Survivorman | Mexico Part 2 | Les Stroud

just going to keep climbing and exploring see what else i can find as long as i can do it carefully you don't just scale these things quickly and snap an ankle i go flying off it because that turns a straight survival situation into a real emergency [Music] take [Music] this is tiburon island mexico and after being left to survive aboard a disabled sailboat i was able to fashion a shelter of the ripped sail dig for clams and protected lagoon area close by and even make a small supply of fresh water by distilling salt water eventually the sailboat sank in the shallow waters as its keel was dug into the sand by the wind and waves and now i'm on the move in search of a fresh supply of water and as always to see if i can better my circumstances i'm moving on to see just what i can find inland but most importantly to find a more reliable source of drinking water this looks like my new home i'm going to make camp at a small abandoned village built in the style of the siri indians by the military as a place for scouting drug runners throughout these areas the syrian indians created these small airy villages in places of food gathering i got the long walk back to go grab the fire log and bring it here back along the beach at my first shelter location along with items i can't carry forward i've left my only fire going so that i can retrieve a burning log and bring my fire forward a necessary job since i have no matches or lighter still going i still have five more days to survive in the heat of the mexican desert i'm just gonna shift over here there's another shelter here and their old fire pit so i have a feeling it's here for a reason well the wind is just as you can see picked up intensely i mean it's even blowing seaweed across the beach now wind like this works in a convection sense it just sucks the moisture right out of your body constantly that's why it's better for me to keep this shirt on even if i'm a bit hot to stop the wind from constantly sucking moisture out of my body as it is i can feel some of the symptoms of dehydration now i certainly haven't urinated in an awfully long time i gotta search for water survival is almost always centered around the ever-present need for fresh drinking water in the desert and at the ocean's edge the need is amplified by the heat and dry winds you know i hear so much of this nonsense about fighting against nature you know man versus the wild sort of thing and uh it really is nonsense wilderness just is it's not against me it's not for me it's here it's benign it just is what it is and right now it's windy i went around and liberated some more rope from the camp and i got to thinking about my sleeping arrangements and now i can make them better the advantage of taking the sail from the boat is paying off huge now [Music] okay you can see this is going to take a while so lead me to it and i'll show you what i've got when i'm done this is one of those times where a little bit of simple acquired skill sets like how to sew can really pay off in a survival situation i think i did it made myself essentially a bivvy sack look at that that's gonna work sweet i've carried with me a small supply of fresh clams dug out of the sand at my last shelter location time to chow down on clown maybe that's where the name chowder came from probably shouldn't be eating because it's a lack of water but i'm hungry and the clams are the one thing that's easy and plentiful clams are also salty increasing my need for more fresh water and it was good ah this should be a lot better than last night this bivvy sack i've made out of the sale with the blanket it already feels more comfortable i've got the fire burning in behind me which is great i can feel heat from here and i can stoke it all night long so this is making circumstances a little better [Music] most of my survival needs have been met fire shelter sleeping bag and even food so now it comes down to the most important need of all water i was thinking that on first sunlight i would get up and make my move into uh into the hills and then i realized that well i need more food i'm gonna take food in with me just in case there's nothing in there i don't know what i'll find once i get in there tide is just going down nicely right now so makes walking easy i'm going to walk back to the estuary check the ocean along the way for anything that might have come in overnight anymore squid it'll also give me one more day for these blisters to heal because they're still not so good sometimes in survival i find myself in the center of a competition for food sources water and even shelter [Music] looks like my dances with coyotes has returned just hunting the shoreline looking for a meal just like me survival for the coyote in a desert place like this mirrors my own we both just want the same things food water and shelter as always in a survival situation the land is the grocery store so i'm heading back to the grocery store there's no harm in checking out these tide pools close to camp you never know what you're gonna find unless you go exploring nice there's another food source here this guy right here called limpets there we go there he is this guy is a tasty morsel and i don't have to bother cooking them either just basically liberate them and eat mmm like everything here salty but that's really delicate and juicy and good there's a bunch more olympics here so i can pick them and eat them as they come yeah that's a nice big one ouch bonus all right so i've got another source of food here i'll just scour along these shores eating as many of these limpets as i can there's also a lot of rock oysters here but the way they uh treated my stomach yesterday i'll hold off on the oysters i don't want a chance getting sick like that again [Music] this should be a really good spot for collecting scallops well sadly you can see why there's no scallops left on the other side i searched in vain to see if i could find some scallops to eat it was a good good area for it but because this place has been habitated by people before they've fished it out so it happens when you don't leave behind a population to regenerate you leave nothing behind leaving something behind for the future is what makes survival possible so while i was out clamming i went back to my old survival site and i grabbed the water still thought i'd put it back in action it can make me up to a pint a day it's been working really well it's exactly the same as i had it set up before got the fire underneath it's filled with uh ocean water steam comes out the top fresh water steam and drops into my bottle so i want to get a couple more pints before i head into the hills there i also gathered a ton of clams so i should be okay for a little bit a couple of days anyway in terms of food last thing is just these blisters on my heels waiting out one more day here i'll give them just a chance just get a little bit more healed over hopefully and uh so i'm going to stay here tonight and head in tomorrow my movements every movement is usually dictated by the weather or the time of day i want to make my move here during the cooler morning hours before the sun becomes intense overhead making travel arduous water or at least the need for it is my motivation reward 100 canadian dollars to whoever finds this note and can prove it les stroud survivor man it's march 2012. there we go reward did this once before about 10 years ago the very first survivor man adventure ordeal survival situation whatever you want to call it that i went on i'm gonna do it again here goes nothing the offshore wind will take that bottle very far hours into the day my water still has plenty of time to do its job and provide me with a small bit of fresh drinking water well it's working again check it out yes indeed that's great perfectly distilled water there's some copper flakes in there but oh that's all right i'll take those [Music] the water i've made is indeed a great help but it's no longer enough if i don't make a move i'll start to slowly dehydrate i've collected some more clams to give me nutrition and a small bit of energy i've also grabbed a few pieces of beech junk a tin bottle and some plastic bottles for my travel kit so with some rest i can make my way into the hills tomorrow well the winds are still howling that's it for another day out here this is day six i think i'm heading into day seven and uh i hope the winds abate throughout the night i'm going to crawl into my bivvy sack i'll let the water still keep working throughout the night it's making me good water and then i'm going to head into the valley into the rocks where i know there's drinking water there's springs i don't know if there's any food though that's going to be the tough part into the land of the coyotes [Music] that was a cold night i know it's hard to imagine a place that can be so hot during the day and cooling down to be so cold at night but a desert is that kind of place and i'll tell you if it gets any colder than it did last night i'll be waking up to frost well the good news is that since it is so cool this morning it gives me some sort of more refreshing strength to get up and uh pack up my bivvy sack and my my camera gear and head into the hills before it gets too hot before that sun gets too high overhead it's time to move on it may be only a day's trek into the mountains and rocky hills but under the heat of the sun still enough to tax my energy reserves significantly especially when you consider how little food i've had for six days now if i don't find water it'll all be for nothing i was almost getting ready to leave and i was trying to think okay how am i going to carry the fire now i've got no more matches so how do i get the fire into where i've got to go so how can i carry this fire and then all of a sudden it occurred to me i hang on a second i still have from when i was on the sailboat three of these babies left there we go instant fire carrier i've got two more of these cigars and i'm sure if i just sort of hold them and let the wind work on them with any luck at all that'll last me through to wherever it is i end up tonight and that takes care of the first leg of the journey this is a good idea okay i've got the pack full of my camera gear the bivvy sack on it uh i've got clams and there's tons of these water bottles and pop bottles around here plastic so i filled up as much water as i could i think i got another day maybe here we go [Music] all right there's something important right now there's something bothering me just on the bottom side of my foot it's always critical in a long hike to get rid of any hot spots or anything that's going to bother your feet as you go or just can wreak havoc later you know the old saying that's not the desert that'll stop you it's the grain of sand in your shoe uh you can see there's an old 4x4 trail here people call them a quad or atv i have one myself i'm not opposed to using them but you can see what kind of damage they do when they're not sticking to specific trails just for their use they leave damage that possibly never if ever goes away i'll follow this trail for a bit because it's going the direction i want to go a little turkey vulture flying over there he's supposed to be here days into surviving on a desert island off the coast of mexico my search has turned to primarily finding water there was plenty of food to gather on the ocean coast but my trek will take me inland now where i hope to find small pockets of rain water caught in the smooth rocks of the desert [Music] awesome that's the first little score in the desert here these are goji berries and definitely edible pay a lot for these back in canada wow these are excellent it's the first real fresh food i've had in a long time i'm going to take advantage of this eat them all all right now this little plant here would have been good to have had early on my week because it's uh it's a healing plant and uh a poultice of this or um if i were to put this in boiling water and steep it and just steep it for a long time uh even just hot water and then put my foot in that it would have been extremely healing for my blisters it's been nicknamed governess i think i'll scoop some up with me now just in case this plant here is uh well i don't know its real name but i'm just going to call it sort of a desert lavender ah smells fantastic it's uh i'm not sure if it's got any sort of medicinal properties to it or nutrients but i do know that added to water makes the water nice and flavorful kind of like an herbal tea i've got my 110 water bottle that i can add this to and i can add this to the cold water as all but if i want to actually heat up water make some tea i can so it's a little bit of as i say i'm going to call it desert lavender smells fantastic just makes any of the water i get more palatable and once i get into the mountains i don't know what kind of water i'm going to find so it's good that i've got the tin water bottle just in case i need to boil water this is great because i walk i'm looking for any signs at all of directional life whether it be ancient human activity or uh coyotes or deer sheep and the thing is the animals know where the water is they got to drink too i might have to weave my way in and around cactuses and thick bush but either way i'm keeping myself on course i'm heading straight for a sort of a very bright patch of hilltop in the distance there if i just keep my eye on that i keep going straight forward all the weaving and twisting i'm doing won't matter and i can just stay straight and on course that sun is pretty hot overhead i'm not sure how much farther i'll go some places on this planet can consume the living the arctic the jungles and the deserts rank supreme in this aspect i gotta take a break it's midday in the mexican heat and you can sure feel it oh i gotta go check on that cigar make sure it's still burning it's been strapped to my pack i was actually close it's getting down i think i'm going to transfer i think it's got to be one of the most unique methods of fire carrying i've ever done all right that's how much further i got to go but i'll get the next one going all right i had it strapped onto the back of my pack just sort of tied in a little spot figuring the wind would keep it going and it did it worked well but i think i don't take more chances i think i'll carry it from here on in well i still got fire [Music] problem with uh holding on to the cigar of my fire carrier so i'm always putting it in my mouth and i actually think i'm burning it down a little quicker it lasted longer and i just had it sort of strapped to my pack believe it or not had it in a place where it wouldn't burn the pack so i think i'll just hold on to it and hopefully it'll get me to where i'm going sun's beating down i don't think i'll go too much farther though i think i'm gonna call this home there's a nice big tree here for shade the next few hours lots of firewood and uh my feet are really overheating so i'd like to cool them down also my cigar is starting to get really low and i only have one left i'm going to need it to get further in tomorrow so i'll get the fire going has to be home for tonight biggest hazard here now is gonna be scorpions lots of them they mostly hide out in the barks of the trees but they could be under these rocks too so there's also rattlesnakes and here it's a peculiar kind of it's a rattlesnake without a rattle oh what do we got here and spiders black little spiders is the other concern lots of them here too i don't know what all these spiders are but uh i'm gonna treat every single one of them as if it's a brown recluse or a black widow even in the dry hot desert proper preparation for fire starting is still vital to success probably only going to get this one chance out of fire so i'm going to take my time and make sure i get it right yeah i'm just wondering if uh this bandana hey there we go 100 cotton so my bandana is 100 cotton that's a really good thing because i'm going to make use of it just use enough so i can still wear it what i want to do is i want to rough it up break up the fibers so that it's somehow kind of fluffy i've looked around the desert here and i'm just not seeing anything fluffy lots of pointy and prickly and stabby things but nothing fluffy yeah there we go just breaking up these fibers nicely so i could pull them apart with my fingers if i wanted to a lot of vultures flying overhead that's not a good sign i'll start off with this small piece see if i can do it hopefully that'll do the trick let's keep all this small stuff right there and ready shove the cigar in blow and i think the beauty of this is i might be able to actually blow from the end of the cigar from the the non-lit end to make this work it's gonna be tricky it's always a matter of striking the right mixture of breeze or no breeze to get the coal to take and finally turn into a flame ah come on come on okay yeah ah right little shot of wind at the right time and poof off she goes i got fire courtesy my brand new patented fire carrier awesome all right now that i've got the fire going that's a huge bonus wait out the day and uh most importantly start to conserve my energy conserve my water that's in my body try not to drink too much because i don't have that much and if i feel i can stomach it i'll eat some clams tonight for now i gotta wait out the heat of the day that's better with the fire lit now i can save burning up any more of my cigar and keep it for more fire carrying tomorrow this whole area here is uh just rich in artifacts all the clam shells they're brought here by humans and eaten this is a campsite from the siri nation who knows how old hundreds of years thousands of years uh pottery shards everywhere there's a piece right there look at that it's got uh you can still see the burn on it from the fire hardening it's a good sign for me that people have survived here before because i'm surviving here and it means that i'm on the right path too they would have always taken the path of least resistance always camped in areas that were good for human beings it's just what we do rich in history and rich in artifacts so you know i take a look at a log like this i can put it on the fire but it's probably swimming scorpion so why scatter those scorpions right by where i'm going to be sleeping when i don't have to because there's so much other firewood around this classic scorpion homeland here this is probably a veritable scorpion condominium here if anybody's home you just stay where you are don't come out to get warm by the fire i've been trying to avoid the scorpions but i just realized if i can find a couple then i can find a meal and this is where they will be if they're anywhere in wood like this even just one or two scorpions would be a tasty meal a few spiders and no scorpions come on they're hiding somewhere nasty black widow webs there walking around and bare feet it's kind of stupid i'll look at a few other places few other logs i see around hopefully turn up something but in the meantime if there's any scorpions hiding inside here i'll put them on the fire see if they pop out look at that eh you can sure tell a black widow web when you see it it's just kind of gnarly and messy and in the front of a hole lots of them here i can't be certain but i i think that might be a black widow spider i don't recognize the red hourglass markings that you see in the classic sort of textbook version but i'm in mexico that doesn't mean that that's not it so interesting it was a gnarly web same sort of body shape and size and with the strange markings on the back of it so could be i have to check the textbooks when i get home assuming i make it home i've set up camp in the same area the syrian indians did for a thousand years on their way into the mountains for survival and in doing so they always leave me with a sense of awe oh there we go it's dinner time oh it's better than nothing like the siri before me i'll sleep out the night on the flats in the company of coyotes and under the stars of the ancestors knowing that my quest will take me into the rocky crags of the mountain desert in search of any food sources shelter or water that i can find away we go you know being able to follow a trail is as much intuition because it is common sense you just got to really pay attention i've been walking along here there's a very very slight indentation it's just a gentle you know uh one inch depression here sculpted along this way here and that's all i'm following sometimes that's all you need just little slight recognition of what looks like a place where people or animals would go and when that happens i always sort of project well where would i go you know where would the animals go and this trail whether animal or human is definitely a trail now if you come up here and check this out look at you see all these branches here they're all broken off they're broken off all evenly and in line and they're all broken and sort of flattened down on the trail as well and it's all leading to where i want to go so that's good sign see that so pick out the trail it's not always easy [Music] look here it gets even better with trails this is really hard to see i'm sure but there's actually a trail that that comes up this way and another one that comes in that way forming a y or a v depending on which way you want to look at it and the y the stem of the y when trails come together in the case of animals almost always points to water and it's because it's animals are coming from throughout different areas and they're all converging in on the same spot when i see a y like that it's going in that direction and i see a pronounced trail along here i know i'm still in the right direction that's the way i'm heading [Music] even a rocky desert can offer up supplies along the way supplies that may help me out later i'm just grabbing some of this paper bark here you never know i still got the cigar going it's working well as my fire bundle but when i get there i don't know what i'm gonna find so since i'm seeing this paper bark here along the way it's uh prudent to grab some now just so i've got some good light fire started when i get there this looks like a place to take a break in the shade my cigar went out so i've got no fire without fire i could be in the worst case scenario if i do find water that's one thing but if it's stagnant and filthy it'll have to be boiled i was on the search for water and now find myself without fire too so i have two survival priorities water and fire without water i'll dehydrate fast and be forced to do a march back out to the ocean coast to try to make small drinks of fresh water by using the water still i left behind well there's lots of caves can spot them all sorts of little caves along here good shelter from the sun don't need it from the rain but just further up there's reeds and reeds are a good indication of water i don't think i'll go any further if there's water here then here's where i'm gonna stay i see this a canes like this girl for a reason they need more water than the cactus or a lot of these shrubs around here i'm gonna check it out all right this is looking even better now well actually this looks pretty sludgy it's not really water i'm going to want to drink just the way it is but it's promising so if this is like this here then i'm going to go up into the canes in the reeds and just dig and see if i can get some better fresher water there if not i've got this uh dripping source here it's looking pretty slimy i'm gonna want to boil this water first let's go up into the canes themselves see what i can find this water comes from a very slow-moving natural spring within the earth itself to drink it i really should only take one option and that's to boil it first to kill any parasites that is if i can get a fire going the good news is that i'd scavenged a small metal bottle from the beach so i at least do have something to boil water in all right that's a start [Music] huh well what have we here that is a fig tree fig tree is a soft wood let me tell you what's off what it's good for fire bulbs i'll gather a few sticks to try my hand and fire by friction i do see a cave just over there i'm gonna go check out that cave that looks awesome i can get out of the sun and it's close to some water that sounds like a shelter location to me well there's sheep poop in there but i can clear that out here's my view right let's try this there we go this is a shell i actually just brought from the ocean i can put the spindle right up in here and i think i'll be able to hold it down it'll be it'll be my bearing block basically you can see the the edge out there and normally i always put my baseboard over top of my tinder bundle so the coal's already in the tin bundle and i go for it the tradition here in the desert is that they don't they they always have a piece a little platform thing underneath they catch the cold and then they transfer i don't like that extra step but uh in honor of my desert friends that's the way i'm going to do it here comes the wind this is the problem the wind starts blowing you pick this up and it blows off and you've lost your ember let's give this a shot wish me luck everyone prefers different mixtures of wood for this i happen to prefer using soft wood spinning against softwood i like how both grind down into a hot dust together rather than just one piece being hard and grinding the other one down when i first get the smoke it's not ready that's just my signal to keep spinning and not stop until i'm either exhausted or i'm sure i have enough hot dust gonna come off real careful here we go transfer this is a small ember the size of the end of a cigarette drop it knock it or squeeze it too hard and i risk destroying it and having to start all over again it takes patience and skill to get a fire going without matches but once you have the feel for it you never lose it it's like riding a bike a bike that can save your life there we go got you go yeah that is sweet why is that so exciting because that means purified water now and that's how it's done home sweet home fire water boiling good protection from the sun in the heat of the day cave is probably by far you know the best survival shelter you can you can find you come across a cave it's just it's brilliant it saves a lot of energy and uh the only thing about the fire in the cave is i'm keeping my fire just outside is the thing about heating up rocks a little too quickly you know they'll you get the fractures and the rocks come down and i don't want any of these rocks come down on me okay it boiled [Music] wow that's good first of all it's good just to have boiled water when you're out in a situation like this you go so long without anything that's ice cold or anything that's nice and steamy hot so to get boiled water is already a godsend but ah just to get water at all in a place like this is a big thing but i'll go looking further tomorrow to see what else i can find if there's water here and there's that much of it there may be more if i go further up stream so to speak start to get the dehydration headaches after a while and they're never fun i have fire and some water but they won't be enough and i'll need to keep moving to find a better fresher and larger supply of water i'm also geographically too far away from a constant food source it would seem somewhere in the middle might be the best option i've brought two of these from the ocean coast and i'm going to sacrifice one right now to help with my feet plant that i gave the common name the governess to that i grabbed while i was on the trail made it in with me here i still got it so now's the time to use it helps to have a good sharp knife that's for sure this is all already nicely bruised from being in my pocket uh there's a use for a knife i bet you never saw before pot holder oh yeah these blisters on my boots have been oh my boots these blisters on my feet yeah i could use some more food now when i start talking in incomplete sentences and uh not getting my thoughts together i know i'm getting pretty hungry these blisters on my feet have been pretty bad but the salt and the sand and the ocean water helped a lot just the same i can really increase the healing speed so i'm just going to get it set and put my foot in it oh that's hot wow i added hot water to it that's really hot on the foot i'm going to let that soak for a while and as long as i can i'll probably sit here for a good hour or so with the sun setting the wind just comes through here so powerfully sometimes it's just incredible you know whatever's going on in survival situation you're back sore you've got an injury you're exhausted you can still just sit back and look at all this natural beauty and go amazing it's moments like these where the spirit of the land itself replenishes you gives you strength and fills your soul that's really what survival is all about in the end amazing [Music] with things finally starting to look up i'll combat the boredom of being alone with some wilderness craftsmanship and try to make a simple cane flute [Applause] i guess i'm just not a flute maker [Music] that's much better [Music] dinner is served clams again but i'm not going to complain that's a laughs at my dinners it's the last of my food and as much as being out on the ocean coast is too far from a good source of water being here in the mountains is too far from a constant food source the estuary is a day's walk away the best place for me to eventually be has clearly become somewhere in between the mountain water supply and the coastal food supply tomorrow i'll climb the hills a bit in search of opportunities one ways up just gonna keep climbing and exploring see what else i can find as long as i can do it carefully you don't just scale these things quickly and snap an ankle i go flying off it because that turns a straight survival situation into a real emergency [Music] wow definitely gives me a better lay of the land and there's where i came from way out there that's my little cave way way down there i don't know if you can see it but there's another big big pool of water down there if this turns out to be good fresh water i don't need to boil then i may have found the missing piece to this survival puzzle a constant supply of fresh water because this is enough water to keep me totally refreshed and even fill up my water bottles and maybe then head back down to the coast where i know the food is i have a drink one of the best ways to uh get this water out of here is actually to uh get one of those cane reeds and just drink with a straw out of it the reason that i would drink out of a straw is because i can actually contaminate it with my own germs so it's best to keep my my human hands and face and lips and all that out of the water and let it stay fresh i know the green sludge doesn't look good but this is pretty much rain collection it should be fine oh yeah there's a green tinge to it but that's all right that's gonna be good this is beautiful oh that's cold and it's good [Music] in spite of the disgusting looking green algae in the water this rain catch puddle is quite safe to drink the siri indians would have gathered water from these little pockets for hundreds of years but i can't stay here the food source is a day's walk away the water is here my place should be back on the flat of the land straddling between the water and the food moving every day for a few hours to get what i need without a heavy pack on it won't be a problem survival doesn't always mean sitting still in one place [Music] all right well i figured out where the good water is and i know where all the food is out in the ocean best place is to be on the flat of the land and that's what the series used to camp right in the middle come up here to get the water go down to the ocean to get your food and that's where i'm headed tonight i'm going to camp out on the flat of the land and tomorrow a rescue boat should be waiting for me on the beach has survival on tiburone island mexico oh one more thing and this time i am making the crew come all the way in here to get this camera [Music] throughout history humans have struggled to achieve the three basic needs food water and shelter today modern societies employ trucks trains and planes that bring our basic needs right to our doorsteps but it's not always like that even in these modern times in survival victims have always needed skills and even intimate knowledge of the land to keep from perishing out here you've got to fend and forage for yourself as i've discovered here in the deserts of mexico food and water are not always neighbors and so shelter must be built in between the two and you've got to undertake a day's journey to eat or drink but not in the same direction the peoples of the land have known this since the beginning of human existence it's a lesson we can't afford to ignore our own survival just may depend on you

Channel: Survivorman - Les Stroud

Views: 1,767,573

Keywords: Survivorman TV Series, Les Stroud, Survivorman, Survivorman Les Stroud, Survivorman TV Show, Survivorman TV, shipwrecked, desert island, Mexico, Tiburon, Sonoran desert, desert, Sonoran, distill seawater, scavenge for clams, stingrays, coyotes, hunger, fatigue, loneliness, ten-day survival, survival, survive

Id: fywx1eWHz8A

Length: 47min 31sec (2851 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 05 2021