Ep 1 - Ecuador Jungle Journal (WARNING: Spoiler Alert)

This is the daily journal Les wrote while on his Survivorman Journy. I read a little be decided to wait until it airs before i finish it off.

Survivorman ? The Amazon

The Beginning

It?s been a lifelong dream to head into the deep and dark Amazon jungle. It?s a place of legends. Impenetrable. Dangerous. Yet here I am. Living with the tribe considered to be the most violent people in the history of the world, where death rate was due to, up until just 40 years ago, 60% homicide. As recent as six months before this trip, there was a spearing raid on a neighboring village. The other 40%? Mostly caused by snake bites and jungle dangers. There are few grandparents among these people.
For three days I have been learning jungle survival from the elders of the Waorani tribe in the jungles of Ecuador; the headwaters of the Amazon River. Hunting with a blow-gun, shelter making to help keep me away from the snakes and spiders?and the ants, fishing with a small net, have all been part of my training. There have been late night dances and prayers, stories of jaguars?and of spearings. Until 40 years ago these people lived naked and by the spear in a culture based on vendettas and revenge.
Breakfast these past few days has been monkey meat and manioc. Sometimes ? its just manioc drink ? the elder women mush the manioc (like a potato) up with their hands ? then put it in their mouth for further mashing ? then spit it out and leave it overnight to ferment. In the morning I?m instructed to ?chug it down?, not to sip it. It?s actually quite good!
Now ? my guides ? Tomo and Kinta are poling me far upriver in a dugout canoe to drop me off alone for my seven-day survival odyssey. Here I go again! Seven days alone in some remote part of the globe without food or water or much in the way of survival items or shelter. Every time I start these journeys I wonder what I am getting myself into.
This time ? I am taking only a three foot piece of fishing line, a can of pop, one match with some fire ?dust?, a mosquito hat, and of course my multi-tool. The Waorani guides gave me a blowgun, machete and spear ? to survive as they say ?they?re way?. The two elder ladies; Anna and Ippa have offered to paint me up with jungle paint as a kind of good luck send off. So two waorani women over sixty who grew up in a culture of danger, death and killings (spearings) have me with my shirt off laughing at my body hair while they try to paint snake and stingray designs on me. Deep in the heart of the Amazon jungle.
Leaving me a dug out canoe in case I run into trouble, they are turning to float back downstream now. And I am turning to look into the thick wall of green. I am finally in the Amazon jungle. Now what.

Day 2

Two times a day there is a deluge of rain usually lasting 3 or 4 hours. It is raining now ? and there is no chance of getting a fire going in this. My week in training was magical. My time out here alone is not. The humidity is intense and unyielding, the jungle is incredibly dangerous, ominously lonely and has me on the edge of my senses constantly. I exist in a constant swarm of what are called sweat bees. Most of them don?t sting but they are all relentless, covering my face and neck as much as they can. My mind flashes images of jaguar every now and then. I?ve been in grizzly country, black bear and wolf territory and have never feared for my life. But here, a big cat like a jaguar may hunt a human as prey and all I have to protect me is a spear that I?ve never used!
At the end of this second day I still have energy. The lack of food hasn?t hit me too hard just yet. I chose to sleep on a bed of leaves in my dug out canoe last night, as it was just too late (and pouring rain) to bother with a jungle shelter. But I did not get much rest. It stopped raining but all night long huge moths tried to land on my face and when they weren?t there, vampire bats were trying to land on my nose. They have such sharp teeth and their saliva numbs the skin so you don?t feel them biting ? but you can wake up in the morning awfully sore ? not to mention the possibility of rabies.
But today I have made my jungle shelter out of various palm leaves and I will be two feet off the ground on my jungle cane platform. There is no time for a fire ? and anyway, everything is soaking wet.
As I collected material for my shelter, every step was one closer to a possible snake bite, or perhaps a sleeve will brush a branch and collect a maunyi, catterpiller or spider each with it?s own blend of highly toxic poison. A maunyi?? Oh ? that?s the waorani word for a two-inch ant with a bad temper and one of the most painful stings (and it bites too) in the jungle. My very first step from the edge of the river and into the jungle landed right beside one of these aggressive ants. So I filmed it and then cut it in half. It?s still going! Now it seems its relatives are looking for revenge as I watch hundreds of huge black ants gathering on some of my gear. The sting from a maunyi is likened to taking a pair of red hot scorching pliers, jamming them into your skin, squeezing as hard as you can, while twisting and they say the pain wont recede for at least five hours. Nice.
You cannot always end up in a survival situation in the best of shape. And this time I bring with me a debilitating hip injury from and adventure race I had run in the spring. I have to sit down often to succumb to the pain while trying to survive out here.
This jungle is an intensely noisy place. There is always something buzzing in your ear; kind of like mid June in northern Canada. My first two days have been rough.

Day 3

Though I awoke often to look over my shoulder into the pitch black jungle night often, it was still better than sleeping out in the open in the canoe. The moths and bats left me alone for the most part, likely because it poured heavily all night long. I?m sure I got a good combined two hours sleep! I filmed my morning monologue and was hoping to head out to try my luck at fishing by hand. No chance. It began to rain again and poured down heavy for at least four hours. So I made a judgement call. There is an abandoned old waorani hut down river that my guides had pointed out as we passed its location. My challenge is to survive out here and eventually make my way down river back to the tiny village. The first location was not ideal so I decided to move sooner rather than later to see if I could locate the hut. Of course as soon as I started the trek it stopped raining removing my reason for leaving. But just the same it was a good call to move. The trip down river was fairly uneventful. I am normally paddling a white water canoe down some wild river, so using a cane pole to steady a huge and heavy hollowed out balsa tree down a set of jungle river rapids is quite something else.
The hut is still here and still standing though it is crawling with army ants. It has a lot of leaks but it?s big ? about twenty by twenty with no end walls and a thatched palm leaf roof. There was even some left over firewood, damp but not wet.
It was time to use the fire ?dust? that I bought off the shelf marked ?survival supplies? at the department store. With my one and only match and many days of rain behind me a lot was riding on getting this fire going now. It worked! I don?t have much of a flame but the punky wood lying around here will keep the fire smoldering for many hours.
The hut is full of roosting bats who seem to enjoy peeing on me, but this fire should help to keep them away. It should also help to ward off snakes and jaguars.
So, here comes the night. I?m closer to the village now but this makes me more nervous. There are typically more jaguar close to a village because they come in for the dogs and chickens?and visiting tv producers. In truth, I am in a very vulnerable area. It is surrounded with salt licks which is where the Tapir love to hang out; the principal food of the jaguar.
Wow. Just got up to check out one HUGE toad hopping past me. Maybe he is coming to eat up these army ants. Colonies of army ants are the most numerous creatures in the jungle. They can be motoring along in a small column an inch or two wide, or they can cover a swath a mile wide and deep. And they destroy everything in their path. Many varieties of ?ant? wren follow them through the jungle feeding on them, so you can always tell where they are by the song of the wren.
Tonight, I sleep on leaves on the ground, which is not so good. For all intensive purposes I am still quite out in the open of the jungle and vulnerable to snakes, spiders, ants, scorpions, various creepy crawlies, peccaries and jaguars. There are even caterpillars here that can kill a person with one touch. I?ll remake my platform tomorrow. It?s getting quite dark now and all the sounds are new. I will have to get used to them all over again.

Day 4

A good day, but frustrating. I need food. So I tried fishing for catfish by hand. The idea is to wade into semi calm, murky water and shove your hand blindly into holes in a mud bank, hoping to grab a catfish. Problem; catfish are not the only creatures that can live there. First, there are a couple of types of catfish. The spiny catfish have extremely painful spikes that instantly infect if you get stuck buy them. Then there are electric eels. But worst of all is the creature that the waorani fear more than any snake in the jungle ? and trust me ? that is saying a hell of a lot - the fresh water stingray. They claim that there is nothing more painful and this river is full of them. Putting my hand blindly into the mud went against every instinct I have. Whether good or bad, I came up with nothing for my efforts except a very painful hip, which is acting up constantly due to the extreme damp jungle existence. I have had to rest constantly to handle the pain.
But I didn?t give up. I made a hook out of the pop can lid and put one of the hundred butterflies that land on me all day on it as bait. I used the three feet of fishing line and went back into the river to try my luck. I had a lot of little fish go at it but nothing big enough took a chance. I waded a long ways up river but still no luck.
Back at camp there are still red coals thanks to the punky wood smoldering all day. I?ve taken the rest of the pop can and used it as a pot for boiling ? what a treat hot water is! It makes you feel human again. I didn?t sleep much last night. Maybe tonight.

Day 5

As I woke up this morning I watched a pack of army ants killing a worm for breakfast. It became bait for me to use for more attempts at fishing. But again, no luck. And my energy level is getting quite low. It?s five days without food now and so I must stop every twenty minutes or so to rest after even the most basic of activities. Wading upstream for fishing is wearing me out.
But I?m still not beaten. I took the mosquito hat and using some rigid vine and some strips off my shirt I turned it into a fish net. There are lots of little feeder streams around here and they are a good place to catch small fish. But my hip injury is taking its toll as I walk through the jungle in the pouring rain. As well now, my foot has become infected with foot fungus. This could be bad.
Just the same I cut my way through the jungle, which included cutting through some pretty massive spider webs loaded with spiders, and crawled down into some three-foot wide streams. I shoved the net down into the muck and pulled it up to inspect the contents. Tiny fresh water shrimp! I also found and caught small tadpoles. But the frogs in this jungle are deadly poisonous and I didn?t know whether or not the tadpoles would carry the same poison so it wasn?t worth the chance.
Then came the downpour?again. This time it shut down yet another camera. I have never had a day where all my cameras worked yet. The humidity is killing them and it takes me ages to try to dry them out for use. I normally shoot with two or three cameras but here in the jungle I am reduced to only one and if you think about it ? if I lose the use of the cameras?.then what am I even here for!
In any event, with the cameras shut down I continued to gather shrimp and search the jungle for food. It was then, on my way back to camp in the pouring rain when I came upon an old abandoned ?crop?. Very hard to distinguish from the jungle around it but I knew that the one piece of delectable fruit I found is normally a cultivated fruit. Then shortly after that I found some tasty palm fruit. What a taste explosion for my mouth!
Now, at night, I can feel the fruit sugar coursing through my veins as an energy boost. It might as well, the tree frogs here are so load sleeping is near impossible anyway!
As I inspect my foot by the small flame of the fire I find that my foot fungus has progressed. It could cripple me out here if I am not careful. So I am spending my time trying to dry my feet by the fire along with my soaked clothing. I certainly don?t need the fire to keep warm this close to the equator but it is incredibly comforting psychologically.

Day 6

I heard the sound of rushing water and ran to the bank of the river to see that it had come up four feet in only an hour or two so I very carefully waded in to try and raise the rope holding my canoe. As I did this of course every spider in existence was on the same log trying to escape the rushing water. When floods happen, all the creepy crawlies close to the river head uphill to the highest land; my hut! This was to be expected after so much rain. Often there can be a huge storm a hundred miles upriver that sends a surge of water sometimes rising as much as eighteen feet in a few hours. Canoe re-secured I headed into the jungle.
Were I here only to attempt survival and not as well film a documentary I would likely just spend the rest of my time gathering shrimp and small fish in the streams ? it was the least amount of work for the best caloric pay off. But I am here to film. And so I took today to head out and try my luck at hunting with the blow-gun. It reminded me a lot of my time seal hunting in the arctic. You don?t just head out and hunt with a blow-gun like you?re shopping at a grocery store. It takes years of practice to become even moderately successful. I was after birds. I might walk for days and not find a mammal to shoot at. So I chose to stand still for as long as I could. After all there were hundreds of birds passing by all the time and I proved a good shot when practicing with the waorani. They came. And they went. And they came again, but never close enough for me to get a shot away. However I did come across a large termite nest on my trek. So I am now back at camp with the nest smoldering by the fire. Not only will it hold a fire a long time and keep it alive ? the smoke is very effective against foot fungus. It is also said to keep jaguars away.

Day 7

Back at the village! Yes ? earlier than I am supposed to be. In fact I was here last night. After writing those last lines about smoking my foot fungus with the termite nest I went outside for a pee. I looked up to see a huge jaguar looking back at me. It was judgement call time. I couldn?t head downstream in the canoe ? the river was in full flood and it would be too dangerous. It was almost dark and the full moon had not yet risen. If I stayed at my camp I would do nothing but sit with a spear in my hands all night long trying not to fall asleep. Which is exactly what the waorani told me they would do in just such a situation. You see, the waorani fear the jaguar greatly. They told me they would do all they could to avoid spending a night alone in the jungle. I had just spent a week out there. They even keep a barbed wire fence stolen from a far off oil well, secured all around their tiny village to keep jaguar out. There was an old trail from the abandoned hut to the village. But it was a long way and it was already near total dark. I decided to take the chance. I used my cameras infrared screen to see my way along the nearly overgrown trail. I don?t really know how long I took ? it seemed like it took all night but I?m sure it was only a few hours. Still, a few hours in the middle of the jungle on a difficult and overgrown trail with a large jaguar in pursuit?not my idea of comfort zone. After being welcomed back in camp two of the women said they had been coming back into camp just before dark and they were followed by a jaguar as well. They told me that mine would have followed me for sure. Later that night we were awakened to the sound of the jaguar circling the village and growling all night long. The next day my guides made their way to the old hut and found tracks all over everything. (I had left most of my gear and took only my camera and spear on my trip through the jungle). They said it was a huge male jaguar, which would likely weigh in at close to or more than two hundred pounds.
It?s good to be home. In a tiny, remote village. In the middle, of the Amazon jungle.

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"There dosen't look like there's much shelter over in those mountains, but that's the only choice I got right now, this is gonna be a long week" - Les Stroud Arctic

Last edited by TrooperMax on Wed Jan 17, 2007 8:43 pm; edited 1 time in total

Great Post Troop. I choose not to read it, dont want to spoil it, Laughing

Cheers.

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A Knifeless Man is a Lifeless Man
Canadian To The Core
Carry Less by Knowing More
Knowledge Weighs Nothing

Sounds like a great account of events, I can't wait to see it. I would like to try survival at some point, but I know it would NEVER be in a tropical jungle.

I agree, jungle is just too intnese for me. I would do desert, mountain, boreal, even arctic if I had weapons, but not jungle

_________________
"There dosen't look like there's much shelter over in those mountains, but that's the only choice I got right now, this is gonna be a long week" - Les Stroud Arctic

i would pick the island

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Hello my names wayne

Awesome, i wasnt going to read it, but i couldnt wait. Now i cant wait for it to come on oln.

I. MUST. NOT. READ. THE POST.......... Shocked

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The liver is evil, it must be punished!!!

lol Ced you can hold off a few more weeks, i personally have but did read the first paragraph. And from what i've heard from Les so far it was good so i'm sure everyones looking forward to it Very Happy

_________________
"There dosen't look like there's much shelter over in those mountains, but that's the only choice I got right now, this is gonna be a long week" - Les Stroud Arctic