Documentaries
Here’s another adventurer to add to the list: Levison Wood, who has made his name by taking shanks’ pony in some of the world’s most inhospitable places. In 2014, the former British soldier walked the length of the Nile and in 2015, trekked from Afghanistan to Bhutan across the Himalayas.
His latest filmed perambulation is Walking the Americas (Choice TV, Wednesday, 7.30pm), a 2900km journey through eight countries, from Mexico to Colombia. The trip includes the notoriously dangerous Darién Gap, a forest stretching between Colombia and Panama.
Wood films most of the trip himself, with occasional visits from a camera crew, although he’s not alone – he has Mexican fashion photographer Alberto Caceres for company.
There are amazing sights and many dangers. In the first episode, they are in the jungles of Mexico and Belize, and also visit the island of
San Pedro and Guatemala’s lawless El Petén region.
There are indigenous
tribes, farmers, gangsters and former rebels. They climb active volcanoes and navigate deadly highways, visit ancient Mayan ruins and traverse rivers, lakes and mountains.
Wood told the Royal Television Society that he hopes the series challenges the view that South America is “just one big jungle and full of gangsters. I came across plenty of gangsters, but there were lots of surprises too.”