Survivorman | Argentina | Les Stroud

[Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] tierra del fuego argentina the barren tale of south america that stretches out to the south atlantic sea inhabited by only one solo south american cowboy blast gaucho its rocky shores have claimed countless lives pummeled for centuries by high winds and stormy seawaters european settlers tried to survive here they didn't last long wild horses wild cattle and a few derelict buildings are all that's left of their early attempts this is one of the most extreme places on earth and i'm here to survive without food water supplies or safety this place is about as desolate as it gets it's the land of shipwrecks skeletons of these ships scattered all up and down this coast before the panama canal was built this is where the explorers came around the tip of south america is a place where wild stallions run free there's even wild cow here about two thousand head [Music] if i'm lucky shooting a wild cat can be part of my survival here just as the gauchos survived before me well this shoreline is no place for me wind's just coming straight in on me i mean look at him tide's coming in storm fog i'm gonna make my way out of here find a spot up on the land someplace i can get up camp up there it's cold and damp here this time i'm not here to survive alone not in argentina no i'm gonna need a horse it'll be a long journey along this coastline without a horse i don't think it would be survival i think it'd be just perishing to land up at the top there's nothing but peat bogs very very difficult travel the bottom going along the beach coastline that's my only answer but there's some very dangerous capes i have to get around i've got to time everything with the tide and if i get caught in between with a high tide coming in i'll be in serious serious trouble so one horse will be my back horse carry the horse food they don't have to go through survival like i do and uh and my camera gear well it's getting dark i want to get a move on try and find some protected area to spend the night it's going to be a cold one having a second horse helps with carrying my gear but adds a level of difficulty now i have to care for two large animals instead of just one and even more daunting i have to control two large animals my goal is to find my way to the remnant gaucho cabinets to see if i can successfully hunt in the interior all along the way i have to sneak past hundreds of wild bulls with a reputation for aggressive behavior and even attacks at this point i've been riding for a few hours before finally coming to the one protected bit of shoreline where i can hunker down for the night tomorrow means more riding until i can find a cabin but for now i need to prepare for the dark that's the downside of traveling with horses is the tear down at night and the setup in the mornings takes my time for sure but it's a lot easier than traveling in the peat bog on foot all up top is very wet very tough going it would just be brutal trying to get through on foot so let's hope i hold on to these horses they're long enough to get me out of this mess well the sun's going down the days here are really short whatever i've got to do to effect survival i've got to do between the hours of about 9 a.m and 6 p.m otherwise i sit and wait out the cold night hopefully tonight not too cold of course benefit of having horses is having horse blankets help to keep the chill off me tonight the plan is that there are gaucho cabins and shelters and huts all along the way here and other than a night like tonight i didn't quite make it to one i'll i'll try to find them and uh as i roughly know where they are on the coastline make my home there and uh see if i get on out on the land and what i can catch that's beautiful i've walked a ways down the beach here let's see if i can see some running streams but nothing so it's going to be about 24 hours without water i guess i should be able to find some streams further ahead as rough as it is out here that's one beautiful sunset [Music] a couple of days ago it snowed here heavy that's something that i don't want temperature's probably right at freezing right now the water still ice is over that's cold enough it doesn't need to get any colder it's snowing actually this is probably the only little nook little cranny i can find in this entire coastline right now it's protected from the wind wind is everything if i had to stay in the wind right now there'd be no sleeping a lack of sleep has always been my greatest nemesis to survive uh it's a cold morning no matter what way you look at it the sunrise is beautiful but it's a cold night spent most of it shuffling around a lot getting up to try and get warm the tide's way down right now make for easy traveling the gauchos they had a tough time out here they tried to make a go of it and they couldn't because it's very difficult survival and my first order of business is to try to make it to one of their shelters hello gotta remember these horses don't actually know me only been about two days with them three days so me getting used to them and them getting used to me is part of the process the other thing to remember is i'm not really a horseman ridden horses a few times in my life but it's still pretty much a fresh and new activity for me so a lot of chances for me to make mistakes took me a little while actually to get the black horse to settle for me this morning the big animals if anything goes wrong out here with an animal this big i could be in serious jeopardy i have to admit for me it's probably even a little easier just to walk with the horses whenever i can walk just because um i'm an inexperienced rider i've got the second horse tied to the back of the first horse that's okay but if there's any trouble it's a little dangerous because if one horse starts freaking out maybe the packs start to fall off or something like that then uh and he's tied to the other horse that can be nasty [Music] surviving on the edge of the ocean water is almost always in view but undrinkable water is always one of the first and most vital aspects of survival to consider that's the best i can do that's what i'm doing it from basically footprints wild cows wild horses that's why there's cow crap and horsecraft everywhere hoof burnt water it's better than dehydration the cows here became wild when they stopped being cared for years ago and they're considered an invasive species on this land i've been riding past hundreds of them and they can be very dangerous and just as i'm passing a couple of nasty looking bulls with high cliffs all around me while i look for a way down [Laughter] it's okay okay so okay so okay okay well that happened pat got loose on the last hill and fell off the horse riding underneath his belly he was freaking out meanwhile i'm trying i'm trying to find my way down this cliff not sure which way to go down and now i'm on the top of the hill in the wind and the cold got to deal with this that's the problem of surviving with horses it's not easy so now i've got nowhere to tie these horses up i gotta hold on to them and pack them at the same time this is gonna take a while what a mess there we go okay that's a start i gotta hope i didn't lose anything do this all very gently ah these pockets ripped right open my harmonica would have fallen out can't have that that was a close call horses are powerful animals this little yet potentially very dangerous situation with the pack slipping down to the horse's belly has left me shaken i have a few more hours of riding yet and shaken confidence is bad news for a survival situation walking would be endless and extremely difficult through all the peat bog sections of my travel yet i'm now ruling over two horses without confidence so i prefer to walk but the distance i have yet to go is much too far to give up on the horses now so on i ride hoping to make it to the nearest gaucho cabin soon tied up the horses and uh i've got my first stream of fresh water i'm gonna guzzle as much as i can here at the moment i've got nothing to carry water in so i'm just gonna drink a drink and drink because really one of the best places to carry water is in your belly well it's brown but it'll do ah so first full day without food in my stomach so as much water as i can drink i will help's gonna feel full not so hungry and it'll keep away any dehydration headaches or problems it's ice cold water it's nice doesn't matter where you go where you have to survive this is the key to life especially in the cold weather actually that's the toughest time to remember to stay hydrated horses are watching me they must think i'm nuts talking to myself areas this rugged often show extreme examples of life and death played out on the coastline this is something i see everywhere around here oh wait a minute i was going to say it's a dead cow but it's not it's a dead guanaco the nakos are protected in this area they're not really llama family but they look a lot like a llama but one kind they can't be domesticated every time they uh tried to they would just they would die they wouldn't live in captivity so they remain out here as wild and free as the stallions and and the cows nothing left there for me to partake of this is what keeps the condors fed with the sun hanging low in the sky and two days ride behind me i finally made it to a gaucho cabin it'll be refuge from the biting ocean winds and a place to attempt survival in tier del fuego from here i can search the interior and hunt for game i can settle the horses and not worry about packing them up every morning to move on this is gonna be home compared to staying out on the land it is indeed home it's not often when faced with survival that one can take advantage of an existing shelter well i'm just gonna check the place out ah nice wood stove now i've just gotta get some food and water food will mean looking inland and possibly hunting a wild cow and water will have to come from melting in the pockets of snow but from the roof should it come on to rain this shelter is likely close to 70 years old but it's a paradise to a lost traveler and a rare find in a survival situation i don't know if you can uh if you can hear that or not it has been pouring for a couple of hours now and the wind is just howling and i've been awake for about an hour and a half trying not to throw up as for the weather well argentina is one of those places where they say you don't like the weather wait five minutes but it's been a lot longer than five minutes and it's coming down i hope the horses are okay i mean it's it's like a an intense storm out there right now this is going to be an interesting morning [Music] you hear that the wind is just insane right now it's i don't think i'm in kansas anymore because it feels like it could easily blow this shelter away i don't know if you can hear that it sounds like a tornado outside it is blowing so strong and i've taken to sitting up because every time i lie down i feel like i'm gonna throw up so i'm still feeling rough but man outside so the wind ever picked up if you don't like the weather and dieldo fuego it's okay wait five minutes it'll change this just came on about five minutes ago blowing intensely i could feel the temperature of the room just drop no insulation on the walls not settles or not ah you get what you get in a survival situation no more than uh rain snow cold heat wind in a survival situation wind is a lockdown when the wind blows strong and hard there's not much you can do wait it out i have to keep telling myself this place has lasted here over 70 years if it can withstand this windstorm strongest winds i've ever been in the whole building is just shuttering [Music] i feel like this is the day that it finally gets blown down and i'm here to witness it let's hope not you can't see the wind like you can see rain and snow you can only feel its effects it can wick away your body heat in seconds and bring on hypothermia quickly it's the one ingredient added to coal rain snow or sand that can turn a difficult situation into a deadly one today i can't even make it out to the coast i think probably the worst there's the wind this is the strongest wind i've ever been in i could use a big fat cow to eat right about now and i and i can see them and all because of wind i can't even get out to get them and i'm ready to go there's no moving out there there's no nothing everything's hunkered down and i'm trapped i hate being trapped i've learned something early on in survival ordeals you can't judge unless you were there it's rare that i have to stop doing what i intend to do in a survival situation when it happens it always has a profound effect on my emotions it's been about nine hours since it started it's still blowing this is as bad as the endless rains in the jungles once it starts you're at its mercy 12 hours still blowing hard when trapped in a survival ordeal it can be demoralizing to have to sit and watch as time goes by [Music] so 15 hours still blowing strong all through my daylight hours the wind flows high and just like that it's over but now i'm another day weaker and without food and i'm carrying a few days of frustration none of which is making me feel any more confident for dealing with the horses it may not seem like all that much but when you're in a survival situation and you've got to look after an animal or another person for that matter it's a lot of extra duty in this case i've got the horses to deal with your brain's got to concentrate on so many things right now i'm mostly concerned with what i've got to do and meanwhile i got to think oh wait a minute the horses the horses right okay what do they need at the moment oh around the tree back down and back through the hole i'm not thinking right here what the heck come on brain work what am i messing up here this is when i know i need more food than i think years of doing the bow bowline and lack of food for a few days and i forgot how to do it okay being that nauseous last night i think took a stripe or two out of me and i'm dizzy time to check out all the area this is obviously where they've hung cows before after hunting them out there wild cows okay check this out oh okay that's pretty disgusting obviously crawling with maggots but if i had to if i had to eh i could boil it up there's some here too big hunk of cow fat i have no idea of knowing how old it is but i have a feeling i'm going to be calling it dinner tonight so this is where i can keep my horse tackle nice and dry clean uh this looks like a treasure trove of possibly just junk broken glass and a lot of big hunks of metal not a lot i can do with now i have some information here i've got a warm place to sleep protected from the elements i've got the horses for travel tackle to put on them you know my saddles and so on food for the horses i've got fire here that i can make if i need to be warm and there's little niblets of food in this cabin that i can make use of i've got good clothing and at this point of the game i'm still strong although last night i did suffer from a lot of nausea uh from uh well i guess from probably eating just the crap that i found in the cabin the old food that wasn't good all right that picks up a lot of information and it might seem like i'm being a little inactive today you guys just get out there and hunt and catch you know hunt me get meat and survive but you know it doesn't work that way when you get out here you've got to slow things down a bit sometimes and just figure things out make sure i move if i jump around and move in a crazy fashion i'm liable to put myself in trouble and uh i don't want that to happen keep looking around and see what else i can find survey of the cabin area done i can get back on track with my needs and food is making its way to the top of the list all around the cabin are herds of wild cows and all i need is one taking one with nothing more than a 22 rifle is not going to be easy just gonna do a little harness making here with some lampwick well that should work and hopefully shoot myself some dinner and some breakfast and some lunch it's gonna be a lot easier said than done let's go sight this thing in [Music] i'm a good shot but this is an old gun and it was handed to me just before my journey with the advice that i should try to hunt a young cow well let's just go see where that one hit it sounded good hey hey all right it's right on the money check it out nailed it right on dead center first initial shots were pretty wide down here then i started getting them closer here and then that last one i gotta go after the real thing now that's a whole other story these are the scenes that are a little hard to shoot sometimes [Music] it's three days without food and i just start to feel just general nausea every once in a while i just got to kind of stop and uh sit back sit back makes it hard to get anything done when you start to get active and uh you uh you get slowed down by your stomach i've got an idea because i've been rummaging around i found a little bit more tiny little bit of flour a little bit of salt and i found that big hunk of fat hanging in the shed who knows how long that's been hanging there looks like it's been hanging there since the days of the gauchos but it'll have to do well i've got a bit of an idea one that might put a little bit of food on my stomach it's a way of getting something cooking without heating up that big stove inside using up all the good firewood i'll need that if it turns cold on me the idea here being to make myself a little bit of an outside stove and i think that was rat crap it's that hunk of fat the thing about fat is it actually stays good for a long time so what i'm gonna do is i'll use some of this stuff a little bit of flour i found mix it with a little bit of water and the salt that's in there and try to make some hard tack on top like this never used a chainsaw blade for this before new on top just want to make up a bit of dough and then fry it in this cow fat basically this is a survival donut oh yeah i still need to be careful this is hot grease now ow yeah that's hot grease all right oh it's going to actually be working wow okay this is where it's a little dangerous cause i'm starting to get a little too splattered and the last thing i want out here is to get a severe burns now the problem here is that this kind of grease in my stomach can also be hard on my stomach and i'm already experiencing a lot of bouts of nausea so hopefully this won't make it worse there's plenty of water so i'll try and stay very hydrated there you go that's heart attack um my gosh that tastes amazing oh wow i may have to do that again because that's fantastic this is awesome you know look at this this is the um little remnants of fat that was i used i should have a very warm night tonight this kind of food high fat food like this right before bed and burns in my stomach all night long and hopefully in a good way it creates a lot of heat and uh a real trick is to have fat like this and crawl into bed um oftentimes you have to push the covers off because you're so warmed up well when you're sleeping in the cold it's a great trick to know it's amazing what you eat when you're hungry i'll let you know if i start throwing up in an hour or two hardtack is just flour mixed with water no baking powder but my focus is still on hunting a calf if everything's to line up tomorrow i need the perfect shot the right weather the right sunlight the right psychology the right emotion everything's got to line up for that one moment of taking the shot so i'll play a song of honor maybe that'll help [Music] [Music] maybe that'll help i figure i can use the horses to get out on the hunt but it quickly becomes a lost cause before i can even get them out there i'm having trouble the black horse has become defiant he's fighting me and even just getting the bit into his mouth when i try the other horse it won't leave the black horse's side so i'm forced to give up and take the hunt on foot today marks a real low point for me i guess some of it could be chalked up to the fact that you know i'm four days without food so my energy's getting pretty low i struggled with the horses first horse gave me a lot of grief trying to work with them just getting the bit in his mouth so i switched to the other horse no problem saddle them up and uh climbed up onto the saddle it was a waves i walked in a bit and then climbed up on the saddle basically um he freaked and bucked and threw me off and came running back to the other horse i didn't want to leave the other horse i came back i been running all the way back of course my stuff went flying i got back on him and uh he wouldn't leave the other horse i was fighting with him pulling him away let's go let's go nope 25 feet away struggle and buck and turn around and want to go back to the other horse again i saw a small amount of frustration for me so my scouting got cut short i gotta figure this out because i can't get out of here without those horses and i don't know how dangerous it is to hunt those uh the cattle on foot that makes me pretty much fair game for the bulls or the cows if they want to charge so i'm not going to do what i did last night and all i'm doing is eating this kelp and allows a little bit of heart attack that i can make i'm gonna i'm not gonna have it now i'm gonna wait and i'll have it in the morning give me a huge rush of energy probably for the day cause i'm down frustrating [Music] most of the cattle is close by then you start getting fairly close to them they start moving away and of course i'm on foot so i got to be careful i need a close shot let's see one's small enough well i've got to 22. i'm gonna find another way to survive out here my energy is it's dropping it's dropping faster [Music] peeking over a hilltop seems like it might be the ideal way to get close to the wildcats but it's a small calf that i need and the shot would have to be a perfect one and at close range since the 22 rifle is not very powerful getting this close to a handful of fully grown bulls with nowhere to run and only a small rifle is dangerous and in a survival situation the idea is to keep myself out of danger not invited with risky moves oh i got thorns and my bum ah i fell into a thorn bush that'd be the way to do it just sneak up like that i was right on them but they're all big ones no small comes the rain it's gonna be a night of rain things are simply not going my way in the world of survival luck i'm not having any at least what luck i am having is not good today was not a good day for morale that's that's not good for survival everything you do affects whether or not you survive and whether or not you eat depends on what you do sure changes everything a person's true measure is counted when they're hungry being hungry will make you do strange things tomorrow's another day [Music] my struggle in argentina has been a tough one an internal one bad luck with horses bad luck with finding food bad luck with the weather it's all been pretty difficult and now it's getting to me decided to console myself with a fire tonight i need to pick up my spirits and a fire usually does the job it's a colder night tonight you know what i'm done with feeling sorry for myself today was a rough day but i had a little epiphany and i realized what the problem is i'm not in control and in a survival situation somebody's got to take control and when you're all alone there's only one choice of who it's going to be it's the feeling of being out of control that's the hardest to handle in fact it's the darkest essence of survival itself if i don't take control i have no say on what comes next and creating my own destiny is never more important than when it comes to survival the mornings here are incredibly late that is to say the days are incredibly short it's hard to get a good start on things you wake up in the morning and it's just you know it's frigid and uh horses are fine had visitors here last night little foxes i think uh i'm gonna have some heart attack and uh take to the water i wanna i wanna catch some fish it's uh going on five days without food now and i can't eat grass this goes on any longer i might have to eat some horses i've been doing a bunch of looking inside here check this out ah this is gonna be great take the lure whip it around the head out it goes out into the ocean and reel it back in around the can found a couple other things the ever useful rope there's lots of rope so i'll stock up on it and make use of it this actually i like getting this thick rope like this because i can always take it apart it takes a while but i can use the thinner strands of it if i want to i'm only a few hundred yards from the ocean water this river is locked inside the land and offers me a chance of freshwater fishing and for this i have my hopes up finally wish me luck the last few days have been challenging psychologically and i do need a boost i think maybe i'll give myself a routine in any survival situation routine helps a lot it keeps your mind sharp and feel like you're being proactive so i think i'll do maybe 20 or 25 casts in each spot and just keep working my way along the river and hopefully hit into some luck water's cold on the hands fishing is one activity i know well hunting down wild cows is not it still feels a lot more likely than uh creeping up on a wild herd of cow hunting with an old 22 rifle seemed like a fool's endeavor right from the start at least with fishing i feel like i have a real chance i'm not ready to give up on argentina just yet this has been some of the toughest survival i've endured which is ironic considering the fact that i have an easy and ready-made shelter to base out of i didn't have to build one myself but shelter is only one part of survival no matter how many years of successful surviving i have under my belt if my luck runs out it simply runs out i've been at this all day and not a single hit not gonna stop though well weather wants to uh play a few games this week it's uh snowing now oh i didn't need the snow what i need more than snow is a fish on the end of this line it's been six hours of fishing six hours of throwing this line out there all right i'm gonna get out of this snow before my cameras get drenched ah my fingers are frozen off [Music] i can't believe it's snowing now i can't believe it's snowing now that's what it does here it goes from nice and sunny it's a little blizzard in a matter of moments or horses have to stay out in it my option is to come in here nearly seven days into surviving in argentina and the weather has not stopped giving me surprises [Music] [Music] just like that it goes from a complete blizzard to a stunning beautiful sunset [Music] and my world's become white [Music] since i still have daylight it's pretty dark inside the cabin i thought i'd still come out and try one last blasted fishing wow every fisherman knows what it's like to be skunked and to mutter under your breath with every cast come on and bite just one just one hit to be skunked when it's your very survival is hard to take see that i'm probably 900 yards from those cows and they just barely caught a glimpse of me and off they they took off not eating steak tonight [Music] i guess if it really gets down to it i could uh trap the fox that just doesn't seem right though my stomach might tell me otherwise [Music] i expected to at least get a shot at hunting some wild cows i expected to have a strong chance of bringing in a fish or even getting out to some reefs during low tide and searching for octopus or shellfish but argentina has other plans and it seems to have shut me down at every turn constantly going from bad to worse and now the winter has decided to show up early and with my inadequate clothes for this kind of weather it just doesn't bode well for me it's hard on me it's hard on the horses and once again i'm trapped there are enough stories of men trapped in cabins unable to get out to safety unable to hunt for food reduced to dying slowly within four protective walls sometimes places of refuge and the safety they imply is very misleading as they morph from refuge into prison which well there you have it that's what i woke up to this morning what a difference a day makes the winter storm is not content with just blowing through the night it starts up again and again and keeps me locked in a state of anxiousness and frustration i'm not getting out in this i wouldn't even want to put the horses through that shut down again first by the wind and now by a blizzard i'm stuck here and i'm not moving anywhere the beauty that is indeed the view of a winter's day is betrayed by the lack of ability to enjoy it there is no more firewood in the cabin and anything outside is now well hidden by the snow the once warm cabin has become a freezer box 18 hours still snowing i had come here prepared for rolling green hills and cool temperatures but this i was not ready for 25 hours still snowing [Music] the horses dig through the snow continuously munching on grass while i wait held captive by the greatest force of all nature i can't hope to fight it only try to endure it it's been about i don't know 28 30 hours now and uh finally some blue sky just in time for sunset locked down again and it's frigid now i have no warm underwear no winter boots or socks only my emergency down coat is keeping me from freezing and this is really how it happens so easily i'm uh shut down from a day of constant blizzards i've gone from grass to this [Music] [Music] argentina in essence has beaten me at my own game my game of survival i came here expecting to experience the fall weather of rain and wind even green hills while i travel along the coastline gathering seafood maybe hunting a cow but the weather here paid no attention to my expectations it cared not about my survival it remains as it always does completely indifferent to the creatures that live and travel here it simply exists as a harsh climate that only the tough survive over and over again groups of humans have not survived here they stay for a while but then they leave beaten and done with the struggle that is survival on tierra del fuego you

Channel: Survivorman - Les Stroud

Views: 996,470

Keywords: Survivorman TV Series, Les Stroud, Survivorman, Survivorman Les Stroud, Survivorman TV Show, Survivorman TV, Argentina, Mitre Peninsula, peninsula, Isla Grande, Patagonia, harsh environment, inhospitable landscape, will to survive, survival, ten-day survival, survive

Id: pkG06gmTTow

Length: 48min 16sec (2896 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 26 2021