The Explorers Page #6

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and had reached the summit

of K2

But on her descent

she was caught in a storm

and died on the mountain

Howkins herself is

in trouble

Illness and weather stop

her ascent

I can't describe how I

really feel right now

without using four-letter

words

I mean, I'm like,

I've got a fever

I'm sitting at 21,000 feet

I slept for about one hour

last night

and the other 11 hours

I hacked up all kinds of

lung gunk

I've got bronchitis or

something

She is forced to admit

defeat

give up the summit,

and descend

To deny that the summit

is important

isn't what I'm trying to do

It's just that it's not as

important as the way

in which I climb

The journey that happens

on the way

to the summit is more

important

It sounds clich,

but it's true

It's not whether you

reach the summit, it's how

It's not what you do

it's how you do it

that matters

The best explorers are

always imagining

the next journey,

the next goal

But what are the personal

costs of such relentless?

I'm on the road a lot

It's very difficult

to develop roots

to put out roots in

any one community

because I'm not here for

enough of the year

to really get to know people

I regret that I didn't

have more time

with my children

when they were young

because I chose to go out

on expedition

The negative side is

obviously being away from home

I love my family

And I love land

I think the most important

thing

I've learned about

exploring the ocean

is how much I love land

You know, I have absolutely

no regrets about it

Whatever one might

conventionally see

as a sacrifice is not

a sacrifice

and that it really entails

not seeking out security

above all else

I think my biggest

sacrifices are the fact

that I'm going to die

real young

because I've just been

worn out

from these tropical

diseases

That's my biggest

sacrifice

The Llanos,

wild heart of Venezuela

For the early explorers

who dared enter this

untamed place

no creature loomed larger

than South America's giant

serpent...

Look out, Jimmy!

Hold the head, hold it!

Explorers spun tales of

intent on human flesh

Jim is black in the face,

almost done for

Exploration now is very

different than it used to be

Early explorers would go

and conquering things

conquering people,

many times even destroying

the things that they were

exploring

Exploration now has a much

more respectful meaning

and taste to it

A barefoot explorer,

Jesus Rivas is hunting

the anaconda

not for sport,

but to understand this

mysterious beast

Rivas explores a dangerous

landscape

for the anaconda rules this

swamp with lethal efficiency

It's meal of choice is

the capybara

a giant rodent that can

weigh in at over 140 pounds

The snake kills with power,

not poison

It wraps its coils so

tightly around the capybara

that the animal cannot

breathe

so tightly that its blood

can no longer circulate

It will take the snake six

hours to ingest this meal

The anaconda is strong

enough to overwhelm and

kill a person

Rivas, however, is obsessed

with getting

as close as he can to these

creatures

There's no telling how many

hours of fruitless sun

I got on my head

and after six, eight hours

looking for a snake

in the swamp and nothing

happens

But if you're stubborn

enough and if you go for

it and you try and try

and eventually you

accomplish it

The time comes when you

step on something

and your foot bounces back

and there's this big animal

underneath you

Hurry, hurry

Are you losing your grip?

In a second, I will

Oh, it's a big mama

Come here and get

a better grip

It is a wonderful animal

It is an animal that,

if anything

has to inspire admiration

and awe more than

any other thing

Godzilla!? We are having

a ball, aren't we?

Rivas and his wife,

biologist Rene Owens

have captured and studied

more than 800 snakes

Their exploration

funded in part by the

National Geographic Society

is a first

People ask me why it has

not been studied before

And the reason is that

I don't think anybody

thought it was possible

You can't find them, they

are too hard to get around

we can't subdue them

they are a very hard

animal to study

and that is why they

haven't been studied

Wait, wait, wait here

To crack the code of

this strange beast

Rivas searches

for breeding balls

massive coils of mating

snakes

He plants radio transmitters

to track potential mothers

Ever since I was a kid,

I always loved the wild

I had this urge of going

out into the wild

into the forest,

into the sea, into the ocean

into whatever was

a good natural habitat

Oh, you want to kiss me,

don't you?

I'm not your lover

My mother, when I was a kid,

called, had this word

for me

It was "pata caliente"

which means hot feet

because she couldn't stop

me from going out

and looking for

interesting things to do

Okay, I'm gonna pull

the whole thing

to see what's going on

Rivas and Owens have struck

anaconda gold

a breeding ball

This is their Everest,

their North Pole

To reproduce, as many as

a dozen male anacondas

will wrap themselves

around a single female

Rivas and Owens have

just begun to

unravel the secrets of this

communal mating ritual

The first time I laid hands

on an anaconda

it was a large female next

to a bridge

it was a massive animal

When I put my hands around

it and couldn't grip it

my fingers could feel

just pure muscle

It was unbelievable

It was the thing that really

hooked me about the animal

Nice female

It's beautiful

Look at those colors

Out there, somewhere

in the swamp

Rivas believes there are

giant anacondas

beasts of monstrous

proportions

He dreams of discovering

such a serpent one day

I've thought a lot about

what to do

if I found this animal

that is too big for me

to catch

but is too big for me to

let it go

I don't know what I'll do

It will be some tough fight

I don't know

who's gonna win

They're all my family

Rivas is following

in the footsteps

of a noble tradition of

naturalist as explorer...

...people like

Charles Darwin

who set sail to

the Galapagos Islands

and saw birds in a

whole new way

He returned to England

with the theory of

evolution...

...or Jane Goodall

who lived for decades in

the African wilderness

and with a patient gaze

explored the world

and the mind of

the chimpanzee

She has revolutionized our

understanding of animals

She witnessed chimps doing

things

no one had seen before

like making tools

Her explorations have

shown us

how closely connected

we are to the natural world

Since Goodall began her

studies 40 years ago

the world's population

has nearly doubled

Blink and wild habitat

vanishes

Explorers, like

herpetologist Brady Barr

must act as emergency room

surgeons

and move quickly to

save endangered species

I would give anything to

go back in time

and see what the planet

was like

when it was more in balance

before there were so

many humans on the planet

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