Richard Hammond's Jungle Quest (2015) s01e02 Episode Script
Episode 2
It's 1977, and a young boy in Birmingham has just been given a book that will change his life, fuelling a passionate ambition to be a wildlife photographer in the Brazilian rainforest, an ambition he never got the chance to fulfil.
But now, a full 38 years later, that boy, me, Richard Hammond, is doing his level best to put that right.
This is exactly what I saw in my mind as a kid, exactly this.
So, I've come to the Amazon, with an experienced jungle guide, a rucksack full of borrowed camera gear, and a film crew of wildlife professionals who will follow my every move.
My aim is to take enough good photos to stage my very first exhibition, an exhibition I hope might inspire a whole new generation to appreciate the wonders of the rainforest.
I've got to get the shots that I can take back and be confident enough to put in front of the most discerning audience in the world, which is children.
The Amazon rainforest is the largest rainforest on earth, covering an area about 23 times bigger than Britain.
Around 2.
25 million square miles.
And it's home to around a tenth of the world's two million species of plants, animals and insects.
By halfway through my trip, everything we'd done had been completely centred around the river.
I will get this.
And it had been great working from the boat, but there's only so many creatures you can snap from a canoe, so, it was time to rethink things.
By now, it had become clear we'd probably exhausted the possibilities for us in the flooded rainforest.
The logistics were difficult, just moving about by boat and living on the boat, but also, what we could shoot.
If we were going to get different animals and different scenery, we were going to have to head for dry land.
But it meant I was going to have to rely even more on my expert jungle guide, Eduardo.
I was born in the Amazon, I grew up here.
I've spent most of my life fishing and hunting.
I don't do that any more, I hunt only for photographer, or for cameramen.
Eduardo had already helped me see animals that lived in the rainforest, and I had seven successful photographs to show for it.
But I needed more, at least a dozen more.
So, now he was going to help me experience life on land.
But first, there were some people he wanted me to meet.
Hello.
Hello.
but Eduardo assured me they were a genuine tribe.
This is authentic, but modern, if you see.
Yes, yeah.
Wow! And, see the details of the hut? It's all palm trees.
Yeah.
Everything they get right here.
So they can have the land for free, and all the materials for their homes.
They were called the Tatuyo, and they were more than happy to invite me in to take some photos.
The modern world, with its roads and farms and houses, has been eating away at the rainforest for more than 50 years.
But this tribe seemed almost unchanged.
These guys live here, for real? Yes, clearly, tourists come here, but Eduardo was telling me how indigenous people throughout the Amazon, nearly all of them have had contact with the rest of the world.
Anybody who tells you they're taking you to see somebody who hasn't, they almost certainly have.
And just because people come to see them, it doesn't make it any less valid and genuine.
There were nine families in all, who'd moved closer to the river from deep inside the rainforest, when the area they lived in was put under threat from logging.
But they were still living a pretty traditional lifestyle, as I discovered when they asked if I wanted to share some of their food.
He's asking you if you want to try.
I just had lunch.
But what particularly interested me, was their relationship with the animals of the forest, animals we would think of as wild and even dangerous, they seemed to treat as pets.
There was a little girl holding a pet caiman, for goodness' sake.
It's beautiful.
I couldn't help wondering how many of these creatures I'd be encountering myself, because from now on, we were leaving the boats behind.
We walked out of the village, straight into the jungle.
Immediately, I was struck by how much hotter and more humid it was.
but under the damp forest canopy it was apparently 27 degrees pretty much all year round.
The air was thick with the sound of insects.
Eduardo reckoned that before we got too much further in, we should take some precautions.
Look at this, tapiba ants.
What ant? Tapiba.
Right.
So in a place full of mosquitoes like this, you need bug spray, right? Yeah.
We don't have bug spray here, we can use this one.
Really? Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
That's sort of Like citronella, right? It is.
Yes.
What, so that will keep the bugs off? Yes.
If you use a bug spray that you buy in the shop, it will smell very strange in the jungle, and this is a natural smell.
Can I raise a point here, though? Your solution to the problem of being covered with bugs, is to cover yourself with bugs.
Yeah.
Are they biting? Like ants.
Ah, they bite a little bit, you can try.
How many do I get on my hand? At least 500.
Do I count 'em on and count 'em off? They sort of crackle on your hands, it's a funny feeling.
It's not unpleasant.
See, I quite like running through stinging nettles in shorts.
That was That was an overshare, wasn't it? That was an overshare.
I do.
I might as well, again.
Oh, there's ants on the camera.
I wish I had Oh, they're in my shirt.
Ah, oh, you Oh.
Everywhere.
They're almost, yeah.
Eduardo, I'm covered in ants, you blithering idiot, that's so, absolutely Oh! Eduardo, I can't be bitten anywhere now, because there's nowhere left to bite, you bloody idiot.
God, ah, ah, oh, oh, oh! But at least you're smelling good.
No, no.
I'm covered in biting ants, you stupid rainforest lunatic.
Ow! Oh, I, honestly, you're just having a laugh, you are.
Listen, you're actually from Dudley and you just thought you'd see if you could sell the idiot tourist a stupid ant story.
Ah! When they bite, it's just like Oh! How can you survive here, you? Well, without you, I'd do fine, wouldn't I? I wouldn't be covered in ants for a start.
No, you need bug repellent.
I know, because of all the ants you put on me! Oh, oh, oh! Oh, you utter, utter BLEEP! Graham, ow! They must move so Yeah, oh, yeah, isn't it nice? Ah, ah, God.
'So, now, safely protected against insects, I was 'ready for the first photographic mission Eduardo had set up.
'Unfortunately, it was something I liked even less than bugs.
' For my first real animal assignment on land, the team had decided I should have a go at Macrophotography.
Basically, getting extreme close-ups of small things.
And for my first go, they'd chosen the biggest small thing they could think of.
Coming up, I face up to my least favourite creature, and get the chance to glimpse the animal I most wanted to see.
Six of the ten biggest spiders in the world can be found in Brazil, and the team had decided a spider would make a particularly good subject for me to photograph.
I wasn't so sure.
I'm not brilliant with spiders.
I have two daughters at home, and if they come across a spider, I will go in and remove it.
But, I'm really not very good with them.
No, I hate it, I can't stand them.
But, nonetheless, there we were searching.
To help, they've brought along expert spider hunter, Thiago.
OK, I've got one here.
What have you found? Look at that.
Oh, dear God.
I'm still here.
It's a pretty big one, it can reach twice this size.
'It was a bird-eating tarantula.
Yep, bird-eating.
'One of the biggest spiders on the planet, with a vicious bite.
'No wonder Thiago wanted to use tweezers, 'but it wasn't just the bite I had to worry about.
' Can you see this little hair here? It's very itchy, it's a kind of defence.
If you touch them, which, can I be perfectly clear, Thiago OK I'm not going to do.
But if you did OK these hairs stick in your skin and? Exactly.
'The hairs are so fine, they work their way under the skin, 'where they're impossible to remove.
' Thiago, is this a good time to tell you, I'm not entirely comfortable around spiders? I see, yeah.
Yeah.
OK, let me take it.
That didn't register, did it? OK.
It just didn't What? I'm scared of spiders.
Oh.
Yes, that's what I'm trying to say.
Oh, dear God.
'Eventually, I knew I was going to have to get close.
' She looks really big from down here.
'And Thiago wasn't helping.
' It's waiting, the right moment to attack.
Very mad.
Is it? Fantastic camouflage, isn't it? It doesn't work on me, because I'm programmed at a primal level to see a spider.
Macrophotography throws up challenges, but particular bother is focus, I found, because suddenly, a creature that you thought was very small, appears enormous, cos to get its eyes and its knees in focus is nigh on impossible.
The only solution is to get more light, so I armed myself with a flash gun, and then, she was transformed.
I'm not a spider person but, she is rather lovely.
If, however, she suddenly looms closer to me in this lens .
.
I'll like her less.
She's absolutely beautiful close up, and these little hairs all over her legs that are irritants They are.
They might be, but you've got lovely hairy legs, darling.
the stuff of childhood dreams, the jungle was more the stuff of nightmares.
Eduardo, you've still got no shoes on.
I feel very comfortable.
Aren't there things that hide in the mud that could spike your feet and kill you? Uh, yeah.
What have you got with you here, mate? The bow, I recognise.
Yes.
These are more like spears, they've got no flights.
What are they for? Mainly for fish and the small animals.
It's not really to kill big things, just to scare them away.
If you can imagine this going through the body, I'm sure they'll run away.
To scare them? Yeah.
It would nail them to a tree, is what it would do.
Can I have a go? Yeah, take this little one here.
Why do I have to take the little one? Why couldn't I take the great big one? Because Why d'you immediately say, "Take the little one?" You immediately said, "Take this little one.
" Is that the one for little children to use? No, this is Is this a big man's one? No.
Well, when do I get the big man's one? Oh.
Don't I get to use that? Because, just in case you shoot something, and you break it, we have the very big one to protect yourself.
Yeah.
Gotcha.
Right.
What shall I shoot? Over here.
The earth? Yes.
Yeah, got it, killed it, that's exactly what I wanted to do.
Yep.
Good, right.
Right, now we know, if anything comes in the night to get me, I will scream for you.
It is true, though.
The Amazon rainforest is full of predators, and there was one in particular that had captured my imagination ever since I could remember.
Because the Brazilian rainforest is home to a bird of prey over a metre tall, with talons as big as bear claws.
A bird called a harpy eagle.
I explained to the team that I was desperate to see a harpy eagle, and they understood that, but they explained to me that, in Brazil, the harpy eagle is all but wiped out.
It's certainly in limited numbers, it's getting very difficult to see, and that made the next bit of news that reached us all the more remarkable.
Big news, very excited, Eduardo and the fixers have heard tell of a particular tree in a particular area of forest, that is hosting a nest of a harpy eagle.
Which is just That's the thing, if I can get a shot of a harpy eagle, I mean, there was a chick apparently in the nest.
They've been keeping an eye on it, they reckon we can find a place for me to shoot from, and that would be a genuinely fabulous thing to get.
That's why I've got all of my kit with me, literally, everything I have, including the big long lens, cos I've been warned, I might have to spend some time I'm going to build a hide and sit in it, but I want that shot.
This feels really close to what I wanted to do.
And it was going to test me on another skill every wildlife photographer needs - patience.
What time did you book the eagle for? Basically, this eagle has got up this morning, gone out hunting for its chick, it's gone to the shops.
If it knew all the bother we're going to, to try and get a photograph of it coming back from the shops, it would think it ridiculous.
Oh, this is very jungly.
Yes.
Eduardo.
Just try to avoid the water.
Of course I'm going to try and avoid the water.
What else am I going to do? Yeah, but it's not only creeks but very muddy here.
Oh, I can't.
And once you get wet, that's it, you'll be wet all day long.
But I have no choice, what can I? Jump.
I'm carrying eight tons of stuff.
Jump! I can't, I can barely stand.
Right there, then here.
Give me a hand.
Sure.
Cut that bit, don't put it in.
We're very close, you need to be very quiet, because they can see very well, and they can hear very well.
Do we need to cover up, or anything? I think it would be better if you have something.
Guys, this is as far as we can go.
We've got to be absolutely silent from here, and we've got to cover ourselves.
Apparently, we've got umbrellas, we put umbrellas up, we walk under them, the bird can't see us.
To Eduardo.
We're 50 metres away from the eagle's nest.
It's time to go in.
So that I'm not visible.
How am I going to do this? Oh.
Do you feel a little bit like a snail? 'We only walked an hour, but in that heat, carrying that weight, 'it felt like five times that.
' But, finally, we were within spitting distance of the tree.
While I was getting my breath back, Eduardo started fashioning a hide.
I'm standing here under a brolly.
Eduardo, you're my hero.
Let's see what we've got on Right, Eduardo, I reckon I'm done, I'm set.
You can leave me to it, I'll settle in for the long wait.
OK.
Good luck, and the machete's right here.
Why would I need a machete? It's right here, it's yours.
Just in case you need it! He kept on and on, telling me about the machete, reminding me, "The machete's just there, there's a machete there if you need it.
"There's a machete.
" Why, what's going to happen? Coming up I dangle 60 metres above the ground, and spend the night alone in the jungle.
Eduardo and the crew had backed off to try and avoid scaring the eagle away, leaving me holed up in the handmade hide.
This is unbelievably exciting, it's every bit as thrilling as I dreamed it would be as a kid.
More.
Waiting here, how could you get bored of that? Rich? What? Sorry.
I was ready.
I'll be honest, I was a bit bored at times, all the time.
I don't have a massive attention span.
I can't get my muffin out.
This is much more like I imagined it as a kid.
Every detail, and the sounds of the insects.
It's damp and hot and humid.
The air's thick, and you can hear big fat drops falling off leaves from the canopy above.
I don't want to get all soft and daft, but it really is pulsing with life, and it's just You can feel it, you can't see it, but you can feel it.
You imagine you could fall asleep, wake up and find you were a tree, and you just melded into the forest.
Wildlife photographers will do this every day for weeks and weeks and weeks.
I mean, I'm used to waiting for things to happen, but you can usually be confident there's some sort of alarm that tells you when it is going to happen, if it's a start of a race, or whatever you're doing.
There's a sort of moment and everybody knows.
She could be there now while I'm talking to you, which would be embarrassing.
I understand that Simon got shots Simon did get shots of it, which is He's a professional, it's what he does, he's done that sort of thing all over the world.
I shouldn't be upset, but I was gutted.
Very few people have ever seen a harpy eagle in the wild, so to have the opportunity, then miss it, was heartbreaking.
And then, to cap it all, it started raining.
When the rain started up, my heart fell, that was kind of the worse thing that could happen.
No bird likes to fly in heavy rain, and Eduardo had told me that if it did rain, the chick would just flatten itself down into the bottom of the nest.
So there would then be nothing to see apart from the rain.
It's not like she stood me up but it's a bit like that.
She'll She'll show.
But it took three more hours for my first sighting of any kind.
Right towards the end of the day, I just saw something in the nest.
What's that? And it is on the end of a long lens, and there, the chick popped up.
Oh, I can see the crest on the head of the chick.
Oh.
Hello, gorgeous.
You are the prettiest thing in the world.
Where's your mummy? 'because it was expecting one of its parents 'but the light was dropping fast.
' Aw.
I don't care if I have to walk out in the pitch dark, I'm not leaving till I've got this shot, or, at least, used up every chance I'm gonna have of getting it.
'The crew wanted me to go.
' I've got a torch on my phone.
'An hour's walk back out in the pitch black was not clever 'but there was no way, after seven hour's waiting, 'I was giving up right at the end.
' I'm gonna use the last bit of light.
Then I've got no choice.
Ten minutes, Rich, and then that's it.
Ten minutes, come back and get me.
She never came.
Exhausted, we made our way to an open-sided hut that was to be our new shelter for that night, but by the time we arrived, it was too dark to see WHERE we were.
Obviously, as an experienced traveller and adventurer, I'm quite used to sleeping in a hammock.
Well, if I can get in, what's to stop a mosquito? Mind you, I should point out, the rest of the crew are sleeping in hammocks along here, and I snore.
A lot.
I'm like a bush baby, small, but make a terrifying noise.
Oh! Yep, yep, yep, yep.
Oh, God.
Oh, and the rain starts.
OK, the one thing not to think about when sleeping in a hammock, Because once you've thought that, you've had it.
That's some rain.
God, absolutely knackered.
The view the next morning was absolutely astonishing.
Being up above the forest gave it a completely different feel.
70% of the animals in the rainforest live up in the canopy, and never even venture down to the forest floor.
It suddenly struck me that if I was gonna see them, I was going to have to go to them.
And, we've sorted it out, because it turns out, I can go up that tree over there.
It's the biggest one, slightly pale top, bigger than the rest around it.
It is quite high.
It'll be fine.
I didn't think this through, did I? What I meant was, I'd like to wake up from a beautiful sleep, briefly, overlooking the canopy, take some fantastic photographs, and then go back to sleep again.
I'll shut up, I talk a lot when I'm nervous.
A lot.
You should have heard me on my wedding day, I didn't shut up.
20 minutes it took me to get up that tree, and I didn't stop babbling for all 60 metres.
A fear of heights.
Something doesn't get you, and then sometimes, something unexpected does.
And it has! Oh, has it? And now a man's gonna pass me and knock me about all over the place.
I hate this bit now.
Ow.
Oh, oh.
Going up.
Oh, I've seen the canopy, goodbye.
Brendan, the cameraman, is directly above me there, on what appears to be, more or less, the verge of the shot that I wanted all this time.
However, it's gonna be quite difficult to take it with my eyes shut.
You're managing all right, mate.
It's just horrible.
'And then it got even worse.
' No, I can't, that's as far as it can go.
Oh, God, I don't want to go in the hammock, particularly.
No, it's gonna get caught in my legs.
What are you saying and what are you doing? I'm tangled up in the hammock now.
The hammock was supposed to make my picture-taking more comfortable.
It didn't.
Oh, what the BLEEP?! 'It was meant to be a perfect end.
' 'I would be there, at the top of the tree,' gazing across that magnificent green rolling sea of the canopy, an inspirational moment for consideration, reflection, personal growth.
It really wasn't that, at all.
It was more a fairly unpleasant disaster.
No, don't take me up.
Just leave me where I am until it's time to go down.
There might well have been any manner of wonderful creatures up there, but it was impossible to see them with my eyes closed.
No, I don't want to.
Yeah, no, I don't, I just don't want to.
Can I go down? It was absolutely horrible, unspeakable, and also, yeah, it wasn't quite what I expected.
It was less magical than when I saw it on the telly, and more terrifying.
Goodbye.
Going down.
Ground floor, underwear.
Why have I stopped? It was terrible, but it was just one of those things I had to cross off my list.
And there was one more of those I really needed to do.
The final photography challenge the team had set up for me was to try and photograph something at night.
Eduardo had found a good location, and suggested that we all set up camp.
But for once, I decided I wanted to do this on my own.
I am a sucker for a challenge or anything that can be described as an experience, and I figured, sleeping in the rainforest, in a hammock, would be a great experience and it would be enhanced if I could be alone.
Eduardo? Yes? How do you choose which trees to pick for your hammock? They have to be small like that to be easier to tie the hammock up.
Oh, this is gonna hurt the tree? A little bit.
Yeah, we'll tie this one up over there in that tree.
OK.
Right, you hold it, I'll tie it.
Yes.
Do you think you can do this before Christmas? If a job's worth doing, Eduardo, I'm gonna do it properly.
Look at me, I've been holding this for the last three hours.
Yeah.
Is this the right place? Yes.
Because once this is lashed Oh, no, no, no.
.
.
it is lashed.
OK? Yeah.
OK, one minute.
Eduardo? Yes? Question, what if the rain comes from that direction? The rain comes, always, from this direction.
That's why we put them this way.
Yes.
I'm gonna end up on the forest floor in the middle of the night, I just know it.
This is terrible.
'With my hammock sort of up, 'I set off to get some night shots.
' At night, the rainforest is deafening, if it's possible, becomes even louder.
And the main culprits are bugs.
At night, the jungle is literally swarming with them, some of the weirdest creatures you've ever seen.
Which was distressing because I was going to be sleeping slap bang in the middle of them.
Don't worry, I'm not about to doing one of those, "Oh, no, I heard a monster," Blair Witch things, but it is the middle of the night, and no, I'm not asleep.
I do have two useful tips for anyone when it comes to sleeping at night in the rainforest.
Tip number one, fire.
It's probably not needed to keep the monsters at bay, but it's nice to have it here.
It's comforting above all else at a human level.
And don't worry, it's not gonna rage out of control, because everything, even the dead leaves underfoot, are so humid and damp, they won't catch fire.
It won't spread.
Second tip, ear plugs, because marvellous, magical and mystical as the music of the rainforest is at night, as the toads and insects sing, chatter, howl and growl, it's deafening, and it doesn't help you sleep.
So, these are going in.
I'm getting back in my hammock, which is over there and I'm gonna get some shut-eye, take some more pictures in the morning.
That's my plan.
Goodnight.
Eduardo, you're gonna have to pull yourself together at some point.
I was saying, last night, "I had a good night's sleep down here," but the hammock was very narrow, because, look, it hardly accommodates my shoulders, it was like sleeping on a strip of ribbon.
I'm gonna model it for you, I'm gonna demonstrate the misery I suffered all night.
Oh, OK.
Fortunately, yeah, I can sleep anywhere, as I've just proven.
What I could have had available to me, in terms of acreage Oh, God, look at that.
Oh! It turns out I'd had the hammock folded in half the whole night, so I could have been sleeping in a nice comfortable sort of bag, and instead of which, I just slept on, effectively, a length of ribbon slung between two trees.
Yeah, but still, it's over now.
Just like a baby dinosaur.
I swear he's looking at me.
Oh.
What's happened? Probably, this will be a new home or a new plantation.
So, this is the deforestation we hear about? Yes.
But, of course, this is just a small plantation.
If you go in Para state or Rondonia state, you can see five or ten kilometres of deforestation like this.
In the last 35 years, about 20% of the Amazon forest has gone.
20%? 20%.
In the time I've had my Encyclopaedia of Nature, and my camera, in fact.
Despite reductions in how fast deforestation is happening, they still reckon more than a quarter of the entire Amazon will be gone by 2030.
It was just really sad, because suddenly, having laughed in the rainforest and been scared and uncomfortable, and wet and bitten, to step out of it so suddenly, one minute you're in this crazy, mad, noisy, hilarious, terrifying world full of life Next, it's gone.
It is like you're at the best party you've ever been to in your life, it's all fun and riotous, and then suddenly, somebody puts all the lights on, and bup, switches the party off.
It really is the biggest change in mood I think I've ever experienced.
Right now, it just feels like a terrible, horrible, awful shame, that even a square inch of it should disappear.
Oh, yes.
This is the very reason I wanted to put on the exhibition, and in a way, it was important that I got to see just a glimpse of the damage that's being done.
But Eduardo was adamant that he didn't want that to be my final memory of the Amazon.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
That'll do.
Obviously, I'd still prefer it without the spiders and the bugs and the heat and the hanging off ropes, but I was actually feeling quite at home.
So much so, that at one point, I realised I'd even joined Eduardo in going barefoot.
I love it here.
No, no, no! Do not steal my boots.
Do not push me.
Argh! Do not, go away.
I just wanna help you.
Go away, don't give me any more of your rainforest help.
And suddenly, it was all over, that was it.
The days had just gone.
'In just eight days, 'I'd experienced everything I dreamt about as a kid.
'I'd caught a glimpse of a harpy eagle, 'and come face-to-face with a sleeping sloth' This is one of the best moments of my entire life, I might cry.
'.
.
canoed through flooded rainforest, 'and shared the water with pink river dolphins.
'I'd seen the jungle at its most majestic, 'and it's most forlorn, and dealt with the dangers' Ow! '.
.
and discomforts that go with being somewhere truly wild.
'Most of all, I'd fulfilled a childhood ambition, 'to be a wildlife photographer in the largest rainforest on Earth, 'the Amazon.
'But now, it all had to come to an end.
' Eduardo, that's it, goodbye.
Try and at least look sad.
A bit.
Um A bit sad? A little bit.
It's been enjoyable.
Thank you.
Thanks for everything, apart from the ants.
I didn't like that.
See you again.
It delivered.
The rainforest delivered.
So many things that you dream about as a kid don't.
Most things that you dream about as a kid don't.
But the rainforest did.
It's taken me weeks to sift through all my photographs but, finally, I'm in my barn nervously getting my exhibition into shape.
I took well, getting on for 10,000 photographs and I've tried to go with ones that will connect with the children coming to see them.
When I look down on this display, I'm genuinely, really pleased, chuffed beyond belief.
That is a collection of photographs, which is what I wanted to achieve.
It's funny, I remember every single one, and every single moment when I took it, and my state of mind and what was happening.
So that makes them incredibly personal.
The pink river dolphin, under the water with the trees, I wanted that shot because that is a dolphin that lives in a forest, which, to me, that is just amazing.
And the sleeping sloth.
He's just going about his business, there's nothing else he can do, he's having a kip in a tree.
The monkey here, just looking at the forest - it all looks really big next to a small one-year-old monkey.
This caterpillar here, he looks very theatrical, and there is something theatrical about the place.
Yeah, I think we've got a decent sense of what it was like - wet, uncomfortable, hot, full of insects, but amazing, incredible fun.
I can't stop looking at it, cos I'm really proud, I'm really pleased, I'm absolutely Genuinely, it's one of the best things I've ever done.
But is that enough to impress children from my two daughters' schools and from my old school in Solihull, the one I was at when I first got my encyclopaedia.
I'm really hoping they won't end up wondering why they bothered travelling all this way.
At first, it's frighteningly quiet.
And then I start being able to pick comments out of the whispers.
That one.
It looks really amazing.
To hear that hubbub of children's voices, looking at pictures and talking about animals, that was the ambition for the whole film, cos that's what I did - I looked at pictures of animals and talked about them, and thought about them - and they are.
If they notice that monkey's out of focus, I'll throw myself off the balcony.
It's so hard just to get one photo.
Oh, yeah.
He's got him right looking at And it looks like he's probably zoomed in, as well, to him.
It's cool.
He got the right angle for the shot.
That's the coolest photo.
Yeah.
That's the best one.
If you look at it, it kind of looks like a bird.
Yeah.
That is so scary.
That was an incredible experience, it was amazing.
So, none of them were rude about the pictures, which is great.
They said they liked them.
But if they like a picture, they don't then go on about the picture.
They go on about what the picture makes them think about, which is great.
Because, after all, that was the purpose of this whole adventure - to make sure that my childhood vision of the rainforest isn't a world that disappears entirely.
So, a journey that's taken me 38 years to complete has finally reached its end, but I really hope that for at least one of those kids today, their rainforest adventure is just beginning.
But now, a full 38 years later, that boy, me, Richard Hammond, is doing his level best to put that right.
This is exactly what I saw in my mind as a kid, exactly this.
So, I've come to the Amazon, with an experienced jungle guide, a rucksack full of borrowed camera gear, and a film crew of wildlife professionals who will follow my every move.
My aim is to take enough good photos to stage my very first exhibition, an exhibition I hope might inspire a whole new generation to appreciate the wonders of the rainforest.
I've got to get the shots that I can take back and be confident enough to put in front of the most discerning audience in the world, which is children.
The Amazon rainforest is the largest rainforest on earth, covering an area about 23 times bigger than Britain.
Around 2.
25 million square miles.
And it's home to around a tenth of the world's two million species of plants, animals and insects.
By halfway through my trip, everything we'd done had been completely centred around the river.
I will get this.
And it had been great working from the boat, but there's only so many creatures you can snap from a canoe, so, it was time to rethink things.
By now, it had become clear we'd probably exhausted the possibilities for us in the flooded rainforest.
The logistics were difficult, just moving about by boat and living on the boat, but also, what we could shoot.
If we were going to get different animals and different scenery, we were going to have to head for dry land.
But it meant I was going to have to rely even more on my expert jungle guide, Eduardo.
I was born in the Amazon, I grew up here.
I've spent most of my life fishing and hunting.
I don't do that any more, I hunt only for photographer, or for cameramen.
Eduardo had already helped me see animals that lived in the rainforest, and I had seven successful photographs to show for it.
But I needed more, at least a dozen more.
So, now he was going to help me experience life on land.
But first, there were some people he wanted me to meet.
Hello.
Hello.
but Eduardo assured me they were a genuine tribe.
This is authentic, but modern, if you see.
Yes, yeah.
Wow! And, see the details of the hut? It's all palm trees.
Yeah.
Everything they get right here.
So they can have the land for free, and all the materials for their homes.
They were called the Tatuyo, and they were more than happy to invite me in to take some photos.
The modern world, with its roads and farms and houses, has been eating away at the rainforest for more than 50 years.
But this tribe seemed almost unchanged.
These guys live here, for real? Yes, clearly, tourists come here, but Eduardo was telling me how indigenous people throughout the Amazon, nearly all of them have had contact with the rest of the world.
Anybody who tells you they're taking you to see somebody who hasn't, they almost certainly have.
And just because people come to see them, it doesn't make it any less valid and genuine.
There were nine families in all, who'd moved closer to the river from deep inside the rainforest, when the area they lived in was put under threat from logging.
But they were still living a pretty traditional lifestyle, as I discovered when they asked if I wanted to share some of their food.
He's asking you if you want to try.
I just had lunch.
But what particularly interested me, was their relationship with the animals of the forest, animals we would think of as wild and even dangerous, they seemed to treat as pets.
There was a little girl holding a pet caiman, for goodness' sake.
It's beautiful.
I couldn't help wondering how many of these creatures I'd be encountering myself, because from now on, we were leaving the boats behind.
We walked out of the village, straight into the jungle.
Immediately, I was struck by how much hotter and more humid it was.
but under the damp forest canopy it was apparently 27 degrees pretty much all year round.
The air was thick with the sound of insects.
Eduardo reckoned that before we got too much further in, we should take some precautions.
Look at this, tapiba ants.
What ant? Tapiba.
Right.
So in a place full of mosquitoes like this, you need bug spray, right? Yeah.
We don't have bug spray here, we can use this one.
Really? Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
That's sort of Like citronella, right? It is.
Yes.
What, so that will keep the bugs off? Yes.
If you use a bug spray that you buy in the shop, it will smell very strange in the jungle, and this is a natural smell.
Can I raise a point here, though? Your solution to the problem of being covered with bugs, is to cover yourself with bugs.
Yeah.
Are they biting? Like ants.
Ah, they bite a little bit, you can try.
How many do I get on my hand? At least 500.
Do I count 'em on and count 'em off? They sort of crackle on your hands, it's a funny feeling.
It's not unpleasant.
See, I quite like running through stinging nettles in shorts.
That was That was an overshare, wasn't it? That was an overshare.
I do.
I might as well, again.
Oh, there's ants on the camera.
I wish I had Oh, they're in my shirt.
Ah, oh, you Oh.
Everywhere.
They're almost, yeah.
Eduardo, I'm covered in ants, you blithering idiot, that's so, absolutely Oh! Eduardo, I can't be bitten anywhere now, because there's nowhere left to bite, you bloody idiot.
God, ah, ah, oh, oh, oh! But at least you're smelling good.
No, no.
I'm covered in biting ants, you stupid rainforest lunatic.
Ow! Oh, I, honestly, you're just having a laugh, you are.
Listen, you're actually from Dudley and you just thought you'd see if you could sell the idiot tourist a stupid ant story.
Ah! When they bite, it's just like Oh! How can you survive here, you? Well, without you, I'd do fine, wouldn't I? I wouldn't be covered in ants for a start.
No, you need bug repellent.
I know, because of all the ants you put on me! Oh, oh, oh! Oh, you utter, utter BLEEP! Graham, ow! They must move so Yeah, oh, yeah, isn't it nice? Ah, ah, God.
'So, now, safely protected against insects, I was 'ready for the first photographic mission Eduardo had set up.
'Unfortunately, it was something I liked even less than bugs.
' For my first real animal assignment on land, the team had decided I should have a go at Macrophotography.
Basically, getting extreme close-ups of small things.
And for my first go, they'd chosen the biggest small thing they could think of.
Coming up, I face up to my least favourite creature, and get the chance to glimpse the animal I most wanted to see.
Six of the ten biggest spiders in the world can be found in Brazil, and the team had decided a spider would make a particularly good subject for me to photograph.
I wasn't so sure.
I'm not brilliant with spiders.
I have two daughters at home, and if they come across a spider, I will go in and remove it.
But, I'm really not very good with them.
No, I hate it, I can't stand them.
But, nonetheless, there we were searching.
To help, they've brought along expert spider hunter, Thiago.
OK, I've got one here.
What have you found? Look at that.
Oh, dear God.
I'm still here.
It's a pretty big one, it can reach twice this size.
'It was a bird-eating tarantula.
Yep, bird-eating.
'One of the biggest spiders on the planet, with a vicious bite.
'No wonder Thiago wanted to use tweezers, 'but it wasn't just the bite I had to worry about.
' Can you see this little hair here? It's very itchy, it's a kind of defence.
If you touch them, which, can I be perfectly clear, Thiago OK I'm not going to do.
But if you did OK these hairs stick in your skin and? Exactly.
'The hairs are so fine, they work their way under the skin, 'where they're impossible to remove.
' Thiago, is this a good time to tell you, I'm not entirely comfortable around spiders? I see, yeah.
Yeah.
OK, let me take it.
That didn't register, did it? OK.
It just didn't What? I'm scared of spiders.
Oh.
Yes, that's what I'm trying to say.
Oh, dear God.
'Eventually, I knew I was going to have to get close.
' She looks really big from down here.
'And Thiago wasn't helping.
' It's waiting, the right moment to attack.
Very mad.
Is it? Fantastic camouflage, isn't it? It doesn't work on me, because I'm programmed at a primal level to see a spider.
Macrophotography throws up challenges, but particular bother is focus, I found, because suddenly, a creature that you thought was very small, appears enormous, cos to get its eyes and its knees in focus is nigh on impossible.
The only solution is to get more light, so I armed myself with a flash gun, and then, she was transformed.
I'm not a spider person but, she is rather lovely.
If, however, she suddenly looms closer to me in this lens .
.
I'll like her less.
She's absolutely beautiful close up, and these little hairs all over her legs that are irritants They are.
They might be, but you've got lovely hairy legs, darling.
the stuff of childhood dreams, the jungle was more the stuff of nightmares.
Eduardo, you've still got no shoes on.
I feel very comfortable.
Aren't there things that hide in the mud that could spike your feet and kill you? Uh, yeah.
What have you got with you here, mate? The bow, I recognise.
Yes.
These are more like spears, they've got no flights.
What are they for? Mainly for fish and the small animals.
It's not really to kill big things, just to scare them away.
If you can imagine this going through the body, I'm sure they'll run away.
To scare them? Yeah.
It would nail them to a tree, is what it would do.
Can I have a go? Yeah, take this little one here.
Why do I have to take the little one? Why couldn't I take the great big one? Because Why d'you immediately say, "Take the little one?" You immediately said, "Take this little one.
" Is that the one for little children to use? No, this is Is this a big man's one? No.
Well, when do I get the big man's one? Oh.
Don't I get to use that? Because, just in case you shoot something, and you break it, we have the very big one to protect yourself.
Yeah.
Gotcha.
Right.
What shall I shoot? Over here.
The earth? Yes.
Yeah, got it, killed it, that's exactly what I wanted to do.
Yep.
Good, right.
Right, now we know, if anything comes in the night to get me, I will scream for you.
It is true, though.
The Amazon rainforest is full of predators, and there was one in particular that had captured my imagination ever since I could remember.
Because the Brazilian rainforest is home to a bird of prey over a metre tall, with talons as big as bear claws.
A bird called a harpy eagle.
I explained to the team that I was desperate to see a harpy eagle, and they understood that, but they explained to me that, in Brazil, the harpy eagle is all but wiped out.
It's certainly in limited numbers, it's getting very difficult to see, and that made the next bit of news that reached us all the more remarkable.
Big news, very excited, Eduardo and the fixers have heard tell of a particular tree in a particular area of forest, that is hosting a nest of a harpy eagle.
Which is just That's the thing, if I can get a shot of a harpy eagle, I mean, there was a chick apparently in the nest.
They've been keeping an eye on it, they reckon we can find a place for me to shoot from, and that would be a genuinely fabulous thing to get.
That's why I've got all of my kit with me, literally, everything I have, including the big long lens, cos I've been warned, I might have to spend some time I'm going to build a hide and sit in it, but I want that shot.
This feels really close to what I wanted to do.
And it was going to test me on another skill every wildlife photographer needs - patience.
What time did you book the eagle for? Basically, this eagle has got up this morning, gone out hunting for its chick, it's gone to the shops.
If it knew all the bother we're going to, to try and get a photograph of it coming back from the shops, it would think it ridiculous.
Oh, this is very jungly.
Yes.
Eduardo.
Just try to avoid the water.
Of course I'm going to try and avoid the water.
What else am I going to do? Yeah, but it's not only creeks but very muddy here.
Oh, I can't.
And once you get wet, that's it, you'll be wet all day long.
But I have no choice, what can I? Jump.
I'm carrying eight tons of stuff.
Jump! I can't, I can barely stand.
Right there, then here.
Give me a hand.
Sure.
Cut that bit, don't put it in.
We're very close, you need to be very quiet, because they can see very well, and they can hear very well.
Do we need to cover up, or anything? I think it would be better if you have something.
Guys, this is as far as we can go.
We've got to be absolutely silent from here, and we've got to cover ourselves.
Apparently, we've got umbrellas, we put umbrellas up, we walk under them, the bird can't see us.
To Eduardo.
We're 50 metres away from the eagle's nest.
It's time to go in.
So that I'm not visible.
How am I going to do this? Oh.
Do you feel a little bit like a snail? 'We only walked an hour, but in that heat, carrying that weight, 'it felt like five times that.
' But, finally, we were within spitting distance of the tree.
While I was getting my breath back, Eduardo started fashioning a hide.
I'm standing here under a brolly.
Eduardo, you're my hero.
Let's see what we've got on Right, Eduardo, I reckon I'm done, I'm set.
You can leave me to it, I'll settle in for the long wait.
OK.
Good luck, and the machete's right here.
Why would I need a machete? It's right here, it's yours.
Just in case you need it! He kept on and on, telling me about the machete, reminding me, "The machete's just there, there's a machete there if you need it.
"There's a machete.
" Why, what's going to happen? Coming up I dangle 60 metres above the ground, and spend the night alone in the jungle.
Eduardo and the crew had backed off to try and avoid scaring the eagle away, leaving me holed up in the handmade hide.
This is unbelievably exciting, it's every bit as thrilling as I dreamed it would be as a kid.
More.
Waiting here, how could you get bored of that? Rich? What? Sorry.
I was ready.
I'll be honest, I was a bit bored at times, all the time.
I don't have a massive attention span.
I can't get my muffin out.
This is much more like I imagined it as a kid.
Every detail, and the sounds of the insects.
It's damp and hot and humid.
The air's thick, and you can hear big fat drops falling off leaves from the canopy above.
I don't want to get all soft and daft, but it really is pulsing with life, and it's just You can feel it, you can't see it, but you can feel it.
You imagine you could fall asleep, wake up and find you were a tree, and you just melded into the forest.
Wildlife photographers will do this every day for weeks and weeks and weeks.
I mean, I'm used to waiting for things to happen, but you can usually be confident there's some sort of alarm that tells you when it is going to happen, if it's a start of a race, or whatever you're doing.
There's a sort of moment and everybody knows.
She could be there now while I'm talking to you, which would be embarrassing.
I understand that Simon got shots Simon did get shots of it, which is He's a professional, it's what he does, he's done that sort of thing all over the world.
I shouldn't be upset, but I was gutted.
Very few people have ever seen a harpy eagle in the wild, so to have the opportunity, then miss it, was heartbreaking.
And then, to cap it all, it started raining.
When the rain started up, my heart fell, that was kind of the worse thing that could happen.
No bird likes to fly in heavy rain, and Eduardo had told me that if it did rain, the chick would just flatten itself down into the bottom of the nest.
So there would then be nothing to see apart from the rain.
It's not like she stood me up but it's a bit like that.
She'll She'll show.
But it took three more hours for my first sighting of any kind.
Right towards the end of the day, I just saw something in the nest.
What's that? And it is on the end of a long lens, and there, the chick popped up.
Oh, I can see the crest on the head of the chick.
Oh.
Hello, gorgeous.
You are the prettiest thing in the world.
Where's your mummy? 'because it was expecting one of its parents 'but the light was dropping fast.
' Aw.
I don't care if I have to walk out in the pitch dark, I'm not leaving till I've got this shot, or, at least, used up every chance I'm gonna have of getting it.
'The crew wanted me to go.
' I've got a torch on my phone.
'An hour's walk back out in the pitch black was not clever 'but there was no way, after seven hour's waiting, 'I was giving up right at the end.
' I'm gonna use the last bit of light.
Then I've got no choice.
Ten minutes, Rich, and then that's it.
Ten minutes, come back and get me.
She never came.
Exhausted, we made our way to an open-sided hut that was to be our new shelter for that night, but by the time we arrived, it was too dark to see WHERE we were.
Obviously, as an experienced traveller and adventurer, I'm quite used to sleeping in a hammock.
Well, if I can get in, what's to stop a mosquito? Mind you, I should point out, the rest of the crew are sleeping in hammocks along here, and I snore.
A lot.
I'm like a bush baby, small, but make a terrifying noise.
Oh! Yep, yep, yep, yep.
Oh, God.
Oh, and the rain starts.
OK, the one thing not to think about when sleeping in a hammock, Because once you've thought that, you've had it.
That's some rain.
God, absolutely knackered.
The view the next morning was absolutely astonishing.
Being up above the forest gave it a completely different feel.
70% of the animals in the rainforest live up in the canopy, and never even venture down to the forest floor.
It suddenly struck me that if I was gonna see them, I was going to have to go to them.
And, we've sorted it out, because it turns out, I can go up that tree over there.
It's the biggest one, slightly pale top, bigger than the rest around it.
It is quite high.
It'll be fine.
I didn't think this through, did I? What I meant was, I'd like to wake up from a beautiful sleep, briefly, overlooking the canopy, take some fantastic photographs, and then go back to sleep again.
I'll shut up, I talk a lot when I'm nervous.
A lot.
You should have heard me on my wedding day, I didn't shut up.
20 minutes it took me to get up that tree, and I didn't stop babbling for all 60 metres.
A fear of heights.
Something doesn't get you, and then sometimes, something unexpected does.
And it has! Oh, has it? And now a man's gonna pass me and knock me about all over the place.
I hate this bit now.
Ow.
Oh, oh.
Going up.
Oh, I've seen the canopy, goodbye.
Brendan, the cameraman, is directly above me there, on what appears to be, more or less, the verge of the shot that I wanted all this time.
However, it's gonna be quite difficult to take it with my eyes shut.
You're managing all right, mate.
It's just horrible.
'And then it got even worse.
' No, I can't, that's as far as it can go.
Oh, God, I don't want to go in the hammock, particularly.
No, it's gonna get caught in my legs.
What are you saying and what are you doing? I'm tangled up in the hammock now.
The hammock was supposed to make my picture-taking more comfortable.
It didn't.
Oh, what the BLEEP?! 'It was meant to be a perfect end.
' 'I would be there, at the top of the tree,' gazing across that magnificent green rolling sea of the canopy, an inspirational moment for consideration, reflection, personal growth.
It really wasn't that, at all.
It was more a fairly unpleasant disaster.
No, don't take me up.
Just leave me where I am until it's time to go down.
There might well have been any manner of wonderful creatures up there, but it was impossible to see them with my eyes closed.
No, I don't want to.
Yeah, no, I don't, I just don't want to.
Can I go down? It was absolutely horrible, unspeakable, and also, yeah, it wasn't quite what I expected.
It was less magical than when I saw it on the telly, and more terrifying.
Goodbye.
Going down.
Ground floor, underwear.
Why have I stopped? It was terrible, but it was just one of those things I had to cross off my list.
And there was one more of those I really needed to do.
The final photography challenge the team had set up for me was to try and photograph something at night.
Eduardo had found a good location, and suggested that we all set up camp.
But for once, I decided I wanted to do this on my own.
I am a sucker for a challenge or anything that can be described as an experience, and I figured, sleeping in the rainforest, in a hammock, would be a great experience and it would be enhanced if I could be alone.
Eduardo? Yes? How do you choose which trees to pick for your hammock? They have to be small like that to be easier to tie the hammock up.
Oh, this is gonna hurt the tree? A little bit.
Yeah, we'll tie this one up over there in that tree.
OK.
Right, you hold it, I'll tie it.
Yes.
Do you think you can do this before Christmas? If a job's worth doing, Eduardo, I'm gonna do it properly.
Look at me, I've been holding this for the last three hours.
Yeah.
Is this the right place? Yes.
Because once this is lashed Oh, no, no, no.
.
.
it is lashed.
OK? Yeah.
OK, one minute.
Eduardo? Yes? Question, what if the rain comes from that direction? The rain comes, always, from this direction.
That's why we put them this way.
Yes.
I'm gonna end up on the forest floor in the middle of the night, I just know it.
This is terrible.
'With my hammock sort of up, 'I set off to get some night shots.
' At night, the rainforest is deafening, if it's possible, becomes even louder.
And the main culprits are bugs.
At night, the jungle is literally swarming with them, some of the weirdest creatures you've ever seen.
Which was distressing because I was going to be sleeping slap bang in the middle of them.
Don't worry, I'm not about to doing one of those, "Oh, no, I heard a monster," Blair Witch things, but it is the middle of the night, and no, I'm not asleep.
I do have two useful tips for anyone when it comes to sleeping at night in the rainforest.
Tip number one, fire.
It's probably not needed to keep the monsters at bay, but it's nice to have it here.
It's comforting above all else at a human level.
And don't worry, it's not gonna rage out of control, because everything, even the dead leaves underfoot, are so humid and damp, they won't catch fire.
It won't spread.
Second tip, ear plugs, because marvellous, magical and mystical as the music of the rainforest is at night, as the toads and insects sing, chatter, howl and growl, it's deafening, and it doesn't help you sleep.
So, these are going in.
I'm getting back in my hammock, which is over there and I'm gonna get some shut-eye, take some more pictures in the morning.
That's my plan.
Goodnight.
Eduardo, you're gonna have to pull yourself together at some point.
I was saying, last night, "I had a good night's sleep down here," but the hammock was very narrow, because, look, it hardly accommodates my shoulders, it was like sleeping on a strip of ribbon.
I'm gonna model it for you, I'm gonna demonstrate the misery I suffered all night.
Oh, OK.
Fortunately, yeah, I can sleep anywhere, as I've just proven.
What I could have had available to me, in terms of acreage Oh, God, look at that.
Oh! It turns out I'd had the hammock folded in half the whole night, so I could have been sleeping in a nice comfortable sort of bag, and instead of which, I just slept on, effectively, a length of ribbon slung between two trees.
Yeah, but still, it's over now.
Just like a baby dinosaur.
I swear he's looking at me.
Oh.
What's happened? Probably, this will be a new home or a new plantation.
So, this is the deforestation we hear about? Yes.
But, of course, this is just a small plantation.
If you go in Para state or Rondonia state, you can see five or ten kilometres of deforestation like this.
In the last 35 years, about 20% of the Amazon forest has gone.
20%? 20%.
In the time I've had my Encyclopaedia of Nature, and my camera, in fact.
Despite reductions in how fast deforestation is happening, they still reckon more than a quarter of the entire Amazon will be gone by 2030.
It was just really sad, because suddenly, having laughed in the rainforest and been scared and uncomfortable, and wet and bitten, to step out of it so suddenly, one minute you're in this crazy, mad, noisy, hilarious, terrifying world full of life Next, it's gone.
It is like you're at the best party you've ever been to in your life, it's all fun and riotous, and then suddenly, somebody puts all the lights on, and bup, switches the party off.
It really is the biggest change in mood I think I've ever experienced.
Right now, it just feels like a terrible, horrible, awful shame, that even a square inch of it should disappear.
Oh, yes.
This is the very reason I wanted to put on the exhibition, and in a way, it was important that I got to see just a glimpse of the damage that's being done.
But Eduardo was adamant that he didn't want that to be my final memory of the Amazon.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
That'll do.
Obviously, I'd still prefer it without the spiders and the bugs and the heat and the hanging off ropes, but I was actually feeling quite at home.
So much so, that at one point, I realised I'd even joined Eduardo in going barefoot.
I love it here.
No, no, no! Do not steal my boots.
Do not push me.
Argh! Do not, go away.
I just wanna help you.
Go away, don't give me any more of your rainforest help.
And suddenly, it was all over, that was it.
The days had just gone.
'In just eight days, 'I'd experienced everything I dreamt about as a kid.
'I'd caught a glimpse of a harpy eagle, 'and come face-to-face with a sleeping sloth' This is one of the best moments of my entire life, I might cry.
'.
.
canoed through flooded rainforest, 'and shared the water with pink river dolphins.
'I'd seen the jungle at its most majestic, 'and it's most forlorn, and dealt with the dangers' Ow! '.
.
and discomforts that go with being somewhere truly wild.
'Most of all, I'd fulfilled a childhood ambition, 'to be a wildlife photographer in the largest rainforest on Earth, 'the Amazon.
'But now, it all had to come to an end.
' Eduardo, that's it, goodbye.
Try and at least look sad.
A bit.
Um A bit sad? A little bit.
It's been enjoyable.
Thank you.
Thanks for everything, apart from the ants.
I didn't like that.
See you again.
It delivered.
The rainforest delivered.
So many things that you dream about as a kid don't.
Most things that you dream about as a kid don't.
But the rainforest did.
It's taken me weeks to sift through all my photographs but, finally, I'm in my barn nervously getting my exhibition into shape.
I took well, getting on for 10,000 photographs and I've tried to go with ones that will connect with the children coming to see them.
When I look down on this display, I'm genuinely, really pleased, chuffed beyond belief.
That is a collection of photographs, which is what I wanted to achieve.
It's funny, I remember every single one, and every single moment when I took it, and my state of mind and what was happening.
So that makes them incredibly personal.
The pink river dolphin, under the water with the trees, I wanted that shot because that is a dolphin that lives in a forest, which, to me, that is just amazing.
And the sleeping sloth.
He's just going about his business, there's nothing else he can do, he's having a kip in a tree.
The monkey here, just looking at the forest - it all looks really big next to a small one-year-old monkey.
This caterpillar here, he looks very theatrical, and there is something theatrical about the place.
Yeah, I think we've got a decent sense of what it was like - wet, uncomfortable, hot, full of insects, but amazing, incredible fun.
I can't stop looking at it, cos I'm really proud, I'm really pleased, I'm absolutely Genuinely, it's one of the best things I've ever done.
But is that enough to impress children from my two daughters' schools and from my old school in Solihull, the one I was at when I first got my encyclopaedia.
I'm really hoping they won't end up wondering why they bothered travelling all this way.
At first, it's frighteningly quiet.
And then I start being able to pick comments out of the whispers.
That one.
It looks really amazing.
To hear that hubbub of children's voices, looking at pictures and talking about animals, that was the ambition for the whole film, cos that's what I did - I looked at pictures of animals and talked about them, and thought about them - and they are.
If they notice that monkey's out of focus, I'll throw myself off the balcony.
It's so hard just to get one photo.
Oh, yeah.
He's got him right looking at And it looks like he's probably zoomed in, as well, to him.
It's cool.
He got the right angle for the shot.
That's the coolest photo.
Yeah.
That's the best one.
If you look at it, it kind of looks like a bird.
Yeah.
That is so scary.
That was an incredible experience, it was amazing.
So, none of them were rude about the pictures, which is great.
They said they liked them.
But if they like a picture, they don't then go on about the picture.
They go on about what the picture makes them think about, which is great.
Because, after all, that was the purpose of this whole adventure - to make sure that my childhood vision of the rainforest isn't a world that disappears entirely.
So, a journey that's taken me 38 years to complete has finally reached its end, but I really hope that for at least one of those kids today, their rainforest adventure is just beginning.