"I'm higher than 5,000 metres in the Peruvian Andes and feeling the altitude a little bit, making my way to the start point of what is gonna become the most extraordinary journey." "I can hear it, I can certainly hear it." "Oh, my God!" "This is it." "This trickle of water coming out of the rock here is the source of the mightiest river in the world, the Amazon, of course." "That is just spectacular." "I'm going to follow the greatest river on Earth from the source to the sea, from the High Andes of Peru to its vast mouth on Brazil's Atlantic coast." "Now I can feel the mighty strength of this river." "I'll be travelling for thousands of miles, through the largest unbroken tropical forest in the world..." "This is the best view of the forest I've ever, ever had." "...To explore the lives of the Amazon's people..." "I've never in my life had a greeting like this before." "...The tribes fighting for their land beneath the canopy." "They have decided they don't want me in the house." "And the loggers, the miners, and the cattle ranchers that are tearing it down." "As you can see it's just this huge expanse of destruction." "Oh, my God!" "I think we've found it." "The Amazon is a complex place." "There are more species here than anywhere else on Earth, but it's also home to millions of people." "We've just flown over completely illegal clear felling." "This is the frontline in an environmental war." "(SINGING)" "Tensions are running high and already blood has been spilled." "I want to tell the stories of the people that live in this amazing place, to share their lives." "That hurt." "And to understand how they will shape the future of the Amazon." "My journey begins here." "This is Nevado Mismi, the source of the Amazon." "It's a spring of glacial meltwater, bursting from a rock face at 5,500 metres in the High Andes." "Mismi was finally named as the official source of the Amazon in 2000, after decades of debate, when a mapping team confirmed that this was the furthest point of the Amazon from its mouth, nearly 4,000 miles away in Brazil." "It's a barren, arid, breathtaking location, just the sort of place to start an epicjourney." "I've no idea how long this journey's gonna take me." "But I reckon at least six months." "And I'm going to have lots of different forms of transport on my way to the ocean, but I'm really pleased that this first bit is by foot." "Amazingly there are lots of people that live, even at this altitude, in the Andes and there's someone who lives round the corner and that's my first stop." "This first part of my journey will be tough and dangerous, dominated by the illegal trade in cocaine." "Nevado Mismi is in the south of Peru, 700 miles from the capital, Lima." "The Amazon flows north through Peru and then swings east through the jungles of Brazil, until it reaches the Atlantic." "I'll follow the river most of the time, but I'll also head off into the forest to hear the stories of the people who live there." "From the source, the river tumbles down through steep mountain gorges to the cloud forest and the Apurimac Valley," "Peru's most volatile cocaine-producing area." "From here the river flows into the rainforest and the homeland of the Ashaninka people." "The cocaine trade is tearing these valleys apart." "I'll meet the people who make it and those who are fighting against it." "It's October 2007 and the wet season is approaching." "I've been trekking just a couple of hours, come down maybe 400 metres," "I'm still above the height of Mont Blanc in Europe." "This area is home to the Quechuan, tough mountain people who scratch a living from this barren land by herding llamas and alpacas." "I've arranged to spend a few days with Rodolfo and his family." "They live just six from hours' walk from the source and so for me, are the first people of the Amazon." "Buenas noches!" "Buenas noches." "Rodolfo." "Como esta, Bruce?" "Nice to meet you." "Gladys, gracias." "Wow, look at that!" "What a wonderful reception!" "Muchas gracias!" "Muchas gracias, senor." "Rodolfo lives here with his wife, Gladys, his mother and father and his little son Iker." "His daughter Rosemary is back from university for a visit." "Muchas gracias." "It's freezing up here." "Everyone sleeps in one room, and the whole family is sharing a bed." "As I'm a guest they're not taking any chances on me getting cold." "Lots of blankets being used here." "I think I might have the lion's share, but there's certainly no shortage." "Llamas and alpacas make life at this altitude possible." "It's too high to grow crops, but llamas and alpacas thrive in the thin air." "Over the centuries, trading routes have developed, with wool and meat being bartered for goods from the valleys below." "The Quechuan people have lived in these mountains for centuries." "They're the descendants of the Inca people and the old beliefs are still strong." "Today is a special day." "Rodolfo is shearing the alpacas for the first time this season and an offering must be made to Pachamama or Mother Earth." "Quechuans revere Pachamama above all other deities." "She is the fertility goddess, the bringer of plenty." "Pachamama." "First Pachamama, Mother Earth, little bit." "OK then, little bit for me." "And then for the alpaca." "Although Rodolfo and his family are devout Catholics, they believe it is Pachamama who puts food on the table." "They ask for a blessing from Mismi, the mountain from which the Amazon flows." "These are coca leaves, the raw ingredient for cocaine." "They're used throughout the High Andes to fight the effects of altitude sickness and to stave off hunger and thirst." "Used in this traditional way, coca is legal in Peru." "So this again is for Pachamama, which is Mother Earth, and I'm going to place it here, the three leaves, in this soil here." "To the Quechuan, coca is a gift from the gods, a sacred leaf that must be treated with the utmost respect." "With a wad of bitter leaves packed in my cheek, it's time for work." "(ALPACA SQUEALS) Woo!" "(SQUEALING CONTINUES)" "This poor alpaca's making a bit of a squeal, but it's only because they're sensitive animals, there's no pain here, he's obviously just having his hair cut, but, of course this other than the dung of the sheep and the alpaca" "is pretty much their only cash crop." "The sun's warm, the radio's on, and the alpacas are being sheared." "Life is good in the High Andes." "Como esta?" "Buenito." "Buenito." "Este es tuyo." "Rodolfo and Gladys give me an alpaca." "Give it to you a present." "No, you can't do that." "This family just goes on and on, they're so generous." "Obviously I'm not gonna take it away with me, but even just as a...just as a token, it's a lovely gesture, and so they've asked me to name it." "I said I'd call it Mismi after the mountain where the spring of the Amazon is, which they all know very well." "Oi, che, che, che, che." "It's hard physical work in the thin air." "The family has very little, but shares everything." "Not a single E number, preservative or additive or anything like that, it's just straight from the land." "And it tastes like it." "Wow." "Yeah!" "(BRUCE LAUGHS)" "Rapido!" "(THEY TALK IN SPANISH)" "If only every kid would finish their food like that." "That's amazing." "Well done!" "He didn't even want it." "Then we said, "You've got to finish it."" ""All right!" and he just ate the lot and slurped down the remains." "What a good kid." "Well done." "I'm only here for a few days, but I want to earn my keep." "Rodolfo takes me to collect firewood." "Back home, I just turn on a switch to get my central heating, but Rodolfo's family's got to do this all year round." "I can safely say that of the three of us," "I've certainly done the least work." "He supplements the family's diet with trout from the nearby stream." "Hey!" "(IKER SHOUTS)" "For you, in your tummy." "Yeah?" "Come, no?" "Come?" "It's time to bring the llamas in for the night." "I'm tired but happy." "Just being with them, the fun." "It's just, everything that's gone on has been full of smiles and happiness and friendship." "Out fishing and finally, even, taking the alpacas home is a dream." "They know where they're going," "I'm just kind of strolling behind, enjoying the scenery." "It's just extraordinary, I've had the nicest day you can imagine." "Like parents everywhere," "Rodolfo and Gladys want something better for their kids." "When you have finished your study, will you come back and live here in the High Andes?" "The next morning, Rodolfo kills a sheep." "He'll sell the fleece for food." "The blood is allowed to soak into the earth." "Pachamama is asked for her blessing." "It's nearly time for me to move on." "Rodolfo and his family have agreed to accompany me for the first part of my journey through the mountains." "Ourjourney must be blessed." "Yeah, gracias." "I give thanks for the extraordinary opportunity I have for being here amongst these wonderful people." "And please bless my journey for the next six months and all the people that I meet along the way, but most especially I want to bless this family and give them health and happiness for ever more." "And bless the animals that take us on ourjourney." "(BELLS CLATTER)" "(RODOLFO WHISTLES)" "Suddenly a dust devil whirls through the enclosure." "Perhaps Pachamama has answered our prayers." "Tomorrow we'll be on our way." "Ugh!" "Blanco!" "Blanco!" "Blanco, blanco." "Oh, my lord!" "For me?" "Oh, muchas gracias." "I'll need that this morning I tell you." "Can't beat it, bit of coca tea." "Hot coca tea in the morning with a bit of sugar, it's delightful." "We need it, cos we've got a long journey ahead of us." "Hola, amigo." "Hiya." "Hiya." "We set off in high spirits, a caravan of llamas and donkeys following an ancient trail." "Llama, llama." "Shut." "Llama, llama." "Llama, llama." "Ch!" "Ch!" "This view from here is unbelievable." "The snow might be melting but our spirits certainly aren't." "We've already climbed quite a lot and we're all feeling strong, so that's what coca tea does for you in the morning." "These paths have been used since Incan times, trading goods up and down the Andes, potatoes, corn, coca leaves." "Llama, llama!" "Llama!" "Come on." "(BRUCE CLICKS TONGUE)" "(THUNDER RUMBLES)" "Ch!" "Ch!" "God, we've had the most epic day." "Beautiful start, snow to start, in glorious sunshine going up the hill." "It's only right really that it's gonna finish on a thunder and lightning storm at the end of the day." "Waaa..." "I thought we'd be sleeping out in the rain." "Might have a tin roof, but it'll do us." "Fantastic." "As night falls and the weather closes in, we stop in an abandoned house." "Life is hard in these high mountains and many people are leaving, looking for good land and better weather in the valleys and forests below." "The climate here is changing fast, the glaciers of the High Andes are retreating." "Life will only get tougher." "You're an amazing man and your family are extraordinary and thank you for everything." " And I'll always remember you." " Gracias, Bruce." "Safe journey home!" "I'll be thinking of you." "Muchas gracias." "(SOBBING)" "Ciao, ciao, Bruce!" "Ciao, ciao." "I'm leaving this family to continue my journey down the Amazon." "I've only known them a few days, but I've been touched by their generosity and dignity." "I hope I can take something of their attitude with me on my travels." "We've had the nicest weather and the canyon started out really wide and it's just been getting narrower and narrower." "Been following this beautiful river and as the canyon has been getting narrower, of course the river's been getting narrower." "And here, finally, I think the river is deep enough that I'm gonna be able to put a boat into it and I can't wait." "Fed by the melting glaciers, the river plunges down through the mountains, gathering strength as it rushes through steep gorges, nearly two miles deep, twice the size of the Grand Canyon." "In just 300 miles, the river drops 13,000 feet, carving a deep scar in the landscape." "It's a tough place to live, but some people see this extreme landscape as an irresistible challenge." " Hi, Bruce." " Hello, mate, how are you?" "Hello." "Good stuff, good." "Welcome to the Apurimac River." "I want to get onto the water as soon as possible, so I'm joining a group of river guides for a few days'rafting." "I think it's going to be part of your challenge again, try to pass some of the rapids here, let's see what happen." "The upper stretches of the Amazon provide some of the most powerful and exhilarating white water in the world." "This river is called the Apurimac, that's a Quechuan word, which is, of course, the language of the Incas." "'Apu' meaning 'god', and 'rimac' meaning 'speak' or 'to talk'." "I think I'm just about to find out if this river really does talk to us." "Apurimac was the Great Speaker, the most powerful of the Incan oracles." "He spoke through the sounds of thundering rapids and foretold the arrival of the white bearded gods that would bring the Incan Empire to its knees." "The river will change its name many times before it becomes the Amazon." "The Ene, the Tambo, the Urubamba, the Ucayali." "But these are the headwaters of the greatest river system on Earth and I can feel its power already." "Now I've come to this, it's called the toothache and it's the first time I realise" "I might have been lulled into a false sense of security." "Cos even the pros now are saying, "Bruce, this is a scary one, man." ""Be careful." "We don't mess around in this one."" "And to see them suddenly worried has really put me into a whole new sphere." "And, yeah, I'm cacking it a little bit for this one." "OK, we're gonna begin up there, go over there and through the top." "These rapids are graded five plus, on a scale that only goes up to six." "I'm not a brilliant swimmer so if I fall in here I'd be in real trouble." "Have to paddle strong man, you have to paddle strong." "Unreal!" "My first ever day rafting." "One or two times crashing through the waves, one or two times sliding between tiny gaps, but just really exhilarating, but never felt unsafe." "As the Apurimac thunders down through the High Andes, the landscape changes." "Brown desert turns to lush cloud forest." "For the next few weeks," "I'll be travelling through some dangerous and difficult country." "Here, the humidity of the jungle meets the cold of the mountains, and creates the perfect climate for growing coca." "Over 100 tonnes of cocaine a year comes out of this valley." "It's a former stronghold of the Shining Path," "Maoist revolutionaries who fought a bloody war against the state in the '70s and '80s." "And their influence is still felt here." "This place is dangerous, so we switch to a convoy of vehicles." "This is one of the largest areas of coca production for the cocaine industry in Peru, and as a result it's one of the most dangerous." "It's had a state of emergency for the last four years, and even just a couple of weeks ago, a number of people were killed in raids on police stations." "It's a completely lawless area and just being here is really very difficult." "There's so many elements at play here." "The people, the peasant farmers who are just trying to make a living by making coca, the Shining Path that of course had a treacherous history here, the Americans and their war on drugs, the local police and the local military" "and what they're trying to do for the Americans." "The politics, the whole thing is a swirling mess." "Most people in this valley are involved in the production of coca in some way or another." "We stop for the night in a small community of coca farmers a few miles from the river." "Our fixer Luis goes ahead." "Right now we're just holding fire cos it is a sensitive thing." "Antonio!" "Buenas tardes." "El es Bruce." "Me nombre Bruce." "Muchas gracias por esta aqui, gracias." "(COCK CROWS)" "They agree to let me stay." "(KIDS LAUGH)" "As they show me around their home, it quickly becomes obvious that these people are not making much money from drugs." "Next morning, Antonio shows me round his farm." "This here is coffee, one of the products on the farm" "And, yeah, this is cacao, which is of course used for chocolate." "But today, we're out to harvest the coca." "Here we are, the harvest has already started over there, completely stripped of leaves and then these are the ones we're obviously gonna work on today." "It's legal to cultivate some coca in Peru for traditional use." "But in reality, the vast majority, around 90%, goes to making illegal cocaine." "Coca is an essential cash crop here." "Unlike coffee, the price rarely fluctuates and it can be harvested four times a year." "Simple economics force these people into the drug trade." "Just been talking to Antonio about money." "Now the coca he can do four times a year and in this particular three month section for this harvest, he reckons he's gonna get about 300 dollars for his produce." "But 200 of that will go on pesticides and labour, which means that he will get 100 dollars for this particular harvest." "That 100 dollars has got to pay for his kids to go to school, and the transport and his food and everything else." "And that 100 dollars is almost, co-incidentally, about the same price as a gram of cocaine on the streets of London." "The coca harvest is laid out in the sun to dry." "Oh, that's quite pungent." "They're not really rotting but it smells quite rotting, but it's more than that, it's quite acrid." "What Antonio does is part of a grey market." "The authorities turn a blind eye in order to avoid a full-scale war." "Growing coca, the raw material, isn't illegal, but what happens to it next is." "90% of the coca plants in this valley are producing leaves for the illicit cocaine industry." "The leaves themselves are not exported but are actually reduced down into a paste which they call base that is either then taken to a laboratory and made into the cocaine or exported as paste." "And we're gonna go and look at one of these sort of laboratories." "Just turned off the main road into a little side track, heading into the middle of nowhere really." "It's about an hour's drive and then we've got a walk after that to get to this processing plant." "We're not quite sure what we're gonna find when we get there, and our only hope really is that the military or police don't find it at the same time we're there." "Cor!" "Instantly you can smell it, that smell that I got when we were rolling the leaves at Antonio's." "There they are, it's really pungent." "We're not there yet." "This is just the storage area for the leaves, huge sacks of leaves and they've chosen this place because from the air it's less visible." "They take us away from the river with two massive bags of coca leaves." "Ah, so this is it." "The term bossa comes from this pit where all the leaves are kept." "And the guy who is gonna be doing the processing today has just told us that yesterday the military were here and they burned four of these in the local area." "And the way that they know where they are is of course through informers." "So he was really concerned that whoever the local informer was knew about this one too." "This is the rustic beginnings of what is a multi-billion-billion-dollar industry." "Wouldn't look like it here." "Death, wars, governments being overthrown, corruption, ecstasy, hatred, you name it, it all begins here." "This is the first step of the process and these bags here are chlorine." "And you can smell it already, it's quite pungent." "I think we're gonna see a few chemicals in use today." "Suddenly the smell of chlorine has been replaced by that pungent odour, that I'm getting so used to here, of the coca leaf." "Bizarrely, kind of, it's becoming an acquired smell." "Tony, you're a young man, you're 18." "What do you know about cocaine as a drug?" "Is it a bad thing, good thing?" "A toxic cocktail of chemicals is used to extract the cocaine from the leaves." "Bleach, kerosene and sulphuric acid." "Cocaine has all sorts of reputations round the world but one of them is... a sort of glamour drug." "This, and all the chemicals and the smell and what's going on, it most certainly isn't that." "What are you putting in now?" " Kerosene." " Kerosene." "(HE SIPS)" "Rather him than me." "The kerosene containing the coca alkaloid is skimmed off and the rest of the chemicals poured away." "Bleach and paraffin, and that's gonna go straight into the river systems." "The sad fact of all of this is that there is still a market for cocaine, patently, because it's booming here." "There is a war against it and the production of it is illegal, but the sad truth of that is that because it's illegal it's happening behind closed doors." "Because it's happening behind closed doors without a licence, this sort of pollution is rife." "And these people are the ones who are most affected." "They're not making any money from it, yet they're polluting their own backyard." "And that's the reality of this valley." "Suddenly there's trouble." "We hear the beat of a helicopter overhead." "It's the authorities out looking for coca labs." "We all run for cover." "The one thing we don't want at an illegal coca plant is the military popping in to say hello." "(HELICOPTER APPROACHES)" "There it is, fuck." "Right overhead." "These guys understandably shaky." "Three to four years, and they know it." "Is it worth all this hiding?" "All this stuff that you know is against the law, is it worth it for the amount of money you get?" "This toxic brew is then strained and the residue heated." "His outlay in this has been about $900 US, that's with all the tarps and the barrels and the kero and the ammonia, the acid." "And of course 250kg of coca leaf." "From that, he says he'll make a profit of about $80 US once it's been sold as base." "And that's after four days of work." "There you have it, the second stage of the multi-multi-billion-dollar industry that is the cocaine industry." "Really surprising." "I was expecting white fluff." "But from here that will go to a laboratory where it becomes cocaine as we know it." "This beautiful valley is at war." "I've spoken to one side, now I want to talk to the other." "The US pays for three helicopter gunships in the Apurimac valley." "They fly local police three times a day, seven days a week, as part of their war against drugs." "(HE SPEAKS SPANISH)" "The local commandante is Juamito." "He lives in this isolated fortress with a hundred men and two US special advisors." "The commandant's just come back and he's found one of the bossas, one of the plants, the laboratories." "And apparently it's near a road, so we're gonna go and have a look." "(THEY SPEAK SPANISH)" "Si, OK, perfecto." "Right, this is it, we're off." "We have to cross the river." "Instantly you see why they like to use helicopters." "There's only one bridge and it's miles away." "If someone wanted to ambush us, now would be a good time." "And they tell me they're attacked at least once a year." "Columbia is still the world's biggest producer of cocaine, but Peru is second and catching up fast." "And now Columbia's hard-line stance has seen the drug cartels increasingly switch production to Peru." "Must be so strange for these guys living in that compound, never really going outside of it, and then the only time that they ever communicate with the outside world, and all the people in this valley, is in this form," "it's down the barrel of a gun or driving around or flying in and blowing things up." "The helicopters guide us to a patch of forest just above the river." "(WALKIE-TALKIE CONVERSATION)" "La bossa?" "Si, esta la bossa." "Juamito leads me to a disused bossa." "It's surrounded by huge mounds of coca waste." "There's another one nearby and this one looks like it's been used recently." "This is the pipe that collects the water from the stream to automate the filling of the bossa itself." "When you left this morning you did not know you would find this." "How did you spot it?" "Cos it seems quite overgrown." "It feels like the commandante is fighting a losing battle." "Destroying these simple bossas has almost no effect on production." "Here, in the Apurimac and Ene valleys, the amount of land given over to coca production has doubled in the past eight years." "In other parts of Latin America, drug enforcement agencies have used pesticides to eradicate entire coca crops." "But the commandante tells me it's not an option here." "This valley is just too volatile." "In the middle of our filming in the Apurimac valley, we received a shocking reminder of how isolated this place really was." "Our director, Matt Brandon, had become seriously ill." "He was complaining of extraordinary headache and back pains." "Yesterday afternoon he went to bed, he woke up and he hasn't spoken since." "Actually, this is the first time this morning that he's even given us any conscious cognitive reaction at all, and all we care about is our Matt and getting him out." "His symptoms suggested that his brain was infected or injured." "It could have been a stroke or cerebral malaria." "Both are extremely serious but we were hundreds of miles away from good medical help and it was dark." "No chopper would come till morning." "Everything is going to be fine, I promise you." "I promise you, man." "You'll there in no time." "The weather's good, the pilots are coming, everything is organised." "We've been a bit worried, but you're OK." "Yeah?" "You're with us now, yeah?" "So you've had a..." "Everyone's been looking after you and you're gonna be fine." "After a night of desperate phone calls, the anti-narcotics team agreed to fly Matt to a nearby airstrip from where he could be transferred to Lima." "We cleared a landing area for the helicopter." "We have a doctor with us who is willing to go all the way to Lima." "Matt was flown to a hospital, where he was diagnosed as having an abscess on his brain." "We delayed the journey while we waited for news." "He responded to treatment well and went on to make a full recovery." "With Matt safe, we decided to continue." "I'm back on the river heading north, out of the Apurimac valley." "We've been badly shaken so it's good to be on the move again." "But we're now seriously behind schedule and there's a difficult stretch of the river ahead." "I pass towns and villages that look desolate and forgotten." "There's not much evidence of drug dollars here, just poverty and neglect." "A feeling that I do get down here is that... there is a little bit of resentment towards the nation state here." "They feel they've been left alone, they feel that there are solutions that they see, but they're not being implemented." "One reason they're involved in what they know is an illicit trade is because they haven't, as they see it, any option." "It's the only thing that offers them stability, it's the only thing, as they see it, offers them an income that can support them in a way that isn't grinding poverty." "And who can blame them, actually?" "They're just getting on with it, and all of the negativity that's... about this horrible subject is happening elsewhere really." "But they feel that the war's being fought on their turf and they're the ones that are losing out." "As we move downstream, the river changes its name again." "It's now called the Ene and it flows through one of the most notorious areas in Peru." "This place is known simply as the Red Zone and it's a no-go area for the police and the army." "On this section of the river there's a tribe who are fighting their own war against the drug gangs." "Since coming to the valley there's one group of people" "I've been really looking forward to meeting and they're the Ashaninka, the original tribal indigenous inhabitants of this part of Peru." "For centuries, they've been trying to fight off people laying claim to their land, whether it's the Andean people coming down as farmers, or the Shining Path, and more recently they've been fighting in a bitter armed struggle" "against the Cocaleros, the coca-producing farmers, who are everywhere just trying to steal their lands." "The Red Zone is the last refuge of one of South America's most brutal terrorist organisations," "Sendero Luminoso, the Shining Path." "They fought a bloody war against the Peruvian state in the '80s." "70,000 people were killed in the conflict." "The Ashaninka were caught in the middle and suffered horribly." "The Shining Path now provides protection for the drug gangs." "This is Catungo, an Ashaninka village three hours'drive from the river." "I'm hoping to stay here for a week or so and go on a patrol with the Ronderos, the Ashaninka's own defence force, who are fighting the drug gangs." "But we've arrived at a difficult time." "It's the village's 12th birthday party." "The local logging boss has organised a football tournament and a band." "The place is packed with outsiders, loggers from the camps in the forest and Lord knows who else." "I'm doing a journey that's gonna last six months, travelling from the source of the Amazon to the sea, meeting people and communities along the way." "And also to come around and ask you some questions about what it is like to live here and any views that you have on the changing times that we have in this area." "They've told me it's too dangerous to go out on a long patrol, not just because I'm here but because the whole situation is too hot at the moment." "So, instead, we're gonna do a perimeter patrol and just go and visit some of the sentries who are there, at all times, around the circumference of the village." "And why is it that you have to do this yourself?" "Why can't your government provide the security that you feel you need to protect your land?" "The word Ashaninka means "a brother to all"." "But now they stand alone, fighting against a wave of outsiders." "The Ashaninka need the forest to hunt, but the incomers just want to cut it down for timber and new land to grow yet more coca." "Por mi?" "Gracias." "I'm glad I asked." "I'm given a bowl of masato, traditional Ashaninka beer." "It's made from yucca and sweet potato." "The women chew the sweet potato and spit it back into the pot." "Their saliva causes it to ferment. '" "It's amazing really." "When we first arrived, I was a bit concerned about our reception, they kind of weren't expecting us and it wasn't... it was very cordial but it wasn't gushing in any way." "And I was worried about how our time here was gonna be but, now that I've got to know them and now that they realise that we're here just to film them and show their lives, they've opened up." "And when you consider what they've been through in the last 30 years and all the atrocities, it's not surprising they're cautious about visitors coming out of the blue." "The party gets into full swing." "The village is full of incomers." "The band has come from Ayacucho, miles away." "The mood is friendly, but tense." "Halfway through our stay, we get some worrying news." "The Ronderos are nervous." "People have been asking questions about us." "Everyone is twitchy, and there's a threat of violence in the air." "Is our staying here putting any Ashaninka's lives at risk?" "This is very important for us to know." "Si." "Si." "It seems that, because we arrived at the time when they had their 12th anniversary, that a lot of people who wouldn't normally have known we were here have seen us." "And at first, perhaps in our ignorance, we didn't think that was a bad thing, but we're just getting the message through now that that has filtered out to the colonos, the people who are invading the lands all around," "and that they have put the word out that if we try and go out on any of these patrols or whatever, they are there, they're armed and ready and they don't care whether there's gringos, white people, in the area," "they will protect their lands, as they see it, bizarrely." "It's not safe for us or our hosts so we pack our things and head back to the river." "It's a bit of a shame not spending more time in Catungo." "I was hoping to have really got to know some characters there and explored their story a bit more, but once again we got moved on, again for safety reasons." "It seems to have been the story of my journey so far, especially here in the Apurimac valley, that it's just really difficult." "People don't come here, there's no security and everyone's a little bit on edge every time we come by." "But my journey's not over yet and my hope is that today we can find another Ashaninka village and maybe, if I'm lucky, it'll be a more traditional one." "As we move downriver, I can see what the Ronderos are fighting." "Everywhere, the forest is being burned to create new coca fields." "We need to find somewhere safe to spend the night, hopefully somewhere beyond the influence of the cocaine trade." "This is the village of Pamikieri and we only radioed ahead to ask permission to come here yesterday when we left Catungo." "Buenas tardes." "Buenas tardes, senor." "Buenas tardes." "Buenas tardes." "Hola!" "Hey, little one, hey." "Wow." "Now, this is a little bit more like it, fantastic." "Si, si, si." "Gracias." "This place feels different immediately, as if the problems upriver have yet to arrive." "Even the masato tastes different." "Ooh!" "Straightaway, there's a difference!" "This is a little bit more potent." "These kids aren't shy." "We've had a complete line up, about 20 kids come past shaking everyone's hands." "The people of Pamikieri are preparing to celebrate their first birthday and the whole village is working together to make the place look nice." "This is only a year old, this community." "It's amazing when you see how much has been done, but when you get days like this, when you see the power of everyone working together, you realise just what it is that's going on here." "Really lovely." "The Ashaninka aspire to a life of peace and ease." "They try to avoid conflict at all costs and will often form breakaway villages in order to do so." "Pamikieri is such a place." "It was formed a year ago to resolve a dispute at a nearby village." "And, after the places I've been, this feels like a sanctuary." "I've just been told..." "that this is for me." "I'm the guest of honour, apparently, and that one over there is for everyone else." "Yeah, talk about hospitality." "This is a little bit beyond." "It's nearly time for me to leave these troubled valleys." "It's been a hard few months travelling through difficult country, but I've been met with smiles and warmth almost everywhere." "I can see why the people I've met choose to grow coca." "There seems to be nothing else for them." "And, as the demand for cocaine soars, they need more and more land to grow their plants." "But for the Ashaninka, it's a deadly harvest." "Their forest is being burned and their rivers are being polluted." "I'm afraid I have no answers, but the Ashaninka of Pamikieri at least seem to have found some temporary peace in their violent history." "I just hope it lasts." "I'm back on the river again, heading further into the jungles of Peru." "Next time, as my Amazon journey continues," "I push deeper into this great forest to meet the Achuar people, a remote tribe fighting to keep oil companies off their land." "And I undergo a profound shamanic ritual that shakes me to the core." "It's just sitting there like an evil menace in my stomach." "If you want to know more, visit our website, bbc.co.uk/amazon"