Highway of the Sun, “Highway to the Sun”, “Bold Journey”,

“Before CNN, cam-corders, and communications satellites, the only way to view exotic locales was on real film that might take weeks or months to arrive from the far corners of the world. The raison d’etre for this program was to bring that film to the television viewer. Each week some adventurer would be asked to narrate his 16 mm home movies for the viewing audience. The film might be from the Amazon jungle or the arctic regions of northern Alaska.” Ran from 1956 to 1959.

“expedition search for The Highway of the Sun, the 10,000 mile Inca highway system”

“Inca activities implied or alluded to in the film: being “terrifically afraid of water” (11:19); building roads above watermark to avoid flooding (11:30); ditch irrigation system (11:39); burial rites of Peruvian (Inca?) kings (13:12); Inca troops using Chala as rest stop (14:40); running along highway to deliver food, supplies, messages (15:20); putting up wooden bridges over rivers (17:40); covering seats of Temple of the Sun with gold (19:13); collecting tolls from/keeping track of users of highway (19:40) . Chimu activities implied or alluded to in the film: smelting copper, gold and silver (10:11); storing water in reservoirs and letting water out periodically throughout the year (10:37). Quechua activities depicted in the film: loading mules for members of von Hagen expedition (18:15) Unidentified indigenous (presumably Quechua) peoples’ activities depicted in the film: two women wearing bowler hats explaining something to one of the members of the von Hagen expedition (16:20); herding llamas up steps in highway (19: 25).”