Destination Latin America - Voyage to the heart of three cultures (Documentary, Discovery, History)

[Music] the caribbean sea that our tall ship is sailing hasn't always been the symbol of exotic tourism that it is today the region stretching from the islands of the caribbean to the shores of south america was for ages inhabited exclusively by american indians then at the dawn of the 16th century the sales of the spanish colonization made their appearance the colonial power swept away the age-old indigenous cultures and built cities erected churches and elegant mansions very soon thousands of african slaves were being brought in to work on the sugarcane plantations five centuries of cultural and ethnic mixing each of the countries we will be visiting has made this diversity inherited from the past a source of riches for the present once we leave jamaica we'll set our course for costa rica then panama with its famous canal continuing our route we'll stop at cartagena in colombia and coro in venezuela two of latin america's finest colonial towns [Music] we left santo domingo yesterday and after a night at sea we're coming into port antonio jamaica a little town sheltered in a deep bay at the foot of the blue mountains [Music] oh my god even though we've never been here before as soon as we venture into the center of port antonio we're plunged into a familiar atmosphere this is jamaica just as we had imagined it a city where reggae rhythms are punctuated by honking cars and the young trendies rub shoulders with school children in their oh so english uniforms in this country independent since only 1962 where the national heroes are not military men or politicians but musicians like bob marley and athletes like yusun bolt the caribbean joy of living is the answer to the hardships of everyday life [Music] it's historically their similarities with other islands in that christopher columbus came to the entire caribbean in 1492 through 1495 but so jamaica came under the spanish influence and the first occupants for 165 years were the spanish people in fact all the towns and villages and so on had spanish names originally then of course there were the european wars and the british defeated the spaniards in 1655 and actually were here for a little over 300 years so that makes jamaica somewhat but then we had the influence of the wealthy north americans from the east coast of the united states and they came here they colonialized in fact the entire banana industry was started by the americans not by the british or the spaniard so at the beginning of the 20th century port antonio was a major banana port at the time they would float the bananas down from the plantations to the sea by bamboo rafts on the rio grande the rafts beached on the riverbank are now used only for tourist excursions it seems this idea came from the american actor errol flynn who in the 1950s bought an island in port antonio bay [Applause] hello good morning you can get a pepsi red striper spring water you want a beer or pepsi thank you well before bananas sugarcane was the cash crop that brought riches to jamaica and the other spanish colonies of the new world after the indians were wiped out the spanish went to africa to find manpower for their plantations all during the 16th and 17th centuries slave ships would unload their cargos of african slaves on the shores of jamaica but some slaves revolted and escaped from the plantations they rapidly took control of the entire western part of jamaica after several decades of struggle against the british these former slaves known as maroons signed a treaty in 1739 officially recognizing their freedom this was one century before the abolition of slavery the inhabitants of moore town are the descendants of those fighting slaves and one of the leaders grandinani has become the symbol of their struggle all right wallace sterling is colonel meaning the elected chief of his community the word maroon comes from the spanish word cimarron which in itself would have come from the french word i think it is marion or something like that which really mean while stuck i must always say that that was not the term that the people used to describe himself all four parents use a word to describe himself as the word was known as yankonkun it is an akan word taken from one of the tribes that were involved in this fighting against his colonial power it really means people who are free people who are independent people who depend on themselves for their own survival so when the treaty was signed between all four parents and the colonial power in the document the word maroon is what was written and over time then the word but even today we still refer to ourselves as young konkona and yankonko means that you know we are children of those the freedom fighter we are also children of grandinani she was our mother she was our queen she was our priestess as the day draws to a close we get back on board the club med too [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] all right leaving jamaica and port antonio we set our course south for costa rica the next morning we're nearing the coast of costa rica and a major depression has moved into the entire region [Music] sailing from jamaica to costa rica the rich coast we surely followed five centuries later in the wake of christopher columbus and all the navigators who came here in the hope of discovering the famous passage to india [Music] the first expeditions of the conquistadors came from the caribbean coast the climate on the caribbean coast is different from that of the rest of the country [Music] and favorable to the tropical diseases that ravaged the first colonies that's why it wasn't until the mid-18th century that this region of the coast began to develop [Music] [Music] glacier it was a government decision on the pacific it was the coffee barons who constructed the railroad going from the plantations in the highlands down to liman on the coast other plantations soon began to spring up all along this new railroad line plantations of what would become the country's second rich asset bananas [Music] they imported laborers here from different european countries but the europeans didn't adapt well for the climax in order to continue the construction of the railroad most of the railroad workers settled in liman which became costa rica's most caribbean city whether it's through their painting cooking or music the inhabitants of liman have remained closely linked to their original islands especially the jamaicans who made up the largest contingent of laborers this explains why nowadays english is spoken more than spanish during the night we sail along the coast of costa rica towards boca del toro our first port of call in [Music] panama the low pressure area we had in costa rica has affected panama as well on a stormy sea beneath the menacing sky the pilot from boca del toro makes his way to the club med too above once on board the pilot will help the captain bring the boat into anchor during the entire latter half of the 19th century boca del toro enjoyed a certain prosperity thanks to the banana industry when the powerful united fruit company decided to leave the region at the beginning of the 20th century the inhabitants and particularly the american indians returned to more traditional activities such as fishing and growing cocoa and boca del toro slipped into a slumber for several decades lulled by the gentle caribbean breeze the construction of a small airport and a route linking boca to the capital panama city marked the city's rebirth and the arrival of tourism now rich panamanians are building huge wooden villas in the caribbean style here but it's above all the surfers who've marked the atmosphere of the city has a touristy side yes but it's not mass terrorism we have quite a number of surfers [Music] panama unlike costa rica has a large amerindian minority the kuna indians live mainly in the san blast islands and the chocos in the darian forest in the south now we're headed for saint cristobal island which is home to a village of ingobe bugley the third and largest of panama's amerindian communities [Applause] [Music] [Music] and this one is yellow and ready to be picked once it's harvested we dry the pods in the sun for a week or two is what gives us natural chocolate make their living from this crop and from fishing not many people work for the government and now there's a little handicraft industry it's run by the women the depression has moved away at last the passengers can enjoy the sundecks on the club med too as it advances full sails ahead along the coast of panama [Music] do spacious comfortable elegant this boat was built to please but what makes this cruise liner really special is to be found up in the bridge the secret of the club met 2 is automation right now this is one of the only commercial vessels where it really works efficiently with this computer the consoles you can control all the sails from here in the bridge the officer on watch can decide to unfurl all the sails he just pushes a few buttons we don't have to worry about the sails there are sensors on top of the masts the orientation is automatically adjusted according to the wind to always have the optimum form and to keep them from laughing [Music] [Music] foreign lunch a lecture relaxation on the deck bathed in the warm light of the setting sun the passengers have gotten into the easy rhythm of the cruise as the club met two heads for cologne our next port of call [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Music] oh awakening the next morning we find ourselves docked in cologne [Music] beyond the cranes and stacks of containers we can see the boats heading for the entrance of the panama canal [Music] [Music] to understand the history of the canal and the isthmus of panama we plunge into the heart of the tropical forest where we meet patrick dillon he's an architect and he constructed this observation tower using only cast off material from the canal his ambition is to marry architecture and environmental protection in terms of the site for the tower we we wanted to locate the building or the tower as as close as possible to the building so that visitors could arrive and and easily and safely uh climb up the tower very slightly not much wider than the platform we're standing on we want to do buildings that that impact as little as possible the environment and um and um that that transcends so-called green architecture in our view the isthmus of panama rose out of the ocean 30 million years ago and created a land bridge between north and south america connecting this the incredible biodiversities on both continents man in the form of the canal builders separated the continents again people come to panama with the idea of effectively seeing the canal and and it's one of the wonders of the world it's an engineering feat that transcends many others but one of the greatest ecological crimes of all time was the construction of the panama canal the first attempt at digging the canal undertaken by ferdinand de lesseps in 1880 ended in failure and a financial scandal the americans took up the work in 1904 it would take 10 years and more than 25 000 laborers from the antilles europe and china to cut the rock build the locks and create the artificial lake needed to achieve this 80 kilometer link between the two oceans [Music] the panama canal exists because of the amount of rainfall and because of the relatively preserved nature that extends throughout the isthmus of panama without a preserved nature that panama canal would not work near the mouth of the canal on the pacific side the old town of panama city appears somewhat abandoned [Music] even though there are a few buildings that reflect the bygone splendor of the colonial period panama city doesn't have the charm of cartagena santo domingo or quito but perhaps things will change with the construction of the fanciful museum of biodiversity designed by the world-renowned architect frank gehry patrick dillon is also involved in the project the idea of the museum of biodiversity is is as its name might suggest to raise the consciousness of of first and foremost panamanians about the importance of their nature and about their heritage and the way they or we as a people are inextricably linked with nature and we would like through the museum to have people have a profound sense of of respect for nature we leave the modern part of panama city facing the vast expanse of the pacific and return to cologne the poor you we've cast off during the night and left cologne in the early morning we come into view of the san blas islands they have been officially part of the kuna territory since 1953 [Music] the kuna used to live inland over the centuries they moved closer and closer to the coast until eventually in the mid 19th century they settled on these coral islands the san blas islands are attracting a growing number of tourists we follow the advice of our guide and head for mommy tupu one of the more unspoiled of the 350 islands in the archipelago the amused children watch us as we wait for our guide to get permission to enter the village from the sahila the spiritual and traditional chief it's impossible to live on this island the inhabitants here designated misawa the kuna men dress western style but the women still wear the traditional costume and continue to embroider their moila these magnificent assemblages of colored cloth with geometric designs have become the symbol of the kuna culture that's allah in the kuna society which is largely matriarchal the grandmother is the center of the family the kuna indians still deeply respect their traditions yet they are subject to the influences of modern western culture even though they continue to practice the animistic cults of their ancestors the kunas of mamitupu receive regular visits from the representatives of american churches [Music] [Music] hey oh [Music] now we live here and all the fish we want the air is cool life is good here that's why we like living here [Music] [Music] is [Music] so [Music] we continue our route along the latin american coast after costa rica and panama we come into colombia and the city of cartagena [Music] now nearly five centuries after the city was founded by pedro de heredia the name of cartagena de indias still stirs the imagination of travelers and adventurers there are countless tales of naval battles between the spanish and pirates that took place in the waters off the coast of this mythical city [Music] and yet as we approach the port we discover a modern city coming into view [Music] [Music] with over a million inhabitants now cartagena has of course spread beyond the limits of the colonial city symbolized by the san felipe fortress [Music] the fortress was built mainly to protect the city from attacks coming from the land side when they constructed this fortress the city of cartagena de las indias was already protected by a series of 23 bastions connected by a huge 11 kilometer wall they were meant to protect the city from pirate attacks of its strategic location on the caribbean had been chosen as a storehouse for the riches coming from all over south america all these riches were centralized here in colombia then sent on to the king in spain churches monasteries elegant mansions we mustn't forget that all these treasures which have made cartagena a unesco world heritage site were accumulated thanks to the slave trade for cartagena was the center of this commerce for spanish colombia [Music] the city's architectural within the spanish society the colors of the houses reflect cartagena's caribbean characters even though the colonial town naturally attracts a good number of tourists it still hasn't become an open-air museum emptied of its inhabitants cartagena is a lively city where people work and play stroll and relax cartagena also lives under the watchful eye of simon bolivar the liberator hmm colombian culture is very mixed but even more so in cartagena here you have a blend of the three ethnic groups so we speak of a tri-ethnic culture made up of white europeans from spain blacks from africa and indians indigenous to south america [Music] america and where to go to satisfy a sweet tooth in cartagena before we leave the city eduardo takes us to the pastry vendors at their stands in the shade of the arcades this here is the gateway of sweets with cartagena's traditional pastries the kokadas the little horses the tamarind balls joy cakes the purses you can find all the typical pastries here thank you [Music] [Music] [Music] the end of our voyage is drawing near we're coming into view of vela coro in venezuela our last port of call very few tourists and even fewer cruise ships visit this little town in the venezuelan state of falcone our arrival in this quiet fishing port creates quite a stir the mayor himself has shown up to greet the passengers one by one it's one of our traditions here in valle de coro we are very close to the capital of the state of and show you how much we appreciate your [Music] visit [Music] [Music] off away from the beach and the fiesta the young people of velacoro are giving for the passengers this row of flags flapping in the wind commemorates francisco de miranda one of venezuela's early patriots a few kilometers inland we come into coral this city with its provincial charm can't rival the exuberance and bustle of cartagena but still it holds an important place in the country's history definitely on account of its role as a port and its geographical location facing the caribbean sea in the north of venezuela cora was in fact the first colony and the first town officially founded in venezuela christopher columbus set foot on the continent on the very site where cora would be founded and which later became the first capital of venezuela [Music] with its fading colors and silent streets coro looks like a ghost town if you close your eyes you can almost hear the animation of the soirees and balls given by the spanish nobility [Music] the chains clanking on the cobblestones as the human cargo shuffles off the slave ships [Music] the voice of the last amerindians that survived the brutality of the early [Music] conquistadors [Music] all the cities by the sea that we visited during this voyage were at one time or another in their history like coro here which our travelers eyes have brought back to life [Music] our voyage which started on the shores of jamaica ends on the southern shores of the caribbean sea named after the original indian inhabitants a voyage colored in red white and black to the heart of three cultures [Music] you

Channel: Stop Over - Documentary, Discovery, History

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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: EnC8JtqqkO0

Length: 51min 29sec (3089 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 23 2013