World's Most Interesting Places Vol. 14 | 60 Minutes Full Episodes
In a Nutshell
Mardi Gras Indian tribes in New Orleans preserve a 200-year-old tradition of hand-sewn suits and mock battles that originated as resistance to slavery and cultural erasure, with Big Chiefs like Monk and Deman devoting their lives to keeping it alive despite gentrification and natural disasters. In Cape Town, orcas named Port and Starboard are systematically killing great white sharks for their livers, forcing the sharks offshore and potentially destabilizing local populations already weakened by commercial fishing. Hang Son Doong in Vietnam, the world's largest cave passage at 5.6 miles long and 65 stories high, was discovered by a villager and explored by British cavers, while Colombia's bird diversity has become an economic driver through ecotourism that emerged after the 2016 peace deal ended decades of conflict that had inadvertently protected forest habitats.
These notes were generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies.
Every year on Mardi Gras morning, groups of Black revelers most tourists will never see emerge from the back streets of New Orleans. They call themselves Mardi Gras Indians or Black masking Indians and roam the city's neighborhoods in dazzling hand-sewn suits. The tradition dates to the 1800s as a way to honor their ancestors and is rooted in profound respect for Native Americans said to have sheltered enslaved Africans who had escaped. It is an expression of joy, protest, and pride passed from generation to generation.
The suits are handcrafted in secret for an entire year to be unveiled on Mardi Gras day. The leader is known as the Big Chief who, along with his Big Queen and their crew, strut through historically Black neighborhoods searching for other tribes. When Big Chiefs meet, they square off in mock battle competing to show whose suit is the prettiest.
"When I put that suit on, I'm Big Chief Deman. Call it. Is that different from the Deman who's sitting here in front of me now? Yes, indeed."
Big Chief Deman and his wife Alicia sew beads the size of chia seeds on canvas and stitch rhinestones in place with dental floss. This year's suit tells the story of the Amistad, a slave ship seized by captive Africans in 1839. The panel shows when the Africans won their freedom in a case that went to the US Supreme Court, including John Quincy Adams as one of the lawyers. Big Chief Deman works from 6:00 in the morning to 12 at night every day. This year's suit cost $25,000.
Howard Miller, president of the Mardi Gras Indian Council and chief of the Creole Wild West, explains the culture was shaped by resistance to oppression. Enslaved people who escaped New Orleans found refuge with Native Americans in the bayous. Masking began as a way to honor those indigenous tribes while disguising African identity, since everything about Africa was forbidden in the South. In 1969, it took 12-year-old Howard Miller six weeks just to get in the door of a Big Chief's house.
Joseph Pierre Budro, better known as Big Chief Monk of the Golden Eagles tribe, is one of the most respected Big Chiefs. At 84 years old, he is preparing for his 72nd year of masking. The working-class neighborhoods that sustain the tribes have been thinned and scattered by Hurricane Katrina and gentrification. Big Chief Monk sewed suits for his children and grandchildren for decades.
In the 1970s, Big Chief Monk was one of the first to marry Mardi Gras Indian chants to New Orleans funk. His albums earned two Grammy nominations. His son Joseph and grandson Jan often sang backup. Monk's daughter Winoa and grandson Marwan describe his impact on the culture as comparable to Michael Jordan's impact on basketball. There is not a person in New Orleans who sews an Indian suit who does not put on his music.
Big Chief Deman lost a house because he was so consumed with making his suit, yet he continued because he is preserving a culture. His suits and beaded portraits have been displayed in museums and galleries worldwide. This year's suit, which stood more than 10 feet tall and weighed 120 pounds, is currently on display at the Venice Biennale in Italy.
Big Chief Monk was diagnosed with cancer just before Mardi Gras and was too weak to march with his tribe. He came out on his porch to see the tribe off with the Mardi Gras Indians' most sacred hymn. He stated that if the tradition is not kept going, it will be lost forever and disappear not just from New Orleans but from America.
About 10 years ago, carcasses of great white sharks began washing up on beaches around Cape Town, South Africa, with their livers missing. The coastal waters around Cape Town had long teemed with great white sharks. Photographer and naturalist Chris Fallows used to see 250 to 300 different great white sharks a year. In 2010, a 15-foot great white was encountered while diving without a cage.
Marine biologist Alison Kock with South African National Parks began searching for clues when sightings dwindled. In 2015, divers sent photos of smaller shark carcasses with mysterious incisions. Tooth marks on the pectoral fins suggested the culprits were not human. The team encountered orcas feeding in the area where carcasses were found.
Great whites began washing ashore with their livers missing. The liver is the most calorie-dense organ, taking up almost a third of the shark's body. David Hurwitz, a whale-watching tour operator, was the first to see two distinctive male orcas hunting and killing sharks. He named them Port and Starboard because both had collapsed dorsal fins, one to the left and one to the right. They hunt sharks for their livers as a pair, unlike most orcas that hunt in pods.
Scientists believe Port and Starboard might be teaching other orcas how to hunt sharks. In 2022, drone footage captured five orcas working together to kill a great white. Alison Kock maintains the presence of these hunters has chased great whites further along the coast, but insists the overall population in South African waters is stable.
Italian marine biologist Enrico Gennari, who has been researching great whites in South Africa for 20 years, disagrees that the population is stable. He points out that in California and Australia, great whites returned after orca attacks, but in South Africa they are not coming back. Both Gennari and Chris Fallows argue that humans are ultimately to blame, documenting the impact of commercial fishing boats on smaller shark species that are a staple of the great whites' diet.
Shark long-lining robs great white sharks of food. Shark nets and baited hooks, used since the 1950s to protect swimmers, kill more than 20 great whites a year. Gennari would like to see alternatives like underwater magnetic fields or smaller mesh nets. South Africa was the first country in the world to protect the great white shark in 1991, but Gennari fears it may be the first country to lose them.
Since a moratorium on commercial whaling was enacted in the 1980s, humpback whales have made a remarkable comeback. Chris Fallows has shifted his focus to photographing humpback whales, citing this as an example that conservation efforts can work when pressures on animals are removed.
In 2009, the largest cave passage in the world was revealed in Vietnam, called Hang Son Doong or Mountain River Cave. British explorer Peter MacNab led the first team through this epic underworld of caverns the height of skyscrapers. Sunbeams cascade 120 stories from a break in the ceiling.
The only way to Son Doong is on foot, a trek of a day and a half. The party of 53 included porters, experts in safety and climbing. There were 20 river crossings through limestone in the Chu Son Range between Laos and the South China Sea, following the Vietnam War's Ho Chi Minh Trail through jungle where tigers are not unknown and leeches are plentiful.
Howard Limbert, whose work in Vietnam over 30 years discovered 500 caves, sent Peter MacNab to be the first in Son Doong. In 1990, villager Ho Khanh discovered the entrance after sheltering from a storm. He felt wind blowing out of the ground, which cavers know is the breath of a tremendous cavern. In 2000, British cavers asked Ho Khanh to show them, but it took 8 years for him to find it again in the trackless jungle. In 2008, he finally found it.
In 2009, exploration began inside the cave looking back toward the entrance above. The first obstacle is a spectacular 30-story wall that the climbing team descended. Darkness was nearly total, but lights revealed the environment. Peter McNab was the first to descend in 2009 with four others on his team.
There's an obvious big black hole where you're heading towards and you just sort of skirt around and look around and find this way is pretty good. This way works. Quite often you get stopped, can't get down here. You just basically feel your way through the cave by trial and error.
The team had no idea what lay beyond the light on their helmets. Every corner revealed something new and exciting, with the cave getting better and better as they progressed.
At the bottom of the climb, the team met the architect of Son Doong: the Brow Tongue River. Its waters are acidic, making it effective at dissolving limestone. Purdue University geologist Daryl Granger arrived in 2010 to determine when the river began its work.
We found a nice package of sediment further in the cave. And that dated to about 2 and 1/2 million years ago.
That's when the river first found a tiny crack in the limestone ridge, perhaps the width of a hair. The water started flowing through it, dissolving it larger and larger. The cave continues to grow today as water flows through it.
The exploration took 3 days and two nights. The cave's length is 5.6 miles. It is 65 stories tall and the width of 1.5 football fields. The Great Pyramid of Giza would fit easily inside. A 747 could fly through the biggest passage without scraping a wing.
Sometimes the only way forward was the width of a person's shoulders. In the broadest caverns, explorers often lose the sense of being underground. The isolation reminds them of their location: no cell phone, no satellite, cut off from the world.
Roughly halfway through, there was a light ahead from two skylights where the roof had collapsed. Geologists call these holes dolines, a word with European roots meaning sinkhole or depression. The doline formed because the limestone roof was thinner here than elsewhere in the cave. As the cave grew wider over millions of years, it could no longer support the roof, which collapsed.
The doline allows light into the cave that would otherwise be utterly dark and permits the jungle to grow inside. This doline is 450 feet above, about the height of a 45-story building.
Howard Lambert has explored Vietnam since the 1990s. When producer Nicole Young suggested the story, the response was initially dismissive, calling it just a hole in the ground. Lambert countered that it was the best adventure in the world, something no one had seen before.
The beauty of caves. If you climb a mountain, you can see where you're going. But in a cave, when you go in, you don't know what it's going to do.
Peter McNab's father was a caver in Scotland. McNab has been caving since he was a boy, growing up within a mile of a cave. He works as a construction manager in New Zealand on big projects like hospitals, but does that to pay for caving.
McNab's closest call came when he got stuck headfirst in a crevice called a squeeze. A partner found him and used a knife to rip away his coat to give him the spare half inch needed. He was pulled out by his feet.
McNab and his team return every two years and have barely scratched the surface of the caves in this area. There may be another biggest cave in the world. McNab's 2009 expedition never reached the end of Son Doong. Beyond an underground lake, he discovered a 30-story wall and ran out of time before scaling it.
The team climbed a 300-foot wall on slick rock with no foothold anywhere. It was challenging enough until realizing it was done in the dark with groundwater coming from the roof, essentially raining. With everything wet, climbers found themselves slipping back while climbing up.
After nearly all the miles of the cave over three days, the exit was visible but required another climb. Son Doong may be even larger than known. Hundreds of feet below the lake, water drains somewhere, suggesting more caverns beyond. The cave is the work of millions of years and likely to continue for millions more.
Western Colombia's mountains contain some 2,000 bird species, more than anywhere else on Earth, due to diverse geography and surprisingly because of war. Decades of fighting among the Colombian government, left-wing guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries, and narco traffickers made some areas so dangerous few people could go there, preserving bird habitat.
Since the 2016 peace deal with FARC, the largest left-wing guerrilla group, it has become safer to travel. All those bird species and untouched forests have become important to a growing ecotourism industry bringing millions of dollars to Colombia's economy. Bird watchers are flocking there hoping to glimpse species found nowhere else.
On the western slope of the Andes Mountains lies Tatama National Park, a vast stretch of lush rainforest with powerful rivers. This is one of the wettest places on Earth. Hidden in the vegetation are birds with colors as vivid as their names: the blue-gray tanager, the cinnamon flycatcher, the purple-throated woodstar.
Diego Calderon Franco is one of Colombia's most famous birding guides. He spotted a male violet-tailed sylph and identified the velvet-purple coronet as the star of the area. Two hummingbirds fighting over territory were identified as Empress Brilliant males.
Hummingbirds look cute, but they are real warriors. They will fight for resources all day long.
Diego imitates bird calls, including the Munchique wood wren. He compared being a bird guide in Colombia to being an explorer during the Victorian age because troubled pasts allow finding new species in isolated mountain ranges.
We tend to think that we have explored it all, that we know every corner of the planet, and it's not the case.
The presence of illegal armed groups prevented people from slashing and burning habitats. More than 450,000 people were killed during decades of fighting, most of them unarmed civilians. 50,000 people were kidnapped.
In 2004, Diego and two colleagues were seized by FARC while on an expedition. They didn't believe the group were bird watchers and biologists. While held hostage, birders around the world called for their release. The kidnapping became monetary, with ransom requested.
Diego was held for 88 days, 3 months. He stayed sane by watching birds, scribbling notes about what he saw on scraps of cigarette paper. He saw a Slatey Finch for the first time and made a drawing noting it was his first sighting while kidnapped.
His father scraped together about $30,000 to free him. Three years after release, Diego started leading birding tours.
Michelle Topazco owns a farm at the entrance to Tatama National Park. Her family moved there in the 1990s to escape violence by right-wing militias, not realizing FARC was active there. In 2008, FARC kidnapped and killed her partner. She had five daughters to support and considered leaving but stayed to build a lodging business.
People told her she was crazy and no one would give her a single peso for her project. Now, thanks to birders, she has fixed up the place and rebranded it as the Montazuma Rainforest Eco Lodge. Much food for guests is grown on the premises, and she ensures nourishment for the hummingbirds.
Colombia is home to more than 160 species of hummingbirds, the only birds that can fly forward, up, down, and backwards. They move their wings 80 times per second.
After the 2016 peace agreement, nearly 10,000 FARC fighters gave up their guns. Diego introduced former captors to birding, thinking some might make good forest guides. When going birding with former FARC combatants, they forgot their past identities. Birds have healing power.
Marcos Gua was once a FARC guerrilla and is now a photographer. Diego helped him get his first job. Bird watching became a doorway into conservation and a way to generate income.
At Michelle's lodge, Gary George and Joseph Brooks from Los Angeles were encountered. They have a life list approaching 8,000 of the roughly 11,000 bird species worldwide. Brooks has about 50 birds tattooed on his body, including a satin bowerbird from Australia and a red-crowned crane from Japan.
They were searching for the elusive Chami antpitta, which they finally heard and glimpsed after two prior trips. George described it as finding a jewel, being present in the moment with everything else falling away.
Worldwide, 60% of bird species are declining due to logging, agricultural expansion, and economic development. Michelle is working to buy more land to preserve for birds. Her daughters are pursuing careers in biology, forestry, birding, and conservation.
They have given me everything I have, everything I am, everything my daughters are today.
Two of Michelle's daughters married birders. On the final day, the group glimpsed the gold-ringed tanager, a species only living in this part of the Andes. It is a keystone species for seed dispersal, chewing berries, traveling away from parent plants, and defecating seeds.
Now you belong to a higher cult of mortals for you have seen the gold-ringed tanager.
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