[ Bongo drums play ] ♪♪♪ [ Woman singing in Spanish ] ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ [ Bird tweeting ] [ Birds tweeting ] [ Insects chittering ] Edgar: East of the Andes Mountains is the Amazon Rainforest.

[ Insects chittering ] [ Water burbling ] It's the largest tropical rainforest on the planet.

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 of water and life that our journey takes on a new rhythm.

[ Man singing in Spanish ] ♪♪♪ 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 Lima's 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 of the most remote cities on earth.

It's on the edge of the Amazon.

And now, most people get there by plane.

[ Plane engine roars ] 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.

Edgar: And it is a teeming metropolis that's a little bit odd, you know, perhaps because of its remote location.

[ Man speaking Spanish ] Fernandez: You see all these mototaxis.

There's, like, more mototaxis definitely than cars.

And it's kind of crazy, right?

You have all these colors, and you have all these sounds and flavors going around.

So, it's -- it's pretty wild.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ 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.

Fernandez: I mean, me as a Peruvian, I always heard about them.

They started a new sound, a new movement of music.

Edgar: 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.

I meet some of the band members at their favorite lunch spot to hear a few of the stories behind the songs.

Nowadays, this music has a lot of influence in bands -- in modern bands that are rescuing the sound of Los Wemblers and playing it with -- with their own words, with their own feeling, making a new sound.

Edgar: 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.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ 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...

It's always the mountains, but not the jungle necessarily.

There's Cumbia everywhere in Latin America, but Peruvian Cumbia is like guitar dream.

[ Guitar plays ] ♪♪♪ The Wemblers are, for us, probably the main Cumbia-psychedelic sound here in Peru.

They have this mystique.

Yeah.

And they sound like a band of the -- from from other time.

I don't know.

Edgar: 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.

♪♪♪ 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, it turns out, are a type of large, juicy worm... ...that you eat.

Fernandez: 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 going up high on the list.

Actually, I like it.

Okay, here we go.

Are you ready?

Here goes the suri.

Try this one.

Mmm!

You know what it tastes like?

It kind of tastes like bacon.

With kind of juice inside.

He's definitely a connoisseur.

♪♪♪ 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.

♪♪♪ 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 these kind of boats, these kind of facilities and luxury to be able to explore something that is pretty wild and primitive.

Edgar: This is a very, very stylish ship.

Imagine a five-star hotel traveling down the Amazon River.

It's beautifully designed, beautifully decorated.

It looks like we'll be sailing down the Amazon in style.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ 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 Schiaffino.

Schiaffino: Amazonian cuisine is very basic.

There's not a big repertoire, but there's a big pantry.

And these ingredients are eaten in a very natural way.

Edgar: His restaurant ámaZ in Lima brings the flavors of the rainforest to Lima's urban jungle.

Schiaffino: Nowadays, when I talk about Amazonian cuisine, I focus on flavor, knowing the tradition but building upon tradition.

Edgar: 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 incorporated these ingredients to the regular diet.

When we incorporate these in our regular diet, things are going to change.

[ Woman singing in native language ] ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ [ Thunder rumbling ] ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Good morning, guys.

Are you ready to go?

-Yep.

-Let's enjoy this morning trip.

-Let's hit the jungle.

-Hey, how you doing, man?

Edgar: 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.

Edgar: He takes us into the back channels of the river.

Every year, the river rises and falls by up to 10 meters, or 30 feet.

Fernandez: Right now, the river is at its highest level, and basically it's flooded.

Belarezo: 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 freshwater in the world, it happens right here, the Amazon, basically.

Edgar: 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.

Fernandez: It's amazing how big it is... ...and how small it makes you feel.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ [ Camera shutter clicks ] 97% of the Amazonian plants, they're still under discovery.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Edgar: Every year, the Amazon discharges 20% of the world's freshwater 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 downriver.

And what's the -- what makes it that?

Is it two -- 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.

The upper Amazon, Ucayali.

Edgar: 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 fruit.

I'm gonna show it to you.

There you go.

The Amazonian camu camu, vitamin C fruit.

Edgar: 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 that we should have a local fella, a local guy.

His name is Attilio.

Edgar: And he brought the most important tool that any Amazonian person can have, which is a well-honed machete.

♪♪♪ We've been watching the jungle from the boat, okay?

We've seen all this wildlife, monkeys, birds, you name it, and then we get into the land.

♪♪♪ [ Insects buzzing, birds chirping ] Edgar: The minute you step into the jungle, you're just surrounded by darkness.

You've been in the light this whole time.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Fernandez: Yeah, I mean, that's the feeling you get when you get to the jungle.

It's like you feel little.

[ Laughs ] ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Belarezo: This area is called a restinga.

Restinga's like a resting land, so places that don't normally get flooded by the river.

Listen to it.

Wonderful.

Yeah, it's so loud.

Those are cicadas.

Cicadas?

Yeah.

Edgar: As we walked, we would come across different plants and trees, and each one had a story to tell.

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.

Cut into the vine, and water just pours out like from a water fountain.

It has the flavor of the tree, actually, right?

Edgar: It tastes -- Yeah, it tastes like a woody, kind of rooty.

Roland explains the many different ways people harvest the plants and animals here.

Belarezo: Oh, look at this.

Oh, yum.

Oh, nice.

So this is the same kind of grub that you'll see in the market, just a larger -- Absolutely.

There's a larger version in the markets.

Larger one, yeah.

Edgar: A quick example of harvesting from this natural world is Attilio effortlessly exposing the chonta, or heart of the palm.

Belarezo: Alright, careful.

Whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop.

Oh.

Careful.

Careful.

[ Laughs ] This guy can really handle his machete.

Checking where is it now.

That's the main heart in the middle.

You have to be very accurate.

I don't know how many times we thought, like, "Hey, be careful with your finger."

Right here.

Right there?

Yeah.

Oh.

♪♪♪ Yeah.

Getting 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.

This is the layer that we -- That we eat.

That we eat.

There's a whole thing that I didn't know about.

It was really special to -- to see it in, like, firsthand, like, face-to-face.

Edgar: 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 teeming with life, it's true, but not just wildlife, also human life.

There's a huge amount of human activity on the Amazon.

Belarezo: Talking about highways, this is our highways, and the interconnection between communities is all done by water system.

So that's why it's very important to have the the dugout canoes and the little motors right now.

So, we came to the Amazon expecting to see a lot of wildlife.

But the one thing that I remember the most is the people.

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, a 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.

[ Camera shutter clicks ] ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Belarezo: And living on the Amazon, it is hard.

It is tough because you're depending -- you're depending on the water, depending on the river.

The river is a dictator of the Amazon.

I grew up in those 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 your little friends or for your brothers.

We went into this -- into this little village.

And, you know, at 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.

Edgar: And we pass by this little store, and all these kids were hanging out at the store.

Alright, this is where all the kids hang out.

Yes, this is for the afternoon free time.

This is an area where they like to be because they're very close to this lady here.

She sells a lot of the local candy.

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.

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 ♪ ♪ Hallelujah ♪ ♪ Hallelujah ♪ ♪ Hallelujah ♪ [ Speaking Spanish ] And the next thing you know, you've made friends.

On 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 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.

-Hola.

-Hola.

[ Speaking Spanish ] Where's this music coming from?

It wasn't, like, a little local speaker.

This was somebody with, like, a 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 music.

So we're going to 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 amazónica.

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.

And again, I tried to engage the kids.

I wanted them to show me some of their dance moves and all that stuff.

And I ended up being the one dancing and looking like a fool more than they did.

But we had a good time.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ We sail 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.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ [ Man speaking Spanish ] ♪♪♪ Whoo!

♪♪♪ [ Speaking Spanish ] ♪♪♪