An Interview with David Yetman of The Desert Speaks

David Yetman, host of The Desert Speaks, talks with APT

Q. This is the 13th season of The Desert Speaks. What makes this season stand out from previous ones?

A. This year, we ventured so much farther out than we had in the previous season, and any of the previous seasons before that. In the 12th season, we went to Argentina and some in Mexico. Last year, we spent a couple of weeks in Southwestern Bolivia filming the very high Altiplano Desert. In this part of the world, it is very cold and very dry, which is a wonderful combination. We also did a series of programs in southern Mexico in the states of Puebla and Oaxaca. In Puebla there is an extraordinary desert, probably one of the hot spots of cactus evolution. We also filmed three programs in Baja California, in addition to other programs that we filmed in the United States.

Q. What was your favorite episode to film in this series and why?

A. Well, certainly the most exciting were the three programs that we filmed in Southwestern Bolivia, beginning in the colonial city of Potosí. [This city] is about 13,500 feet above sea level and cold, astonishingly beautiful, and has a very interesting but sad history several hundred years of labor exploitation to produce silver. From there, we went into cactus country—the high desert, and ventured across the largest salt lake in the world called the Salar de Uyuni. It is about 100 miles across and there is no road. You just drive straight across this dry, salt lake. There is water in it sometimes, but it never gets to be more than a couple feet deep. It's astonishing to have a landscape consisting entirely of white, which we did.

We also spent a lot of time with Andean indigenous communities. We filmed one entire program about their potato farmers and quinoa farmers. We also filmed one in a geyser field, and we actually got lost one night! Our vehicles, which we had rented, did not have anti-freeze, and the temperature dropped down to below zero. We got lost in snowy mountain paths because we didn't have any heating in the vehicles and the windshields froze. Our driver, who in this case was one of our consultants, was an Argentine archaeologist, a brilliant fellow who knew the area very well. We ended up spending a very cold night. We knew we were near the geysers because in the very clear air we could see the mist coming, but we had no idea how to get there. It was quite an adventure and the most sensational landscape I'd ever seen. The programs we filmed reflect the clarity of the air and the conservative nature of the Quechua people.

Q. What will viewers learn from this series?

A. Viewers will have an opportunity to see places very few people get to see and to understand how people live in arid climates. Some of these places have very arid climates, only a couple inches of rain a year, and yet they are able to carry on their ancient traditions. In the valley of Tehuacán in Southern Mexico, viewers will see a place of cactus diversity that is almost hard to believe. There are 18 species of giant cactus just in that valley and there are people who have been living with them for thousands of years and have grown to accept them as part of their lives.

Q: Do you have any plans for a 14th season of The Desert Speaks?

A. Yes, we have already filmed in Southern Peru along the coast, where it virtually never rains. We also have a series that we have just completed on sand dunes in North America.

Q. Would you consider traveling to places other than North and South America?

A. Yes, we have every intention of making programs in the Numidian Desert in Southwest Africa next year. We hope to raise the funds to do that. And we hope to be able to visit all of the world's major deserts.

Q. You've been a longtime resident of the Southwest (and author/photographer of many books on the region). What is it about the Southwest that still draws you – and even continues to surprise you?

A: I'm a desert rat, and that's the only way that I can describe myself. I've lived in the Sonoran desert since 1961 and I've wanted to live there all my life. I've always been strangely attracted to both the desert, the Southwest United States and Mexico. I've spent much of the last 40 years in the Sonoran desert, and in both Mexico and Arizona. And the more I look at it, the more astonished and glad I am that I'm here. I'm lucky enough to be surrounded by desert life and desert heat.