GATES: In the Jordanian desert,
a mythical city lost for 1,500 years is sharing its secrets,
while deep inside a New Zealand cave,
a mesmerizing light glows through the darkness.
And in Fiji, a South Pacific paradise
preserves the history of cavern-dwelling cannibals.
I'm Josh Gates.
I've traveled millions of miles and explored
over 100 countries.
Lost city, here I come.
And my favorite destinations have epic tales to tell.
These are the stories and the secrets of those
"Legendary Locations."
There are few things that excite my imagination
as much as legends of lost cities --
whispers of undiscovered ancient ruins
swallowed by the jungle or buried by desert sands.
But more often than not, these stories are just that --
nothing more than tall tales, except when they're not.
In the deserts of Southwest Jordan,
there is a 2,000-year-old city
that was once hidden from the outside world,
a marvel of engineering and artistry
literally carved out of solid rock.
And even though this legendary location has been found,
it turns out it's in danger of being lost all over again.
♪♪
It's morning in the Wadi Musa Valley of Jordan,
but the rays of the sun haven't yet found what locals call
"The Siq,"
a narrow, 3/4-mile-long slot canyon
with 250-foot-high walls.
Nearly half a million visitors
will file through this shadowy passage each year,
because at the end is something extraordinary --
Petra.
In Arabic, the name simply means "rock,"
but there's nothing simple about this elaborate,
stone-cut city,
which was crowned one of the new Seven Wonders of the World.
Odds are you recognize this place,
so let's clear up a few misconceptions.
No, the Holy Grail isn't actually hidden here,
and the inside of the treasury isn't booby-trapped
or guarded by an ancient knight.
In case you thought the final scenes
in "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade"
were based in reality, they're not, sadly.
Petra dates back about 2,300 years.
The soft sandstone allowed the original builders
to carve a vast infrastructure into the desert rock,
complete with an amphitheater, a monastery,
and a sophisticated water-delivery system of pipes
and aqueducts to serve the nearly 30,000 people
who lived, worked, and traded here at the city's peak.
300 BC.
Petra sits at the crossroads of Africa and Asia,
an area riddled with trade routes
and largely controlled by the Nabataean Empire.
It's therefore the perfect place
to build a thriving capital
and a center of commerce.
The wealthy Nabataeans ruled supreme here
until a Roman conquest in the early 2nd Century.
The city changed hands, but continued to thrive --
that is, until two devastating earthquakes
in 363 and 551 AD took Petra down.
Suffering severe damage,
the citizens were unable to rebound or rebuild.
And due to its isolation, in the centuries that follow,
Petra is largely forgotten by the outside world.
Petra might still be lost to history
had it not been for an ambitious 27-year-old Swiss explorer
named Johann Ludwig Burckhardt.
Born in 1784, his passion for this region
led him to learn Arabic and study the Qur'an.
Soon, he's able to pass himself off
as Sheikh Ibrahim Ibn Abdallah.
In 1812, while on a journey to Egypt,
he hears rumors of magnificent stone ruins
in a nearby desert valley.
Bedouin tribes had kept the location hidden from infidels.
But Burckhardt is in disguise, and he's able to hire a guide
who leads him into the narrow canyon of The Siq,
and the lost city of Petra is found by the outside world.
Today, archaeologists believe they've excavated
less than a quarter of the tunnels inside this mountain.
But time, rain, and especially the site's location
on an active seismic fault
are opening cracks and dislodging boulders,
meaning Petra is in danger of being lost once more.
The next severe quake could block The Siq entirely,
and falling rocks are a danger
not only to the historic monument,
but also to visitors.
Now a team of experts supported by the Italian government
and UNESCO have answered the call to save Petra.
DELMONACO: Fabio, look at the cracks.
The movement of this rock
can affect the stability of the monument.
That's why we are trying to do all this work to preserve
the monument, to preserve Petra.
GATES: To stabilize the rock, the team will need
to undertake a perilous journey
high into the canyon,
retracing the steps of the engineers
who built Petra over 2 millennia ago.
The other part of the mission is to teach Jordanians
the techniques needed to regularly maintain and safeguard
their most iconic archaeological site.
Today, the team is targeting a particularly dangerous boulder
overlooking an area with heavy foot traffic.
To get their gear into position, the team calls on the only 4x4s
capable of making the trip -- donkeys.
After the steep 250-foot climb, they get to work
securing the boulder,
being careful not to dislodge it
by jarring loose the surrounding smaller stones.
No pressure, guys -- just a couple thousand people
and a world wonder below you.
DELMONACO: Wait, wait, wait.
Drop!
♪♪
GATES: In Jordan, the iconic rock-carved city of Petra
has stood for millennia
at the end of a desert canyon called The Siq.
But the canyon is crumbling.
So an international team has assembled
to avert possible disaster
and save the once-lost city from being restricted to visitors.
♪♪
DELMONACO: Wait, wait, wait.
Oh, oh, oh.
Okay.
Okay, there.
Perfect.
♪♪
GATES: What was once a place where ancient cultures came to trade
is now a site that draws people from all over the world,
both visitors and experts,
working to ensure that this wonder carved in stone
is never lost again.
And 10,000 miles to the southeast,
there's another hidden spot that holds a fantastic secret.
The island nation of New Zealand is home
to otherworldly landscapes
that earned the country a starring role
in "The Lord of the Rings" films.
But there's a real location in the town of Waitomo
that's worthy of Middle-earth itself,
because deep underground, in nearly pitch-black waters,
you might just catch sight of something downright magical.
♪♪
Welcome to Waitomo on New Zealand's North Island,
about 120 miles from Auckland.
30 million years ago,
these green, rolling hills were underwater,
part of the surrounding Tasman Sea.
But millennia after millennia of volcanic activity
brought the ocean's mysteries closer to the surface,
just waiting to be discovered.
In the early 17th Century,
a Maori boy is out hunting for birds
when he comes across a cave.
Curiosity quickly turns to fear
when he learns he's stumbled upon the home
of a pack of wild canines.
The boy escapes, and the cave earns the name "Ruakuri,"
Maori for "den of dogs."
For centuries, locals steer clear of the caves,
believing they could be portals to the underworld.
But in 1887, a local Maori chief, Tane Tinorau,
and surveyor Fred Mace venture inside.
Outfitted with little more than candles
and a sense of adventure,
they encounter no dogs guarding these feared gates to hell,
but, instead, a creature
that resembles the stars
in the heavens.
Scientific name -- Arachnocampa luminosa,
and, no, that's not a hex from the Hogwarts Book of Spells.
It's the glowworm, which is actually a species
of fungus gnat found only in New Zealand.
In larval form, the gnats produce waste called
"luciferin,"
which mixes with oxygen to create an otherworldly glow.
It's how they lure their prey,
along with half a million people a year.
Most visitors come just to catch a firsthand glimpse,
but others aim to bring Waitomo's glowworms
to the world.
Award-winning nature photographer Shaun Jeffers
has traveled from his native Liverpool
to do just that.
He wants to see how deep the glowworms go,
hoping to capture shots of them
in a rarely accessed part of the cave.
He'll be getting a helping hand from expert local guide
and caver Logan Doull.
Hey, hey. How's it going? All right.
All right? All right, cool. Let's do it.
Logan and Shaun have secured special permission
to access a remote corner of the caverns identified
as a potential glowworm hotspot.
The next step is actually getting through the entrance.
Ohh. Going in there?
Yeah. It's watertight.
Not many people get to this part of the cave.
♪♪
Getting images of glowworms anywhere in this cave
is challenging.
Stunning though their glow may be in person,
capturing it on camera requires long exposures
and hours of hard work
in the tunnels that gave Waitomo its name.
"Tomo" is the Maori word for "sinkhole,"
and "Wai" means "water,"
the bone-chilling kind.
♪♪
Oh, and if that weren't enough, perhaps I forgot to mention
that the frigid water
is also full of giant eels.
This guy here is just a small one.
Well, at least they're on the right path.
They've spotted their first glowworms.
It's moving and glowing!
♪♪
Logan and Shaun trudge through the limestone,
made from 30-million-year-old fossilized marine life.
This cave was once submerged by the sea,
and the glowworms are remnants from that time,
one of the few bioluminescent creatures
to survive outside of water.
And the best way to appreciate just how extraordinary they are
is seeing them in their environment, up close.
♪♪
GATES: Underneath New Zealand's lush landscape
is a legendary location
lit only by glow-in-the-dark worms.
Today, a renowned photographer is venturing
into a rarely-accessed corner of the Waitomo Cave system
to capture their light on camera.
♪♪
I know you can't see them yet, but trust me, you will,
and they're worth the wait.
The trick to photographing glowworms
is knowing just the right camera position,
shutter speed, and lighting.
But the most important thing of all is patience.
With the long exposure sometimes taking up to six minutes,
you have to keep perfectly still.
Easier said than done down here,
when the cave's other residents are slithering in the water.
All right, hold steady. Three minutes.
Let's do it.
Whoa. Did you feel that?
No way!
♪♪
These New Zealand long-finned eels
can grow to more than five feet,
and they're not shy about wrapping themselves
around visitors' legs.
♪♪
Ah, look at this.
That's real nice.
Wow.
Ha-ha!
Are those glowworms? Yeah.
What do you think? Have you got it?
[ Laughs ] Beautiful. Is that it?
That's it, yeah. Award-winning shot?
I think we nailed it. All right.
[ Camera shutter clicks ]
♪♪
See, I told you it would be worth it.
These legendary cave-dwelling worms of Waitomo
really are a luminous sight...
once you can actually see them.
That cave may be dark, but 1,400 miles away
is another South Pacific cave that's even darker --
mostly because of its history.
This is Fiji, an archipelago of more than 300 islands
that's renowned as a tropical paradise.
And, in many ways, it is.
But one of its islands hides an underground layer,
home to unimaginable horrors of the Hannibal Lecter variety.
♪♪
Fiji's largest island, Viti Levu,
is full of stunning landscapes,
perhaps none more so than the area
surrounding the sleepy village of Sautabu,
along the Sigatoka River.
This region is filled with such lush vegetation,
it's often called the "salad bowl."
Which is a little ironic, considering that
the, uh, cuisine served up here for about 2,500 years
was anything but vegetarian.
Yep, this region was once home to cannibals.
Local tribes used the grisly practice, not to satisfy hunger,
but to consume the souls of their enemies.
And some consumed more than others.
One chief had a stone for every man he ate,
and there were about 900 in his collection.
Due to Fiji's isolation, for centuries these tribes
and their appetites were relatively unknown
to the outside world --
until, in 1867, when a Methodist missionary
named Thomas Baker found out the hard way.
His effort to convert Fijian tribes to Christianity met
with a fate fit for nightmares.
Today, the practice is long gone.
But locals haven't forgotten their dark history.
They still take visitors to the last place
where the horrors happened, a legendary cave called Naihehe.
Mark Nagata is a descendant of the Sautabu tribe
that once lived there,
and has taken people to see the cave for years.
And Lyle Norman has made the trek here,
interested in seeing first hand
what this ghoulish location is all about.
About a mile of thick jungle separates
the village from the Naihehe cave,
which also happens to be the country's largest.
This is where the Sautabu people retreated in the 1860s
when Christian missionaries like Baker
and their converted tribal enforcers were closing in.
It was a good choice for a hiding place.
Even the name warns outsiders to stay away.
Lost? Yeah.
Lost. Yeah.
♪♪
Okay.
In almost knee-deep water, they slip under the overhang.
On the other side is another world
made up of a dark maze of passages.
Soon, they emerge into a huge central chamber.
♪♪
This cave is amazing.
Can't believe what I'm seeing right now.
[ Bats chirping ]
Back when it was in full operation,
the only outsiders who saw this place
were in a world of trouble.
♪♪
Legend holds the Sautabu hid out here for 79 days,
living on whatever, and whoever, they could find.
They were the very last holdouts against the missionary cause,
and anyone who made the mistake of approaching their hideout
ended up in hot water...
literally.
♪♪
GATES: Fiji's largest island, Viti Levu,
was once a hive of cannibals --
a dark history stretching back 2,500 years.
And today, a descendant of the last cannibal tribe
is taking a visitor into the cave where the horrors happened.
♪♪
The Sautabu tribe, like others across the island,
killed their enemies with clubs, cooked them,
and then ate them with special cannibal utensils.
The only remains of missionary Thomas Baker
were the soles of his shoes,
which legend says was the one part of him too tough to eat.
But here on Viti Levu, Christianity eventually won out,
and the final cannibal holdouts were converted.
Come on, Lyle. We'd better go.
Mark and Lyle make their way back through the dark caves
of Fiji's past,
and toward the light of its present.
Today, Fiji is living up to its reputation
as an island paradise,
without turning a blind eye to its history.
Many of the world's most legendary locations
were once hidden away, from epic cities veiled by secret canyons,
to glowing wonders that pierce the darkness,
and caves that conceal a gruesome past.
And who knows what other secret places still remain lost,
just waiting to be found?
I'm Josh Gates.
Travel adventurously, and I'll see you next time
on "Legendary Locations."