I'm on a huge journey.
I'm travelling the length of the Americas,
the two continents that together form
more than a quarter of Earth's land surface.
On this adventure, I'm travelling down through South America.
We're in such a remote part of planet Earth.
It's a journey of more than 4,000 miles,
through some of the world's greatest landscapes.
Encountering spectacular wildlife.
The cat is on the move.
From its iconic cities
to the Andes Mountains,
it's a continent of dramatic extremes.
Down.
EXPLOSION
Along the way, I meet the inspiring...
Yolanda!
SHE GREETS HIM
..and the surprising people...
These guys are Mennonites.
..who make South America so extraordinary.
THEY WHOOP
There's Wi-Fi here.
Nowhere else for miles around, apparently.
We do our own thing. We're happy here, man.
The Andes Mountains.
On this part of my journey, I'll be up at altitude
with the people of the Andes in Peru and Bolivia.
I'll be exploring among the peaks
that stretch for thousands of miles down the length of South America.
They're the spine of the continent.
I'm high up in the Andes Mountains in Peru,
and I'm beginning this leg of my journey at one of
the great remaining wonders of the world -
Machu Picchu.
Machu Picchu was built more than 500 years ago
by what was once the most powerful civilisation in the Americas -
the Inca.
Now, the Inca ruled what was, at the time,
the greatest empire on planet Earth,
bigger than Ming Dynasty China,
bigger than the empire of any European state.
The Inca empire spanned 32 degrees of latitude.
If that was transplanted to Europe, it would be the equivalent
of an empire ruling from Stockholm to Cairo,
covering every conceivable ecosystem.
No-one's certain why the Incas built Machu Picchu
a mile and a half above sea level
on a ridge in the middle of the jungle.
Perhaps it was a place of worship or an emperor's pleasure palace.
Either way, I found it stunning.
And Machu Picchu is a complete triumph of engineering,
especially for a civilisation
that didn't have draught animals like horses,
didn't have cement, didn't even have the wheel.
Trying to build this place without the wheel
is like trying to build the Eiffel Tower without a crane.
But the Incas did it.
I think this is the Sacred Stone,
and I'm looking for a bloke in orange.
Local mountaineer Alex Estrada had agreed to be my guide.
Hey! Hello, mate. Simon. How are you, Simon?
It's very lovely to see you. What do we do? Do we do this?
Do this, yes. Can we do a little bit of this now?
We can do this. We're free of Covid,
so don't worry about it.
Thank you, mate, for waiting here for us. This is the Sacred Stone?
This is the Sacred Stone, yeah.
This is a very special place for me, actually, Machu Picchu.
I'm really connecting with this history, basically,
you know, by Inca, seeing all this stuff.
Like, I cannot believe this is my country, you know?
Not just your country, but your culture.
Oh, yes, I will say my culture, yes.
Is that fair to say?
Because I think one thing that strikes me
is we think of the Inca as...
..the Inca civilisation as being a lost civilisation,
but the people, the Inca people are still here.
Do you feel yourself maybe you are one of the Inca?
I... I believe...
..in another life I'm coming from this,
because I really have a connection with this culture.
The Inca weren't keen on money or writing,
and sacrificed children to the gods,
but they created a sophisticated world.
Their cities were connected by 25,000 miles of roads
and were as large as the capitals of Europe,
but better run, with better sanitation.
Some argue, by building huge grain stores, they eradicated hunger.
And boy, could they build.
God, look at the...
How did they do this? HE CHUCKLES
It's so beautiful.
You couldn't even get a credit card between there.
There we go. There's no cement, there's no mortar, is that right?
It's because, like, inside here is pieces like this
and this has like the hole, so they're gripping here. Oh, really?
The same all these ones.
So, almost like a Lego block, they've got... There we go.
..pieces on the top. There we go.
When the Earth moves, they're never getting all of this
getting into this side nor this side.
They like... HE CLICKS
You know? They almost dance when there is an earthquake
and then they settle back down?
Yes. It's like that. Inca Lego.
It's Inca rocks Lego. OK.
After Europeans arrived in South America,
the Spanish brought guns, steel and horses here to the Andes.
The Inca were fearsome warriors,
but the Spanish assault on their empire in the 1500s
became an annihilation, because they brought strange European diseases
which killed up to nine out of ten Peruvians.
The great Inca civilisation collapsed.
Today, Machu Picchu faces a new invasion.
It's thought 90% of all tourists who come to Peru come here,
and that's hundreds of thousands of visitors flocking here every year.
This is very much a tourist site and...
..they lay on the cliches.
It's a llama.
In the Andes. With a very itchy nose.
Before the pandemic,
Machu Picchu was getting up to 5,000 visitors a day in peak season.
Tourism here is, again, big business for Peru,
raking in millions of dollars each year for the government.
It is rammed with tourists.
I'm quite...taken aback.
Travellers are clearly returning.
And before the pandemic, there were concerns about safety
and the future of Machu Picchu because of the thousands
upon thousands of people who were visiting here every day
and the fear that they were eroding the paths
and undermining the very stability
of this most famous ruin on the planet.
Yes, it is very touristy.
Yes, it is quite strict here -
you have to follow a very specific route,
do not deviate from the path,
but nothing can detract from what an astonishing,
wondrous place this actually is.
It's impossible to be here
and not be in utter awe of what the Incas achieved.
All this history still really matters.
Peru's indigenous people, many the descendants of the Inca,
have long felt marginalised by Europeans who colonised
and controlled them for centuries,
and Peru is the country
with the largest indigenous population in South America.
Right, so we've got to mask-up now.
They're taking Covid very seriously in Peru.
Peru was hit exceptionally hard by the pandemic.
In relation to the size of its population,
it had by far the highest number of deaths in the world.
Two masks...
..plus this.
The railway here ferries hundreds of thousands of tourists a year.
My train was running a couple of hours late,
but they know how to keep the passengers happy.
TRILLING MUSIC
I've got so many masks on, I have no idea if you can hear me, but...
..it just got weirder.
HE PLAYS JAUNTY TUNE
The Saqras are humanised parodies of the Devil,
according to the Mestizo belief.
The word Saqra comes from the Quechua language
and means "naughty, bouncy, cheerful and joker".
THEY PLAY LIVELY MUSIC
This is now properly bonkers.
Ah, but we all loved it,
and it was definitely one way of stopping us passengers
from grumbling, even as our much-delayed train crawled along
the tracks long into the night.
MUSIC STOPS CHEERING
It was time to head off the tourist trail
into some of the more forgotten corners of the Andes region.
But first, a bed for the night.
So, it's very late
and Alex has brought us to stay somewhere
which seems to involve getting dressed up in a harness...
..and wearing a helmet.
Do you see the cable?
Yes, I see the cable. All right.
So, this is called a karabiner, right? Yes.
Do you have questions?
Yeah...where the hell are we going?
Don't worry about it.
You will love the place where I bring you to.
Believe me, you'll... I want you to just believe me.
Whose idea was this?!
ALEX CHUCKLES
God.
Completely bloody bananas.
Amazing.
OK.
I'll go on with Alex.
He's just going to show me where I'm staying
and, um...hopefully I'll get some sleep tonight
and, in the morning, I might have a clearer idea
of where on Earth we are. HE LAUGHS
Goodnight!
BIRDS CHIRP
Oh, my goodness.
I've pulled the curtains back...
..and it's completely bonkers.
I'm halfway up a mountain,
tethered to the side of the cliff
by pieces of steel string.
This is Starlodge -
a series of cosy aluminium cabins, more like mini submarines,
which Alex, my guide and expert climber,
actually helped haul up here.
They certainly offer stunning views of this valley
at every stage of your stay.
Peru is a vast country
and travellers here tend to stick to a few of the safer
and wealthier areas, which make a good income from tourism.
But many regions of Peru struggle
with ingrained poverty and lawlessness.
I headed to an area of Peru called VRAEM,
which the state has long struggled to control.
I'm now heading into quite a tricky area
on my journey down through South America.
This region is known as Peru's cocaine valley.
So it has the acronym VRAEM.
It's a big region. It's roughly the size of Ireland.
And it's said to have more production of coca
and cocaine laboratories than anywhere in the world.
For more than 40 years, the cocaine trade has ravaged Latin America.
Countries like Colombia, El Salvador and Honduras
have been pushed close to collapse.
Huge drug gangs and cartels have emerged.
South America now has some of the highest rates in the world
for violent crime and murder.
And for cocaine production, I was heading to ground zero.
Neighbouring Colombia is generally more associated with cocaine,
but Peru now rivals Colombia as the world's leading producer
and this area, VRAEM, is plagued by narco gangs.
Checkpoint.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
So that was a group of...
Were they auto-defences?
Auto-defences, exactly.
Um, which is basically local vigilantes.
Even before narco violence took hold,
VRAEM suffered from conflict.
For more than 20 years, the government fought a bitter war
against a terror group called Shining Path,
which wanted to overthrow the government
and establish a communist state.
As they battled the army,
horrific atrocities were committed by both sides
and tens of thousands of innocent people died.
I'd come to the centre of the conflict.
Like many indigenous communities in Peru, it's desperately poor.
There's not much of a government presence
in this quiet, dusty little community.
But we've been asked to wait here
to meet the people who provide security.
Buenas tardes, senor.
Buenas tardes.
Oscar Cardenas is the President of the Self-Defence Committee here.
Oscar, what are the auto-defences?
Now, I know this region suffered terribly
during the time of the Shining Path.
What happened here when Shining Path were attacking?
After years of fierce fighting,
the guerrillas from Shining Path have been pushed back
to a few isolated jungle areas.
But communities here are now facing another threat.
The narcos, the drug gangs, now terrorise communities like this.
Financial muscle and weaponry has given them a stranglehold
over this poor, forgotten corner of Peru,
where many communities lack basic infrastructure like proper roads,
regular electricity, clean water,
and most people earn less than $10 a day.
After his shift, Oscar offered to take me to the farm where he works,
which is owned by another member of his vigilante group.
Oh, wow.
Buenos dias.
So this is a huge pile of coca leaves drying in the sun.
This is coca, the raw ingredient,
the leaf from which cocaine is made.
And it's the main crop for almost all farms in the area.
Oscar, what's happening now?
Poverty here seems to breed contradictions.
Oscar is terrorised by the drug cartels,
but helps grow coca for them.
Four times a year you can harvest coca?
That must make a massive difference to you as a farmer.
When the leaves are ready for harvest,
the whole community turns out.
Coca's been cultivated in the Andes for more than 8,000 years
and it's still sacred to many indigenous people.
It looks like hard work.
You still move with lightning speed.
I hope you don't mind me asking,
but how much money will you get for picking 28 kilos of the leaves?
That's just over £3.50 for a full day's work under the baking sun.
The could grow coffee or fruit here,
but that takes more knowledge, time and money,
and poor roads would make it hard to get crops to market.
This all helps trap locals into farming coca.
Some can be sold legally for traditional medicines,
but it's thought up to 95% of coca from here...
..goes into the illegal production of cocaine.
Oscar, with the greatest respect,
do you feel a connection
to what happens as coca is turned into cocaine?
Do you feel...
Do you have moral doubts about your connection to cocaine?
Are you saying you don't really want to grow coca?
This is an appalling situation. They themselves, in many a way,
have become addicted to growing this plant
because it offers them something that other plants do not.
It offers them many more harvests per year
and, crucially, the buyer will actually come to their door
to buy it off them. But yet, it's not making them rich.
There is no great wealth here in this community.
These are poor, poor farmers on the very edge of survival.
The Peruvian authorities have been criticised
for failing to tackle cocaine
and reduce poverty in indigenous communities.
But the government says it spent £40 million in recent years
encouraging farmers here to grow alternative crops to coca.
So far, it's had little impact on cocaine production.
It's estimated 200 to 400 tonnes of cocaine
are exported from VRAEM each year,
with a potential UK street value
of more than a staggering £30 billion.
There are fields and fields,
hillsides of coca growing around here.
In Colombia, just next door,
coca tends to be grown a little bit further from towns
and a little bit further from roads.
It's something that's more secretive,
because there are quite sophisticated eradication efforts.
That doesn't seem to be happening here.
It's growing by the side of the road. It's growing near towns.
I think we should go and see the police.
Neighbouring Colombia has received billions of dollars
from the United States to fight drug trafficking
because cocaine from Colombia goes to the US.
Cocaine from Peru is trafficked more widely,
including to Europe, the UK.
Compared to Colombia, drug enforcement efforts here
have been held back by a lack of funding and also corruption.
The Peruvian army has thousands of troops station in VRAEM,
but elements in the army have been accused
of direct involvement in the drugs trade.
Pretty serious.
There's also several hundred elite anti-narcotics police here.
I went to their main operations centre in the valley.
Here's a big new base to tackle a colossal problem.
Comandante Jorge Barrantes leads a police unit ready for combat.
Can we just ask, what is the mission of your base here?
What are you here to do?
HE CALLS ORDERS IN SPANISH
He's saying these four officers here are just going to provide us
with security, because it's really needed, apparently.
The other worrying thing he's saying is that they don't really bother
wearing body armour, flak jackets,
because the people they're up against have got weapons
firing bullets that will go straight through most flak jackets.
The moment this police unit sets foot outside the base,
they're in hostile territory. I was heading out with them
on what the Comandante called a search and destroy mission.
Bloody hell.
Many locals support the narcos and are up to their necks in the trade.
Shoot-outs and sudden attacks are a constant threat.
They've told us they want to move quickly
and they're wary of us going slowly through even urban areas
because they've come under attack in the past.
That's not to suggest the entire local population is against them,
but this is a country where tens of thousands of people,
perhaps as many as two million people make their living
from the drugs trade.
Comandante, do you still feel nervous
before an operation like this?
My God, look at all the coca.
Go, go, go.
WHISPERS: There could be a whole bloody gang,
of narco traffickers just...
..I was going to say ten metres, it's more like ten feet to one side,
and I wouldn't see them.
Down, down.
Oh, look, there's guys down there. Over there.
It's almost completely impossible for them to move through
this sort of terrain without being seen or heard.
There's people everywhere. There's dogs.
SIMON GASPS Blue plastic sheeting,
which I think he's saying might be
part of the first stage of a cocaine factory.
Go. Go, go, go. Follow me.
OK.
We're going in.
So we're just coming up on something now.
I think it's the target. It's hard to tell.
It doesn't look like much...
..but maybe that's the point.
What have we got here? What on Earth is going on?
So how much cocaine could that actually be turned into?
But by the time that cocaine has reached the streets
of the UK, Italy, wherever it's going, Rio,
it is worth a staggering sum,
more than people here could ever imagine, I would have thought.
South America, Europe and the UK are major markets for cocaine from Peru.
Cocaine that fuels teenage gangs and violence in British cities
starts life right here in pits like this.
It's just desperate to see this
and to see how difficult it is for the police to operate here,
but also to know how little the European Union
and the UK, as well, frankly, are doing to combat cocaine,
narcotics here at source in Peru
compared to what the Americans are doing in Colombia.
These guys are operating on a relative shoestring.
They don't have the access to advanced intelligence gathering,
to Black Hawk helicopters, to as much satellite information.
And combating the narcos in Peru is bloody hard.
This police unit destroyed more than 100 jungle labs
and pits like this in the past year alone.
This is whack-a-mole. It really is.
If that maceration pit could create a couple of kilos of cocaine
and anything between 200 and 400 tonnes of cocaine
comes out of this area,
that means there must be hundreds and hundreds of other pits like it.
Two detonations.
EXPLOSIONS
I felt these guys are fighting a losing battle.
In Colombia,
the authorities intercept up to half the cocaine produced.
In Peru, just a fraction of the cocaine is seized.
Some fear for the country's future.
Coca production has increased dramatically in Peru
over the last decade, and there are now fears here
amongst senior people in the government
that Peru is on its way to becoming a narco state.
I mean, nobody is immune from corruption,
even at the very highest level.
I headed on south through the lush jungle of the Andes lowlands.
Wow, that's a fast-flowing river.
Peru has some of the most spectacular
and varied landscapes on the planet -
vast tropical river systems,
rainforest,
parched coastal desert,
high grasslands,
and the rugged frozen peaks of the Andes.
It has almost every climate and ecosystem.
My journey was taking me to southern Peru
and towards an indigenous area
that's one of the most extreme environments in South America.
Peru is really a continent in a country.
It has some of the highest, driest, wettest
and most inhospitable terrain on the planet,
and yet it's been home to sophisticated civilisation
for thousands of years.
I was back in the mighty Andes.
The Incas were among the first people
to conquer these colossal peaks,
scaling their heights to make offerings
and sacrifices to their gods.
This is a harsh environment.
There are savage storms, freezing temperatures,
and thin air lacking oxygen.
So we've just stopped by the side of the road at around 5,000 metres up.
That's just over the height of Mont Blanc,
Western Europe's highest mountain.
We've got three vehicles with us,
partly because we might need to evacuate one of the team
back down the mountain...
STUMBLES OVER WORDS: ..and we've got to be prepared.
We've got to be prepared to do that at any time.
I'm really feeling it in my...in my head.
Altitude sickness can be dangerous.
We had medication to combat the effects,
and bottled oxygen in the vehicles in case of emergency.
But even up here, there are people eking out a living.
So this is Rinconada.
It is the highest permanent human settlement on planet Earth.
It's also said to be one of the very toughest
and harshest towns in the world.
La Rinconada is more than three miles above sea level.
The first hardy settlers arrived here 50 years ago,
seeking their fortune.
Today, it's a sprawling ramshackle home to some 50,000 people.
Rinconada is an informal...
..which basically means sort of illegal mining settlement
that has sprung up on the edge or near a gold mine.
Most people aren't registered to live here
and many tend not to pay taxes,
so the town is largely ignored by the Peruvian state.
The cables across the road are not cables. They're water pipes.
There isn't sanitation and sewage here, really,
the normal elements of a town.
No, people have got to look after themselves.
There were putrid streams of raw sewage flowing through the streets.
The smell was overpowering.
The town's only water sources are contaminated
with a poisonous cocktail of mercury and cyanide used to process gold.
We're stuck in a Rinconada traffic jam.
You know what's caused it?
There's been an explosion up ahead.
This place is completely mad.
So you can see the machinery over there.
They're crushing rock to look for gold.
While we waited for the road block to clear,
I wandered into a crushing yard,
and goldminer Felix Esquivies agreed to chat.
How much rock do you need to crush
to find enough gold to make a ring?
Oh, my goodness.
Can I hold some?
It's heavy!
And even in this form, I have to be honest,
I do have a bit of a sense of the allure.
Is it... Is this dangerous work?
Forgive me for asking,
I notice that you've had perhaps an accident with your ear.
We'd been warned that after dark the town can become lawless and chaotic.
There's a shocking number of stabbings and assaults.
La Rinconada is said to have
one of the highest number of murders per capita in the world.
Despite the conditions and violence,
thousands more people are drawn up here each year
to the roof of the continent, lured by Rinconada's gold.
Many because they have no choice.
Of course, for a lot of the people who work here, this is income,
this is home, this is a car, this is life.
But I really worry
that every single person I've seen here
is of indigenous origin,
and it really makes me feel that the indigenous...
I think the indigenous community, the people of Peru
have been pushed somewhat to the margins.
They are the only people who work up here.
Indigenous Peruvians comprise almost half the country's population.
Tens of thousands now live and work
in informal, crime-ridden mining settlements like La Rinconada.
Senna Ochochoque grew up here.
Senna, was it a happy place to grow up?
Senna suggested taking me high above the town to the mining area.
Peru is the biggest gold producer in South America.
Minerals are the country's leading export
and mining its main source of foreign currency.
SPEAKS SPANISH
But the unregulated mines around La Rinconada are incredibly dangerous.
Some are said to be three miles deep.
Explosions and shaft collapses kill around 30 miners each year.
A miner's life expectancy here is just 35 years,
around half the national average.
Senna wanted me to meet some of the women who work up here
in this brutal environment.
My God.
Look above us. The glacier.
Look at this.
Oh, my God, I can smell sulphur.
It's like the gates of hell are opening up.
Wow.
Sulphur? Volcan?
Not very good for you, the smoke.
It's not very good.
Even the people here, then, are saying that isn't good for us.
I could smell sulphur in the air, volcanic sulphur.
Bowels of the Earth sort of stuff.
Oh, my God.
Look at the ladies working here.
These women are known as pallaqueras.
Julia Pomalique has worked up here for 20 years.
What is a pallaquera? What do you do?
Why are women... Why do you work out here?
Why don't you work in the mines?
In winter, the temperature out on this exposed mountainside
can drop to minus 40 degrees centigrade.
Can you give me a rough idea,
how much does one of the women in your association, on average, make
in a day or a week or a month?
This sounds and it looks like...
..like a tough...a tough life.
There could be up to 100,000 informal goldminers in Peru
and an estimated 15,000 pallaqueras scraping a living
working through the rocks around their illegal gold mines.
Senna says she's one of the lucky few
who managed to escape La Rinconada.
How did you get out and what do you do now?
Is Rinconada...
Do you think it is a trap for the people who work here?
VOICE BREAKS
Oh, Senna. HE SNIFFS
God bless you, Senna.
I'll remember this place and these people
the next time I think I'm having a tough day.
You know, I can normally find the positive
in almost anywhere I've been, but I really struggle here.
This is...
This is definitely a place I won't be sorry never to come back to.
As we came down from the mine, the atmosphere changed.
We've been told unless we go now,
people here are going to really BLEEP! us up.
We were told it really explicitly.
Some of the miners were angry with our presence.
It was no longer safe for us to stay in La Rinconada.
Well, I'm very relieved to say that we've got out of Rinconada safely.
We need to find somewhere to overnight,
and then we're going to head to the Bolivian border.
I travelled south through the high plains of the Andes
towards the landlocked country of Bolivia.
We're getting close to the border between Peru and Bolivia now.
The border's been closed during Covid,
as have many land borders in South America,
but we've been given a special permission to cross.
We have, of course, been fairly endlessly tested for Covid.
We've all been jabbed and jabbed and jabbed again.
Is this the border?
That's Bolivia just up ahead.
SHEEP BLEAT
It's still quite rare for people to cross,
so this gentleman has seized his business opportunity.
I have to say, in all the world,
I have never seen people having a football match in no-man's-land.
That's proper bizarre.
And don't forget, they're at nearly 4,000 metres.
MAN PUFFS You OK?
I feel a bit better if he's out of breath as well.
Honestly, it's the altitude.
Yolanda!
Hola!
I can't quite believe something has worked.
SHE GREETS HIM
My guide in Bolivia was Yolanda Mamani.
Gracias.
Bolivia is home to 12 million people,
and around 60% have indigenous heritage -
the highest proportion of any South American country.
Yolanda took me to Bolivia's capital, La Paz,
a journey she first made as a child at the age of ten.
So one of the best ways of getting around the city
and seeing a bit of it as well is the cable cars.
Quick fact for your next pub quiz is that La Paz has the world record
for the largest public transport cable car system on the planet.
It's also the highest capital city in the world.
Oh, my good Lord.
That is quite a sight.
HE GASPS
La Paz is in, like, a giant bowl,
and it is occupied and spread
and sprawled throughout this...
..throughout this enormous area. It looks...
It looks ginormous.
For centuries, La Paz was a largely white European city.
Indigenous people mostly lived in the countryside.
Yolanda is among thousands of indigenous Bolivians
who've migrated here in the last few decades.
Referred to disdainfully as "Cholas,"
for generations, indigenous women had been forced into servitude
and denied a real opportunity to vote, own land or have an education.
Yolanda, when you came to La Paz, what did you do? What happened?
Did you experience racism, discrimination?
What was the reaction from people employing you as a child cleaner
when you said you wanted to go to school?
Yolanda fought hard for her right to go to school
and went on to university.
Bolivian society has been changing fast,
even electing the nation's first-ever indigenous president.
Things are far from perfect here,
but after a hard struggle, more indigenous Bolivians
do now have access to education and jobs previously denied them.
Yolanda?
What's happening... What's going on here?
The market mashes up indigenous traditions, Christianity
and a hefty dollop of consumerism.
You can buy miniature versions of the things you want in real life,
of just about anything your heart desires.
How about a surprise for your dodgy uncle who's been away for a while?
Oh, my goodness!
Here's a certificate
to get your relative out of prison.
Literally a get-out-of-jail card!
It's fun, but serious as well.
A new indigenous middle class is emerging in Bolivia,
and they've got ambitions, aspirations and goals.
You've got a house in there, money.
I'm sure there's some science
about the psychology of actually possessing something
that you want and giving you a tangible target to aim towards.
I'm sure it must help.
What are you going for?
So this is going to help you get your degree?
SHE CHUCKLES
It's quite comprehensive, isn't it?
And it comes with a laptop as well.
Indigenous women like Yolanda still have a long way to go.
Their iconic pollera skirts and bowler hats, once denigrated,
are becoming a symbol of national pride.
Cholas are increasingly prominent in the media, industry and government,
but the battle's not yet won. They're still facing discrimination.
HORN HONKS
Yolanda took me to see where she spreads her message of defiance.
Yolanda, do you still work as a cleaner now?
OK.
Yolanda now has her own weekly radio show,
as well as being an activist and campaigner for indigenous rights.
UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYS
Gracias, Sonia!
I'd come to the end of this leg of my South American journey.
It had been fascinating and exhausting.
The high altitude had been brutal.
But it had given me at least a little insight
into the lives of indigenous people in the Andes.
I've been quite shocked on this trip at just how marginalised still
many indigenous people are in Peru and Bolivia.
Of course, it's been that way for hundreds of years,
but now many people like Yolanda are saying
they're not going to take it any more.
Next time...
There's nowhere else quite like this on planet Earth.
..I travel through an alien mirror world
to a remote corner of little-known Paraguay.
CHILDREN RECITE Oh, my.