Season 1
10 episodes
25 min. per episode
Where to watch
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Exploring hidden cultures across the Americas, a curious traveler uncovers untold stories that challenge perceptions and ignite connections.
Episodes
Native Americans in pre-Conquest Mexico celebrated one day each year when their deceased ancestors would return to visit-El Día de los Muertos. This ancient tradition is the state of Oaxaca's most important celebration. Parades, home altars, and gaily-decorated graves welcome back the dead. The custom has spread beyond Mexico to Los Angeles and Tucson.
The Brazilian city of Belem at the mouth of the Amazon is a showcase of products from the great river basin. Now the famed açai berry is expanding Belem's reputation. Reclusive river people, called ribeirinhos harvest the berries by climbing the tall palms where they grow and rush the produce by boat to the port. There they trade for other goods, and quickly escape the city to return to their tranquil, timeless lives at the edge of the world's greatest river. Host David Yetman takes us through Belem and visits the homes of the river people.
Over two thousand years ago Mayas undertook construction of a city deep within the jungles of the Petén region of Guatemala. For over a thousand years the city of Tikal dominated the countryside and the region with its towering temples, affluent society, and hosts of scientists, engineers, and craftsmen. Host David Yetman accompanies archaeologists who explain the unfolding story of Tikal as new discoveries emerge a daily basis. Yetman visits new excavations within the temples and joins a festival at the home of Maya descendents who live not far away from the ancient site.
The Georgia Straits of coastal British Columbia, Canada are dotted with hundreds of islands. This is lumber and fishing county nearly free of roads. One cargo ship delivers heavy equipment and supplies to remote camps, and takes on passengers to view the wild beauty of the straits and inlets, with towering peaks and glaciers overlooking the sea.
Far inland from the tropical beaches of Brazil's Bahia state lies an ancient escarpment that juts up into Bahia's vast interior. Host David Yetman takes us on a tour of the Chapada Diamantina, once a rich source of diamonds, now an increasingly popular recreational region. The sheer cliffs and steep mountainsides intercept moisture from the distant Atlantic. The resultant rainfall brings flows into the arid sertão and waters the great swamp where runaway slaves hid from their owners.
Take a fresh look at the lands that make up much of the Western Hemisphere. Each country contains landscapes, peoples, and history that have not received the attention they deserve on the world stage. In the Americas with David Yetman undertakes a new approach to travel and adventure. From Japanese immigrants in the Amazon to descendants of poor Italians in Chile, from Mayan temples in Guatemala to ancient fortresses in Mexico, from the glacier-carved frigid barrens of northern Canada to the timeless villages of the Altiplano in Perú. The series takes viewers to parts of Brazil mostly unknown to the outside world, to the wild mountains of western Argentina, to festivals in Colombia and the often ignored Great Lakes of the United States. We approach volcanoes in Hawaii, Chile, and Alaska, ride rafts, boats, ferries, horses, and motorcycles. We visit peoples who can replace conversation with whistling, islanders who have cooked the same meals for ten thousand years, and pastoralists who live at an altitude too high for any activity except herding llamas. We meet people from all walks of life and let them tell their stories, show us their homes, take us about their work, and tell us how they came to be who they are. We show the histories of natives and immigrants, islanders and mainlanders, rural folk and city-dwellers. In the Americas with David Yetman undertakes a new approach to travel and adventure-with a decided bias in favor of our western continents and islands.