Travels with Palin

Michael Palin visits the source of Brazil's great mineral wealth and then travels to one of the world's greatest cities to see how this new-found wealth is being spent, changing the lives of millions of its inhabitants.

Michael Palin travels from Brazil's northern border with Venezuela along the Rivers Branco, Negro, Amazon, Tapajos and Xingu, through the very heart of the Amazonia, before ending up at the capital Brasilia. He visits indigenous tribes like the Yanomami, and talks to their shaman and chief spokesperson Davi about the threats to their traditional way of life.

He begins his journey in the north east, where modern Brazil was born. It was here the Portuguese explorers first landed and encountered the native Brazilians. It was here that hundreds of thousands of African slaves were brought to work on sugar and tobacco plantations, and it was here where this mix of races and cultures produced what we now think of as Brazil. Music, food, dance, religion - all of these bear the imprint of this heady mix.