The five places that changed my life: Valerie Taylor

PETRA, JORDAN

When we went to Jordan in 1974 for filming, it was Petra that had a profound impact on me. I remember riding my horse through a crack in the mountain and seeing this magnificent place expand before my amazed eyes. I was walking into the time before the Romans. I thought about how these people were visionaries, in the middle of the desert. They didn't cut down trees to build their city, they carved it out of the living rock. Petra was called the rainbow city because of the layers of colour in the sandstone.

NIZWA, OMAN

In 1974 on the same trip, I visited Nizwa, known as The City of Silver, in the middle of the desert in Oman. The women wore bright colours, rings in their nose and also on their toes. There was crystal clear water running down streams in every track in the city. This is why they call it the City of Silver, because the water was very clear. It was a walled city with only one entrance, like something from medieval Europe.

SEPIK RIVER, PAPUA NEW GUINEA

About 40 years ago, Ron (her husband and exploring partner who passed away in 2012) and I went by boat up the Sepik river in Papua New Guinea. There were so many villages – each had its own unique language. Many of the villagers didn't wear clothing, they wore leaves and sometimes just paint. You could have been there thousands of years ago and it would have been the same – it was like a time capsule. I saw how different the native culture was, how people once were. It was sad that the European culture seemed so desirable to them.

DURBAN, SOUTH AFRICA

In Durban, Ron and I were diving in a cage and tethered to it was a harpooned whale. In the cage, we were surrounded by hundreds of feeding oceanic white tip sharks which were attracted to the dead whale. Oceanic white tips are responsible for more human fatalities than all the other shark species together. I felt I was in a different world, completely at peace. Nothing around me, not the sharks, not the whales, not the ocean, seemed to have changed for a million, maybe 2 million years. It was pristine – a trip back in time.