Ep 3 - Kalahari Desert (WARNING: Spoiler Alert)

Day One

At this very moment I am sitting on the top of a huge red Kalahari Desert sand dune. Above me, a nearly full moon shines down, spreading it?s moon-glow all around and the result is a desert equally as beautiful at night as it is during the day. A few miles off in the distance there is a massive flat alkali ?pan?. All around me and mixed in with the apartment sized dunes, are valleys dotted with brittle grass and thorn trees. The temperature on the sand reached 60?C (140?F) today and the temperature in the shade was 40?C (104?F). This is the Kalahari desert!
I have been saying that I didn?t want to do any more winter Survivorman episodes because the cold is so hard to work in. But I think the cold may have met its match. I?ve set up this survival odyssey by driving in with a gasoline challenged pick up truck. Spent the day booting around the sand dunes and having fun until the gas ran out. It happened around 3pm and the heat hit me like a freight train. There is no fighting it. The intense and oppressive sun pushes down on you making it tough to move around at all. Do what the Bushmen have done for centuries. Find a shade tree. Sit under it. And then wait for the sun to dip below the surrounding dunes. This place is just crawling with scorpions and is home to the Parabuthus genus of scorpion. The deadliest scorpion on the planet. It is also home to the puff adder and the often aggressive cape cobra, two highly venomous snakes. While scouting out the area I came upon 3 five-foot long cape cobras. Basically ? if it bites you ? you have about a half an hour of functioning left. Most bites are fatal.

After waiting out the intense heat of the day I?ve come back to the truck to sleep out the night ? and to keep off the ground. Unfortunately, I also find myself fighting a horrible head cold ? but you can?t pick your times of peril so I will have to deal with it ??and the heat.

It?s been interesting to me ? adjusting to being on this side of the equator. The sun hits the north side of the trees and hills. There is no big dipper. Orion is right over top of my head. For a lad from the northern hemisphere these are all foreign realities and take some getting used to.

The extreme challenges of the Kalahari Desert are obvious: the heat and the thirst for water as a result. Tomorrow I will try to start the day pre dawn so I can assess my predicament and survey the surroundings along with my supplies before the heat of the day takes over and dominates the experience.

Day 2

11:00 am

It?s already 38? C (100.4?F) in the shade. I don?t really want to know what it is in the sun. It was a rough night for me ? sleeping in the back of the truck in the night heat. By 3am it had cooled down enough to give me a chill. This is very much a place of extremes. I started the night in the back bed of the pick up truck but had to crawl into the cab to try to stay warm ? where I eventually got a full half hour sleep. Tonight I will just sleep in the cab and save me the trouble of moving.
I forced myself to shake off the grogginess and get up pre dawn to walk down to fetch the rest of my camera gear that I had left under a shade tree. I have just found a tree only one hundred yards from the truck and that first location was over 800 yards away. Between 6am and 9:30am I assessed my situation ? the area ? and my supplies. Then the sun started to get too hot to handle. I have no cold drinks to cool me down and only a few shade trees sparsely dotted throughout this dune and valley area.
My challenge is to spend my time in this extremely hot ecosystem and make my way across the desert to the crew camp. My personal survival items consist of only my watch, a multi tool and 20 litres (about 4 gallons) of water. With the truck I found; two empty pop cans, a nearly finished jar of peanut butter, a can of jam, two buckets, some cups, a can of coffee and an empty glass sugar dispenser form a restaurant. The locals sent me in with an ostrich egg as a gift and I?ve snuck in a small piece of chocolate I had in my pocket. Heh heh. I?ve brought all the stuff here under the tree with me.
It?s mandatory that a person has at least one gallon per day if they expect to survive dehydration in this kind of heat. I have 20L ? roughly 4 gallons ? enough for four days. I?m supposed to stay here for seven.

Day 2 ? Nighttime

Wow!

That?s really all I can say! 65?C (149?F) in the sun on the sand and 42? C (107.6?F) in the shade! I sat in the shade and the temperature I took on the sand was only two feet away from where I hid.

That! Was intense. Most of the day I sat in the small amount of shade of a camel thorn tree and tried not to overheat. Heat cramps, exhaustion or stroke would end this survival ordeal pretty quickly. It honestly felt like being in a slow cooker ? it was unbelievable. There is no running around in the desert or jumping from dune to dune or rock to rock at these temperatures ? that would be suicide. Even the Bushmen of the Kalahari sit still during the day ? and there?s a reason for that.

I tried to do the odd thing to keep my mind occupied. I made a fire bundle for transporting fire if I can get it. I made a pronged spearhead for hunting birds and snakes. I made some slit goggles like they do to prevent snow blindness ? the glare of the sun off the sand is dangerous. In between each activity I could only lie still and hope that I was not flirting with heat exhaustion or dehydration. The clouds finally moved in late in the day and I could see thunderstorms in the distance. But they would not be for me. I was desperate to feel the clouds open up and empty their rain upon me ? but no such luck. So finally around 6pm I have had an hour of reprieve from the scorching sun with clouds creating a fantastically beautiful sun set. During this time of reprieve I went to work on the truck and removed the fuel line and oil filter to drip into my fire bundle.
Once it was dark and the huge full moon was out ? I went for a ?scorpion walk? to see what I could find. Loads of tracks and holes but no scorpions or snakes. Now ? at 10pm it is still 30? C (86?F) with a very strong wind that is impregnating everything with fine red sand. Not so good for the camera gear. I hope I can sleep tonight.

Day 3

Mid Day

What a brutal night!!!!!
Around 11pm I started to feel horribly overheated. I was drinking lots of my water supply to be hydrated bit it was hot water after the day in the heat. I began to feel nauseous and dizzy. I sacrificed some water to soak my bandana in and tried in vain to cool my head and neck down. I concentrated on my carotid arteries in my neck and the veins on my wrist to try to cool my body temperature down. It was at least three hours before I began to cool a bit. And when I say cool ? I mean just not hot. It was a rough go. I have never been that close to heat exhaustion before as I sat in the cab of the truck out of the constantly blowing hot wind. When I finally did sleep my dreams were vivid and wild. I even pulled out the two-way radio and kept it close by in case I needed to radio for help. It is the closest I have ever come to calling the whole experience off and radioing my paramedic and safety crew. Probably one of the roughest nights I have ever had during a survival ordeal. The other time would be getting close to hypothermia in the arctic. Talk about both ends of the scale!

But after getting through it I was rewarded with a cloudy morning and even a small bit of rain! Rain in the desert is a profound experience. It gave me just enough time in the morning to pull a few more items from the truck and try lighting my fire bundle. I shoved the end of the bundle on to the top of one of the terminals of the truck battery and then crossed the terminals to make sparks using the metal fuel line I had pulled off to get gas to put in the bundle itself. Success! It worked like a charm.

So now I have fire. But as my challenge is to make my way to the safety camp I had to move on. Across the dunes and through the brittle grass valleys.

I started my hike but had to stop after 5 or 6 hours due to the return of the sun?..and its heat?.and it?s domination over everything. So here I sit?under another shade tree sticking out of a dune, looking down on a small valley ? trying to figure out what to do next.

Late in the day

It was a good day really. I was able to keep the fire bundle going ? although I had to stop often to check on it while I traveled and make sure it was still smoldering, I stopped under a decent shade tree ? sparse in these parts and I built a mound bed. My idea was; I would go to the top of the sand dune ? because there were no scorpion holes or tracks up there (although I think that was just courtesy of the constant wind) and I made a kind of inverted grave?.a mound to sleep on in the hopes that the scorpions wouldn?t like to climb the 8 inch steep sand ? which they don?t like to do. It?s the best I can do given how much time I have before dark. Not much protection from cape cobras though.

Later

Well ? the mound bed was all in vain. I enjoyed a beautiful storm that came in darkening the sky, sprinkling a little touch of rain and saving me from the relentless sun. But now the wind was blowing very hard from the north for a while and from the south the now. So believe it or not ? it is now too cool! I can?t believe I just said that! Too cool to sleep up on the exposed mound bed I made. The trouble is ? sleeping under the same shade tree is not so good either, as there are many scorpion holes nearby and cobras love these shepherd?s trees ? as they are named. So it looks like it will be a night of sleeping sitting up against my backpack. Oh yeah?..been here before!

Finished up the little bit of peanut butter today. Tomorrow I will set traps for scorpions and rodents. In spite of the oppressive heat the Kalahari Desert has some incredibly beautiful moments to enjoy. It must be easy and amazing to be here during its winter when the temperatures are more manageable.

Day 4

What a crazy turn around! I am now moved ? fire and all ? to the other side of the sand dune ? about one hundred yards away ? as a strong and cool (cool as in 25?C (77?F)) wind has been blowing hard all night long. I?m a little more protected over here. I woke after about an hour of sleep to a sky that had clouded over completely ? talk about climate change! They say this shouldn?t happen here this time of year ? highly unusual. But I?m not complaining ? I?m just happy to be rid of the killer heat.

I can see springbok and wildebeest off in the distance.

Later that day;

Of course the sun has returned and at 5pm there is not a cloud in the sky. But thankfully ? the heat is not too bad. There is a constant wind blowing that must be right from the ocean. I can smell the salt in it and I know I?m not that far from Namibia and the Atlantic ocean. (*note ? comment added after survival week ? I found out that the smell of salt was actually from the alkali pans nearby and too much breathing of it can result in horrible nose bleeds. I had been breathing in as deep as I could trying to enjoy what I thought was the ocean wind).
I?ve spent the day setting traps for lizards, rodents and scorpions along with finishing a spear. I then caught my first food with it. A locust.

The bad news ? I will be out of water by tonight. So I am going to go and check out a water giving plant I was in the valley. I need to know if it is fresh enough to give me liquid.

Night ? 8pm

It was a good day. I have set a bunch of traps and eaten a locust. But unfortunately I am just now back from an unsuccessful attempt at spearing some weaver birds in their nest. The nests can be the size of a dune buggy and they hang in trees low to the ground ? maybe six feet off the ground. There were dozens of them bouncing off my head as they flew out of their nest in the full moon light. I can?t believe I didn?t spear any in the commotion. I will wait two hours and go back and try again.

Two hours later

No luck ? they haven?t returned. But the good news is that I?ve already caught three scorpions. I?ll leave them in the traps for breakfast tomorrow morning.

Day 5

Mid day

What a night

It got soooooo cold. Only 7?C (44?F). I had to spend most of the night by the fire to keep warm. But, what a successful morning I had. I found six scorpions in my traps! So along with the ostrich egg I have cooked up scorpions and eggs for breakfast! After eating the critters I?ve put the egg in to cook in the hot sand that was under the fire and then went on a mission for water. The hemsbok bean will work great ? but it is just a sip every now and then derived from chewing up the root pulp which is quite bitter. I also set up a urine still. And then as well ? a plant still. We?ll see what those get me. For now the heat has returned and I am waiting for my cooked ostrich egg to cool down enough to eat.

So it?s time to act like the animals again and just sit out the heat in the shade. I need some sleep badly anyway.

Later

Oh my god! Did that egg ever taste amazing!

Still sitting in the shade ? lips are beginning to dry out.

Evening

It hit 37?C (98.6?F) today in the shade. It was a long hot afternoon that had a surprising ending. I let my fire die out accidentally while I was eating the egg. And that is bad news with how cold it gets here at night. So I tried something I have only seen on web site forums. Using that little bit of chocolate bar I had and a pop can to try to start a fire, You?ll have to watch the show to see how it turned out!

I?m starting to feel pretty light headed after only twenty-four hours without water in this heat. The worst part of the dryness though, is the constant wind. Through convection it just keeps sucking the moisture right out of me.

I don?t know if I will have the head for weaver-bird hunting again tonight.

Once again ? another beautiful sunset.

Day 6

As another morning dawned without a cloud to be seen, I was finally warmed by the sun after a long cold night. It really is unbelievable that a few days ago it surpassed 65?C (149?F) on the sand and 42?C (107.6?F) in the shade and it is now hitting as low as 7?C (44?F) at night. 36 hours without any water with the temperatures reaching in the high 30?s each day and I was feeling light headed and a bit dizzy ? wobbly legged and am getting a nagging headache. I suppose the lack of blood sugar isn?t helping either.
So?.I got up checked my traps ? nothing in the big bucket trap I set with some of the sweet smelling radiator fluid as bait ? I was hoping for a rodent or two ? nothing in my scorpion traps?.and I had also set two traps using the radiator hoses ? I caught a huge millipede ? they?re 8 inches long here ? but you can?t eat ?em ? they have cyanide in their bodies. So I checked my plant solar still ? and got an ounce of water ? so it worked! Not much ? but it was something. I then checked my urine still ? and it also worked! Again, about an ounce of water.

But the day dragged on and my headache worsened. The two ounces of water and the little bit of juice from the bitter hemsbok root was not going to be enough. I had no desire to go for one more day and have the safety crew come and pick me up passed out from dehydration.

So that?s it folks?.a week ? almost ? surviving one of the most extreme climates on earth ? and watching it sore to a high of 42?C (107.6?F) in the shade and drop to a low of 7?C (44?F) at night. I made it 48 hours without any real amount of water in the hottest and driest climate I have ever experienced.

Right now ? I?m chillin? in a hotel in Upington South Africa, replenishing my system with water ???.and other liquids.

_________________
"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