Costa Rica - Panama - Crossroad of the Americas on board the Yorktown Clipper (Documentary)

since the dawn of time North America and South America drifted independent of each other between four and five million years ago the slow but inexorable movement of the tectonic plates caused upheavals volcanoes and mountains thrust upwards resulting in a veritable geological and biological bridge between the two Americas the plant and wildlife of the two continents mixed and flourished later the human populations that emigrated from Asia would use also this natural corridor some would settle here others continued their slow migration towards the south and would eventually populate the entire continent of South America all the way down to the Tierra del Fuego from the conquest doors and for Christopher Columbus who explored the shores of this Isthmus on his fourth and final voyage in 1502 this new world was just an impassable obstacle on the route to India which was everyone's goal at the time núñez de Balboa an adventurer and heard from the Indians about a mysterious stretch of water that lay beyond the mountains he managed to make his way across the Isthmus and on the 25th of September 1513 discovered the shores of the Pacific Ocean and from their day until the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914 men have been crossing from north to south and from east to west this fragile ribbon of land the crossroad of the Americas five centuries have gone by since the arrival of the Spanish disease slavery genocide like everywhere else in that in America colonization has exacted a heavy toll from the Amerindians and in Costa Rica they have almost completely disappeared on the other hand what does take us back to the pre-columbian period is the primeval forests on board the Yorktown clipper a small coastal cruiser in the company of naturalist guides we'll be discovering some of the most beautiful natural parks on the Pacific side of Panama and Costa Rica this region has now become one of the world's favourite destinations for ecotourism in 1970 the Costa Rican government spurred as much by economic considerations as by ecological awareness decided to reverse the trend of massive deforestation resulting from the intensification of farming and cattle raising and undertook a vast environmental protection program now close to 30 national reserves and parks cover 25 percent of the country's surface a world record and the enormous crocodiles of the Ryota chorus have thrived under this protection they say that there are more than 200 per kilometer on this stretch of river that cuts through the Karaka reserve Denis is Costa Rican he is the Yorktown Clippers onboard naturalist today he is taking a small group of nature lovers to visit the Carew Wildlife Refuge la sebastiana scale por la formación illogically Costa Rica due to the geological formation of Costa Rica and Panama they are the youngest part of the continent for a long time a see channels separated North and South America until the intense volcanic and tectonic activity thrust up a biological corridor from out of the ocean below haku entry northeastern America Panama TN dokey spaces by linking the north and south this corridor allowed the natural species of the two subcontinent's to migrate and cross over especially as de manos from women Oh Caroline for example we can find species of monkeys native to South America here like the capuchins and we have other animals like the raccoon that come from North America due to the climatic and topographic conditions there is a vast biodiversity here we count 850 species of birds 220 mammals 9000 plant species they figure there are 13,000 but only 9000 have been catalogue this rain all year round in Costa Rica especially in the parts covered by the tropical forest which generates their own precipitation in spite of the raindrops that weigh down their fragile wings this couple of butterflies persist in their graceful mating dance the rain is coming down even harder but it doesn't seem to bother this sloth as he leisurely makes his way from branch to branch the sloth has a very special relationship with the LG that develops in its fur this LG uses the fur as a habitat where it can grow but at the same time it provides the animal with camouflage and that's his main protection against predators it's a very slow-moving species so as he can't flee from its predators this is a way for him to hide more efficiently in the treetops lillico to dismiss ecotourism is vital for our country for two reasons first it's very important that because it is one of our country's main sources of income advice secondly which for me is even more important is to make people aware of the importance of the tropical forests avocadoes but also its fragility so it's important to protect it and not only for the tourists visiting our country but also for Costa Rica's future generations since the dawn of time migrating birds have used the natural route of Costa Rica this biological corridor on their way north and south today the flat ash felt ribbon of the pan-american highway offers a sharp contrast to the rugged landscape fleets of trucks rumble up and down this road which stretches thousands of kilometers across Central America the pan-american highway which cuts through the country from north to south along the Cordillera leads to San Jose the capital of Costa Rica San Jose doesn't have the prestige and elegance of the major colonial capitals like Santo Domingo Mexico City and Havana its atmosphere is closer to that of old Europe than one of the turbulent Latin American cities maybe that's why Costa Rica is known as the Switzerland of Central America or it could be on account of the political stability and the relatively strong economy which attracts many Nicaraguans looking for work there's nothing like a trip to the market to get a real sample of the colors and aromas of Central America Guatemala Panama and Colombia still have relatively large proportions of amerindians but in Costa Rica they make up no more than 1% of the population who were the Amerindians that inhabited Costa Rica before the Spanish conquest the answer is to be found in the National Museum of San Jose before they personas can pierce ahead you gotta the first groups began to ride around 12,000 years ago they settled here and they lived in harmony with nature with a whole environment and they began to develop their own cultures civilization very different from that of the Mayas or the Incas these people had began to develop their own world in the south they've discovered thousands of perfectly shaped spheres of all sizes made by the Indians was this an astrological calendar a means of communication even today we still don't know their true significance I can tell they're female I'm in Turkey it's important to understand that these groups living here weren't isolated they communicated and traded with other groups of different cultures living on the continent is thenis quasi lamentable in theory they probably learned how to make pottery from groups living in the south and how to work with polychromatic pottery and jade from populations living in the north in Mesoamerica and it's important to note that they not only assimilated these techniques they also express their own worldview through them and developed an original culture founded on very characteristic features specific to them and found nowhere else as we continue our journey along the Pacific coast we come into view of the meringue Co biological reserve until the railroad was built in the middle of the nineteenth century it was very difficult to cross the Isthmus from north to south or from east to west the high mountains the jungle and the heavy rains made every trip a dangerous adventure this was the world of the Indians only they knew how to travel the Indians knew how to make canoes they had communications the problem was that almost all the Indians on the coast were forced by the Spanish to carry out other types of work on the island over there they found large stone spheres we think that they formed a sort of information center for the people traveling up and down the coast and maybe they didn't stop very often in Costa Rica maybe one or two stops before continuing on their way but there was coastal traffic and they found proof of that once again the rain is drumming down on the Selva as we follow our young guide Gustavo who works year-round in the reserve we try to understand just how the Indians organize their life in the middle of such a seemingly hostile environment Mucha gente this forest has been inhabited for a long time long before the Spanish arrived the Indians had to put up with all the climatic conditions the rain in particular they build dwellings especially adapted to this type of region they used palm fronds like the ones we see here the sweeter to roof the houses the sweeter palm is a completely waterproof plant so the people could keep dry whenever someone got sick they would find all the medications in the forest almost every plant they found headed specific units it would also extract the fiber to make clothes hammocks for everything absolutely everything you could find everything here and even today you can find some people in this part of Costa Rica and we still live just what the Indians used to live if they're like if they're like recall this plant the monkeys ladders plant is typical of the primeval forest if that what it does is he climbs upward to get the light lose para nuestro caso a para Uno's años que los our own and a facade the Indians would use it they would take a bit of the bark from the monkeys ladder boil it and use it as a painkiller it's kind of like nature's aspirin the Indians lived in perfect symbiosis with their environment the humid tropical forests they knew the hidden power of many plants how many did they have in their pharmacopoeia a few dozen a few hundred in any case very few compared to the 13,000 species that biologists have catalogued the Costa Rican scientists who are now working to isolate new substances for pharmaceutical uses are exploring a second way after ecotourism of capitalizing on their country's surprising biodiversity in this 18th century painting Christopher Columbus master of the New World seems to be gauging the width of the narrow isthmus of panama and yet at his death in 1506 he was unaware that the famous western route to india which he spent his life searching for lay less than 80 kilometers from this coast that he had discovered on his fourth and final voyage a few years later núñez de Balboa made his way across the thick jungle covering the Isthmus of Panama and discovered the shores of the Pacific which at the time he called the great South Sea the Spanish immediately realized that this would be an extremely valuable asset for them the treasures amassed during the conquests of Colombia Peru and Ecuador could henceforth be transported from the Pacific side of Panama to the Atlantic side where they would be shipped off to Spain so they set about constructing ports erecting fortifications and blazing trails for the mule trains that would cross the country the first trail El Camino rial went from Porto Bello and nombre de Dios to the old city of Panama another struck out from San Lorenzo when new stretches of the Rio shaggers Romero who lives in Portobello he's an amateur historian fascinated by Panama's colonial history the Umbra money with Paulo they've always said that portabellos main asset was its BAE every one of them finally they're here according to the Spanish it could Harbor around a thousand gallons and a hundred smaller ships a vehicle 42 got alibi yeah they had to fortify the bay because this was a port of transit for the huge quantities of gold silver and precious stones from the Inca Empire which stretched from Bolivia to Ecuador they made up the Great Southern Empire control of the Isthmus gave the Spanish a clear strategic advantage with respect to the other colonial powers for more than two centuries Goods coming not only from the Pacific coast of America but also from Asia were transported through Panama on their way to Europe but from the beginning of the 18th century on there was a marked increase in piracy the Spanish could no longer protect their convoys so in 1746 they decided to stop transporting merchandise by the Camino Real from then on the merchant ships would take the Cape Horn route which was longer but less risky deserted by the commercial sailing ships the old ports were abandoned one by one now Portobello is just a quiet town basking in the memories of its glorious past for a long time Costa Rica in the heart of Central America was a land with difficult access with no more than a few rocky mule trails crossing it in the middle of the 19th century the California Gold Rush brought about 2,000 adventurers a month from the cities on the east coast of the United States they would cross Costa Rica by cart to get to the Pacific coast where they would embark on another ship headed for the El Dorado of California the 19th century was also the Golden Age of coffee bananas and the railroad abandoned at the end of the 1980s for the highways the railroad lines that can still be glimpsed here and there in the landscape are all that remains of an incredible adventure in 1880 the wealthy coffee producers backed by powerful American banana companies put pressure on the Costa Rican government to undertake the construction of a railroad system they wanted a rapid way of getting their bananas to the ports where they could be shipped to Europe and the United States and so two lines were constructed from San Jose to Punta leanness on the Pacific coast and to Puerto Limon on the Atlantic on the 7th of February 1880 the first clusters of bananas were loaded at Puerto Limon and shipped to New York banana shipping is still the main activity of Puerto Limon but when the ultra-modern banana terminal was inaugurated a few years ago the town lost a bit of its soul the price paid to progress many Jamaicans were brought to Costa Rica at the end of the 19th century to work on the railroad their descendants settled in Puerto Limon and make it a real Caribbean city francisco or former docker savers the memories of puerto Lehman's atmosphere in its glory days oh yes its anthem English I'm from Santo Domingo Aradia came here in 1948 I started working on the docks of Puerto Limon in 1952 back then we load the bananas in clusters they weren't any crates or containers we'd load them onto launches loading them for the first time it all went fine we passed the clusters in a chain from the dock to the boat but it was a very big launch and down in the hole they take the clusters in stock but sometimes you had these really big cluster and that would break and fall on their heads so some would end up a bit punch-drunk i remember the train they came from the standard that was back at the time and the standard Fruit Company that train is beautiful the locomotive was all black and that's sound probably won't you look for you our naina ah lamorne without the banana town is a lost port there'd be nothing to do here a ghost town the Yorktown clipper continues on its way we leave Costa Rica and head south for Panama even though we're quite close to the Panama Canal we don't cite any cargo ships just a few dolphins who seem to be having fun racing with our boat ladies and gentlemen good afternoon we do have some dolphin off the bow and off our port sight this time for those of you that might be interested some dolphin are in the area the program for the rest of the day on board is lectures and leisure name the next morning the Yorktown clipper is anchored off the Isthmus of Darien now called the Isthmus of Panama this region one of the most remote of Panama is very close to Colombia the passengers board long pirogues they belong to the natives of a community of Chaco Indians their village latch Unga is a few dozen kilometers inland we leave the C behind and head inland the Indian villages upstream on the banks of the river Rio sambal the channel of the river gets more and more narrow we're entering a mangrove swamp from the exposed roots of the mangrove trees we can estimate the tide levels at this point in the river we're greeted by Ricardo who's the chief of this village of choco Indians and here the formulas are about 400 inhabitants living here in the community of La Hunger including children and adults we've been living here for four generations always in the same place we haven't bugs we come from the province of Chaco that's where our name Cho ko comes from aliyev Lama if we have our own language then one more thing cause there are five distinct tribes living in Panama in the north for example you have the Nova Buble and the Cunha's they speak different languages they dress and think differently you may need a defense that so to be more clever we live in the middle of the jungle today even here we can feel how the world is changing education has arrived in our village in Tosa yo creo que cuando en el otro so I think that when Europeans and Americans come here we should learn from them in the same way they should learn from us a good part of our income comes as you can see from the sale of our handicrafts education has helped us along paths your employ it lets us support our families better I don't think that we've changed but we've strengthened the ties with our culture remember who we are we use tattoos men as well as women when we're out in the Sun it's a sort of lotion that protects our skin Viet Beth ape ambien we use it for festivals and religious celebrations as well people here talk a lot about sorcery free spirit says that we have to make specific designs to cure a sick person in la pintura that's why we do tattoos in a fever the next morning we're anchored at Panama through the mist we can make out the shape of the bridge of the Americas which marks the entrance to the canal a little further offshore dozens of freighters are waiting for clearance to proceed into the first lock with its skyline of skyscrapers Panama City stakes its claim as a modern metropolis the old city with the Camino Real coming from the Atlantic ended is gone it was destroyed in 1671 when it was raided by the pirate henry morgan a new city was in fact founded a few kilometers from the site of the old one but several fires in the 18th century laid waste to a good part of it and so this town on the shores of the Pacific would slumber through the 19th century under the construction of the canal which was to make it one of the most far-famed spots on the planet since the time of Emperor Charles v men have dreamed of a waterway to cross the isthmus the Frenchman Ferdinand de Lesseps obtained a concession from the Colombian government founded the company Universal and embarked on the adventure in 1880 at the time Ferdinand de Lesseps was at the height of his prestige he had a widespread reputation as the man who built the Suez Canal just a few years before but very quickly the difficulties began to crop up but in jealousy Lesseps following his experience thought he could use the same equipment in Panama that he previously used to dig the Suez Canal because he thought it was like Suez you with Sam when he arrived in Panama he realized he'd be dealing with a mountainous region with lots of vegetation swarms of mosquitoes a lot of water a long ranged his project the machines he brought were too heavy and unsuited for the terrain that was one of the main difficulties he encountered here in Panama the project quickly takes a disastrous turn due to the inappropriate technical means but also on account of the ravages caused by malaria at the time they didn't know that it was transmitted by the bite of a certain mosquito the toll in human lives is tragic 20,000 dead many Europeans but Africans and West Indians as well there's the figure of five thousand malaria victims just for the city of Cologne de Lesseps can't meet the expenses the company Universal goes bankrupt the French interlude closes on a tragedy the Americans were the impetus of President Theodore Roosevelt step in realized that he needed a place that would ensure the protection of his country and time away he was a visionary in this matter so he really backed the canal throughout the period of negotiations the United States government was extremely eager to have the canal and the president was behind the project they bought out the bankrupt French company they got it for a good price along with all the equipment and they managed to set up the project the work resumed in 1904 the Americans saw that technically one of the main problems was evacuating the huge quantities of stone ripped out to the mountain so the first thing they did was to construct railroad lines where they could run huge wagons in the course of the work 259 million cubic meters were excavated but the improved techniques were not the whole answer a Cuban dr. Finley discovered how yellow fever is transmitted so huge quantities of insecticide were sprayed over the region to protect the 25,000 people working on the site in 1914 ten years after work had begun a second time the first ships sailed into the canal the next morning we leave the Yorktown clipper which heads back to Costa Rica and board a little boat used only to go through the canal slowly we approach the first lock Miraflores and the canal is basically a water bridge hello the locks are there to overcome the mountain because thanks to them the boats are lifted up to the level of lake cartoons 26 metres above sea level it's an artificial lake and it's islands of the peaks of submerged mountains at the far end of the lake the boats are lowered down to sea level so the boats are lifted up they sail across and then are lowered down the gigantic gates that close the locks are the very same ones that were installed at the beginning of the 20th century the reason for such longevity is that the locks are filled with fresh water not saltwater which would have quickly corroded the gates thirteen thousand ships pass through the canal every year these vessels are classified Panamax which means they have the dimensions required to pass through the locks but certain container ships and oil tankers are so large they have only a few centimeters leeway on either side of the hull in order to be able to take the canal ships can be no more than two hundred ninety two metres long and thirty 2.2 meters wide otra de la condición s another condition is that one of the canal pilots take command to guide the ship he doesn't take the helm he gives his instructions to the captain who has to carry them out to the letter the towing locomotives are nicknamed the lock mules and the drivers also get their instructions directly from the canal pilot Oh Noel ordered a gazebo basic oberek Rosario and another basic condition to cross the canal is the tall it's pay-as-you-go for everyone no credit the average price for a freighter is $64,000 this particular ship paid one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars if so many ships use the Panama Canal in spite of the extremely high toll fee it's because they can save thousands of kilometers on the sea route we've taken our turn going through the Miraflores then the pedro me where locks and we're approaching one of the most spectacular spots of the whole canal cordon Culebra looking down from the surrounding heights it really looks like the ships are sailing into a sort of gigantic trench dug right into the heart of the mountains and vegetation la parte el desafío mayor for quarter Culebra okay learn the Culebra cut it was really the major challenge because there was a lot of erosion it's the same time I was very mountainous with the geological formation that was volcanic cabal kanika so there were spots where they had to blast the wrong dad they had to cut through a veritable mountain all they had to go through several different layers of terrain there were even spots where Hills had to be completely leveled it was very difficult and it cost a good number of lives gatun lake is one of the world's largest artificial lakes it's fed continually by rivers that converge from all over the country into an enormous reservoir and so we can see just how much rain is the true wealth of Panama for without it there would be no canal once we've crossed the lake we near the three khatoun locks after our 80 kilometer crossing we arrived at the end of our voyage in the waters of the Atlantic Ocean you

Channel: Stop Over - Documentary, Discovery, History

Views: 33,160

Rating: 4.7894735 out of 5

Keywords: TravelChannelTV, 601ProductionLTD, travel, adventure, boat, sail, trip, ocean, sea, river, sailboat, cruise, stopover, stop, over, Queen Elizabeth 2, Royal Clipper, Le France, Le Norway, Sun Boat II, Classica, Vat Phou, Bolero, Wind Song, Grigoriy Mikheev icebreaker, Silver Cloud, destination, voyage, Stopovertv, Discover, Travel, travels, explore, Stop Over, History

Id: lcF9LfbNrfc

Length: 53min 31sec (3211 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 19 2013