(upbeat Peruvian music)
(woman singing in foreign language)
(nature)
- [Voiceover] Funding for Music Voyager provided in part by
(dramatic music)
celebrating culture,
encouraging communication,
Create for Change, a non-profit for
bridging cultures through film.
Look, listen, learn.
Additional funding for this season
of Music Voyager provided by
PromPerú, commission for travel and tourism Peru,
Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau,
Tauck, how you see the world matters.
(nature)
- [Narrator Jacob] East of the Andes Mountains
is the Amazon rainforest.
(nature)
It's the largest tropical rainforest on the planet.
(nature)
It spans nine different nations
on the South American continent.
And its rivers are a source of life and connection,
as they flow eastward towards the Atlantic Ocean.
Here in Peru, where the rainforest
covers over half of the country,
the mighty Amazon River begins its
6,000-kilometer journey to the Atlantic.
And it's amidst this flood, water, and life
that our journey takes on a new rhythm.
("Sonido Amazonico" by Los Wemblers)
My name is Jacob Edgar, I'm an ethnomusicologist.
And I follow the planet's musical heartbeat
to reveal the soul and spirit of our world.
I'm traveling across Peru, with my friend
Alvaro Fernandez, a musician and entrepreneur
who invited me to explore his fascinating country.
Alvaro is the drummer for one of
the most popular rock bands, Campo de Almas.
With his connections to some of Peru's top trendsetters,
and his knowledge of unique, off the beaten path
destinations, Alvaro has promised
me a journey I'll never forget.
This part of our adventure takes us into
an area of the world that can't be reached by roads.
- Iquitos is one the most remote cities on Earth.
It's on the edge of the Amazon,
and now most people get there by plane.
- [Narrator Jacob] Long inhabited by indigenous peoples,
Iquitos flourished in the late
19th century, during the rubber boom.
When that industry declined, timber,
mining, and eventually oil attracted
workers from across the region and the world.
- I wanted to bring Jacob to see
and to experience what the Amazon is,
and I believe that Iquitos is the city
that best represents that feeling of the Amazon.
- And it is a teeming metropolis
that's a little bit odd, you know perhaps
because of its remote location.
(boat engine)
- You see all these motor taxis.
There's like more modal taxis definitely than of cars.
And it's kinda crazy, right.
We have all these colors and you have all these
sounds and flavors going around
So it's pretty wild.
(man sings in foreign language)
And I like the fact that it's a little wild and crazy.
- While we were in Iquitos, I felt it was
important for us to pay a visit
to the members of Los Wemblers.
The Wemblers are like the Buena
Vista Social Club of Iquitos.
They've been around since 1968, 49 years.
- I mean, me as a Peruvian, I always heard about them.
They started a new sound, a new movement of music.
- And they're a band that really pioneered
this style of music called Amazonian Cumbia.
It's a style of music that has been
incredibly influential outside of the region.
And, Los Wemblers are iconic representatives of this style.
- [Narrator Jacob] I meet some of the band members
at their favorite lunch spot to hear a few
of the stories behind the songs.
(speaking in foreign language)
- Nowadays this music has a lot
of influence in bands, in modern bands
that are rescuing the sound of Wemblers
and playing it with their own words,
with their own feeling, making a new sound.
- [Narrator Jacob] One of the groups inspired
by Amazonian Cumbia is Bareto,
who recently reclaimed the style
and became one of the country's biggest
pop phenomenons of recent years.
(Peruvian music)
- Amazonian music is not very famous here in Peru.
Peru is very centralized in Lima.
We kind of connect that whole great culture
of the Amazon and we do our best
to bring it to the people here in Lima
and in every place over Peru.
Peru is always ton types,
there's always the mountains, but not the general,
there's Cumbia everywhere in Latin America,
but Peruvian Cumbia is like eat or drink.
("La Danza del Petrolero" by Los Wemblers)
- The Wemblers are, for us, probably
the main Cumbia Celtica sound here in Peru.
- They have this mystique and they sound
like a band from other time, I don't know.
- Well it was a real treat for me
to be able to meet the members of Los Wemblers
and talk a little bit about their history
and met some of the members of the band.
And then we headed off to a local market.
("La Danza del Petrolero" by Los Wemblers)
This is a market that you might not visit
unless somebody local brought you there.
It's a place where the locals go to get their food.
So they have all kinds of unusual fruits and vegetables.
They have a wide range of fish that they're selling there,
and they also have, as I discovered,
this particular delicacy of the Amazon called suri,
which is turns out, are a type of large, juicy worm.
That you eat.
- This was not my first time eating suri.
I had suri, maybe two or three times before.
- Now I've eaten some strange things in my life,
but this is goin' up high on the list.
- Actually I like it.
- Okay, here we go, you ready, here goes the suri.
Mmm, you know what it tastes like?
It kinda tastes like bacon.
With, kind of, juice inside.
He's definitely a connoisseur.
(dramatic soft music)
- [Narrator Jacob] Iquitos is the gateway to the Amazon,
and our voyage has only begun.
For this part of the journey, I've got a room with a view.
(dramatic music)
To explore the Amazon, Alvaro and I
board a ship called the Aqua Aria,
and embark on an expedition to
the source of the Amazon River.
- Well it's pretty amazing how
they came to with the idea of having
this kind of boat, this kind of facilities and luxury,
to be able to explore something
that is pretty wild and primitive.
- This is very, very stylish ship.
Imagine a five-star hotel,
traveling down the Amazon River.
It's beautifully designed, beautifully decorated.
- [Narrator Jacob] It looks like we'll be
sailing down the Amazon in style.
(dramatic music)
The luxury extends to the food on board.
They serve dishes derived from local ingredients,
created by one of Peru's most prestigious chefs.
The man who's done the most to break down
the barriers between fine dining
and wild Amazonian ingredients
is Chef Pedro Miguel Schiaffano.
- Amazonian cuisine is very basic.
There's no, a big repertoire.
There's a big pantry, and these ingredients are
eaten in a very natural way.
- [Narrator Jacob] His restaurant Amaz in Lima
brings the flavors of the rainforest to Lima's urban jungle.
- Nowadays when I talk about Amazonian cuisine,
I focus on flavor, knowing the tradition,
but building upon tradition.
- [Narrator Jacob] He uses ingredients ranging from
Amazonian fish, including piranha,
to expand diners' palates, as well as their
appreciation for the culinary cornucopia of the region.
- None of the Amazonian countries has really
incorporate these ingredients to the regular diet.
When we incorporate these, you know,
a regular diet, things are gonna change.
(Peruvian soft music)
(thunder)
- Good morning guys, are you ready to go?
- [Man] Yep.
- Let's enjoy this morning trip.
- Let's hit the jungle.
- Hey, how you doin' man?
- [Narrator Jacob] Early the next morning,
we head out on a skiff with our guide,
Roland Belarezo, who grew up on the water.
- I love the Amazon because it's a place of wonder.
- [Narrator Jacob] He takes us into
the backchannels of the river.
Every year, the water rises and falls
by up to 10 meters, or 30 feet.
- Right now the river is at its
highest level, and basically, it's flooded.
- And it's everything coming from the Andes,
from the snow melting, millions
of cubic feet of water coming from the Andes.
One-fifth of the fresh water from the world,
it happens right here, the Amazon basically.
- [Narrator Jacob] When the river's at
its lowest, this is all dry land.
But this time of year, with the high river,
we're able to get much closer to
the wildlife of this fertile area.
- [Alvaro] It's amazing how big it is.
(dramatic music)
And how small it makes you feel.
(dramatic music and nature)
(snapshot)
- 97% of the Amazonian plants is still underdiscovered.
(dramatic music and nature)
- [Narrator Jacob] Every year the Amazon discharges
20% of the world's fresh water into the ocean.
It's the world's most voluminous river by far.
- And how far are we from where
the Amazon officially becomes the Amazon?
- About 30 minutes down river.
- And what's the, what makes it that?
Is it two rivers coming together?
- That's right, the two rivers
got together, the Marañón and Ucayali.
We'll see that later when we come back.
- Like right now we're in the Ucayali River, right?
- We're in the upper Amazon, Ucayali.
- [Narrator Jacob] Roland is extremely knowledgeable
about the animals and plants around us.
- I was really impressed with Roland,
our tour guide, he has a lot of knowledge.
- So we have a little bush of camu camu here, with roots.
Gonna show it to you.
There we go.
The Amazonian camu camu, Vitamin C fruit.
- [Narrator Jacob] We continue on and Roland
searches for a place to get out of the boat and explore.
But dry land's not easy to find this time of year.
- I decided to, that we should
have a local fellow, a local guy.
His name is Attilio.
- And he brought the most important tool
that any Amazonian person could have,
which is a well-honed machete.
(dramatic music)
- We've been watching the gentleman
from the boat, okay, we're seeing all these
wildlife, monkeys, birds, you name it.
And then we get into the land.
(nature)
- You know, the minute you step into the jungle,
you're just surrounded by darkness.
You've been in the light, this whole time.
(ceremonial music and nature)
- Yeah, I mean, that's the feeling you get when you get
to the jungle, it's like, you feel little (laughs).
(ceremonial music and nature)
- This area is called the Restinga.
Restinga's like a resting land.
The places that don't normally get flooded by the river.
Look at this, wonderful, those are cicadas.
- As we walked, we would come across
different plants and trees and
each one had a story to tell.
- [Narrator Jacob] The people of the Amazon
have long known that everything
they need can be found in nature.
- The way in which you could use them
for food, for medicine, to drink.
We tried a water vine, you cut into the vine
and water just pours out like from a water fountain.
- It has the flavor of the tree actually, right.
- [Jacob] It tastes, yeah, it tastes like
a woody, kinda rooty...
- [Narrator Jacob] Roland explains the many
different ways people harvest the plants and animals here.
- [Roland] Oh, look at this.
- [Alvaro] Oh yeah, oh, nice.
- Now this is the same kind of grub
that you'll see in the market, just a larger...
- Absolutely.
- Just a larger version.
- Larger one, yeah.
- [Narrator Jacob] A quick example of harvesting
from this natural world is Attilio
effortlessly exposing the chunta, or heart of the palm.
(cutting)
- [Alvaro] Cuidado.
- [Roland] Careful.
- [Group] Whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop.
(tree falling)
(laughter)
(nature)
- This guy can really handle his machete.
- [Roland] Check and what is it now?
That's the main heart in the middle.
(cutting)
- I don't know how many times we thought, like,
hey, be careful with your finger.
(tearing)
And then to cut it and to open it,
and to understand that, for example, it has layers,
like, in 10 minutes, we got into this tree...
(mumbles)
- [Jacob] That we eat.
- [Roland] That we eat.
- There's a whole thing that I didn't know about.
And it was really special to see,
the like, firsthand, face to face.
- I think a lot of people when they think of
the Amazon, they think of a place
that's isolated, remote, cut off from the rest of the world.
The reality, when you get here, is that
the Amazon is teaming with life, it's true,
but not just wildlife, also human life.
There's a huge amount of human activity on the Amazon.
- [Roland] Typical highways, this is our highways.
And the interconnection between communities,
it was all done by water system,
so that's why it's very important
to have the bed of canoes and the little motors right now.
- So we came to Amazon expecting
to see a lot of wildlife, but the one
thing I remember the most is the people.
(upbeat Peruvian music)
- I had this interesting sensation
when we were traveling down the river,
and seeing the little communities,
or even individual houses on stilts by the water.
- So there are like, contradiction of feelings
because you get to see how these people live, and yeah,
of course you think that it's a tough way of living.
I mean, they have tough conditions.
(snapshot)
(upbeat Peruvian music)
- And living on the Amazon, it is hard.
It is tough because you're depending.
You're depending on the water,
you're depending on the river.
The river is a dictator of the Amazon.
(upbeat Peruvian music)
I grew up in that conditions.
It is very tough, and if you are a child,
as well you have to be responsible,
not only for yourself but as well for,
for your little friends or for your brothers.
- We went into this little village,
and you know, this time of the year,
the streets of the village are just waterways.
So you can only get around by boat.
- And then you see these kids.
They come rowing their canoes with
these big smiles welcoming you.
- And we pass by this little store
and all these kids were hangin' out at the store.
Alright, this is where all the kids hang out.
- Yes, this is for the afternoon free time.
And this is an area as well they like to be
because they're very close to this lady here,
she sells a lot of the local candies.
- So you pull out this little instrument,
this little Portuguese guitar that I travel with,
and put it in the kids' hands,
and let them touch it and play it.
And I was trying to get them to play something for me,
you know, to sing me something of theirs.
The song that came to mind for them was
a song from church, which I think
probably for a lot of the community,
that's where a lot of the music takes place is in church.
* Hallelujah
(clapping)
- And the next thing you know, you've made friends.
And another day we went to a different community.
And Alvaro and I were playing soccer
with the kids in this little village.
This village had actual land, you know,
so there was, there were places, the water wasn't as high
so there were places where you could play soccer,
there were fields for farming.
And from off in the distance, we heard
this Cumbia booming across the Amazon.
- [Alvaro And Jacob] Hola!
(Alvaro speaks in foreign language)
- [Jacob] Where's this music coming from?
It wasn't, like, a little local speaker,
this was somebody with, like, sound system blaring.
And so I went up to some local people.
I said, "Where's the music coming from?"
And they're like, "Oh that's our neighbor."
They knew exactly who it was,
this is the guy with the radio.
So it sounds like somebody over there
really likes some music, so we're gonna go
see if we can find out who it is.
So we get in our boats and we go across the river,
and it's just, you know, typical wooden shack.
A guy has a huge sound system that he rents out.
And he's playing all this Cumbia Amazonic,
and the best part, was as we're getting off the boat,
the song that's blaring from the sound system
is "Danza Del Petrolero" which was
the big hit for Los Wemblers.
("La Danza Del Petrolero" by Los Wemblers)
And again, I tried to engage the kids.
I wanted them to show me some of
their dance moves, and all that stuff.
I ended up being the one dancing, looking like a fool,
more than they did, but we had a good time.
("La Danza Del Petrolero" by Los Wemblers)
(soft dramatic music)
- [Narrator Jacob] We sailed to the convergence point
of the expansive Ucayali and Marañón rivers.
The spot that most geologists call
the official beginning of the Amazon River.
There's still so much to learn about the Amazon.
And there's nothing that appeals to us more
than the knowledge that there are
still many mysteries in this world.
There are still secrets to discover.
But there's a deeper essence, a complex
interdependence of nature, that
we'll probably never fully understand.
("La Danza Del Petrolero" by Los Wemblers)
- [Voiceover] Funding for Music Voyager provided in part by
(dramatic music)
celebrating culture,
encouraging communication,
Create for Change, a non-profit for
bridging cultures through film.
Look, listen, learn.
Additional funding for this season
of Music Voyager provided by
PromPerú, commission for travel and tourism Peru,
Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau,
Tauck, how you see the world matters.