Original subtitles

[Narrator] There is an eternal quest for paradise.

It always starts in purgatory.

There is a place in Africa where there was once a

vast lake, the largest on the continent.

It is the ancient birthplace of Man,

60,000 years ago.

A place where we cast our long shadows over the world

for the first time.

But the lake dried, condemning us all to wandering,

nomads in search of a new paradise.

It's now an annual journey to find the river,

a voyage to reconnect, to survive,

to thrive.

Every step we take is in the pursuit of one single thing.

Water.

It turns us all into fragile porcelain puppets

dancing to its whims.

Everyone wants something from this prize,

this treasure, this river of their dreams.

♪ Everybody's lookin' for something ♪

♪ Some of them want to use you ♪

♪ Some of them want to get used by you ♪

♪ Some of them want to abuse you ♪

♪ Some of them want to be abused ♪

Our story begins right here, in Southern Africa.

There are two kinds of rivers, male and female.

The ancients talk of this one 'lovingly' for her complexity,

the seductive sway of her shallow meandering course,

as she enters Botswana, and for her nurturing.

[snorting]

She is also dangerous,

a powerful and unpredictable river.

It's a place where someone's paradise is always someone

else's purgatory.

[mooing]

[snorting, grunting]

[growling]

[growling, mooing]

No one would have predicted that the lioness's day would

have ended just so badly.

The Paradise pride waits for days for their lioness.

Her shoulder is injured, her ankle shattered.

They finally leave her for dead.

[thunder, lightning]

The river itself has a back-story.

It takes a single raindrop at the source six months to

travel the course of her body.

Each is joined by another, and another until she comes alive

again each year.

[rainfall]

And so begins a journey that is legendary,

passing through the secret underwater

windows of the river.

It goes down the labyrinths of monsters.

Over the bones of those that didn't survive the last flood,

capturing their nutrients, passing them downstream to

those that can use them and on to one of the

greatest wonders of Africa.

It's a place where every action starts a reaction.

Like a well-crafted Stradivarius violin,

plucked at one end, it shivers on the other.

[birds chirping]

[leopard grunting]

Icy cold water keeps everyone on their toes.

But this nurturing river delivers miracles with as

much ease as she does disasters...

The injured lioness is slowly recovering her strength.

It's been weeks.

[growling]

The flood has come in, cutting the lion off from her pride.

She's finally gained enough strength.

But she's a lone huntress with a handicap.

But this weakened lioness has another reason for

staying alive.

Somehow the lioness has managed to keep them alive and

secured them in the deepest of reeds.

[meowing]

There is a phrase in Botswana:

"Fekeetsa di gkwetho"

it means: overcoming a handicap, a challenge.

So 'Feeketsa,' we will call her,

and her guide through paradise will be the river itself.

There is an unusual bird in the swamp,

one that unlike Fekeetsa leaves her young the minute

they hatch.

There are also nymphs living here,

flowers that offer up soft skirts each day,

to lull you into their beauty.

It sets the stage for some gangly chicks.

Day old African Jacanas already know where the food is.

And they get there on oversized feet.

The twins have no perception of danger beneath them.

But Jacana mothers always abandon their chicks as they

hatch, and leave them entirely in the care of the males.

[birds chirping]

With a coded chirp, he calls the chicks to him.

And tucks one under each wing to walk them out of danger.

Those that survive here are the ones that are most aware

of the sinister hiding in the beauty.

In an instant the Jacana family's floating home can

be destroyed by a giant.

[rumbling]

And so, it's off on a discarded island to the next location,

a vagabond's life for them.

[rumbling]

But in elephants, the river finds her perfect collaborator.

[rumbling]

They dominate everything, big and small

with each step they take.

They turn the swamp into a living mosaic.

Where elephants go, water follows,

down channels into streams feeding the river herself.

Without them, the river would simply silt up and disappear.

[rumbling]

It's the perfect partnership: she thrives on change,

and elephants provide that.

The 'freshwater plankton' they stir up connects

the entire underwater food web.

And then, the water starts to vibrate.

Another major force is on its way.

Catfish.

As the flood comes up, they come out of hidden pools and

channels in a frenzy.

It's a madness of fish and it disturbs everyone in the river.

[birds chirping]

Catfish are both hunters, and hunted.

But eventually, the catfish clean out the waters and have

to ride the wave the river provides them,

to new feeding grounds.

Tiger fish mop up behind them like hyenas

preying on the wounded.

But to drop your guard in these waters is a mistake.

As the river now sways through the deep papyrus she touches

one life after another and barely looks back

over her shoulder.

In the chilly mornings, her ghostly breath rises up

beyond her body.

When Feeketsa looks around it is at a shrinking territory,

as the land disappears under the rising water.

She and her cubs are prisoners on this island now.

Swimming across this fast flowing river

would be foolhardy.

Being in the water takes the weight off her broken ankle.

It eases her pain.

The surge of water has pushed lechwe antelope her way.

It's another test.

A temptation.

But running is impossible for her now.

With her injury Fekeetsa will have to

develop different skills.

So she starts to hunt from the water.

Today, it's not scarcity that's her problem,

it's abundance.

[growling]

Nomadic lions, also working the ever-changing flood.

[honking]

Today they have a male with them,

even more reason for Fekeetsa to stay hidden,

but their fate is in the hands of the river now.

The big lioness is successful.

But she's not comfortable in the water.

She's not a swamp cat.

But the threat to their kill doesn't come from in the water.

[growling]

[growling]

[growling]

[growling]

Wandering nomads are a constant threat to a

young mother and cubs.

Even though they came a long way for this,

they'll move on now.

The new water continues to flow strongly for nearly six months,

stretching her body, making it youthful and powerful.

Just downstream from Feeketas' island the river passes

through fields of waterbird rookeries.

[chirping]

[chirping]

[chirping]

The dynamic river suddenly pools and spills,

tempting bull hippos to gather like gladiators only to

discover that she will suck the pool dry and move on again,

a fickle queen that seems hell bent on

entertainment at their cost.

[grunting, growling]

[grunting, growling]

At night a whole new world exists in the stream.

The diamonds at the feet of giants are an outbreak of

Scavenger beetles.

They've been revived from months in hibernation in the

mud and released by the flood into a frenzy,

to find that ideal mate in a crowded pond

while they have time.

One of Africa's smallest primates now has a problem.

The flood has trapped them on a tiny island.

The bush baby has adapted perfectly for this exact

moment with huge eyes for stereoscopic vision.

But those eyes are so big that to move its eyes it has to

move its entire head.

But perhaps its best adaptation is a behavior

generally frowned upon in our culture,

they urinate on their hands, for that extra stickiness to

hunt and leap around the forest at night.

As the Okavango ebbs and flows,

it leaves exposed sand banks, an invitation to a rare

African Skimmer family.

Despite the odd clumsy take off,

African Skimmers are some of the most elegant birds on the

wing and when they take to the air it's to start fishing.

And it's with aerial precision.

It is high-risk fishing.

They blindly "feel" for fish with their extended bottom

beaks, and if they detect one, they grab it.

If it's too big they can snap a neck.

[hissing]

[chirping]

[chirping]

[chirping]

Their 'endangered' status doesn't matter to the river as

she drifts on again, peeking into the intimate lives of one

family and moving on to the next with no judgement.

Fekeetsa, is one of those who is struggling to make it

against all odds.

She tests the breeze on her face.

The satisfying scent of prey.

Another disadvantage of living on a small island in the

Okavango is that even the prey starts to

recognize your handicaps.

But she isn't hunting them today.

She's meticulously searching for something else.

It's the season of Lechwe births.

[bleating]

To keep her young alive she has stolen someone else's.

[cub squeaking]

For the lions, it's a real story of overcoming challenge.

Now the river changes faces completely.

As a part of her leaves Fekeetsa and her success

behind, we follow her droplets downstream.

The first indication of this costume change is a different,

almost hesitant flow.

It is her second act.

She morphs into a slow drifting realm on top of a

bed of sand, the same Kalahari desert sand she once covered

as an ancient lake, now well beyond the reaches

of the Okavango.

The sudden change in water speed,

deposits nutrients that now feed everything as the river

flattens and spreads out.

And then she hits a wall.

A wall of thousands of island in a flat landscape.

It is the first sign of her weakness,

and she wallows now in limbo, uncertain,

searching for direction.

But the secret to this transition from

Paradise to Limbo

lies at the very center of each and every island.

There are forces at work down here,

building underground fortresses,

blockades against the rising water table.

Termites!

They fight back her strength with saliva and calcrete.

And it works.

But once a year, these termites start their nuptial dances.

They flush from underground homes to fly and within seconds,

find a mate before they can be eaten.

Downstream in this realm of limbo a male lion awakens to

the flutter of millions of termites.

This mating dance fills the air and starts one of the

most magical relationships in nature.

One that dominates the entire story of the Okavango as she

becomes a delta, because while millions don't make it,

millions do.

They land at the feet of giants and start to build

towering castles of clay right across Northern Botswana.

Trees attach themselves,

stabilizing these islands even more.

[chirping]

When carmine bee-eaters get restless it's because they can

smell the water and they sense the exploding air

that's coming.

[thunder, lightning]

Dry storms flash messages of a different opportunity for them.

The Carmines follow the smoke to the intense

forced flush of insects.

It's a dance with death.

The exploding oil-packed reeds are the fire to the flood that

makes up the duality of the Okavango.

The fire cracks seeds open and hands them over to the river,

to tumble down, and to settle on termite mounds.

The mounds grow and flatten into the ideal high ground for

male lions to thrive on, working their hunting grounds,

strutting their dominance.

These islands are an opportunity for some.

A hyena family has been busy renovating an old den they found.

It may not look like much but it is dry,

and with multiple rooms for the different sized cubs.

Their cuteness has been reserved for when

they are very young.

And they soon grow out of it.

[sniffing]

Someone else is eyeing these secret chambers today.

And quite simply moves in.

[squeaking]

And then they come to some kind of agreement

on a working solution.

Hyena den during the day and at night when they are out

hunting the warthogs are in residence.

The advantage of this unusual arrangement is that there is

always someone with a different sleep cycle on watch.

[snorting]

The reason for the warthog's sheer determination to be

close to the hyenas is soon revealed from the catacombs.

[squeaking]

[snorting]

In just a few weeks warthog numbers more than double.

Their evolved tactic is to flood the plains and confuse

the predators with so many choices.

Having one baby at a time would be a mistake.

[squealing]

[growling]

So while he fights an impossible battle,

his siblings are guaranteed a few more days at least.

[squealing]

This face of the river may seem to be a dispassionate one

but she teaches us to understand,

that the odds don't always favor the bold and the brave.

Soon she is at full capacity.

But the perfection of this river,

is that halfway through the year,

just as she is at her peak, it is the Southern Hemisphere

winter and grazing starts to brown.

[rumbling]

[rumbling]

It triggers a massive movement of wildlife from the drying

rainwater pools away from the delta straight towards her.

[splashing]

[rumbling]

As elephants charge around, they bash open paths,

but once again, it works in her favor,

it gives her the opportunity she has been waiting for.

The river floods in around the termite mounds islands,

winning ground, changing direction, unblocking,

staying alive, and keeping everything else alive too.

Sated by fresh floodwater, elephants turn to something

highly sought after, up ahead of them on those islands.

They don't seem to mind being crowned by rock hard nuts.

Those seeds germinate in the perfect incubation 'oven',

in an elephant's gut, and then afterwards are deposited for

the river to nurture even further.

[trumpeting]

Long lines of palm trees, whole islands are 'planted'

like this by elephants and the river working together.

The palm and termite islands also attract one of the

most endangered canines,

the painted dogs.

Today the Zarafa pack is not happy.

They have a small problem.

[squeaking]

Usually only the alpha female is allowed to breed,

but someone slipped by them this year and

two females fell pregnant.

So they have 16 small problems!

And it's affecting family life because the alpha dog

has simply kidnapped all the puppies.

But she's struggling to feed them.

She refuses to share the burden or abandon any pups.

[rumbling]

The exhausted dogs barely give way to a bull elephant off a

sugar high from a palm nut binge but they simply cannot

ignore the nagging alpha female.

She needs food for her pups.

[squeaking]

Painted dogs test everything.

It's a strategy to find weaknesses.

If they don't see it quickly, they move on.

It's also a tactic of bait and switch,

divide and conquer.

[snorting]

The alpha male calls it.

They just don't have the energy now.

And there will always be someone else in trouble.

[squeaking]

There is a single rare antelope who risks

crossing the river today.

He is so rare that he's one of a kind.

There has never been another like him seen

anywhere in the world.

Ever.

His mother was a lechwe.

But his father was a waterbuck.

So we'll call him a "Wachwe" in honor of both parents.

What the pack doesn't know is that if they succeed today

they will have killed the only "wachwe" on the planet.

But he's not a complete loner, he's found his half-brother.

A real waterbuck.

And the reason the desperate pack doesn't just chase in

after them now, is because the river has given the antelope

some prickly guardians.

[snorting]

The two antelope possibly chose the hippo pool for this

exact reason and they find safety in limbo somewhere

between the riverbank and the deeper water.

[bleating]

[squeaking]

It's a standoff between an endangered predator and an

antelope that doesn't yet exist.

Hippos aren't always belligerent.

They sometimes, at least, "tolerate" company.

Black Egrets have a special technique of blocking out the

shine on the water, to catch fish disturbed by the hippos.

Small minnows come to forage, and craftily,

the egrets use their bright yellow feet as lures.

It's such a good tactic that a glossy ibis poaches under the

umbrella without any shame at all.

But the birds have to keep a wary eye out for things you

would least expect to be a threat to them.

The teenage lions of the pride test anything just for fun.

Both of the Limbo Males are following today,

an indication of trouble for someone.

Being down in the water-grass gets hot and confusing,

so these swamp cats take frequent breaks.

It's cool in the trees but these heavy-set lions have to

get that balance just right.

And it's not just the lionesses that can climb,

but he does stick out a bit.

He needs to get down fast or stay up, silently.

[mooing]

[snorting]

[mooing]

[roaring]

[mooing]

Now it's important for the male to be still.

As inconspicuous as possible!

[trumpeting]

Suddenly there are elephants in the mix,

and they're irate.

[mooing]

[trumpeting]

[rumbling]

On the left flank, some of the younger lions have

their own troubles now.

[growling]

[growling]

As the evening air cools, the river releases tiny nymphs

that have been waiting for a year under water.

It's a hatching the little Bee-Eaters know exactly

what to do with.

[insects chirping]

By dawn, the pride has regrouped behind the herd,

still on their island.

[mooing]

[snorting]

They're going to need something different today or

it will end up in the trees again.

It's going to take a hero.

An unlikely hero after yesterday's performance.

And then, just as the herd hits the first reeds and escape,

the second male flies into action alongside his brother.

[growling]

[trumpeting]

[rumbling, trumpeting]

[trumpeting]

When elephants smell death,

they react as if any death is personal.

Perhaps it is.

The Tuskless cow may have lost a calf of her own in the past.

[rumbling]

[trumpeting]

[growling]

And then without any obvious reason at all,

the herd suddenly settles down and allows the pride to feed.

[birds chirping]

Red billed quelea, in their millions start to flock at the

end of the flood.

These are the most abundant birds on the whole planet.

[chirping]

[wings flapping]

The battle of opposing forces, water and dry will change the

lives of the nearby leopard family.

[chirping]

There are two cubs.

A composed little female and her brother who is much more

interested in how things in the world work.

[buzzing]

He hasn't learned the dangers of being curious yet.

Bored with killer Bees, he takes to simply irritating his

more serious twin sister.

It's the season of the sausage tree flowers.

The ideal place for the twin's mother to hang out.

It's why we call her "Moporota" the local name

for sausage tree.

She's not resting, she's waiting.

[grunting]

[growling]

Rest is impossible, so within minutes,

she heads back to the trees.

[squealing]

She can't choose, so grabs up two piglets, one for each cub,

but the cries attract unwanted attention.

[laughing]

One is better than nothing in a place where what was

yesterday cannot be relied on tomorrow: in a realm where

even the water disappears around you.

[squawking]

Oxygen levels start to drop now.

The fish that recognize that turn and head back upstream.

And those that don't, and that leave it too late get cut off,

isolated in shrinking pools.

All the way to the end the river clutches to life.

The old Limbo male knows the pressure of disappearing water

better than most.

He was once a young male walking into someone's

territory expecting a fight, just like these new intruders.

He must either expel them immediately or fall victim to

a slow erosion of his authority.

[growling]

[growling]

[roaring]

[roaring]

Today he wins and casts them out into the wilderness with

his rebuke ringing in their ears.

There is no underestimating the power of one,

small niggling voice to get things going.

It's a ripple effect, a movement,

a race to not get left in this perpetual tension at

the end of the river.

[rumbling]

The air is so dry that it turns the grasses brittle

under their feet.

The elephants are now moving upstream away

from the stagnant water.

[rumbling]

[splashing]

[grunting]

This stage of the great river is all about movement.

Moporota can't move.

She's a great huntress but survival dictates that she

scavenges now.

What she finds is even bigger than she probably thought.

[flies buzzing]

Young hyenas, still nearly twice her size,

have had the same idea.

[laughing]

The Moporoto twins panic.

One to the tree, the other to the bushes.

[meowing]

The little male is safe.

But now she has a problem.

And it's largely one of communication.

She somehow tells him to stay in the trees but tries to

encourage the little female back from the bushes.

[grunting]

Her call should instill confidence that she owns the night.

[grunting]

Finally, the lost little female is convinced and

comes back to her mother.

[grunting]

[squawking]

[squawking]

[laughing]

[growling]

[meowing]

The little male is a lot more difficult to convince.

The horrors only he witnessed during the night will stick

with him, at least for a few moments while he figures out

exactly how to descend.

She's ready to ambush him,

so a little route change is necessary.

[branch cracking]

The river only exists because of the dry land it cuts through,

light from dark, wet from dry.

Paradise only real because of the inferno.

[grunting]

Catfish have evolved a way to breathe actual air,

but it won't be enough for them now.

Those on the top layer simply bake.

At this far end of life, a desert leopard ekes out

a living by finding the impossible.

Next week she may well be eating hippo.

[wind blowing]

The intense hot air rises and cools.

As it drops down the air triggers a cycle of the most

extraordinary contrasts.

It is the eternal journey of life from death,

water from dry and motion from the static stifling heat.

They run just on the promise of rain,

the collective hope of a river being reborn.

[thunder, lightning]

[rainfall]

And the dusty landscape is transformed by the water from

the river, this time not from the flood,

but having been sucked up over months and

deposited again from the sky.

It unlocks them all from purgatory.

Even the ancient lake beyond the river has a brief annual

revival, if only for a few days and just ankle deep.

[braying]

The zebras gather to find a mate,

eat salt, fight for the right to a herd and give birth in

the safety of thousands, before the journey back

to the heart of paradise.

A spectacular splash of pink arrives,

like the first smears on this perfect canvas.

Flamingos go where the best shrimp is served.

[squawking]

[squawking]

[squawking]

[squawking]

Within months they float away, a brightly colored figment of

our imagination.

It triggers a return for many to the heart of the river,

all on that perpetual quest for that one thing,

water.

Each of her droplets dances gleefully with the next,

reconnecting after a long journey like old friends,

meeting one another.

[growling]

And in her effervescence, we find meaning.

And we'd be right to be in awe.

Anything that dwarfs an elephant is humbling.

She is a philosophy and a reflection of our own

journeys in life.

The Okavango is part illusion, part dream and will only exist

in the real world into the future,

if we nurture her now,

as she has done for millions of years

and protect her, as a jewel.

♪ Sweet dreams are made of this ♪

♪ Who am I to disagree? ♪

♪ I've traveled the world and the seven seas ♪

♪ Everybody's lookin' for something ♪

♪ Some of them want to use you ♪

♪ Some of them want to get used by you ♪

♪ Some of them want to abuse you ♪

♪ Some of them want to be abused ♪♪

[music plays through credits]