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stop 4000m - Forested Andean slopes rise from the Huallaga river an
Amazon tributary in Peru. |
The central
Andes mountains
rise steeply from Amazon lowlands pushed skywards by unimaginable tectonic
pressure..Dense, cloud soaked forest covers the slopes and rainfall is
measured in metres. Rivers pour through narrow canyons and waterfall follows
waterfall. It all adds up to being to one of the world's greatest tropical
wildernesses. Well ... that's the way it was but it's changing.
Back in
the 1960's when making a BBC television film Tony Morrison and Mark
Howell entered the forests of the Chapare in the eastern Andes near Cochabamba
in Bolivia. That trip became the spark for Tony's long fascination with
this extraordinary fringe of Amazonia. He saw dense forests tangled with
climbing plants and learned how the biodiversity is among the greatest
on the Planet. Mark and Tony made two more journeys - one followed the
story of the Last Inca Refuge and another was and by balsa raft through
the Pongo de Mainique a notorious river gorge. Since those days Tony and
his wife Marion have spent months looking for wildlife or following stories
of the early explorers whose expeditions on foot were amazing feats. But
times have changed. Tony's most recent journey down the Andes to the Amazon
was by bus along the half finished Interoceanic Highway destined to link
the Pacific and Amazon by 2011.
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