Original subtitles

(singing in foreign language)

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(epic music)

(wings flapping)

(epic music)

- [Pasquale] Long before the heart of Africa was ever mapped

explorers were irresistibly drawn to this secret world.

(singing in foreign language)

Africa's greatest secret of all

for thousands of years was the source

of the world's longest river, the Nile.

(singing in foreign language)

The Nile is unique among the world's rivers.

Some call it the most important river on Earth

because it gave life to the first great civilization.

To a geologist like me, this desert

is a rich and productive environment.

Yet just a mile from the river,

I don't find a single living plant.

As long as 8,000 years ago,

farmers diverted water from the Nile

to irrigate their crops and made the desert bloom.

(soft music)

Without the Nile, there would have been no great pyramids,

no advanced civilizations with all its innovations

in language, art, and astronomy.

Each summer the water level of the Nile

rose several feet without a single drop of rain

falling in Egypt.

The early Egyptians built structures

to measure the rise of the river precisely,

but a few times in history,

the river mysteriously failed to rise

for several summers in a row,

causing famine throughout Egypt.

Every year the farmers watched the river

and wondered where does all this water come from?

This was the Nile's first great mystery.

(eerie music) (water bubbling)

In 1858, a British explorer set out

to solve the mystery of the Nile.

He proclaimed Lake Victoria

the one true source.

There was one minor problem, though.

He was wrong.

Lake Victoria contributes only a fraction

of the Nile's rivers.

The main source of the Nile

is in the rugged Highlands of Ethiopia.

The riches of Egypt are a gift from Lake Tana.

(upbeat music)

Over 80% of the Nile's water

comes from Ethiopia's Blue Nile and its tributaries.

My goal is to lead the first team

down the entire length of the Blue Nile

from here in Ethiopia

all the way to the Mediterranean, 3,000 miles.

(rain pattering)

(waterfall thundering)

I've brought my team to Lake Tana

for the expedition of a lifetime.

We reached the Ethiopian Highlands

just in time to witness a Christian procession.

- [Saskia] I went for the first time to Ethiopia,

and I trust Pasquale as our leader.

(speaking in foreign language)

- Yeah, he's one of the nine satyrs

who came from

(speaking in foreign language)

(camera shutter clicking) (laughing)

- [Saskia] Pasquale has led expeditions to Mount Everest

and run many of the world's most violent rivers.

He knows very well what he's doing.

(singing in foreign language)

- [Pasquale] We're here to attempt the first descent

of Africa's mightiest river, the Blue Nile.

(singing in foreign language)

I've hired some Ethiopian boatmen to be our cooks,

our helpers, and bodyguards.

We'll be heading into territory

few outsiders have ever seen.

(singing in foreign language)

The upper part of the Blue Nile

was first run and mapped in 1968

when a British Army expedition explored just this section.

They had many serious injuries.

One man died.

They found that the Blue Nile was crawling

with huge swarms of crocodiles.

They had 70 experts.

Pull back.

My team is mostly novices.

All right, you're in the water again!

Okay, get in, in the boat.

I'll really have to keep an eye

on our Egyptian scientist, Dr. Mohamed Megahed.

Mohamed, where's Mohamed?

- [Mohamed] As a hydrologist, I spend my time indoors

in a laboratory.

Pasquale is worried about me, and so am I.

- [Pasquale] Gordon Brown, our safety kayaker,

is the only one who will be with me

for the entire four month expedition.

- Come by.

You grab these loops right back here

and pull yourself up on the boat.

I'll take you back to the raft or take you to the shore.

- All right. - Either way--

- [Pasquale] Four years ago, Gordon was diagnosed

with a brain tumor.

It would have killed most of us,

but he fought it off with a year

of radiation and chemotherapy.

He's really a survivor.

(speaking in foreign language)

- Yeah.

- [Pasquale] Saskia Lange is a journalist from Spain.

She's writing an article

about religion along the river.

- [Saskia] The river travels through areas

with no roads, so I'll be able to study

indigenous people, people I could never meet

any other way.

(speaking in foreign language)

Thank you very much.

- Myriam Seco is our team's archeologist.

- [Myriam] Here, in the holy city of Lalibela,

the Ethiopians step down 40 feet into bedrock.

(epic music)

This church was chiseled out of one giant block of stone.

It's one of 11 carved churches linked by tunnels.

For 16 centuries, the Christians here

remained very closely aligned

to the Church in Egypt, 3,000 miles away.

I wonder how the Nile kept that connection alive.

(singing in foreign language)

- [Pasquale] Some people say that hidden

in these stone churches is the Ark of the Covenant,

the box that Indiana Jones was after.

The Ark contains the tablet engraved

with the Ten Commandments, the actual tablet given to Moses.

Is it really here?

(singing in foreign language) (upbeat percussive music)

Lalibela is the Eighth Wonder of the World,

or if it's not, it should be.

Just as the Christians in Lalibela carved

magnificent churches out of solid rock,

the Blue Nile River has been carving this huge canyon

through the Highlands of Ethiopia,

which the British named the Great Canyon of Africa.

(singing in foreign language)

The Scout helps, but it's deceptive.

From the air, it's really easy to forget

that it's the most dangerous river in Africa.

(singing in foreign language)

The aerial scout confirmed that the high water

had finally peaked.

It was time to start the expedition.

Gordon and I plan on being on the river

for probably more than four months.

This is Bahir Dar, and again, this is Lake Tana.

This is where we'll be putting in.

Here I was, leading the greenest bunch

of river rookies that ever climbed into a raft.

Keeping everyone on this expedition alive

is my greatest responsibility.

And then finally, to Tissisat Falls.

We will then go through this canyon,

which has a lot of Class 5 and such, white water.

Before we departed, Mohamed had a promise to keep.

- [Mohamed] My grandfather is a farmer in Egypt.

He gets 100% of his water from the Nile.

I promised him when I go to the river source,

I would bring him a vile of holy water.

The Ethiopians treasure the Nile,

just as we do in Egypt.

- [Pasquale] As we head down the river,

the whole team is pumped.

Most of the wild rivers on every continent

have already been run.

Not the Blue Nile.

This is one of the last great river expeditions

left in the world.

(singing in foreign language)

No one has ever succeeded in running

this entire river from source to sea.

All those who've tried it have either died or given up.

(water rushing) (light music)

As a geologist, these lava flows

have a certain fascination for me.

(singing in foreign language)

Lava flows like this one pinch the water together,

forcing all the water through a narrow channel,

creating huge rapids.

But the volcanic rocks are sharp as knives,

and our rafts are made of fabric.

(singing in foreign language)

(water rushing) (upbeat music)

(faint shouting)

(water rushing) (upbeat music)

This was Mohamed's very first swim in the Nile.

I kept a close eye on him.

There's a fine line between an exciting rapid

and a deadly one.

The rafts are really heavy,

so when the river gets to deadly to run,

we send one raft through empty,

and then we portage the rest of the gear.

(singing in foreign language)

One sure way to get a laugh in Ethiopia

is to carry a rubber raft on your head.

(laughing)

(people chattering in foreign language)

The Ethiopian Highlands were once carpeted in thick forest,

but just in the past 30 years, the Amhara tribe

have cut down 90% of the trees to make charcoal

for cooking fuel.

This has changed the entire watershed.

- [Mohamed] The Blue Nile carries lots

of volcanic minerals that used to nourish

my grandfather's fields in Egypt.

I test for the salinity because the rising salt content

of the Nile is destroying our farmland.

(light music)

- [Pasquale] The river's accelerating,

but the team won't really grasp

the magnitude of this river's power

until they set their eyes

on one of the most magnificent sights

in all of Africa, Tissisat Falls.

(epic music)

(singing in foreign language)

(epic music)

Gordon's a bit of a cowboy.

He's got his own style of doing things.

- [Gordon] I told Pasquale I was gonna run

every inch of this river.

Now he knows I'm serious.

(upbeat music)

- [Pasquale] Now it's time to see

how Mohamed holds up under pressure.

He's never been on a rope before.

Don't worry, okay? - Okay.

- [Mohamed] Okay.

(water crashing)

- Good.

You're doing really well, Mohamed.

Keep moving.

I need to push Mohamed to get it over with fast.

The less time he has to think about this, the better.

A little further, a little further.

A little further, Mohamed.

A little further.

Come on.

A little further.

Okay. - I'll do it this way.

- [Pasquale] Saskia got tired of waiting

for Mohamed to inch his way down,

so I let her go ahead.

(light music)

- [Mohamed] This isn't really fair.

When I signed up for this trip,

Pasquale asked me if I could swim.

He never asked me if I could fly.

(singing in foreign language)

- [Pasquale] Mohamed didn't score a lot of style points,

but he showed me some courage.

I think our city boy is starting to toughen up.

(singing in foreign language)

(upbeat music)

- [Mohamed] I didn't come all this way

just to collect water samples.

I'm mainly here to experience the river,

to gain some insights about it,

but I'm also here to learn about myself,

and I'm so surprised at what I can do.

(singing in foreign language)

- [Saskia] These people, the Amhara,

hike a long way down to the river

to attend to their crops.

But otherwise, they shun the river as a dangerous place.

They are kept away by bandits and malaria.

(singing in foreign language)

- [Pasquale] The most gung-ho team member

is Michel L'Huillier from Chile.

He's the team photographer.

(camera shutter clicking)

- [Michel] I love rafting up here.

I admire the gentle dignity of the people.

They enjoy what they have.

I just hope my photos can capture their spirit.

(speaking in foreign language)

(light music)

- [Saskia] No wonder Christianity survived here.

The mountains kept invaders out.

This is not exactly a gentle land.

- I admire fish and predators,

except when they're contemplating having me for lunch.

The most dangerous croc in the world

is the Nile crocodile.

They swim 12 miles an hour and eat more people in Africa

than all other animals combined.

So we were floating down the river,

and up on the beach was this huge crocodile,

maybe 14 feet, and he slid off the beach

and was really aggressive,

and made a bee line straight for Gordon.

- He started to arch out of the water

and he just kept coming at me, so I raised my paddle

and I smacked him on the head.

He dove under my boat.

He hit my boat as he went down.

For a second, I thought it was gonna tip over.

- And as the crocodile opened that big mouth,

I just was afraid that the crocodile was gonna grab hold

of his arm and take Gordon and twist him under.

Now if that would have happened to Gordon,

he'd have been dead.

And there was no way that Gordon was gonna go ahead

and right himself again

before the other crocodiles got to him.

- [Mohamed] At night, when we camp by the river,

we keep an eye on the crocodiles before we go to sleep.

I never had to do this in Cairo.

♪ Take all the water you can pour in your hands ♪

♪ And let it go ♪

♪ Just let it go ♪

- [Pasquale] Those aren't rocks, Saskia.

Those are hippos!

♪ Take all the answers ♪

♪ That you think you understand and let it go ♪

♪ Just let it go ♪

- Pasquale wonders that one rogue hippo

can easily capsize a raft,

but that didn't keep us from getting a closer look.

It was the most beautiful thing to see

for the first time, hippos.

There were eight around the boat

with their ears like that.

♪ Though never worry what you're heading for ♪

♪ The river always know the way ♪

♪ We'll be forever drifting in between ♪

♪ Tomorrow and yesterday ♪

- [Saskia] All along the journey

whenever we stop to buy vegetables,

eggs, and meat from the local people,

we get to see how they live.

Ethiopia has over 100 distinct ethnic groups,

many of them isolated from each other

by the rugged terrain.

If they're not careful, I'll take him home.

(cheering) (light music)

♪ And let it go ♪

♪ Just let it go ♪

- [Pasquale] Over 200 million people depend on the Nile,

and that population is projected to double

in the next 25 years.

Can the Nile support all these people?

For over 1,000 years,

whenever Ethiopia threatened to dam the Nile,

the Egyptians took that threat seriously.

If the river were diverted, Egypt would die.

Who owns the water in the Nile?

- I went off to explore

a little side channel,

and next thing I know, I was getting shot at.

(gun banging)

I ducked behind some rocks,

trying to get any cover I could.

Probably five shots came across the river.

I thought this could be it.

My only real hope is to get down the river.

- [Pasquale] I heard gunshots.

(gun bangs)

In these remote canyons, local bandits called Shifta

have robbed and killed at least four people

on previous expeditions.

Gordon had been gone over an hour

and I couldn't see any sign of him.

(gun bangs)

- [Gordon] I knew I couldn't stay there

for very long.

I had to paddle out and go downstream.

I knew if I stopped, I'd be an easy target.

- [Pasquale] That night, I had a long argument with Gordon.

I can't let him go of on his own like that

because we're approaching the longest stretch

of white water I've ever attempted in my life.

Flipping a raft in huge white water can be fatal.

People can drown in a hurry if they hit their head

on a rock or get snagged under water.

On earlier expeditions, at least six people

have died in this one section alone.

(upbeat music) (water rushing)

That morning, Michel steered his raft

right into my worst nightmare.

(water crashing)

- I did a perfect flip.

Everybody, the three of us went into the water.

(epic music)

(water bubbling)

(epic music)

(shouting in foreign language)

- I heard someone scream

(speaking in foreign language) which is crocodile.

And I'm thinking oh my God,

there's a crocodile in the river.

And this was the first time

on the entire expedition where I could actually feel

the hair go up on the back of my neck.

(dramatic music)

- We knew there could be crocodiles around there.

Usually they wait in the rapids

so they can catch the fish which go through the rapids,

and we were big fish (laughing).

- [Pasquale] Everyone on Michel's boat

is lucky to be alive.

(dramatic music)

If we ever come down and go through here,

but I think it's safe.

- Yeah, the run down isn't too bad, so--

- No, no.

(singing in foreign language) (water rushing)

(water bubbling)

(light music)

- Are you all right, over? - Yeah.

I'm okay.

(faint speaking)

- Roger.

You think we can run right down the middle?

Over.

(singing in foreign language)

(water rushing)

(singing in foreign language)

That night we camped right at the border of Sudan.

It's a dangerous place.

Saskia, Myriam, and Mohamed are terrified

about crossing into a country where civil war

has been raging on and off for almost 20 years.

They'll leave us here and rejoin us later in Khartoum.

As soon as we crossed the border,

Gordon and I took off exploring Sudan,

the most mysterious country on the Nile.

The Sudan is cloaked in secrecy behind the veil of Islam.

(speaking in foreign language)

When we came across a camel market,

we were a little bit apprehensive at first,

but we decided to go for it.

How often do you get to bid at a camel auction?

(light music) (camels grunting)

It turned out to be a great day,

and I was sure glad when Gordon

was outbid on that camel.

Even mad dogs and Englishmen

don't come out in this type of heat.

115 degrees in the shade was normal.

Here in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan,

the two rivers converge.

The White Nile comes in on the right under the bridge

to join our much larger Blue Nile.

Woo!

(Pasquale laughing)

It was great to have

the team back together again.

- Hey, how are you? - War and violence

are widespread in the Sudan,

and yet we never once ran across

a single militant extremist.

Here we were, surrounded on all sides

by happy, good hearted Muslim people

giving us the warmest of welcomes.

And they were amazed at how far we'd traveled

down the Nile.

(singing in foreign language)

- Pasquale, how did you say hello?

(speaking in foreign language)

We're heading for the ancient city of Meroe,

one of the Nile's best kept secrets.

(soft percussive music)

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Pasquale] In the remote desert of Sudan,

the Nile flows right past an ancient ghost town

few outsiders have ever visited.

We're among the lucky few.

(gentle music)

the Nubians ruled this region of the Nile

for over 1,000 years.

(gentle music)

Over 2,000 years ago, these Pyramids of Meroe

were surrounded by forests.

When the Nubians cut all the trees down,

they allowed the sands to blow in

and hastened their own downfall.

(gentle music)

- [Mohamed] I feel the loss of a great civilization

and the loss of the forest.

The systems that support life are so fragile.

If we don't nurture them,

they turn to sand and dust.

(singing in foreign language)

- [Saskia] Here on the banks of the Nile,

we heard haunting echoes of an ancient dynasty,

half buried in sand and obscurity.

Why, when the Egyptian pharaohs are so revered

do the Nubians still languish in the shadows of history?

It's the greatest mystery we've encountered along the Nile.

- [Pasquale] Sudan proved to be full of surprises.

The friendliness of the people

and the haunting beauty of this lost kingdom,

the Kingdom of Kush.

(gentle music)

Near the border of Sudan and Egypt,

the Nile River flows into Lake Nasser.

A fishing boat captain warned us

that we'd never get across Lake Nasser safely

in our tiny rafts.

To make up for lost time, I decided that Gordon and I

should keep crossing Lake Nasser by night on our own.

Big mistake.

A huge windstorm came up out of nowhere.

(wind whistling)

(dramatic music)

(water crashing)

- [Gordon] The wind was gusting up to 60 miles an hour,

and the cold spray was freezing us to the bone.

We were 10 miles from shore.

If a big wave knocked us overboard,

there'd be no way for anyone to find us,

and we'd die of exposure.

(water crashing)

(dramatic music)

Pasquale was in bad shape.

I was afraid he wouldn't make it.

- We're all very tired.

We're very tired from the wind and the sun on our faces

and the water.

So tonight will be, hopefully be a good night.

It's been a long, long haul at this point.

- This has come down to the grind.

It really has come down to the grind.

- [Pasquale] I was battling a relapse in malaria.

I had chills, fever, and I was just totally exhausted.

I was sore, I was sick.

We hated to give up our dream of running the Nile,

but it just wasn't worth dying for.

(gentle music)

But the next day I was revived by a pharaoh's dream

and a remarkable survival story.

(gentle music)

- [Saskia] When the Nile Valley was flooded,

ancient monuments disappeared beneath Lake Nasser,

but this one survived.

In 1260 B.C., the Egyptian pharaoh Ramses the Great

had this temple built along the banks of the Nile.

Well, Mohamed, did you think the person--

- [Pasquale] As an Egyptologist,

Myriam lives and breathes this stuff.

(gentle music)

- [Myriam] 40 years ago, the new manmade lake

was about to flood this temple.

To save it, workers carefully cut

the huge temple apart and moved it block by block

to higher ground.

(gentle music)

- [Pasquale] Moving this temple was a heroic effort.

If they can pull that off,

Gordon and I could finish what we set out to do.

- [Myriam] The ancient Egyptians studied the stars

and used that knowledge to create

the first accurate calendar with 365 days a year.

The temple was perfectly lined up with the sun.

On a prescribed day,

the sunrise reaches deep into the temple

to light up the royal statues.

Exactly how they were able to achieve this

was a mystery to me.

(epic music)

(gentle music)

- [Mohamed] My Egyptian ancestors

once had two things to fear from the Nile,

too much water and too little, but no longer.

- [Pasquale] The Aswan High Dam has put an end

to the catastrophic floods

that once killed thousands of people.

But the dam's a mixed blessing because the summer floods

no longer enrich the farmland.

They no longer leech salts out of the soil.

Look how high the river should be.

It goes all the way up to those marks.

- [Mohamed] Without the summer floods,

there is no more needs for these nilometers,

the markers the pharaohs used to track

the yearly rise of the Nile.

(camels grunting)

(upbeat music)

- [Saskia] We took a ride

to an abandoned Christian monastery

just a few miles from the river

where Myriam found an unexpected link

between religion and the Nile.

(upbeat music)

- [Myriam] The priests at monasteries like this

always had strong links to the church

at Lalibela in Ethiopia.

When the Christians here were in danger

of being wiped out by the Muslim majority,

the Ethiopians up river threatened to block off the Nile,

and the threat worked.

This is how Christianity survived here for so long.

- Myriam told us how the pharaohs felt blessed

by nature and God.

The Nile was the perfect trade route.

The trade winds carried the sale boats up river,

and then the river's flow

brought them back down again.

This turned the Nile into a river of gold.

(gentle music)

After more than three months on the river,

we had our routine down cold.

Stop, unpack the boats, make dinner.

Put the tents up, eat, take a shower, go to sleep.

Wake up, pack the boats.

It's every day, day after day, day after day, day after day.

- [Mohamed] I first saw Luxor as a boy,

yet after visiting the source of the Nile,

all of this look different to me.

For 3,000 years, Egypt was ruled

by pharaohs like Ramses the Great

and the female pharaoh Hatshepsut.

The Nile turned them into living gods.

No wonder they worshiped the river.

It was 115 degrees when Myriam

took us to the Valley of the Queens.

Well, we visited the tomb of Queen Nefertari,

the favorite wife of Ramses the Great.

(gentle music)

- [Myriam] At the tomb of the Pharaoh Thutmose III,

I told my friends how the Nile was revered

as a passageway into both life and death.

And for me too, this has been more than a river trip.

It was like an inner voyage.

It did change me.

- [Pasquale] Reaching Cairo was a milestone.

After months of sand dunes and mud huts,

the city dazzles me like some fabulous mirage.

(gentle music) (wings flapping)

- [Mohamed] With the Nile as their power base,

the pharaohs ruled for 3,000 years.

Their dynasties are long gone,

but the river's spiritual power remains.

(gentle music)

(singing in foreign language)

- [Gordon] I think that I've gained

something spiritually from this trip.

Sharing this expedition with Pasquale has,

it's shown me that anything is possible

if your heart's in it.

(gentle music)

- [Pasquale] After four long, grueling months

and 3,000 miles, we finally made it to the Mediterranean.

I can't believe it.

We're the first people in all of history

to go from source to sea on the Blue Nile.

♪ Hey ♪

(epic music)

- [Pasquale] As we finally hit the surf

and the salt water, I was flooded with exhaustion,

and pride, and just overwhelming joy.

(singing in foreign language)

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Saskia] It really connects people.

The lucky necklace from the Christian girl in Ethiopia

brought me new friends all along the Nile.

(singing in foreign language)

- [Pasquale] The times that meant the most to me

are the simple everyday encounters

with people along the river.

(singing in foreign language)

(speaking in foreign language)

(singing in foreign language)

Gordon and I hit some real rough spots along the way,

but he came through when the chips were down

and I needed him, and he saved my life more than once.

- Yeah! - Yeah!

- [Pasquale] We've all got infinite respect now

for this river.

We realized that when we finally stepped

on the beaches of Alexandria, our final destination.

(cheering)

- [Mohamed] I was so proud of taking part

on this expedition.

(speaking in foreign language)

I went right away to visit my grandfather.

As a farmer, he treasured the vile of holy water

I brought him from the source.

- A Muslim girl in Alexandria admired my necklace.

I have this for you.

What luck.

You like it? - Yeah.

- [Saskia] People of many cultures share the river,

a lot of them in conflict, but most of them in harmony.

Our friends in Ethiopia, Sudan, and Egypt

follow different religious,

yet they all draw spiritual sustenance from the river.

(epic music)

- [Pasquale] The Nile has brought such wealth and power

that many have tried to own it,

but the river has defied even the mightiest pharaohs

because it's greater than all of us.

The waters of the Nile bring life

and nourish the soul.

(singing in foreign language)

(water crashing)

(singing in foreign language)

(gentle music)

(singing in foreign language)