Our aim is to travel into the Serra Ricardo Franco
to investigate Fawcett's claims.
A poisoned Hell that could never be explored on foot.
60 foot anacondas capable of picking a man out of a
canoe.
Savage ape men.
An infested plain of deadly snakes.
Bats so big they looked like pterodactyls.
Ferocious black panthers.
White Indian tribes.
Swarms of biting bees.
Fires in the distance.
All the above were reported as fact by Fawcett but appear
as fiction in Conan Doyle's Lost World.
Starting at Vila Bela, we aim to trek into the South-Eastern
part of the Ricardo Franco table mountains on foot and traverse
the range as far as the Nascente do Rio Verde (birth of
the green river). We will carry with us the portable
'pak' canoe which I used on several expeditions in Bolivia.
We will build this up and set off down the Rio Verde as
soon as we judge it to be navigable (At this point we will
discharge any porters we have hired). We aim to descend
the Rio Verde until its confluence with the Rio Guapore,
from where we will trek overland either on the logging
road which leads back to Vila Bela or else on
another track which runs East to the BR364 highway.
The route is roughly the reverse of that taken by Fawcett
and his party in his 1908 expedition. The reason for this
is that we will be able to make use of the Pak canoe with
its shallow draught to carry expedition supplies downstream,
and unlike Fawcett who had no maps of the area (his job
was to make them!), we will have not only accurate maps
but also a Global Positioning System so that we can
accurately track our progress.
Documenting the Expedition
We will be looking for similarities between our journey,
Fawcett's and that of the fictional characters in the 'Lost
World'. We want to find out how the real 'Lost World'
compares with Conan Doyle's fictional descriptions (- Is
there a pillar similar to the one by which his explorers
gain access to the plateau? Is there a 'wilderness of
bamboo' at its base, or a 'plain of tree ferns'?).
We hope to document our expedition through a filmed diary,
photography and water-colour sketches in a way that will
engender the same 'feel' for the journey as Conan
Doyle's novel does.
The original Lost World was serialised in The
Strand magazine. Each chapter was narrated by the journalist
character, Edward D. Malone, who sent them back as
despatches with the party's Indian guides, whenever the
opportunity arose. We plan to record our expedition in similar
closed episodes. Ideally we would send each video tape/
diary back at stages during the expedition for broadcasting/
publication. If it is not possible to organise this before
the start of the expedition in July, we still plan to film
the trip in discrete episodes and would consider a continuation
of the expedition in Summer 2002 when more filming
and more in-depth exploration could be undertaken.
Technicalities
We are not seeking advanced funding.
We have use of a three chip digital video camera, external
sound and a solar battery charging system.
We have use of an Avid edit suite should we need to
edit ourselves.
We are flexible about additional members of the group,
film style and content.
We are not flexible about dates - July 11th to August
8th.
We really will be travelling into 'the unknown'.
There are no published accounts of travel through the Serra
Ricardo Franco since Fawcett's. Our expedition will
be exploration essentially unchanged in character from his
journeys to the half-mile high cliffs of the 'Lost World'.
