Survivorman | Grenada Jungle | Les Stroud

if i ever said something along the lines of it's going to be a long night but it's gonna be a long night again sitting in the mud hoping that nothing's crawling on my back jungle survival these are the cloud forests of the island of grenada where fire ants are your nemesis fresh water is abundant but tainted by sulfur and weather is always unpredictable my mission is to survive here in this incredibly diverse mountain jungle terrain the southern grenada islands are situated between the caribbean sea and the atlantic ocean northeast of venezuela shrouded in mist the jungle is veiled from the sun by thick blankets of cloud it is possible to walk out of these hills and down to the coast but i'm here to test myself in this tropical island jungle i'm in grenada it's a small island country that's a group of islands really but it's big on nature it's got tropical desert-like islands beautiful palm trees sandy beaches and it's got a ridge of mountains running right down the center of the main island and those mountains are covered in cloud forest and that's where i've got to survive now here in grenada welcome to the jungle in jungles around the world i've become used to a few things being hot wet afflicted with rashes and fungus or constantly bitten stung or crawled on mostly by ants wow the funny thing about these buttresses on these trees because they look so magical they actually look inviting but it's not a good place for me to survive the night it's just horrible ground nothing's flat and a lot of critters like to go in here spiders snakes beautiful tree but not a good place to survive i'm looking for flat ground there's always sounds in the jungle eye it always sounds when you're not familiar with them they're kind of freaky i almost got a little clearing here this will have to do rocking the way but little body sized area here that's flat really got to watch for talk talk ants they just crawl along the ground along the trees well one thing's for sure you know it when you find one okay i'm gonna have to get used to sitting without sitting because the ground is always crawling with something ecosystems are living breathing entities unto themselves but jungles exemplify this concept and exist as the most rich and obvious example of a land alive and moving with the sun going down i'm not going to take a lot of time to go through all my pack i'm going to do that in the morning this time got this guy here simple orange garbage bag because this is the cloud for us and clouds mean rain yeah i'm gonna need more than this that's for certain i've got a machete each type of landscape requires its own version of a cutting tool that works well and in the jungle it's always going to be a machete oh oh here comes the rain all ready that's not fair i'm not ready oh boy i can hear it i do not want to spend the night wet not much of a shelter but it'll have to do yeah here comes some rain i'm gonna cover up the camera it can really pelt down here so and of course i gotta rip in this shoot that's not good this is a survival bracelet of sorts now i've brought this out basically to test it out rain's coming in and i need rope now how do i undo this okay so this one actually the rope is wrapped around a little miniature tin foil wrapped survival kit inside welcome to the world of filmmaking just hold off rain hold off i see a lot of people wearing these bracelets now i'm a big fan of any survival item that you can wear on your body carry with you easily and not have to put in a pack but you got to learn how to take them apart with rain threatening i cut it so i could get it apart faster i hopefully didn't do something stupid it's often thought that there are black and white answers to what someone must do in a survival situation but there never is it'll always be an ordeal fraught with variables and circumstances that'll dictate what my next move is it's equal parts preparation proactivity and reacting to whatever i have to face this is the little survival kit that comes with it put you away till a later date and all i really lost was a piece this big so obviously i cut it in the right spot to get this rope this little guy will do but even a pebble will work take it put it in wrap the plastic around it uh-huh put that through i better start hurrying and stop teaching because here comes the rain i think oh you know what it's actually pouring out there oh you son of a jungle rain rarely announces itself as coming they just happen every single day i'm in it now i'm in the jungle i just hope i can survive without getting too soaking wet rain combined with heat brings the potential for rashes and fungus infections jungle rains i have a feeling this is the way the week's gonna go rain lack of sleep insect bites injuries i have to constantly pay attention to the odds stacking up against me well it stopped raining there's no way i'm going to be able to sleep in this cacophony tonight and the museums are out and biting little tiny lighting flies lots of them i'm just gonna wait this night out trying to find myself a good rock to curl up on tomorrow middle of the day in the shade that's the thing about survival you always end up needing to sleep in the middle of the day because you don't really sleep through the nights tomorrow night i better have a better shelter it's rare that anyone does the right thing on the first night of a survival ordeal shelters aren't considered until it's too late fire is forgotten until it's too dark to find wood and inevitably the scene is set for what comes next surviving with little sleep which compromises my ability to make good decisions it rained pretty much all night long i mean it was off and on but when it came down it bucketed down i mean it gave me a few minutes in between each time i huddled in underneath here just stayed in real close and i managed to stay dry just barely and the major bonus was that all night long it filled up with rain water i just kept guzzling that one had a bug in it yeah i've got a few items with me here not much backpack to carry my camera gear i've got rain gear i have a change of socks and one t-shirt i've got my machete and a way to sharpen it i've got a file with it super important metal cup my harmonica and i had a bottle of water last night but it's empty now if there's some more clean water in here without bugs in it i'll fill it up take some more water with me i've got to go deeper into the jungle in here going deeper means going up oh that's good and going up there's not likely to be much water on a small jungle island i've chosen to stay deep in the mountainous interior to survive whatever grenada has in store for me but trekking through terrain like this is always tough going and full of surprises most of them painful that's where i'm headed up there there are little tiny they call them tracks little tiny trails riddled throughout these jungles but uh it's tough to stay on them they're small and not very noticeable there we go oh straight up that's so steep i'm gonna have to use hand holds to get up and i don't have the hand to hold because one's got the camera i don't know i've got the machete just a morning jaunt a little stroll in the park snap an ankle here that's the end of it nobody's coming to get me no one will know where to find me always scanning around let's see what edibles i even see a breadfruit tree i don't see any fruit on it though and that's been the trick too of this so much oh you're going to be able to pick this picked up you told that all the time now the breadfruit's right there but it's not in season i saw a clearing when i looked up i was hoping the trail would go over onto this clearing it's not just going deeper into the jungle it's so important not to fall into the trap of only traveling the path of least resistance it can lead you straight into a nightmare i'm going to mark my own trail as i go make sure i can get back if i have to it's really important when you blaze a tree that you uh that you do give it a good size blaze you want it up at eye level too not down too low you got to blaze it on both sides because when you're coming back you want to be able to see this if you blaze it as you walk always on the side you see you forget that's not going to help you that's only showing where you went not where you got to get back to my challenge is to survive in this jungle my way of survival is always a proactive style keep moving cautiously slowly see what i can find always searching out the advantages and ways to make survival easier all right try to pick out the trail that's how easy is it oh yeah these guys these guys nothing more than a harmless millipede right wrong these little suckers bite get off of me the trails here are old and unreliable barely cut out of a jungle that grows constantly filling in the path you make and covering over the marks left behind by machetes i think i'm lost this trail just goes straight down straight down to a river there it's a tiny tiny little trail i thought i saw another offshoot way back there i'm gonna i'm gonna backtrack because i don't i don't like where i am and i don't trust this way to take this deep trail down is go sideways i hate feeling lost if i have a nemesis in survival it's my own sense of cockiness it almost always leads me into dangerous places without many good options the emotions of frustration and embarrassment compound and conspire to undo many of the better proactive choices i've made up until that point my experience tells me i should always know where i'm going but the jungle challenges that constantly i'm lost again trail's going down again it's not a good sign i take that back the trail's disappearing again and that's a worse sign oh i'm locked in tight here it can't be said enough the wrong injury here spell disaster for me just can't let an injury happen trekking and even crawling my way through the jungle on the island of grenada the need for water starts to become a priority for my exhausted and dehydrated body no this is fresh rain water that's what this is it's not a stream at all there's enough here i can get rehydrated again perfect all right well that's enough climbing for one day i'm gonna make that my destination see what's up there there's water here if there's food up there i might have a i might have a spot all i really want to do is get to higher elevations where hopefully there will be a change of ecosystem and i might find more plants trees and fruit that are edible i can't get a footing anywhere on this it's all slippery plan b that wasn't plan b those are called flamma ants fire ants and i just climbed up over top of their nest so hopefully nothing's hitched a ride on me and uh two hands are not this is not all of this is either very slippery rock or it's just compacted mud and just falls away i'm saying this route is a no go between the fire ants and the steepness and the slipperiness and his pack on my back i'll try the other there's a little ravine over there i can't talk anymore i'll look up it go up in a little bit if not i'm gonna have to head back that's a long walk back well i didn't quite find what i was looking for a long way to come to not find what you're looking for this this is rewarding climbing has yielded me nothing advantageous just more of the same jungle if you look at this area from a plane or a map you'd think you could just walk out and down to the coast but that viewpoint means nothing when you're on the ground i'm gonna show something here that uh might seem a little benign but in the world of woodsmanship and survival it's a skill that i value highly and that's the ability to sharpen a blade dull blades cause more accidents than anything out in the wilderness you want your blade to always be super sharp that way the effort to cut anything is easy and and not forced now what's happening here is i'm only going against the blade you can see i'm not you don't do this never do that when you're sharpening so it's always in one direction that's one thing same angle keep going what should end up happening is on the underside i should almost get like a bur an edge bur because i'm not sharpening that side at all i'm just sharpening on one side so it's like the metal will curl over and give me a burr all right so i've got my burr oh yeah absolutely now at this point i'll go too far and i'll create a burr on the other side i actually like to do that i like to go too far and create the other bur and get myself a really beautiful edge an edge that you can shave with now you gently can feel with your skin or what i like to do a lot of times is is drop it and see if it catches my my fingernail if the sharpness of it just like that like the weight of the machete is right now on my fingernail and catching and i like that because that means that it's good and sharp and that's important because i've got to get some food and it's right up there going back and forth until the burr becomes a fine edge is the magic of sharpening and a sharp edge means easier survival right there palm hearts the great thing about these palm hearts is they're plentiful there's all kinds of them around sugars starches tender and juicy that's gonna help me get through the day now i'm starting to feel a bit weak but this will pick me right up there's another four or five there and i'm gonna turn the cameras off and have lunch a day of climbing through this thick jungle has yielded me only a few palm hearts to eat so i'll keep moving in the hopes of finding more fruitful areas i've been traveling a long ways and i don't want to make the same mistake i made yesterday i got to start getting ready because i'm sure the night rains will be soon that's what a good sharp machete does okay now i found a way to make this a little more substantial lots of material in the jungle all right it has to be realized that building shelters takes a lot of time there's no point to them unless they're really needed it's a tough decision but survival is always choice after choice i just have to make the right ones or risk making things worse by my own inactivity setting up a storm here and all i've had is puddle water today it's a bit of a dehydrated day for sure it's this way if the night rains do happen much better set up now and one of the reasons for breaking up all this earth too and putting it that i'm not on a bunch of leaves is if there are any flamma ants or millipedes or talk talk ants crawling along just a little easier to see them in the dark if the jungle is intimidating during the day it comes alive at night like some crawling slithering dark prison and only the morning light brings escape fight that what the heck i hate sleeping on the ground when i know there's big nasty ants that crawl around at night well i basically been able to check out my zone of assessment number three remember number one is my body number two is everything i've got close to me and number three is going further afield what i did was i just went straight up and it was a brutal climb to be sure but in the end there was a payoff all the way down i stopped and pretty much ate every single palm heart that i could find and uh and i feel a lot better for it it hasn't rained on me yet last night by this time it had already started raining so that's a good sign that's the biggest thing about building a shelter you can't start at 4 pm you've got to start earlier if you want to be substantial enough to withstand big rain and here in the grenada cloud forest you get big rain we'll see how i get through the night here we go right on cue middle of the night and here comes the rain has its benefits it comes in really strong waves there's a big swath that just came pouring through and now it stops it'll drip for a while it'll probably come up again it's boring if i ever said something along the lines of it's going to be a long night because it's gonna be a long night again sitting in the mud hoping that nothing's crawling on my back that's um i needed that dehydrated all day and herein lies the yin and yang of survival the rain can soak me through and cause fungus to develop yet it rehydrates me it can chill me down to the point of shivering even in this hot jungle yet it can keep the flying bugs and mosquitoes away survival at best is an emotional and psychological rollercoaster there's not a rock in the jungle it isn't slippery i'm going straight down there are only two directions in the jungle up or down i hear water running the sea water running all right ah yeah that's what i was afraid of it's sulfur water it's hot probably upstream there's a big pool i could even get in i can bathe in it it's quite warm actually and quite undrinkable i still have to find an alternate source of water although with all the rain at night that's keeping me hydrated for now doing reconnaissance missions like this are really important as i call them checking out your zones of assessment this is my zone of assessment number three walking fairly far to see what i've got just have to be really really careful that i don't blow too many calories going for a reward of very small calories sometimes it pays off though so i do know where i can have a bath now all right i see the clearing up here that's rum-headed of course i went after a clearing yesterday got to the very top and found nothing let's hope my fortunes are different this time oh yeah it opens up all right it's got to be an old jungle farm oh i see a coconut tree that's where i'm first handed right there ah it doesn't look promising but maybe there's something on the ground now i've passed by a lot of coconut trees that there's just no way i'm gonna be able to climb up them this one almost looks doable i still can't reach even from way up here if i try to stand up it's not going to happen let's see if i can do this with a pole and knock these suckers down that guy doesn't want to come down plan c i gotta catch my breath first i thought that was going to be the perfect ending to a great day i just can't get the leverage i need to really hit at the base of that coconut that's the third time in my life i've tried climbing up a coconut tree three strikes you're out coconut's three stroud zero you win mr coconut whoa i hacked into this coconut just cause i figured oh it's rotted it's not gonna be any good i see what i can eat right in there here we go ha ha oh boy i needed that four or five more around here i'll hack into them all eat them all oh boy that's sustenance tiny and old jungle farms exist throughout the island they're often and mostly abandoned but they remain productive with all kinds of fruit trees and plants from mango and bananas to coconuts and pineapples in fact if you were on the run they'd make a great place to hide out this is a mango tree and up there our mangoes are there way up there and these ones on the ground that have fallen down are just too rotted to eat so i've got to find a way to knock down some of those ones that are way up there i can't reach them and i can see my way and it's called bamboo eating the coconut has given me a much needed energy boost come on ah yeah two check this out fresh mango right from the tree oh yeah oh my god this is a good day you hear about sometimes people go off and they they live out in the wilderness or in the jungles and they actually will slip into local areas to steal food and get right back to the jungle again it's kind of what i feel like i'm doing right now all right i'm gonna collect a couple of these to take with me and look a little further and see what else i can find in this jungle reclaimed farm though the rain water i'd collected is refreshing i always prefer to seek out good water out of the ground for its taste and mineral content here we go spring that's not sulfur water that's good fresh water actually tastes like mineral water i think that hummingbird wanted to come and get a drink and i'm in his way this is shaping up to be one heck of a day of good survival this jungle area brings about familiarity and makes all the difference for survival evidence no matter how old of human activity cut trees clearings all help to make me feel more confident and sure of what i need to do now is when my decision to stay put becomes the priority over constantly moving and seeking out more advantageous areas now we're talking my speed of fruit these look like limes but they're actually just green lemons oh that's good and this tree is a bit of a distance from my camp in fact it's quite a distance but i know where it is and i can gather a bunch of them take them back to camp and enjoy oh it's a good thing i like sour don't do that at home mangoes lemons coconuts fresh water with so many advantages things are beginning to look up well it's raining again funny thing all this rain and cloud forest it's a long hike getting to everything today i know where the mangoes are i know where lemons are i know where coconuts are most importantly i know where there's some spring water just coming along here this guy right here oh looks like fruit easy for the picking but that's not what it is because what it is instead of a nice delectable fruit i mean it almost looks like a plum or something you know in fact it's nutmeg that's what nutmeg looks like oh that smells beautiful that's mace all on the top there the red you get rid of that and the nutmeg is underneath that give that a scrape if you could smell that that's nice but i can't just pop it in my mouth and eat it unfortunately no that's where the mangoes come in smells good though this area is cleared like i've been seeing jungle farm and uh where do you see what sits at the edge of the field yeah looks old and left behind but there's a roof there that's a heck of a lot bigger than my little orange garbage bag this is great remember i talked about how people come out here and build bamboo huts and hide away in the jungle check this out let's see if it's just simply abandoned or still in use well doesn't look like anybody's using it huh except maybe now all right well i'm gonna bring the rest of my gear forward then because i still want to find a good running stream and actually i want to try some fishing oh fishing and if it comes on to pour and rain i should be fine incredible i became proactive and found palm hearts to eat i found not only water and fruit but also an abandoned shelter these are the benefits of perseverance in a survival situation that was a long day but a fruitful day no pun intended between the mangoes the coconut the lemons now it's time for dinner so excuse me while i eat i think i'm food drunk that was a pretty bad food drunk on a survival ordeal ah first for everything this should finally be a better night's sleep ah you guys are kidding me i am standing here i'm not sitting i'm not lying i'm standing and why am i standing because this place has come alive with fire ants that's unbelievable they're crawling all along the bamboo i tried sitting down on the floor this just the whole building's covered in fire ants all right well i'm basically in the barn now and not much i can do let's sit out here because i'm not going back in there that's insane i think i'm gonna be pretty much just curled here now in the dirt and hope that the ants stick to the wood because you know ants don't crawl on the ground do they this couldn't be worse not gonna be worse survival is a constant roller coaster sometimes for every advantage i find i run up against another challenge only perseverance will win the day when it comes to surviving the jungle what a night it only rained for about 30 seconds but no worry me and all the ants stayed dry pretty much spent the night just sitting i think that's the hardcore reality of survival is you don't usually sleep at night so you sleep during the day when you're supposed to be looking for food which is what i'm gonna go do now i've got lots of mangoes here that's fantastic so i know i can rely on that i'm gonna head downstream see if i can find another feeder stream that i can actually drink water from and maybe catch some fish does this look familiar it sure feels familiar up and down up and down i'd still like to find a substantial running stream i know they can contain large crayfish and finding meat like that to eat will go a long way towards securing what could be if i choose to do so long-term survival in this jungle this was that little wrist survival kit that i had that's pretty much what i was hoping for fishing line even a little lure and a hook i said i was gonna go fishing not for regular fish crayfish well here's the pool and i've secured the fishing line to the top here what will happen though for fishing is i'll get some bait on the end and i actually stick it into the end of the rod like this i hold on to it with one hand and my finger holds onto the fishing line then i take this put it deep down into holes where i'm hoping the big crayfish are hey here we go that's what i'm looking for little crayfish feed them through the hook there we go looks appetizing to me i'm fishing for much larger crayfish they can provide me with a very substantial meal they're like a small lobster sometimes as heavy as a pound or two there's definitely one down in there nice size and he took all the bait almost all right try again even one large crayfish would make a big difference but the process is tricky and requires a lot of patience they hide way up inside underneath these rocks yeah some of the ones just took my bait the deep dark under i can't really reach my hand in get a pinch if i do i mean they can be this big crayfish so lose a finger so i think i'm gonna head downstream a bit explore a little more and most importantly since i have been in the jungle for a while clean off without proper hygiene in every survival situation i run the risk of highly dangerous rashes and fungus development small ailments that can make a survival ordeal a horrible test of pain endurance this came downstream a few hundred yards i don't believe this i think i see coconuts here it is it's so rare to be able to get green coconuts so easily so this is completely a matter of survival luck and i'm going to take advantage of it by catching up on my sleep as well so that i can think more clearly and make better decisions on what to do next without sleep thinking clearly is impossible there's simply been no need for fire so far into this journey but with the advantage of a solid roof overhead it's time to make a fire and enjoy its many benefits doesn't matter where you are how hot and dry it is getting a fire going still requires patience and long setup and very fine tinders and then for good measure i know this usually holds a an ember it's an old termite nest watch out for fire ants here let's try a little trick to get a fire going i've got a bottle of water and some printer paper paper that was used just to to test the ink cartridge so what's important is the black so i'm going to take it i'm going to fold it in four i'm just looking for the spot where i can focus ah i need more sun there we go i had the paper in with my camera equipment ah right with my son i'm back i figure why not use it for the greater good ah there's a lot of clouds up there today it's not helping well it worked really well on youtube okay what i'll try and do here is just simply use my flint and a piece of paper so i have no magnesium shavings or anything like that i think it'll work i gotta do those i'm gonna i'm gonna rough up the paper a bit just get some rips just gently fold another piece over just gently hold it together keep feeding it some oxygen one more piece of paper all right now we should have fire there we go there we go now we're talking ha ha die fire ants die i know you're inside there all right this was sent my way one day this tiny little survival grill and uh very lightweight didn't even notice that it was in the pack so i'm gonna try it out just to see if it's something worth taking carrying along always interested in new survival gear not bad let's try it out on the callaloo get it in there right away i got a good solid fire now huh that's not bad now that's what i call a meal unbelievable tomorrow i'll just go downhill down down down down walk my way out of here my time here is done but this was effective jungle survival i could go up and i find palm hearts i go down that way and i find you know a river with fresh flowing water and coconuts i can grab go down this way and i've got mangoes and lemons and that is good effective survival when i can have a base camp and fan out and find something in every location that's jungle survival for you within every generalized ecosystem every square mile has its own unique life to it within places we give general descriptions to there survives a unique collection of biodiversity that if destroyed is not repeated anywhere else on this earth jungle survival is intimidating to the outside observer but more intimidating is not having a jungle to survive in at all the amazon is different from the congo papua new guinea is different from grenada though we refer to them all as just jungles what makes any one area special is the fact that it's a deep dark dramatic example of a living and breathing planet and in this respect the grenada jungle stands out as a pristine and beautiful example of the place we refer to as the jungle you

Channel: Survivorman - Les Stroud

Views: 1,243,059

Rating: 4.8582907 out of 5

Keywords: Survivorman TV Series, Les Stroud, Survivorman, Survivorman Les Stroud, Survivorman TV Show, Survivorman TV, Grenada Jungle, Grenada, jungle, survival, survive, survival skills, Mt. St. Catherine, high-altitude jungle, Cloud Forest, mona monkeys, tarantulas, scorpions, armadillo, iguana, parrots, possums, jungle survival experience, survival experience, poisonous plants

Id: tLCsnEe0CFc

Length: 48min 10sec (2890 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 12 2021