Jungle Survival 101
The Plan: Fly from Los Angeles to Georgetown, Guyana to participate in a two week Bushmasters Jungle Survival Course. In Georgetown I will meet up with 7 other students and from there we will fly in a small plane to Surama, a village of about 300 people in central Guyana. After spending a night in an eco-lodge, we trek into the bush for a week and a half of jungle survival training led by Bushmaster’s founder, Ian Craddock and several local indigenous guides. After initial training is done we are each dropped off alone in a remote part of the jungle and I must survive several days by myself using the skills I have learned.
My biggest fears: Unable to catch a fish, my meals are primarily big juicy grubs. Due to pain, hunger, terror and lack of sleep I find myself unable to complete the solo phase of the training and I must shamefully request assistance. Also maybe a fish called the “Candiru” swims up my urethra while bathing, deploys spikes lodging it in my penis and the only remedy is a penectomy. Yeah, that’s kind of an actual thing. (Emphasis on kind of, though.)
Guyana: The first question I got when I told people I was doing survival training in Guyana was “where’s that?” Most people thought it was in Africa. Guyana is located on the northern Caribbean coast of South America between Venezuela and Suriname. It is the only South American country with English as its official language. It is also one of the least visited countries on Earth. Guyana ranks 152nd in total tourist arrivals, 14 spots below Yemen. Little international news comes out of Guyana. The last time it pierced the consciousness of a large number of Americans was on November 18, 1978 when Jim Jones and 918 members of his People’s Temple took their own lives (and each others’) in a mass suicide and murder known as the Jonestown Massacre. Today, glimpses of Guyana can be seen with some regularity in reality TV shows such as Gold Rush, Naked and Afraid and River Monsters, among others.
Scenes from Georgetown, capitol of Guyana and home to about 200,000 people. (Over 25% of the population of the country.)
My fellow travelers: Who would do this sort of thing? My assumption going into this was that I’d be with a group of middle-aged British insurance executives experiencing something of a mid-life crisis. The whole premise seemed a bit like a backdrop for a new straight-to-Netflix installment of City Slickers. I was wrong, though. The group was an eclectic mix of young-ish men and women from Holland, the UK, Suriname, Sweden and me, representing the United States. At 48 I was the oldest in the group by almost a decade.
Ian Craddock and Bushmasters: Ian is a former officer in British Special Forces who founded Bushmasters. If this trip were anything like City Slickers, Ian would be a reasonable stand-in for Curly. Like Jack Palance, Ian exudes a general aura of having done difficult and dangerous things and emerging from them tough as nails, completely devoid of fucks to give. Except unlike Curly, Ian appears to be having a ball doing it. When Ian isn’t teaching beginner jungle survival courses, he’s jumping out of helicopters with the daughters of billionaires, guiding TV crews through the wild and organizing expeditions to discover unknown parts of the world by kayak, helicopter, horse, camel, 4x4 or God knows what other means of transportation. Also like Curly he has a ranch and cattle and you can go be a cowboy with him if you want. Actually this really is sort of City Slickers, isn’t it? Anyway the point is, Ian is a vibrant colorful thread in life’s rich tapestry. And literally nothing you did this year was half as interesting as what he has planned for next week.
Base camp: In Surama we loaded up our backpacks with the things we’d need for the jungle. A hammock, second set of clothes, machete, first aid kit, iodine drops for water purification, canteen, and assorted other pieces of gear. A modest hike of 5km took us to base camp, which would be home for the next five days. Here we would learn some basics of hunting with bows and arrows, fishing and how to find and use various plants and animals of the jungle. 3 permanent wood structures provided a place for meals, for gathering up gear and for the indigenous guides to sleep and hang out. These structures had electric light via a generator for a few hours a day. The students and our leader, Ian all set up hammocks among the trees nearby, being careful to select trees that were not close to bullet ant nests. There were two wood outhouses not too far from our hammocks for when nature called.
Learning the ways of the Jungle…
Bullet ants: We learned to fear bullet ants more than any other creature in the jungle. They look like your standard black ants, except a bit larger. A bite from the bullet ant is the most painful sting or bite known, not only because of the intense pain but because the pain lasts for 24 hours. Justin Schmidt, the entomologist and creator of the “Schmidt Sting Index” described the pain as: “pure, intense, brilliant pain...like walking over flaming charcoal with a three-inch nail embedded in your heel.” Navigating the jungle with an intense fear of black ants is a bit difficult. There are lots of ants. However, I was told that bullet ants are nocturnal, so by the end I decided any ant I could see was probably not a bullet ant.
We go deeper into the jungle and I construct a latrine: On our last morning in base camp we rationed out the food we would need for the next few days in ziplock bags. We packed up our hammocks, bows and arrows and fishing gear and boarded aluminum riverboats with small motors to go to our next camp. Our next camp lacked any amenities. My first task was to construct a latrine with two other classmates. Basically you dig a 6 foot long ditch about a foot wide and deep. You place the excavated dirt to the side of the ditch. The ditch area is protected from rain by a tarp strung between the trees. Each person who does their business starts at the far end and covers it up with some of the dirt. Slowly through the week as the ditch is filled back in, you move forward. The result is surprisingly clean and smell-free. A long path with a rope helps people find it at night. A twig at the beginning of the path marks the latrine as available or in use. I know most people aren’t reading this blog for latrine building tips, but I found it fascinating that it functioned so well and I was proud of my work.
Fishing: We fish every day. We obtain grubs from the nuts of Kukrit Palm Trees (we had to eat the first one we found) and use the grubs to catch small fish using a fishing pole we constructed in base camp. Then we use the small fish to catch bigger fish.. The most common fish (after the baitfish) are tiger catfish and black piranha. We learn to construct a smoker to cook them thoroughly for 12 hours and rid them of parasites. The fish we caught supplement the food supplies we brought with us from base camp.
Why didn’t you eat plants? I’ve had a number of friends ask me why, in the jungle, one can’t just eat some of the plants. You are, after all, surrounded by vegetation. The answer is that there are a lot more poisonous plants in the jungle than edible ones. There are painfully few edible plants one could reliably expect to find in a fairly short radius of your solo camp. Many of those plants only bear fruit or nuts during a brief part of the year. The one plant that is edible, easy to find and available year-round is heart of palm. But there’s a lot of work in obtaining it: 30 minutes of vigorous chopping with a machete gets you access to a few pounds of roughage that tastes a lot like wet cabbage. You have to eat 2 pounds of it to get 1,000 calories and it starts going brown the moment you expose it to the air. So it is an option but not an ideal one. I don’t think it’s easy to be a vegetarian in the jungle.
Tensions rise: As we got closer to the date of our time alone, tensions began to rise. Full schedules from dawn to dusk kept people exhausted and we were all covered in scrapes, cuts and bug bites. Injustices both real and perceived started to wear down some of the participants. There was more griping as the days went on and working in groups became tougher. Though I had enjoyed learning so many things with this new group of friends, towards the end I was really looking forward to some time alone.
Going solo: In the morning you get your bow and arrow, your fishing pole, and a belt that carries your machete, canteen and a small survival kit that includes water purification drops, mosquito headnet, compass, fishing hooks and line, a flint stick and a small first aid kit. You also get a two-way radio and a battery for it. The rules are: If you stick the battery into your radio Ian will see that you have activated your radio and no matter what you have to come out. The radio is there only to call for help. You are not told where you are going or when you are coming out but you know it will be about 3 days, because you know when you will be back in Georgetown for your flight out. Hopefully.
New surroundings: The boat dropped me off on a muddy riverbank. I gathered my gear and waived goodbye to my classmates and guides and sat down to look around and assess my situation. (Day 1 training: S.T.O.P. — Stop, Think, Observe, Plan.) I make a plan for my first day. With plenty of water from the river nearby, my main priority is a shelter and then a fire. I know I could go 3 days without food and obtaining it will be hit or miss, so that’s a minor priority at this point. I select an area close to the river to build my shelter so that if I get lost, I can make it back to the river and find my shelter fairly easily. As I go foraging for supplies to build my shelter I mark trees with my machete pointing back to camp. Slowly a shelter is built. It’s hard sweaty work though. By mid afternoon I’m feeling pretty good. It’s got a roof, and a somewhat comfortable bed. I relax for the first time and admire my handiwork. After a brief rest I go out looking for standing deadwood for my fire and perhaps some heart of palm. Because who wouldn’t want a little snack by the fire at dinner, even if it is just soggy cabbage. I’m going to make this look easy!
Getting lost: I navigate from my camp to the first large tree away from the river, one that marks the beginning of many of my foraging trips. From there I will navigate to another big tree and make small foraging trips from this point, marking an arrow on the trunk of the big tree back to the original big tree. I will expand my search in this manner from big tree to big tree until I’ve covered a good swath of land and obtained all the needed supplies. Except after 20 minutes of this I turn to head back to an earlier big tree and I find that it is unmarked with an arrow. I’ve navigated back to the wrong big tree! It turns out that the jungle is full of big trees and frankly they all look pretty much the same. I go back the direction I think I came from and come upon another big tree with no markings. Mild panic sets in as I realize I’m lost. The combination of trees in all directions and the jungle canopy blocking your view of the sun can be disorienting. However, I do have a compass in my belt kit and the guides helpfully noted before I left that if one follows a certain heading you will inevitably find yourself back at the river (assuming you haven’t crossed it). I get back to the river and find my camp. I decide to stop looking for heart of palm.
My first night: As it started getting dark I gathered my supplies and made a fire. To my delight I got it started pretty quickly and soon I had a pleasant little fire flickering away and making me happy as I relaxed in my bed. Then about 30 minutes later it started to pour. Rain came in buckets. And while my roof looked substantial it leaked like a colander. My fire, my standing deadwood, my tinder and kindling and everything else got soaked. I stood over the fire bent over, hoping to shelter it from the rain with my own body, but I got soaking wet and water started dripping from my clothes into the fire. After perhaps 20 minutes of my futile efforts, the fire sputtered out and I decided to Stop and Think, if not Observe and Plan. Mostly what I thought was “well fuck”. I might have thought a bit about Archer at this moment too.
Some time after cursing the jungle at the top of my lungs, the rain stopped. So it worked! In the near pitch darkness (little moonlight or starlight gets through the canopy) I could see embers still glowing in the wet ashes of my small fire. I blew on them added some tinder and kindling and eventually with some work I had a fire again. I lay in my bed drying off, warming up and feeling humbled but generally happy.
I didn’t sleep well the first night. I’d nap a bit, wake up, tend to the fire and then have trouble going back to sleep. While napping I was startled awake by the sound of a small animal running past my bed, followed by a much larger animal. I struggled to hear whether the larger animal caught the smaller animal but I heard nothing. So maybe the larger animal was still… hungry? What am I going to do if a hungry jaguar attacks. Or was it a panther? Is there a difference? These thoughts kept me awake for an hour. I decided to make my fire bigger but then I started running out of wood. About three in the morning, I’ve got just a tiny flicker of flame and no more wood. So I cheat. We’re not supposed to have or use any sort of flashlight but I use the light on my phone for a few minutes to search for some wood near my camp that I had deemed suboptimal the previous day. I find it and with it, I have enough to keep the fire burning until dawn.
The next day: Dawn comes and I am feeling good but also incredibly tired. I decide that the priorities for the day will be building a better roof, a more comfortable bed and a stockpile of wood that will last the night. My hunger is pretty low so again I don’t prioritize this. I begin my day by foraging for elephant ear leaves, large broad leaves that I can use to tile the roof of my shelter. These are pretty easy to find and by morning’s end I’m pretty sure my roof will keep me much dryer than the night before. I add width and stability to my bed and cover it with more elephant ear leaves to give it a bit of a mattress. And then I relax and ponder nature and nap for an hour or two. In late afternoon I gather kindling and firewood and sort it by size. As the sun begins to set I start another fire. I get it going fairly quickly and just like the previous day, 30 minutes later the skies open up and the rain pours down. This time it’s not too wet under my roof. A few drops of rain get through but the fire keeps burning. I stick a few more logs on the fire and wait out the storm in warmth and comfort. It stops within an hour and I settle in for another long night. My second night passes a bit easier. I still wake up many times to check and tend the fire but generally I am relaxed and I get a few long-ish naps. At one point a large bat (fruit bat perhaps?) flies into my shelter makes a mid-air 180 and flies away. I am mildly surprised but unafraid. I hear no beasties on the prowl tonight, just the cacophony of nonspecific distant jungle sounds of insects, birds, primates and chupacabras. The firewood lasts all night.
My home in the jungle.
Day three: I’m feeling pretty good on my third day. I’m still not particularly hungry. But I know I’m probably being “rescued” today and I will feel kind of bad that I didn’t catch any food. But if I catch a fish now and smoke it… will I even have time? Around mid-morning a boat with Ian and one of the guides on it passes my camp and I realize that others are being picked up. I decide to just stay put and wait for extraction. Shortly afterwards I find myself in a boat with my other coursemates, full of smiles. We all survived, although some of us got through it in more comfort than others. The boats dropped us off about 3km from the eco-lodge where we started. We had to hike back the final distance with our backpacks. There, we collapsed, showered, ate what seemed like the most delicious meal ever. We ventured into the village where a soccer tournament was going on. I was in such good spirits that I may have briefly enjoyed watching soccer.
Back in civilization.
Worth it? Definitely. There is an unequaled sense of power, control and peace of mind I got from being alone in the jungle. In our modern lives we depend on a cast of thousands for nearly everything we do. The labors of multitudes are required to provide us with our daily electricity, water, food, goods, transportation, entertainment and information. That’s undeniably comfortable and convenient. But you can go a day, a week or much of a lifetime in the United States just as a consumer. You can live a life without really doing much other than depending on the labor of others. You can also go though much of life without ever having to have a conversation with yourself about anything of importance. Television, social media, texts, emails, sleeping pills and a thousand hours of cat videos can drown out any inconvenient or uncomfortable thoughts. When you take all of that away you say “I am responsible for all of my daily needs… and if I do not provide those needs I will do without those needs.” And you start to talk to yourself, with yourself and about yourself in ways that might be new.
I didn’t walk out of the jungle a different person. I didn’t have any epiphanies. No visions on the road to Damascus. But I did gain respect for myself. I gained some respect for my abilities and a desire to see what more I can do. And that seems worthwhile to me.
