreed not to reveal the identity of the workers.
22:07Oh, well, yeah.
22:09We're still not sure how the miners will react to our arrival.
22:13So, we've just rolled into the mining camp.
22:27We need to tread carefully because everyone here is here illegally and what they're doing could get them locked up for a long time.
22:32So, I think the first thing to do is just shake some hands, smile, just get a handle of what's going on here.
22:39How are you? How are you?
22:41Hi, Steve. Nice to meet you.
22:43I'm 35 now.
22:46I'm all right.
22:48So, are you the boss here?
22:49Yes.
22:50You are?
22:51So, what do you do here?
22:53We're doing some gold mining.
22:55Can you show us the job you're doing?
22:56I'm bringing out to show you how we work.
23:00The miners are much more relaxed than we expect.
23:03We're being given full access inside a clandestine industry.
23:08It's like a frontier town.
23:10This is the modern-day gold rush, really, staking a claim on a piece of land to dig, exploit and then leave behind.
23:26So, the guys down here in the pit are blasting away with high-pressure hoses, blasting down all of the ground which eventually is going to get sibbed out and all the tiny flakes of gold that are in it will be separated out.
23:37This silty water is pumped up into trays where the heavier sediment containing the gold is collected.
23:43So, once they've got enough of this material that has the gold in it, they separate the gold out using mercury.
23:51And mercury is extremely poisonous and some of that leaches out into the water.
23:57The water flows into the streams and it kills everything.
24:00It fills up in the fish, it fills up in the people living downstream of here.
24:05It's so difficult, isn't it? You know, I'm talking to the guys here and they're just trying to make a living.
24:15They're just decent, nice people and you can't really blame them for what they're doing.
24:23This is what they do for a job and it's a hard life.
24:25The big problem though, a relatively small mine like this that's only generating a few kilos of gold could be compromising hundreds if not thousands of miles of forest and more importantly of the waterways.
24:43Scientific reports show that 6,000 kilometres of waterways across the Guiana Shield have already been contaminated by gold mining.
24:55The pristine forests that remain are incredibly precious and that's why it's so important to explore them, to reveal their natural treasures before it's too late.
25:13The pilots have found an alternative landing site in the jungle, two hours from base camp.
25:19We'll be the first people ever to set down there.
25:21This is the last great rainforest left on the planet.
25:27You see nothing, no signs of civilisation whatsoever, no imprint from human beings.
25:33Once on the ground, we'll be on our own for around 10 days.
25:37From our drop zone, we must hack our way down a small unnamed creek.
25:41If we make it through, we'll reach a larger river called the Lucy.
25:47From here, it's an endurance paddle to the first sign of civilisation, the Amerindian village of Amatopo.
25:55Who knows what we're going to find here?
25:58Our drop zone is just big enough to get the helicopter in.
26:01This is the middle of nowhere.
26:06Thank you very much, Reggie.
26:07You're welcome.
26:12To help us navigate this unknown territory, we've flown in a new local team.
26:17Jan Willem and Diego Granhost are jungle survival experts.
26:26They learnt their skills from living with Amerindians at Amatopo.
26:30But even they haven't penetrated this deep.
26:33Nobody ever came here before.
26:38Unbelievable place.
26:39Their jungle knowledge will also be key to finding what lives here.
26:44I'm going for a stand up paddle board.
26:46The hope is this will lift me up above the height of the river.
26:51Give me a better chance of seeing wildlife.
26:54I'm hoping this could be a bit of a revelation.
26:57Finally, we take our first paddle strokes into this primordial forest.
27:17We don't know what lies ahead, but this jungle could contain dangers, discoveries or both.
27:23The first explorers in these forests were naturalists, biologists.
27:28People like Darwin, Alfred Russell Wallace.
27:32It was mostly in the mid to late 1800s and they were discovering new things every single day.
27:38And as a kid I can remember reading their stories and just being gutted that I would never have a chance to do that.
27:43That that all happened in a different age.
27:45But it turns out you still can here in these forests to the north of the Amazon.
27:53This area truly does feel untouched.
27:59That's pretty amazing.
28:05Gliding silently down this creek, my paddle board helps me to get closer to the wildlife.
28:10When you're on the river, you can paddle clean past things because they just look so like everything else that's around you.
28:23We call anything that's in the water that looks like a croc but isn't a logodile.
28:29It's actually a smooth-fronted caiman, so motionless in the water that you'd never see him until he moves.
28:38Wildlife can be hard to spot in the thick jungle, but we can hear it all around us.
28:51Spider monkeys.
28:52We're really curious.
28:54There's something moving close by.
29:04Where was it?
29:07Pshhh.
29:12Diego and Jan use an Amerindian trick to draw it out into the open.
29:17open no way no way that is absolutely amazing tapir tapir with right here right here
29:36this animal has never seen human beings before doesn't know what we are
29:49doesn't know to be afraid of us and that is a very very special thing
29:54this is the largest wild animal in south america
30:00and to see one up this close is so so rare this is one of the first animals that gets hunted out
30:09as soon as human beings move into an area
30:11it's a privileged glimpse into the life of this shy giant
30:17and what makes this forest so special
30:22this is unbelievable i cannot believe how much wildlife we've seen already we've only been on
30:32this river for a couple of hours
30:34there's a long way to go but almost immediately we get a sense of a huge task ahead
30:47this is not ideal any one of these little stumps could rip the bottom out of these boats
30:54well done jam good effort
30:58it takes the rest of the day to navigate through tangles of fallen trees
31:04rule number one in the jungle is don't fight the jungle you never win
31:12so you've just got to go with the flow and if you do two kilometers you do two kilometers
31:17if you do 10 you do 10
31:18it's slow going and frustrating
31:23time to make camp
31:28one great thing is i am so impressed with our local guys
31:34yeah jam and diego they're super hard working really really good wildlife spotting i think
31:41they're going to be gold dust
31:42nice nice look at the size of that look at the teeth on it as well
31:53there's wolf fish there's very very good eating
31:56and this will be smoked over the fire
32:00it's an ancient amerindian way of preserving fish in this tropical climate
32:07so you'll leave this smoking all night
32:11yeah all night till the morning
32:13so it'll be ready for breakfast
32:15yeah
32:15but the commotion and the smell of blood in the water
32:21attracts predators into camp
32:24oh look at this look at that one look at that one right great
32:28holy moly
32:29that's amazing
32:31jan jan can i get the net please
32:33well done
32:36yeah yeah i'm watching watching
32:39i'm not going to do it any harm being out of the water for a short period of time
32:43but it could do us a lot of harm
32:47stingrays are in the shark family they're essentially just a completely squashed freshwater shark
32:52but they don't bite you instead they sting
32:55and i'll be so so careful doing this on the tail here
32:58which comes down to a stinger
33:03the barb itself is serrated incredibly sharp
33:06and as it lashes through the wound it leaves behind a venom that creates enormous pain
33:12i've met people who've stepped on these stingrays and been stung and have lost complete use of their leg and lost enormous amounts of tissue
33:19and they're here in these rivers in numbers that i have simply never seen before there are absolutely thousands of them
33:25right i'm going to get them back in the water
33:27here
33:31i'll show you
33:32where
33:33oh yeah
33:36croc
33:37it's the biggest caiman we've seen
33:40i'm going to risk a closer look
33:47yeah got it
33:52as we're getting farther down the river we're getting different kinds of crocodilian
33:56so this is a spectacled caiman when they're fully grown he gets to be three meters in length
34:01it'd be a really decent size
34:03to have lots and lots of apex predators means you've got to have lots and lots of food
34:08so if you've got a lot of crocs around then it means the rivers are full of fish
34:12and that's a really good sign for how healthy this river is as if there was any doubt
34:17okay fella
34:20large predators are in decline around the planet
34:23it's a rare and wonderful sight to see them thriving
34:27we must tread carefully as we head downstream
34:32we're up early and making good progress
34:39the deeper into the forest we paddle the further we are from our drop zone and potential rescue
34:47we've hit a snag quite a big snag actually our river was just broadening out and then suddenly
34:58it just ties itself up into tiny little creeks that go nowhere
35:04we're all of a sudden in the middle of the jungle with no way on
35:09our unnamed creek has come to an abrupt end
35:26we spread out looking for a way through
35:29dead end
35:30it's a dead end with just rocks
35:32um so now we're walking walking everything back up
35:38if we can't find a route forward our only option is to turn back and drag our boats up river to the
35:44heli landing site but we have technologies that explorers of old didn't
35:51we're putting up the camera crew's drone
35:53okay so if you can send it that direction down that stream first part to see if it goes anywhere
35:58uh so that's the mainstream that we came in at okay ends in oxbow lake yeah
36:06no if we spin it now and start heading south that must be the river there
36:13way far off it's a way forward we're gonna have to crack on we've got quite a lot of ground to cover
36:20and this next bit could be tricky
36:28we've got a lot of ground to cover
36:31after two hours we break out of the forest and we're back on the main channel
36:40yeah baby
36:45it's gonna be a super camp
36:49it's our time to relax
36:50it's better to clean my clothes on me before i clean myself
37:02just having a wash in the shallows and all of a sudden these massive
37:07fish came to within just this far away from me i'm gonna try and get some shots
37:12the waters are murky but i'm intrigued to see what lies beneath
37:29it's absolutely alive with piranhas i've never seen anything like it
37:45and the biggest black piranhas i've ever seen they look like they're about the size of this net
37:50wow i think the next stage has to be to catch one only the cleanest rivers can support such a huge
38:03population
38:10so this is the mighty black piranha the largest species of piranha found in the world
38:16they're also known as the red-eyed piranha i think you can see why
38:19the reason that they haven't targeted me is that they focus on animals that are distressed and in
38:25trouble and wounded so that movement in the water is very very specific and they pick it up
38:30with the lateral line which is that line running down there it's an organ that detects vibration in
38:36the water and those symptoms of distress are enough for these to come in in great numbers target them
38:44with those incredible teeth those teeth are some of the sharpest in the whole animal kingdom and they
38:51swim in take a quick bite and then swim away again super super quick if i was injured if i was
38:57bleeding then i wouldn't last for minutes in this water these predators are yet another hazard to
39:04contend with on this challenging journey okay should we set them free here you go
39:15we're now in a section of river where we're totally exposed in an emergency
39:20we can't go back and ahead of us is over a week's paddle into unknown territory
39:25we're just lowering the boat when the boat came down it pulled me in after it and i landed and
39:41potentially broke my thumb in the process um i think it's quite bad
39:46it's gonna have to suck it up trying to put a brave face on it as always but um this isn't good
39:55we are a long way away from anywhere that we could do any kind of evacuation um and so he's kind
40:03of right he does kind of have to suck it up our plan now is to push as fast as we can to the lucy
40:10the wide fast-flowing river will carry us back to amatopo if things take a turn for the worst there
40:19should be places to land a chopper
40:26but we still have at least two days of hacking and dragging to reach the end of this creek feels
40:31like hard work today
40:32with aldo incapacitated the other crew members are having to step up and it's taking its toll
40:42it's obstacle after obstacle and it's hot relentlessly hot
40:59so we're kind of a day behind schedule already but yeah we'll just see how it goes tomorrow
41:03horrible horrible day these are the sick lame and weary boats broken thumb and a sprained neck
41:21oh mate it's been a painful few days for aldo that looks really sore yeah could have been worse could
41:35it could have broke my wrist and then fallen in water and been bitten by a wolf fish you could have
41:41been eaten alive by piranhas that would have been a bad day yeah thankfully we're getting close to the
41:48end of this creek and there are clear signs that we're firmly in amerindian territory though we're
41:56the first modern humans to come down this creek there are signs that's way off in prehistory this
42:03actually might have been quite well used these marks on the rock are believed to be where people
42:10have sharpened their stone tools so they would have been nomadic hunter-gatherer peoples at least 600
42:17maybe a thousand years ago it's quite a thought that i'm the first person to sit here running my
42:22hands down these grooves in every thousand years
42:29we're still a long way from amatopo
42:34at least six days
42:38but we finally reached the mighty lucy river
42:47it's taken all our resolve but we fought our way through some of the toughest unexplored jungle on
43:00the planet we've just come around a corner to the most tranquil perfect image i've ever seen in the
43:09rain forest the water is like glass the reflections are so perfect you almost can't tell which way's up and
43:18which way's down it's absolutely spectacular
43:28when you get out onto these wide expanses like this always gives me that little bit of a thrill being
43:35able to see the sky before it gets dark in the jungle
43:43the lucy welcomes us with its stunning wildlife
43:53giant river horses there's a pair of them just downstream of us
43:57and they're really intrigued by us really interested
44:00it's a rare encounter this species is now endangered as few of these pristine rivers still exist
44:22what a day man i have to say of this year of staying in some pretty astounding places this is the most
44:28beautiful
44:30don't you think just getting the last lights of the sun
44:37after all the brutal hours of sweat and blisters and grime moments like this make it all worthwhile
44:43it's exquisite
44:45our relation is short-lived we still face many kilometers of grueling paddling
45:03for the next 48 hours we dig deep but our energy reserves are running low
45:10ah
45:22and calls his friends at amatopo
45:26they're relieved to hear that we're safe
45:29jan's brother lives in amatopo and it seems that they're
45:32They've been worried about us and they've come up to find us.
45:39We weren't supposed to be meeting them for, well, another couple of days yet.
45:46But it looks like they're almost with us now.
45:54That is a sight for sore eyes.
45:56Hey!
45:57Rather than a three-day paddle, it's an eight-hour motorboat ride to the village.
46:13Hello!
46:16It's awesome!
46:18Amatopo is the most remote village on this river.
46:23Amerindians have been custodians of this forest for millennia.
46:28I want to find out whether the modern world is beginning to alter life even here.
46:33So I'm meeting the village chief.
46:35Hello.
46:36Steve.
46:37How are you?
46:39When they first saw us, they were worried that we were coming here looking for gold.
46:43Yeah, they were a bit afraid.
46:44They are worried nobody wants anybody to come here and destroy their nature.
46:53And this is one of the most cleanest river there is in Suriname.
46:57Yeah, it's very special.
46:59We think it's the place in the whole world that has the best forest.
47:05And we want to show people.
47:08We want to show people back home how it should be.
47:15Over the last two weeks, we've pushed deeper into these forests than anyone before us.
47:20And the natural riches we've discovered are, to my mind, far more precious than all the gold in El Dorado.
47:29It's so unbelievably important.
47:34It's important for the wildlife.
47:36It's important for the people who live here.
47:38But evermore, as there are fewer places like this left on the planet, it's important for everyone.
47:45These places are vital.
47:47They're absolute treasures.
47:49And we have to do everything we can to protect them.
47:51Expedition with Steve Backshaw is available on Amazon Prime Video.
48:21And we have to do everything we can to protect them.
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