Primal Survivor (2016) s08e05 Episode Script

1
♪♪
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♪♪
It is dead silent out here.
I hear no sounds.
The only thing I can hear
are my feet screaming
because I got bad blisters.
♪♪
The snow is super bright
♪♪
with that sun.
At about 14,000 feet,
it is bright.
♪♪
In these deeper sections, these
volcanoes are making themselves
and destroying themselves
at the same time.
Making my way up.
I think the coast is clear.
(grunts)
Whoa!
(rocks clattering)
♪♪
♪♪
(groans)
(sighs)
Being this high up in elevation,
you feel everything.
I'm at the highest part
of my route here,
probably 15,000, 16,000 feet,
and you feel it with every step.
Sometimes when I'm going
real long distances,
I can just go on auto-pilot
and just take
one step after the next
and my body's used to it,
but up here you feel every step.
♪♪
I'm Hazen Audel,
wilderness explorer,
and I'm on one of
the toughest challenges
I've ever attempted
-(rocks clattering)
-Whoa!
a journey
across South America,
over the mighty Andes Mountains
and down to the Pacific Coast.
I'm on the fifth leg
of my journey
and I'm leaving
the high Andes behind.
In front of me lies
the great Atacama Desert,
one of the driest
places on Earth.
♪♪
The Atacama is home
to the Lickan Antay,
traditional llama herders
who rely on their animals
for their survival.
And right now they're moving
their herds to winter pastures.
If I get there in time,
I'm hoping to witness
the Floramiento ceremony.
It's something that
very few outsiders
get a chance to witness.
My route involves
an arduous descent
out of the snowy mountains,
then a perilous trek
across a wide stretch
of exposed, waterless desert.
My destination
is the pasturelands
of the Lickan Antay,
site of the Floramiento
festival.
♪♪
My first challenge
is to navigate
this high volcanic plateau
and find a route
down to the Atacama.
So, before the sand,
there is snow to negotiate.
So, I've been lugging
these boots around with me,
knowing that I'll need them
at some point
because I get into this.
I hate shoes, I hate socks,
and I've gone a lot of miles
without 'em.
But yeah, I couldn't have got
I couldn't have done this part
without having these boots.
♪♪
The right footwear is essential
in this high-altitude terrain.
But also, there is
something else
I picked up
early in my journey
these coca leaves.
There's a lot of difficult
alkaloids and chemicals
that exist in every plant,
but the ones that are in here
really help out with this
lack of oxygen up here.
It's a stimulant.
The chemical that's in here
is a stimulant.
It makes your heart work harder.
With a harder-working heart,
it's able to get
more oxygen into your blood,
and then that just makes
you feel a lot better.
It's like I'm chewing a big
like a bag
of straight green tea.
I don't really care
what it tastes like.
I just want it to work,
and that is what it does.
♪♪
The ill effects of altitude
can occur
anywhere above 8,000 feet,
so they're not
an accurate indicator
of the height that I'm at.
But there are
better clues up here.
Oh, look at up there.
There's a little family
of vicuna.
They live at this sort
of elevation
and live in an environment
that's this cold,
with this little of oxygen.
They're a South American camel.
Their next relative
is called guanaco.
They're a little bit bigger.
They live at kind of
the next story in elevation
below me.
So, by seeing
the different animals,
it kind of gives me
an idea of how high I am.
Dried vicuna dung is
excellent fuel for fires.
This will be useful
on my journey ahead.
♪♪
Walking at this altitude
is exhausting.
But up ahead,
there is an encouraging sight.
♪♪
Why I'm so excited right now,
this is my first viewpoint.
Right there, what you see,
that's the Atacama Desert.
I've been waiting for this view
for a long time.
♪♪
I'm relieved to be finally
starting my descent
towards the Atacama.
But one thing I've been taking
for granted up here
in the mountains
is going to be scarce
when I get down to the desert.
Using snow as my only source
of water out here
isn't the best thing, just
because the amount of calories,
the amount of energy
that it takes to turn ice
into water that my body can use
is wasting calories
that I can be using for covering
long distances and staying warm.
But luckily, I'm going downhill.
It's a little bit easier.
The sun is nice and warm
and melting the snow,
so that's good.
Up here the sun is my friend,
but down in the desert,
it's going to be
my primary enemy.
What I know about the Atacama
Desert, it's incredibly dry.
You can go for miles and miles
and even days without water.
So it's gonna be a huge struggle
and something
that, to be honest with you,
I'm pretty apprehensive about.
♪♪
For now (chuckles)
there is snow,
and I'll use it
while I have it.
♪♪
♪♪
Finally, I'm losing
serious altitude,
and the landscape is changing.
But unexpectedly,
I'm back in the clouds.
Wow! Super hot water.
Steam from volcanic
hot springs.
This place is dangerous.
This is potentially
incredibly poisonous water
if you were gonna drink it.
And that is just so hot, so hot.
This seems like rock,
but it's all calcified minerals.
Sometimes it's just paper-thin
and underneath you could step
right into a pot
of boiling water,
so hot that it
well, it'd kill you
within a matter of seconds.
You accidentally get yourself
in there,
you'd boil to death.
♪♪
Despite the dangers,
this extraordinary place
is worth checking out.
This is world-class
geothermic activity.
Because, as unlikely
as it seems,
these boiling hot springs
are home to life.
♪♪
This green, slimy goop,
it's actually living,
and that is a cyanobacteria.
That is living
in incredibly hot water,
definitely too hot for fish
to live in,
for insects to live in.
Anything that's in
this super hot water,
they're called extremophiles,
so whatever's living in here
can tolerate the extremes
extreme heat,
extreme ultraviolet from being
this high in elevation
from that sun,
extreme chemicals
and minerals coming out
of the earth right here.
And yet it can survive,
and what it's doing right here
well it's photosynthesizing,
it's converting carbon dioxide
into oxygen,
converting chemistry
into biology right here.
It's so awesome.
I'm stoked to be
in this sort of place
where life exists
against all the odds.
♪♪
I can't drink
this poisonous water,
but it has other uses.
It's a mixture of
a cold water stream
melting snow, way too cold,
and then you got these
boiling hot vents coming in
and heating up the water.
If you get it just right,
(chuckles)
it's just perfect.
♪♪
Ooh! (laughs)
Ahh! Ohh!
Ahh!
♪♪
I haven't had a hot bath,
a bath of any sort,
for over a month.
I do smell like a wild animal,
so this is well deserved.
Oh, I think I found
the perfect spot.
♪♪
It's just me
and the extremophiles
and the flies.
♪♪
Perfect.
♪♪
(sighs)
♪♪
Ohh!
Wish I could stay in there,
but, yeah,
this ain't that kind of trip.
I smell
I smell better.
But I smell
a little bit more like
rotten sulphury eggs,
like new-age soap or something.
But, oh, I loved that.
♪♪
I'm continuing my descent
from the high Andes Mountains
down into the Atacama Desert.
And the lower I get,
the stranger
the landscape becomes.
Oh!
Look at these green blobs.
This one, especially.
It's a masterpiece.
Look at that.
It's not an alien.
It's not a thing of moss.
It's a giant,
tremendously old plant.
♪♪
So, this plant
is called yareta.
It grows so dense, so tight
that it keeps itself waterproof.
And by growing so tight,
so clustered together,
it doesn't have hardly
any surface area.
If it had a bunch of big leaves
that's all it kind acts
like a big solar panel
that can heat up
and then evaporate and dry up.
But this plant can rely on
just the very few occasions
that it ever rains, and being
really tight and clustered too,
it also kind of acts
like its insulation,
so it can warm up
during the day.
If you feel it, it is
it kinda feels like a
like it's a warm boulder.
And the warmer a plant is
up here,
the better able it is
to be able to photosynthesize.
Yareta sometimes grows at less
than an inch per decade,
so it will have taken many
centuries to cover these rocks.
But yeah, how can you not
love a plant
that simply looks so bizarre?
♪♪
The closer I get to the desert,
the drier and less hospitable
the landscape becomes.
But there are signs
that people were once here.
These are some petroglyphs here.
You see these little squiggles?
And then right here,
whenever you see circles
within another circle,
a lot of times
you'll see a circle
in a ring in a ring in a ring,
and that usually represents
that water's around
because it's like dropping
a pebble in a pool.
I've seen that even in
other parts of the world,
but this is a really good sign.
This means that there's water
to be found.
The stories of how
to make it out of here
might be written in the walls.
♪♪
Sources of water
in the Atacama Desert
will be few and far between.
♪♪
So before I attempt
to cross it,
I need to find one.
♪♪
This is solid solidified lava.
♪♪
Look at how it's been
sculpted by water,
probably millions of years ago.
Nowadays,
maybe once in a few years
there might just be a trickle
that passes through here.
My priority
is to follow this down
and at least get closer
to a chance of finding water.
Small water courses
often lead to bigger ones,
and those bigger ones
may still be flowing.
♪♪
The farther I go down here,
the deeper and narrower
this canyon gets.
This route is turning out
to be harder than I'd expected,
and a broken ankle out here
could be a death sentence.
♪♪
These dropoffs are getting
bigger and bigger and trickier.
♪♪
I manage to negotiate
the dry gully unscathed.
Looks like I'm at
a confluence here.
♪♪
But there's no water
to be found.
♪♪
I have a decision to make
spend more time searching
and burn through the water
I still have,
or roll the dice.
♪♪
I have a bottle of snowmelt
I collected
earlier in the day.
♪♪
But this is still a risk.
The only thing
I can hope for is that
there's water somewhere
to be found out here.
♪♪
A crossing of the Atacama
can be a journey
of over a hundred miles.
This lifeless terrain
has been compared
to the surface of Mars.
But there is life out here,
centered around small,
isolated oases,
and the key to survival
is finding them.
Yeah, an oasis.
It's the only hope I got.
♪♪
This is the most arid,
hot desert in the world,
and there are areas out here
that have never registered
any rainfall ever.
Walking across this plain,
all that out there
is starting to get scary.
♪♪
♪♪
I've been walking for hours.
In conditions like this,
the body
can easily require over
a gallon of water a day.
I'm limiting my intake,
reserves are getting low,
and my spirits
are getting challenged.
There's no water
to be found out there.
It's so incredibly deceptive.
I'm going to lose
daylight soon,
but with no sign of an oasis,
I've gotta press on.
I'm totally out of water.
♪♪
Nights in the Atacama are cold
due to its high altitude
and clear skies,
but I can still
make good progress.
Here, right now,
I have to be in the moment.
♪♪
Kind of a 100% awareness.
Focusing on my direction,
focusing on staying warm.
Food is probably not even
a priority compared to water.
♪♪
But I'm seeing how far
my body will take me.
♪♪
I made more distance overnight
than expected
and walked beyond
what I was looking for.
And I can see what it is now.
That is an oasis.
It's the very lowest part
in this entire valley,
and all that green,
that's a little forest.
And if there's trees,
there's water of some kind.
At least, I hope.
♪♪
There are only a small number
of oases in the Atacama,
created around natural springs,
or where groundwater
is trapped beneath
the surface of the desert.
I've found one.
There's water.
Look at this water.
(laughs)
Oh, my God, it's
(slurping)
It's freshwater.
It's just a
(slurping)
just a little bit salty,
but it's plenty drinkable.
♪♪
Oh, my God.
So good.
And often where there's water,
there's people.
Hola!
I'm Hazen.
And you are?
Belindo Orera.
Do you live in the house
over there?
Right here.
I was walking way out there
in the hills
when I spotted this place,
this oasis!
I saw the houses
and came looking for people.
So, people live here?
Yes. I usually live alone,
but my family is here too.
Oh, great!
Belindo is the head of a family
that's been based here
for several generations
Hola!
surviving on
what the oasis provides.
♪♪
These beans are
from the trees
that are growing down there,
one of the few kinds of trees
that looks like they can grow
in this kind of environment.
And this tree out here
makes this bean.
It has a very particularly
unique sweetness.
And they grind it
into this powder.
♪♪
Yeah, and it's like
a pinch full of sugar.
And then with this,
once it's all ground up,
then somehow they make some sort
of an alcohol out of it,
which, yeah,
I'm excited to see.
So,bueno.
♪♪
I'm invited inside to share
a meal with Belindo's family.
I came here at a very good time.
There's lunch already set out.
Just like in all these places
with all these people,
the hospitality is always
just brilliant.
They got quite a spread here.
It is an oasis
even a paradise.
-Bueno.Yeah.
-(laughter)
Thank you. A paradise here!
Compared to what I've been
bringing with me in my pack,
it's been such slim pickings,
and it's just nice to have
honestly a homemade meal.
And with the homemade meal
comes some homemade brew.
This is the exact stuff
right here in this bottle
that they were just making
right outside there.
By the time it's in drink form,
it's called aloha,
like in Hawaii, yeah?
Yes.
You can tell there's a
little bit of a bite to it,
a little bit fermented.
And they said that if they let
this stuff sit for a long time,
it gets really alcoholic,
but they pretty much
only keep it that way during
real big festivals
and ceremonies and parties.
Aloha.
I could get used to this.
I ask the family
about the route ahead
and the traditional
llama festival
I'm hoping to see.
I'm looking for a ceremony. Do
you know about the Floramiento?
-(speaking Spanish)
-Okay.
Is it far from here?
Yes.
(speaking Spanish)
That's where
I'm trying to get to.
The communities with the llamas
that have the Floramiento,
how far is it away?
Mm
Walking.
Walking?
(speaking Spanish)
(laughing)
All I have is my feet.
A week.
Really? Wow!
Quite a few more days
left of walking
until I get to the Floramiento,
they say.
So, I'll get my fill
while I can,
but it's still
a long road ahead.
♪♪
The family provides me
with water
and some basic food essentials.
And they give me directions
for the best route
through the desert to
the pasturelands to the west,
my best chance of hooking up
with the Lickan Antay
llama herders
before they head for
their winter grazing grounds.
Beyond the oasis, the desert
again takes over,
but this is a very
different landscape.
Since there's no water out here,
what's shaping all this
is a lot of wind.
Over here it's all solid rock,
but then the wind carries rock
and bits of sand and grinds away
and makes more sand,
and then makes these sand dunes.
Yeah, from one side to the next,
completely different place.
And new terrain presents
new challenges.
Looks like that's
my way down, too.
Ooh, yeah. Look at that.
Whoa!
♪♪
Ugh!
♪♪
If I didn't feel like
I was dying of thirst,
I'd say that this place has
its own kind of beauty.
♪♪
As the hours and miles pass,
reality starts to kick in.
♪♪
Bone dry, everywhere.
♪♪
I've seen no sign of water
since leaving the oasis.
I've gotta be alert
to any possibility
of finding a source.
There are these trails here.
They're really slight,
but they're definitely
made by people.
Could be hundreds of years old.
Stuff just doesn't change
out here.
But if there's any chance
of finding water out here,
it's by following
the old ways of the people
because more than likely,
they were going
from here to there
because of water.
♪♪
The trail finally leads me
to a destination,
but it's not
what I was hoping for.
There's a little place
right here, right down there.
Nobody's around, that's
for sure, but they were.
This is a corral where they were
keeping their animals.
This is all super dry manure.
Sheep, goats, or llama,
one of the three.
♪♪
There's no water,
but this corral
can at least give me
a break from the sun.
Even just this little bit
right here.
♪♪
It's the most shade
I've seen all day.
♪♪
I need to eat,
and this is a chance
to cook something up.
And there is wood here.
Might not look like much,
but as far as burning stuff,
there's that dung over there,
too, so that'll work.
Oh, yeah, this is all
just compacted manure.
This is, yeah, good and deep.
Might be able
to cut out some bricks.
♪♪
There, that's good.
Yeah, that'll work. Good.
That's probably all I need.
♪♪
Look at that.
It's a little magnifying glass.
And people around here,
one of the most common methods
for starting a fire out here,
if they don't have matches,
is using the powers of the sun.
♪♪
And I have the perfect
starter fuel
the vicuna dung
I collected in the mountains.
What you have to do is you just
have to angle this just right,
and you focus all of those sun's
rays into a tiny little spot.
And just keep that
really hot light on the
Look at how fast that works.
Pretty soon there's gonna be
a coal starting.
Yeah, I gotta little coal
started already.
(exhaling slowly)
Now that's just
gonna burn like that.
I'm not gonna get
a big, enormous fire,
'cause animal dung just does not
burn like that, but what it does
is it just kinda acts
like a big ember that grows,
and it'll get hot enough
for me to able to cook.
♪♪
I'm gonna make some cookies.
One of the food basics
that Belindo gifted me
was some flour
made from the sweet seed pods
of the algarrobo tree.
I'm just kinda
whittling it away
until its like a till it's,
yeah, like a dough.
Mmm, yum.
Mmm, nom-nom!
It's like cookie dough.
♪♪
My dung-powered oven
is heating up nicely.
And I don't know what normal
baking temperature is
for cookies,
but this'll work.
It's so, so sticky
because this algarrobo fruit
is just so sugary.
It'll take a while
for these to cook.
♪♪
For now it's good to be out
of the afternoon sun,
and a relief to be off my feet.
♪♪
I left the oven. (chuckles)
Some of them look really done.
They're already black.
And these are pretty crunchy.
Well, they look crunchy.
Oh, man.
Almost sickening sweet,
like if you were to just
grind up a bunch of dates
and then eat those,
and then definitely smoky.
Maybe the secret ingredient
was the dried vicuna dung.
But they're good.
These'll keep me powered up
on my next stretch,
because rest time is over.
♪♪
Oh, hello!
Look at this right here.
Just a tiny,
tiny little scorpion.
I don't want him going
under my shirt.
Even though it's small,
they pack a punch.
If I was allergic to scorpions,
it could be deadly.
Oh, he's a squirmy one,
but I think he likes
the warmth of my hands.
If I'm really gentle with it,
it would have no reason
to sting me.
No, no, not
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
♪♪
Scorpions can tolerate
temperature changes.
They can withstand going
for the longest periods of time
without food
and with water as well.
So, if there was an animal that
was perfect for the Atacama,
it would be a scorpion.
I'm gonna let it go, though.
Go in there. Go on.
Go Yeah, go back into
your little dirt pile there.
♪♪
Time for both of us to get back
to our own business.
I'm gonna put this back because
as nifty as this thing is,
it's not mine.
♪♪
I'm going to walk through
the night to make up the time
I lost while napping
through the afternoon
Just almost out.
and to save water.
Okay, I'm outta here.
♪♪
Belindo to hold me to head
due west out of the desert
until I reach extensive
salt flats,
the gateway to the Lickan Antay
pasturelands beyond.
It's pretty easy to maintain
my direction right now
because, well, you just follow
the sunset right there.
♪♪
But pretty soon I won't be
able to see the sunset,
and then you gotta
pay attention to the sky.
When the sun is up here,
the temperatures can reach
100 degrees,
but Atacama's
cloudless night skies
can bring temperatures
below freezing.
I'd rather be moving like this.
Just get the blood flowing,
make some miles
in the middle of the night.
That's the way to do it
out here, become nocturnal
like all the other animals.
Yeah, they got it figured out.
♪♪
Night navigation can be tough,
but these clear southern skies
are like a celestial compass
if you know how to read them.
So, probably the easiest,
most familiar constellation
that I can see
is the Southern Cross.
You can take the longest part
of it and go
one, two, three, four
and a half that's south.
But there's actually
so many stars here
that a lot of the cultures look
at the dark parts of the sky,
and here they call
that the River of Animals.
But however you look at it,
it doesn't really matter,
because what I know
is that is west,
that is south, that's north,
and that's east.
I'm gonna keep going,
keep going west.
Yeah.
♪♪
♪♪
By first light,
I see I'm out of the desert
and deep into
a strange new terrain.
(sighs) Whew!
♪♪
This place is crazy.
Can't believe that this is
someplace on the planet.
It's totally bizarre.
Now that the sun is coming up,
check it out that's so cool.
♪♪
Awesome.
Yeah, what a bizarre place.
♪♪
These are salt flats,
and in some places
they've flooded
to form small inland seas
full of undrinkable saltwater.
♪♪
What always blows my mind
is, like, no matter
how harsh of an environment
or bizarre environment,
there's always some of animal
or some of sort of life
that has some sort of
bizarre adaptation
to be able to live here.
And this water here,
this is pure salt.
I mean, 10 times saltier
than the ocean.
And there's birds
that are here, thriving.
(birds squawking)
Flamingos, right?
♪♪
These lakes have been
the flamingos' summer home,
but some of them will soon
be heading off
to warmer climates for winter,
so I'm lucky
to catch 'em all now.
You can really see close enough
to how that beak
actually works in the water.
They're filter feeders,
so they're just
moving back and forth
and eating a lot of things that
are even hard for the human eye
to see, so that's like
little pieces of algae,
small crustaceans,
insect larvae.
You normally think of flamingos
as pink.
Well, what makes 'em pink is the
kind of food that they eat.
If they're not eating
the right thing,
they're white or gray
like the one in the back.
But to be this close,
that's pretty cool.
It must be because they've never
seen people before.
They don't seem to be too
scared, they're just feeding.
♪♪
Some of nature's
greatest survivors,
in the unlikeliest of places.
I love watching 'em fly.
They are so bizarre, right?
♪♪
After the salt lakes,
the landscape
slowly becomes greener.
These are the pasturelands
I've come so far to find.
Look over the hill.
There's a bunch of herders
(llamas braying)
with a bunch of llamas!
♪♪
Yeah, see 'em all? Lookit!
Boy, they got a big herd.
Holy cow.
There are hundreds of animals
down there,
and I'm excited
to finally meet some herders.
I'm Hazen.
Romalda Soza.
Nice to meet you.
And that's your husband?
-Si.
-Bueno.
My daughter, my grand kids
Your daughter's there?
(speaking Spanish)
Sobrino.
Your nephew's there.
-(speaking Spanish)
-Your sister's over there.
My grandchildren, children,
they're all here.
Wow, it's a whole family affair,
bringing all these llamas
to better pasture.
I'm in luck.
Romalda and her family
are Lickan Antay,
the famed llama herders
I've been hoping to find.
HAZEN: And what's his name?
-ROMALDA: Firo.
-HAZEN: Firo?
-ROMALDA: He is my partner.
-HAZEN (chuckling): Yeah.
ROMALDA: He helps me
with the animals.
HAZEN: Your friend and helper,
this one.
Nice and gentle
(laughs) Hola!
The family and its entourage
are moving their herd
to lower pastures
for the winter, and en route,
they're going to take part
in the traditional ceremony
I've been wanting to see.
They're trying to beat feet
because tomorrow
there's the Floramiento festival
and they're all trying
to get there in time.
So once we all head out,
they said that I can tag along,
so this is pretty much yeah,
it's as perfect as it gets.
Really cool.
Oh, looks like we're going.
Moving a large herd of llama
is serious business,
and all hands are welcome.
Oh, yeah, that feels nice,
finally get that pack
off my back.
I've been tasked with
bringing up the rear
and collecting the stragglers,
but these not
easy creatures to control.
These llamas here,
they might seem real cute
with their fuzzy ears
and their big old wooly butts.
You just wanna give them
a big squeeze.
But you can't do that,
'cause they'll turn on you.
Llamas, they actually have three
different kinds of stomachs,
and depending on how angry
they are at you,
they can actually select
the grimiest,
gnarliest inner stomach juice,
and they bring it up
and they spit that at you.
So, yeah, they might be cute,
but they'll turn on you.
Come on, come on!
(clapping)
The llamas
are playing ball so far,
but ahead is a high ridge
that we have
to get the herd over.
We're at a tricky part here.
Now we gotta make it up
these canyon walls,
something that the llamas,
it seems like they're
a little bit scared to do.
We don't wanna spook the herd.
If any of the llamas take
fright at the wrong moment,
we could lose control
of the entire herd.
You take the most
confident ones,
and they're
the leaders of the pack.
They kind of set an example
for the rest of the herd
going right up there.
Some of the younger llamas
shy away from the climb.
A couple more up here.
Hey! Hyah!
Hyah! Come on!
Come on, let's go.
There you go.
But I manage to bring them
back into the fold.
There you go.
(speaking Spanish)
And we reach the top.
♪♪
But we've still got
a long way to go.
Llamas, they'll only go
about 10 miles per day,
and they won't go any longer.
When they decide
that's it quitting time,
there's nothing
you can do about it.
Yeah, real stubborn animals.
Okay, up, up!
If we can't keep the herd
moving, we won't arrive in time
for tomorrow's
Floramiento ceremony.
Hyah! Hyah!
♪♪
Come on. Hyah! Let's go.
♪♪
♪♪
We finally make it to
the Lickan Antay encampment.
♪♪
And just in time.
That sun is going down,
and there's already
a bite to the air.
But everybody's pretty tired.
Everybody's gonna
sleep good tonight.
♪♪
Inside, the family
have gathered
for a well-earned
llama stew supper.
Ah, smells good. And warm.
Ah,gracias.
Good appetite, everyone!
(all speaking Spanish)
Freshly baked bread, too.
They cook this in those pots,
kind of like Dutch oven style.
(chuckles)
They know how to make a camp.
Mmm!
Tasty.
And, probably the most
important part warm.
And this is good company.
I like it.
The talk at the table is all
about tomorrow's Floramiento,
one of the most
important events
in the family's year,
and there's great relief
that we managed to all
get here in time.
They were saying that
they really appreciate my help.
I don't know if I did a lot,
but we all got here
safe and sound, but yeah,
I'm just learning on the go
right now,
just taking it all in.
It's an amazing culture
and lifestyle.
They're migratory people.
They're always moving.
So, I guess once you experience
and you spend time with people
like this, you realize
that it's not really about
the things.
It's about the people.
What an amazing experience.
♪♪
Next morning, we're up early
to get ready for the festival.
Now that the sun is up,
everybody's
getting prepared for it,
and there are people coming
from all over the place.
I have no idea
where they're from,
but people keep showing up,
and guitars are showing up.
Yeah, a lot of action already.
Once the sun comes up,
it gets busy around here.
♪♪
The Floramiento is a rare
chance for migratory herders
to all come together.
Everybody that shows up
is welcome.
They're given gifts
and then invited
to be a part of the ceremony.
These herbs, they're being
burned like incense.
It smells amazing.
It's a way to cleanse
this entire area
before the ceremony.
The smoke also calms
the animals down,
and the smoke that's going
up into the air
like a smoke signal
for Pachamama,
to let her know that right now
the ceremony's about to begin.
♪♪
The main event involves
the llamas
being decorated
with colorful yarn
to celebrate their safe arrival
into their winter pastures.
The males get their colors
right around their neck,
and then the females
get decorated
right around their body,
so it takes one color here
and then a similar color
right on either side.
But handling llamas is never
as easy as you'd think.
You do have to be careful
because,
as far as land animals go,
per size,
they're one of the heaviest
land animals there are.
So, the big ones weigh
well over 400 pounds,
so a kick from one of these
llamas in the right place,
it'd be day over.
The herders' aim is to decorate
every single one of the llamas,
but it's hours of hard work
dealing with dozens of
increasingly moody animals.
But finally, the dangerous
work is done.
(people cheering, singing)
There they go!
Everybody's happy
to be back with the herd.
They're looking pretty good
all gussied up, I must say.
♪♪
The herd will return
to their pastures,
where in time, the colorful
decorations will fall off.
♪♪
Each one, the Lickan Antay
believe, symbolizes
the source of a new flower,
and together they will bring
the re-blooming
of the desert in the spring.
♪♪
It's time for me
to be moving on.
This journey is a true test
of my persistence and endurance.
And there's a lot
of hungry days,
there's a lot of cold nights,
but the worst part is leaving
people like the Lickan Antay.
But I still have
a huge journey in front of me,
and it's the final stretch,
but by no means
can I see the end in sight.
So I keep charging.
♪♪
Next time, I reach the perilous
Pacific Coast,
and it's a race against the sun
to make it
to my final destination
in time
-Here goes!
-for the winter solstice.
Captioned by VITAC