Mystery of the Nile

- Long before the heart of Africa was ever mapped

explorers were irresistibly drawn to this secret world.

Africa's greatest secret of all

for thousands of years was the source

of the world's longest river, the Nile.

The Nile is unique among the world's rivers.

Some call it the most important river on Earth

because it gave life to the first great civilization.

To a geologist like me, this desert

is a rich and productive environment.

Yet just a mile from the river,

I don't find a single living plant.

As long as 8,000 years ago,

farmers diverted water from the Nile

to irrigate their crops and made the desert bloom.

Without the Nile, there would have been no great pyramids,

no advanced civilizations with all its innovations

in language, art, and astronomy.

Each summer the water level of the Nile

rose several feet without a single drop of rain

falling in Egypt.

The early Egyptians built structures

to measure the rise of the river precisely,

but a few times in history,

the river mysteriously failed to rise

for several summers in a row,

causing famine throughout Egypt.

Every year the farmers watched the river

and wondered where does all this water come from?

This was the Nile's first great mystery.

In 1858, a British explorer set out

to solve the mystery of the Nile.

He proclaimed Lake Victoria

the one true source.

There was one minor problem, though.

He was wrong.

Lake Victoria contributes only a fraction

of the Nile's rivers.

The main source of the Nile

is in the rugged Highlands of Ethiopia.

The riches of Egypt are a gift from Lake Tana.

Over 80% of the Nile's water

comes from Ethiopia's Blue Nile and its tributaries.

My goal is to lead the first team

down the entire length of the Blue Nile

from here in Ethiopia

all the way to the Mediterranean, 3,000 miles.

I've brought my team to Lake Tana

for the expedition of a lifetime.

We reached the Ethiopian Highlands

just in time to witness a Christian procession.

- I went for the first time to Ethiopia,

and I trust Pasquale as our leader.

Yeah, he's one of the nine satyrs

who came from

- Pasquale has led expeditions to Mount Everest

and run many of the world's most violent rivers.

He knows very well what he's doing.

- We're here to attempt the first descent

of Africa's mightiest river, the Blue Nile.

I've hired some Ethiopian boatmen to be our cooks,

our helpers, and bodyguards.

We'll be heading into territory

few outsiders have ever seen.

The upper part of the Blue Nile

was first run and mapped in 1968

when a British Army expedition explored just this section.

They had many serious injuries.

One man died.

They found that the Blue Nile was crawling

with huge swarms of crocodiles.

They had 70 experts.

Pull back.

My team is mostly novices.

All right, you're in the water again!

Okay, get in, in the boat.

I'll really have to keep an eye

on our Egyptian scientist, Dr. Mohamed Megahed.

Mohamed, where's Mohamed?

- As a hydrologist, I spend my time indoors

in a laboratory.

Pasquale is worried about me, and so am I.

- Gordon Brown, our safety kayaker,

is the only one who will be with me

for the entire four month expedition.

Come by.

You grab these loops right back here

and pull yourself up on the boat.

I'll take you back to the raft or take you to the shore.

- All right. - Either way--

- Four years ago, Gordon was diagnosed

with a brain tumor.

It would have killed most of us,

but he fought it off with a year

of radiation and chemotherapy.

He's really a survivor.

Yeah.

- Saskia Lange is a journalist from Spain.

She's writing an article

about religion along the river.

The river travels through areas

with no roads, so I'll be able to study

indigenous people, people I could never meet

any other way.

Thank you very much.

Myriam Seco is our team's archeologist.

- Here, in the holy city of Lalibela,

the Ethiopians step down 40 feet into bedrock.

This church was chiseled out of one giant block of stone.

It's one of 11 carved churches linked by tunnels.

For 16 centuries, the Christians here

remained very closely aligned

to the Church in Egypt, 3,000 miles away.

I wonder how the Nile kept that connection alive.

Some people say that hidden

in these stone churches is the Ark of the Covenant,

the box that Indiana Jones was after.

The Ark contains the tablet engraved

with the Ten Commandments, the actual tablet given to Moses.

Is it really here?

Lalibela is the Eighth Wonder of the World,

or if it's not, it should be.

Just as the Christians in Lalibela carved

magnificent churches out of solid rock,

the Blue Nile River has been carving this huge canyon

through the Highlands of Ethiopia,

which the British named the Great Canyon of Africa.

The Scout helps, but it's deceptive.

From the air, it's really easy to forget

that it's the most dangerous river in Africa.

The aerial scout confirmed that the high water

had finally peaked.

It was time to start the expedition.

Gordon and I plan on being on the river

for probably more than four months.

This is Bahir Dar, and again, this is Lake Tana.

This is where we'll be putting in.

Here I was, leading the greenest bunch

of river rookies that ever climbed into a raft.

Keeping everyone on this expedition alive

is my greatest responsibility.

And then finally, to Tissisat Falls.

We will then go through this canyon,

which has a lot of Class 5 and such, white water.

Before we departed, Mohamed had a promise to keep.

- My grandfather is a farmer in Egypt.

He gets 100% of his water from the Nile.

I promised him when I go to the river source,

I would bring him a vile of holy water.

The Ethiopians treasure the Nile,

just as we do in Egypt.

As we head down the river,

the whole team is pumped.

Most of the wild rivers on every continent

have already been run.

Not the Blue Nile.

This is one of the last great river expeditions

left in the world.

No one has ever succeeded in running

this entire river from source to sea.

All those who've tried it have either died or given up.

As a geologist, these lava flows

have a certain fascination for me.

Lava flows like this one pinch the water together,

forcing all the water through a narrow channel,

creating huge rapids.

But the volcanic rocks are sharp as knives,

and our rafts are made of fabric.

This was Mohamed's very first swim in the Nile.

I kept a close eye on him.

There's a fine line between an exciting rapid

and a deadly one.

The rafts are really heavy,

so when the river gets to deadly to run,

we send one raft through empty,

and then we portage the rest of the gear.

One sure way to get a laugh in Ethiopia

is to carry a rubber raft on your head.

The Ethiopian Highlands were once carpeted in thick forest,

but just in the past 30 years, the Amhara tribe

have cut down 90% of the trees to make charcoal