Primal Survivor (2016) s08e01 Episode Script

1
(bird calling)
HAZEN AUDEL: This is definitely the
best way of getting through this place.
Every hour I'm on this river
saves me a day of chopping
through all that.
But late rains have swollen the river.
My easy ride will soon be
quite a rollercoaster.
The water's starting to pick up now.
Time to bail.
I'll try to reach those
overhanging tree branches.
(gasps)
(grunts)
(gasping)
There's no way I could have gone
any longer on this river.
It's flooding.
No banks, no eddies.
There's nothing I could have done
except for jump off.
I got everything I need.
From here on out
it's over land.
See what else this place can throw at me.
I'm Hazen Audel, wilderness explorer.
I'm embarking on the longest
and most challenging expedition
I've ever attempted,
something I've dreamt about
since my youth.
When I was younger,
I spent many years
of my life in the Amazon,
and the great Andes Mountains were always
in the far, far distance
and were always intriguing to me.
And now, that's right where I'm going.
My journey to and over the Andes
will take me through
some of the toughest environments
in South America.
Starting in hostile jungle,
I'll cross sun-scorched savannas
and wild wetlands,
then climb through brutal cloud forest
to the frozen high plains
and snow-capped peaks of the high Andes,
before descending into
the infamous Atacama Desert
and my ultimate destination
at the Pacific coast.
I'm here during the autumn equinox.
That means the duration of day
and night are the same.
But every day after this,
as I get closer to the Andes,
the days are gonna get shorter
and shorter.
I'll be racing the sun west,
trying to cross the high mountains
before the winter snows.
But it'll be worth it.
Now is the time of harvest and ritual.
The chance for me to experience
some unique festivals and traditions
that few outsiders get to see.
Crossing the Andes during this time
of the year is full of challenges.
(rumbling)
And it'll take everything I've got
as far as survival skills,
knowledge, endurance.
But if I complete this,
it'll be one of the biggest feats
of my life.
And my challenge starts here
in the Atlantic Forest
where I must first find a route west
through thousands of square miles
of harsh jungle,
swamps, and wild waterfalls
to a remote Guarani village.
At this time of year,
the community marks
the changing of the seasons
with a special annual forest hunt
and festival feast.
If I can make it through
the jungle in time,
I have a chance to experience
this unique tradition for myself.
There are remote Guarani settlements
throughout the Atlantic Forest.
But this place is also home
to other residents
including caiman,
jaguar, and deadly vipers.
But these are not the only hazards
in this jagged jungle.
(coughs)
Wow.
You know, I'm not the only thing trying
to survive here.
Everything that's living is trying
to do the same thing I'm doing.
And as far as all the animals
that are here,
they're trying to eat
and they're trying not to get eaten,
and the same thing goes with plants.
Plants are trying to get as much sun
as they possibly can and not get eaten.
So they're either full of poisons
or they arm themselves.
Look at the barbs and spines
on this plant.
This is not an easy place to get through.
It's tough going.
And it's only gonna get tougher.
(creaking)
It's hard to find a route
through this place.
This forest is very dense, very wild.
But if you know where to look,
this place is full of survival scores.
Cool.
Meliponini bees.
They are a little small stingless bee,
and they make lots of honey.
Meliponines often construct their hives
deep inside hollow trees
protecting themselves from predators.
(bees buzzing)
I can hear the hive is right in here.
So if I just make a little opening,
try to be as discreet as I can,
get a little bit of honey,
and then close up their home,
I'll get a really good hit of sugar.
(tapping)
But the bees won't give up
their honey without a fight.
They may be stingless,
but meliponines bite hard.
Some even secrete formic acid,
like adding salt to the wound.
It's really bad when they get
inside your ears
because it's like
when they get deep inside,
it's like they're scraping
at the insides of your brain.
Not the nicest.
There we go.
Yeah. There's the hive.
It's in there. If I can just reach.
Oh yeah. They're crawling all over.
Ah!
Ah. There's honey.
You can use this moss like a sponge.
Okay, shove that in
and just wipe it in there.
Oh yeah. (laughing)
(slurps) Mm.
Oh my god.
(slurps) That is so delicious.
Hmm.
Oh my god.
There is nothing sweeter in the jungle
than that right there.
Mm. Oh. (slurps).
I don't want to overdo it.
Boy, we are all buzzing right now.
I'll take only what I need.
The bees have to have their winter food.
I can plug up the hole that's there,
and then these bees will just seal up
any leaks in their nest with beeswax,
and they'll be back to normal in no time.
Phew.
I am very sticky.
Those sweet calories are
a much-needed energy boost
for the hard miles ahead.
(groans)
It's almost impossible to cover
any ground in here.
It's slow going.
(grunts)
Look at that.
Any clearing is a welcome break
from the thick jungle
but all the rains have created
a new challenge.
See how flat it is?
The water doesn't have any place to go,
so it turns into swamp.
It might not look like it,
but the best route is just
to beeline it across sometimes.
Circumnavigating this swamp
will burn time and energy
and take me off track.
But crossing it is a calculated risk.
Yeah. You never quite know exactly
what's in water like this.
So
yet another adventure.
Still, stagnant water
is a draw for many creatures
including the broad-snouted caiman,
which can grow to over 10 feet.
Okay, I'm up to my bellybutton now.
I need to get through here
without attracting any unwanted attention.
That's the point of no return.
(breathing heavily)
Okay.
So right now, it feels like
it's just me and the swamp
and the hundreds of other kinds
of things that could be living in here.
(breathing heavily)
I don't exactly know.
(grunts)
Okay. Okay.
Definitely halfway across.
Good so far.
But there's one final obstacle in my way.
Sawgrass.
You gotta go through this stuff
real gently
because it slices you right open.
And cuts along with this water,
that's a horrible combination,
a recipe for big time infections.
Waterlogged grass is an ideal place
where alligator species build their nests,
I need to be on the lookout.
Okay.
Oh, okay, good deal.
Okay.
It's kind of gross,
but it could have been a lot worse.
But the dangers here
Hold on.
don't just lie beneath the water.
Where is your head?
Ooh hoo hoo hoo!
Yes, I know exactly what this is.
Come here.
This is where you find
these kind of snakes.
This is called a spilotes.
When they're around people,
a common name for these snakes
are called chicken snakes
because they love to eat chickens.
Chicken snakes
also eat small mammals and lizards.
And adults can grow to almost nine feet.
They can sense movement,
and they are pursuit predators.
So, when they see something
that they want to eat,
they will chase after it
through the grass,
up through the branches, down holes,
through the chicken cages
and once they grab a hold of their prey,
they're a really powerful constrictor,
almost like a boa constrictor.
Oh here, look at this.
It does not want to let go.
It's like having another arm
at the very end of their body.
Yeah, (laughs) it's very strong.
It's like a prehensile tail on a monkey.
But that's another telltale sign
that this is a tree-living snake.
I think we both had
a good look at each other.
I'll just leave it
just like how I found it.
I'm glad to leave the swamps behind me
and I've lucked out
and found a forest trail.
(tapping)
Do you hear that?
It's pretty close.
(tapping continues)
Hola!
Hola.
(speaking in Spanish)
HAZEN (in Spanish): What is your name?
PAULO (in Spanish): Paulo.
HAZEN: I'm Hazen.
(in English) Paulo is from
a nearby Guarani village,
a sister settlement
to the one I'm aiming for.
(in Spanish): This is a poison?
PAULO: It's poison.
For fishing.
HAZEN: I'd like to see that.
(in English) The community has made
a dam in the nearby river
to create a pool,
providing it with a regular supply
of fresh fish.
The fish are getting trapped in there,
and then whatever chemical compounds are
in this woody vine
are stunning the fish.
So, they're easy to collect
in all this water.
I've seen poison vines used
in fishing elsewhere in the tropics,
but this one is new to me.
(in Spanish) What's this called?
PAULO: Chimbo.
-Chimbo.
-PAULO: Mm-hmm.
HAZEN (in English): They call this Chimbo,
it's the Guarani.
It has a very unique smell.
Something sort of rotten,
something sort of like it has body odor.
It's, it's strong, yeah?
(in Spanish) Is it strong?
PAULO: Very strong, yes.
HAZEN: But is it dangerous for people?
PAULO: For people, no.
HAZEN (in English): The chemical compounds
that are in this chimbo
are having a dramatic effect on the fish.
I can already see a lot of the fish
that are just swimming so slowly.
Every once in a while, you see them
come to the surface
in this milky water.
Yeah, the poison is really taking effect.
(speaking in Spanish)
Wow, these are big!
In my experience, these kinds of toxins
usually only stun smaller fish
or weaker fish.
Whatever is in this chimbo
is powerful stuff.
These are called Plecostomus,
but they're also called armored catfish
just because of those scales
that are like parts of a shield
and then, of course,
it has those big, heavy duty spines
that just lock into position.
Very beautiful.
But also, gosh, they look like
something very prehistoric.
They're all over in this river.
But without the poison, they move so fast,
they'd be almost impossible to catch.
(speaking Spanish)
Are these tasty?
(speaking Spanish)
(in English) Yeah, we got
a pretty good haul today.
The toxin will get diluted
by the river's current.
And we've got what we need,
so Paulo invites me back to the village.
It's a typical Guarani community
that survives on the bounty
of the surrounding forest,
and Paulo has lived here all his life.
(speaking Spanish)
He gives me advice on
the best route onwards to my destination,
the Guarani settlement
on the western edge of the jungle.
PAULO (in Spanish): It's many kilometers.
(speaking Spanish)
There are snakes,
many rivers to cross
The truth is, you're going to suffer.
HAZEN (in English): But there's
a waterfall descent that could shave days
off my journey.
Okay. Bueno, bueno.
And he has a gift he asks me to deliver
for the autumn festival feast.
(Paulo speaking Spanish)
HAZEN: The leaves
of a special plant called ka'a'
which the Guarani make
into an herbal drink
believed to have special
healing qualities.
HAZEN (in Spanish):
So this is a sort of a gift?
PAULO: Exactly that. It's a gift.
HAZEN: Paulo sends me on my way
with one of the fish we caught.
But dinner will have to wait,
I need to make quite a bit
of progress before dark.
Whoa!
(rattling)
This is the biggest danger
in the forest right here.
This is a Jarara.
These snakes right here
are considered the most dangerous snake
down here in southern South America.
They're an ambush predator,
so they lie in wait.
They'll find a perfect place to hide,
wait for its prey to come by.
But if there's a person that comes by,
accidentally winds up getting too close
to the snake
or winds up stepping on the snake,
the snake has no choice
but to defend itself.
So over 50 percent of venomous snake bites
in this part of the world
are caused by the Jarara.
The Jarara is a cousin
of the infamous fer-de-lance
and a member of the pit viper family.
When you look at that head,
it has these eyes
with slit pupils, a lot like a cat
but right underneath its nostril
it has these little holes
and also along its,
right along its upper lip,
and those are heat sensing pits.
So it can actually see heat.
It's something that humans can't do.
That's a sense that we don't have.
But see how it's flicking its tongue.
These snakes also have
a very well evolved sense of smell.
And they can smell with that tongue.
They're basically getting
all the information that they need
by sensing what's happening in the air.
It smells humans. It smells the forest.
It smells its prey.
The Jarara are primarily nocturnal.
It's a lucky encounter
to see during the day
where they are typically less active.
You're talking about perfection
of evolution right here.
The Jarara Pit Viper.
So beautiful.
So I'm just going to let it go back
into the forest.
That was a big bonus for the day.
Okay. (grunts)
And the day is almost over.
The sun is going down,
and I'm on very limited time
to figure out a place to spend the night.
If I don't get cracking,
I'm going to get in trouble.
I need to build a shelter.
But around here, materials are limited.
Yeah, here's just a young shoot,
but this bamboo is really thin walled,
but it's growing everywhere.
I wish this place had more to offer,
but I gotta make do with what I have.
This species of bamboo is pretty fragile,
but I can turn its weakness
into my advantage.
Since this is so thin,
we just need to crush the bamboo.
When you crush the bamboo,
it's like that, and it'll lay flat.
I take all these pieces
and they'll act like big,
long shingles for my roof.
For my frame, I can use the stand of trees
right from where they're growing.
That might just be the pitch of my roof.
I can bend these limber saplings
into position
rather than cutting them down.
That's handy.
There we go. Nice.
I just have to make
a shelter for one night.
So it just has to be quick and dirty
and keep me dry
if it does decide to rain tonight.
These horizontals here,
they're going to act like rafters
that I can attach my shingles to.
You have to be really careful
with this stuff
because it's just so sharp,
but it's starting to pile up
and the more I pile up,
the more it's going to work.
With the sun dropping fast,
it's a race to get my roof on
without cutting my hands to shreds.
There we go.
Alright.
I'm amazed that I didn't wind up
being a bloody mess.
But this is my roof
and it looks crude,
but it's going to work really well.
It's time to make a fire.
Finding dry tinder in this wet forest
will be a challenge.
I'll need to improvise.
If I untwist this natural fiber rope,
it's made up of a bunch
of really small fibers.
Those work really well.
Keep those there.
I'll use a hand drill method
to get a fire started
hopefully.
So first, just go nice and easy,
'cause this takes a lot of energy
and it's a muscle burner.
So right now, just get this
initially warmed up.
Now the technique and hard work begins.
Without a fire, I won't be able
to cook my fish,
and I'm facing a cold,
dark, wet night ahead.
(breathing heavily)
Okay, there we go. Looking good.
(grunts)
Okay, there's a little coal.
Okay, that's good, good, good, good.
I have something to hold it here, okay.
(whispering) There we go, there we go.
There we go, there we go, there we go.
There we go, there we go. All good.
(laughs) All good. Okay, good.
There is fire.
By the skin of my teeth, I tell you.
With a healthy bed of coals,
it's time to cook my fish.
They're so tough,
they will actually cook themselves
in their own plate of armor.
In only a couple of minutes,
dinner is served.
So, these come
with their own handle, really.
There, that was right in the coals.
Just like so.
Really nice, tasty white meat.
Some people might not think
those are very pretty fish.
I think they are neat looking.
And they really don't have
very many bones at all.
They are also very tasty.
Yeah. Mm.
Oh.
Hot, hot, hot, hot. Nice.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
After such a long day,
I'm hoping for a quiet night.
But the jungle never rests.
Oh god.
Get this fire going.
What just happened?
Okay.
What is that?
Okay, I got to show you this.
(laughs)
Oh well, if I was scared of spiders,
I would have been out of here
a way long time ago.
But, yeah, when the night comes out,
the creatures come out,
and that just goes with the territory.
You know, life's too short
to be super scared of spiders.
You can be cautious of them,
but being scared of them
is just sort of a wasted energy.
That spider was probably here first.
This is its home
and I'm sleeping in its living room,
so I'm just going to
let it go back upstairs
and I'm going to try to get back to bed.
I'm up with the sun
and on the lookout
for a quick breakfast.
Oh, nice.
So take this trunk of this tree,
go all the way up into those branches,
and it's almost like these alien growths
coming right out of the wood of the tree.
I think that's called cauliflorous growth.
Rather than a fruit
at the end of the branches,
it just comes right out
of the wood of the tree.
They're called Jabuticaba.
They're really delicious.
Yeah, there we go. Cool. It's working.
They look a lot like grapes.
Mm. Mm. Mm.
Oh, they're really nice.
Inside
inside they're almost like
a gelatiny fruit called a lychee.
Really sugary.
The skin is real tart and tough but
boy, when you put them in your mouth
and they just sort of (fruit pops)
explode (laughs)
and they're really nice.
See that?
It's that white flesh that's inside
that's juicy. Mm.
With some seeds that you can just crunch
right through.
What a score.
Jabuticaba.
(crunches)
I could make a feast of these.
Nice.
I'm continuing to follow the sun west
on my epic journey
to the mighty Andes Mountains.
My immediate goal is
the Guarani settlement
on the western edge
of this Atlantic Forest.
And time is short, if I'm going to make it
for their traditional
autumn hunt and feast.
You hear that?
That's good. That's good.
Just like Paulo said,
if I'm on the right ridge,
keep following this up,
and I should hear a waterfall.
You can hear that right there?
(water flowing)
If conditions are right,
this could mean a huge shortcut for me.
Yeah.
But the recent rains have turned
this Guarani back way route
into a raging wall of water.
That whole face is so slippery,
it's so covered with water,
it's impassable.
Impassable. Impossible.
There might be a way down.
I'm going to need a rope, a long one.
These might look like vines,
but actually they're not at all.
Believe it or not, they're roots
that are coming down from big plants
that are growing on the branches of,
it looks like that big tree there.
The young philodendron roots
are not strong at all,
and the old ones can be brittle.
Yeah, these ones right here.
They're good and tough and solid.
This is a good start.
Get a couple more of these.
Yeah. There we go. Good.
But even the best roots I can find
are not long enough
or strong enough for this descent.
The height of that cliff looks like
it's about 40 feet high.
These vines are probably
only about 20 feet long,
and I'm going to braid these together
because a fall from 40 feet,
if one of these roots decides to break
from that height,
I wouldn't make it.
Braiding several roots together
should at least double,
maybe even triple, the strength
and length of my jungle rope.
Starting to go now.
You want to lay it nice and flat
and make sure that
all of these pieces of root
are really gripping on to one another.
That's what makes it nice and strong.
It only takes one small weakness
in this rope that could kill me.
I take my time to make it right.
In some places, I really had to double up
because the root started
to get pretty small,
I guess in diameter.
But this is, yeah, good and strong.
It's a philodendron root rope,
and it's time to put it to the test.
Okay, here goes.
Oh.
The rope is so slippery.
(grunts)
The rope is slippery,
the rock is slippery.
Everything is so slimy from the rains.
Footholds are impossible.
I have to trust all my weight
on this rope.
I'll need to swing across.
Okay, here goes.
(grunts)
Each swing puts more
and more strain on my rope.
Yeah.
Aerial roots of the philodendron.
I told you they'd work.
They're super strong.
Okay.
Well, the worst of my day is over
I hope.
The waterfall saved me some time,
and I'm making good headway
towards the Guarani village
on the western fringe of the forest.
All I need now is some energy
for the final push.
It should be right around in there.
The very outer coating
of this palm is very, very hard.
It's the inside that's nice and soft.
But I'm getting there.
From plenty of jungle experience,
I know what's inside.
Okay, I can see the burrows.
Gives me a good idea
of the size of the beasts
that are living inside there.
Look it, right there.
That is a tunnel (chuckles)
right there.
And okay,
they're in here.
Okay. Yep.
There we go.
This is what I was looking for.
Get in there. Don't bite me.
Okay. (laughs)
That is the weevil larva.
These larvae are from
the South American palm weevil,
and they are some of the biggest
in the Americas.
They are pretty stunning
as far as beetle grubs go.
As far as their bodies are,
they're sort of very fleshy.
But then that head is very hard,
and it has these big jaws
that are powerful.
Ow. Yeah.
They do (laughs) they do bite.
These baby beetles are high in protein
and taste better than they look.
They're considered a delicacy out here
and you can just grab that head
and
(crunching)
Yeah. Hmm. Yeah.
They taste,
they're incredibly juicy inside
and then nice and rubbery on the outside.
You don't want to eat
the head because, well,
for me, they make my mouth itch and even,
even after they get decapitated,
they keep moving those jaws
and then they could bite you
on the way down.
So, I just
yeah, throw those aside.
These logs have been
deliberately placed and left
to grow a dependable source
of protein for the locals.
So, I'm going to put these back
like how I found them.
There's still lots and lots
of grubs left in all these logs
and
from what I see,
there should be people around.
I can't be far
from the Guarani settlement.
I am sure these are their hunting grounds.
Woo!
So I need to be careful.
Woo!
I don't want them mistaking me for game.
-Woo!
-MAN: Woo!
HAZEN: Woo!
There's somebody here.
Woo.
Woo!
-MAN: Woo!
HAZEN: Hey.
(in Spanish) Hi, how are you?
(Guarani greeting)
(speaking Spanish)
-I'm Hazen.
-DOMINGO: I'm Domingo.
-HAZEN: Domingo. Domingo.
-DOMINGO: Uh-huh?
(Hazen speaking Spanish)
HAZEN: How are you?
(speaking Spanish)
Are you from here?
-DOMINGO: Yes, our community
is not far from here.
HAZEN: These guys are
from the Guarani village
I've been aiming for.
(speaking Spanish)
What's going on?
DOMINGO: We're hunting wild boar.
Would you join us?
(speaking Spanish)
HAZEN: I've made it just in time.
(speaking Spanish)
HAZEN (in English):
Wow, you're hunting right now.
Let the hunt begin.
HAZEN (off screen): They're just looking
for every little bit of evidence
of what animals
have been passing through here
for the last couple days and nights.
Little prints, little chew marks.
Some scat that's around.
(men speaking Spanish)
HAZEN: Oh yeah.
He says there's Peccary tracks.
Peccaries resemble wild pigs
and are prized by the Guarani.
One animal is enough
for the whole village,
perfect for the autumn feast.
They can see footprints
of two fully grown peccaries,
and then they've seen one baby so far.
The way they can look at the land is like,
it's like them seeing a movie.
And the Guarani have seen
this movie before
and have a plan.
(men speaking Spanish)
HAZEN (whispering):
They just explained to me
that they're going
to send up Ariel up forward.
He's the best shot of all of us.
He'll get up into the branches
out of sight of the pigs
and then since we know
the pigs are around,
we're going to try
to find them, not spook them,
and then we'll just slowly
and methodically
corral them towards Ariel.
For this hunt to work,
we have to get the peccary
into Ariel's shooting range.
(whispering) This ground has been dug up.
The peccaries were here just minutes ago.
But where are they right now?
We're spreading out.
More than likely, the peccaries know
that we're around.
They're in hiding.
We're just going to be nice and slow.
We don't want to spook the animals.
We can't see them,
but we know we're close.
(whispering) You can smell them,
the smell is so rich in the air.
And there's a sighting.
(whispering) Do you see it?
There's just one. Just one.
There it is. Right. It's going
right behind the bush.
There it is, there it is, do you see it?
It's walking right into the ambush.
(snorts)
The peccary is in range.
Perfect shot, perfect shot.
(peccary squealing)
HAZEN: Yeah.
Domingo, yeah?
(speaking Spanish)
(in English) Yeah,
they got it, they got it.
Here we go. (laughs)
Very good hunt, perfect.
(speaking Spanish)
(in English) These guys
have been doing this for so long,
they did it exactly how they planned it.
Wow! Good shot!
Amazing.
We take the peccary back to the village.
(guitar music playing)
Preparations for the feast
have already begun,
and the whole village has turned out.
HAZEN (speaking softly):
They've been expecting us,
and this is the welcome ceremony.
(speaking in foreign language)
(in English) That's the village elder,
she's highly respected.
Tonight's festival marks
the turning of the seasons,
from the time of plenty
to the coming of winter
when food is scarce.
For the hunters,
this is a symbolic moment.
This is a traditional gift
that's being given to me by Domingo.
It's a hunting gift.
It's the front hoof of the peccary
that we just killed.
(speaking Spanish)
HAZEN (in English): So, he kept
one of the finger nails
and I have the other, and this is luck.
I'll bring this with me
the next time I go hunting.
This feast will feed everyone.
(speaking Spanish)
Gracias.
By blowing tobacco smoke over our peccary,
it's a way of blessing the food.
Very much a part of the custom
when a large animal
like this is killed for the,
for the community.
It's a part of the life
and culture of the Guarani,
dictated by the seasons and the sun.
Exactly what I came here to see.
(upbeat music playing)
HAZEN: You know, just these moments
and experiences like this with the Guarani
that makes it all worthwhile.
It's all the help along the way
that can teach me, that can help me.
These are the people that enable me
to get as far as I can.
These are the moments I cherish.
This is more than just
an adventure for me.
My time in the jungle is almost over.
From here on out, the journey to
and over the Andes
only gets bigger, tougher, and wilder.
That's the Paraná River,
and it's my way out
of the Atlantic forests,
continuing my journey
westbound in the savannas.
Next time
I tackle the scorched
savanna grasslands
of the Gran Chaco,
known to locals as '"Infierno Verde,"
"Green Hell."
Captioned by Point.360