Conquistadors
In the early 16th Century the Spanish Conquistadors reached the shores of the new world.
Some five hundred years later they were followed by Michael Wood and the Maya Vision crew.
While we were there to follow in the their footsteps we drew the line at claiming the territory for the Spanish crown and settled for capturing a four-part documentary series in the name of the BBC and PBS.
During the two years it's been in production we've carried twenty-two flightcases over 122,000 miles (five and a half times round the world) and used forty bottles of mosquito repellent.
We spent thirty nights under the stars and took one hundred and fifty days to shoot one hundred hours of footage.
We climbed from 0 ft (Isle of Sacrifices) up to 17,000 ft (Quoyllur Riti) in temperatures that ranged from 35°C in the North Mexico desert, to eight-below in Quoyllur Riti.
Michael Wood was personally responsible for consuming over 25kg of nuts and raisins while he was on the road. He also managed to count sixty sandfly bites on one of his arms while rafting in the Amazon.
The buttons in the top right link to a set of pages dedicated to the small team of people who volunteered for the unusual job of hauling small mountains of kit around remote parts of the world in pursuit of history.
"Conquistadors" will be broadcast in the USA on PBS in May 2001:
Episodes 1 & 2 on May 9th, 8pm - 10pm
Episodes 3 & 4 on May 16th, 8pm - 10pm