In the Americas with David Yetman

Each year several thousand gauchos--Uruguayan cowboys--gather in the interior town of Tacuarembó for a festival and parade. Host David Yetman travels to a ranch deep in the interior and follows the gaucho life and the preparations for the huge celebration.

The nation of Trinidad and Tobago is the most ethnically diverse in the Caribbean and is home to an extraordinary variety of wildlife. Host David Yetman samples Trinidadan food and finds African traditions of stilt walkers and steel bands. Yetman hears the calls of oilbirds and watches leatherback sea turtles excavating their beachside nests.

Tenochtitlán of the Aztecs was home to huge markets, sites now occupied by Mexico City merchants. Host David Yetman makes a night stop in the flower market, weaves through the witches' market, treads carefully through a thieves' market, then follows old canals aboard a boat plying the markets' historic source, the floating gardens of Xochimilco.

The northeastern Brazilian state of Pernambuco is mostly semi-desert. Away from the great Río San Francisco, the countryside is called the sert"o, drought-stricken scrublands. The inhabitants have their own culture and history and still revere their bandit-hero, Lampi"o. Host David Yetman visits a great interior market that recaptures his saga.

The diverse and jungly Mata Atlantica once covered Brazil's southeastern coast for over a thousand miles and still blankets the steep hills around Río de Janeiro. Runaway slaves founded villages in the Mata, some of which persist and can only be reached by boat. Less than 10% of the original forest remains, only parts of it protected.

For over a thousand years, the Blackfeet of Montana have lived where the Great Plains meet the Rocky Mountains in Glacier National Park. The bison are key to their survival, their culture, and their way of life. Host David Yetman joins them as they seek to expand their once-threatened tribal herd. Inside the Park he understands why the Blackfeet view it as sacred ground.

It's the largest bay on our Atlantic coast. Its tributaries, including the Potomac River, drain a large portion of the eastern U.S. Its fisheries are depleted, its oyster and clam industries reduced, and rising seas threaten its shores. As host David Yetman learns, however, hardy residents cherish the bay and are restoring some of its ancient productivity.

Millions of enslaved Africans were unloaded at Colombia's port of Cartagena. They brought dance, music, and cultural memories with them, and their influence is evident along the coast. Some slaves escaped and gathered in hidden villages called palenques. Host David Yetman learns how one town of escaped slaves is now a flourishing rural community.

Oaxaca is home to a broad array of ethnic groups. Host David Yetman visits Coastal Mixtecs, whose textiles and masks set them apart. They invite him to join in their Holy Week ceremonies that set them off from other peoples, revealing their processions, dances, masks, feathered costumes, and music. Women demonstrate the old style of weaving.

From dazzling beaches to verdant mountains to parched scrubland, Ceará exhibits many of the attractions and the contradictory currents that Brazilians face. Host David Yetman visits old sections of the capital city of Fortaleza, a once-isolated beach town, the sweltering inland and semi-desert, and the lush mountain range that forms the state's garden basket.