Monday, May 28, 2007

One can eat and drink what to survive???

I don't know if anyone has seen that show on the Discovery Channel on survival called Man vs Wild. I just found it this weekend and I am completely hooked on it.

This young Englishman who seems to have the credentials for survival having scaled Mount Everest along with many other adventures is dropped by plane into different types of environments with very few tools required for survival except his trusty knife and water canteen. I have watched him survive the jungle (may have been Mexico or one of the other middle America countries, the Rockies in what seemed like late winter, the desert of Africa and somewhere which looked like the Grand Canyon, and a tropical island which seemed far from anywhere. This man is absolutely amazing and the way he makes a fire by rubbing pieces of wood together is almost a miracle but he succeeds every time.

What I love most is his knowledge of surviving in any environment. He knows how to locate water in the remotest place, what plants to use for medicine (he had a horrendus cut on his arm from the fall into Africa). How to climb trees over 5 stories tall to get his bearings, mountain cliffs (I assume he learned that before Everest). He can make a raft from most any type of wood he can find, using vines in the jungle, old bicycle tires, and stringy leaves from cactus plants. He can make a shelter from leaves and bark from whatever trees he can find. He can swim in any type of water including rapids and freezing lakes (using his trousers by knotting the legs and blowing them up).

What really blows my mind is the things he will eat to survive. I have watched him eat grubs, termites (high proteen he exclamed), raw trout (he was really starving and cooked some later in a basket of bark, mud and leaves. I watched him eat raw zebra meat in Africa which was left over from a lion kill (he did mention to smell it first and check for magg_ts before trying that little trick. He eats plants, drinks anything he can find from plants, and even squeezed fresh elephant dung to extract what liquid he could get (I can't imagine how that tasted but he did say in his proper English accent that it was quite "Nasty".

I cannot imagine why I am hooked on this show. I am absolutely not a camper (my idea of camping is Motel 6) but I find it very entertaining and the entire concept facinates me. I highly recommend it and would like to know if anyone else has seen this show and what you think of it.

5 comments:

Joan said...

I've caught snippets of this show now and then. Are you so fascinated because you think you might need this survival information after you move to Iowa and experience your first tornado? Just wondering... :~)

the moose buyer said...

Nah, Iowa's not the reason for liking the show. There are no mountains to scale and lots of corn to eat. I think I am just facinated by this guy's abilities to make do with whatever he finds no matter where he ends up. I love his British accent too.

After blogging last night, I watched him bite the head off a small garter snake then eat the rest plus he somehow managed to down a worm (uncooked even) UGH.

I thought maybe the food was really terrible in England and he learned these tricks as a child.

Good things our moms didn't only make hamburgers (old awful family trait) or we too would have been scrounging for grubs and stuff.

Lynn said...

I saw a clip from the show. EWWWW! I can't imagine eating or drinking any of the stuff. I do admire his ability to survive in the most adverse of conditions...wonder what the camerman eats?

Patti said...

ick - I don't care for snake or worms on my dinner plate. yucko

Not sure if I ever want to tune into this show. Lynn brings up a good point - what does the cameraman eat?

the moose buyer said...

I am not sure if there is a camera person on most of the shows. On some of the shows, he has a hand held camera which he moves around but on the Africa one when the elephants and rhinos got too close he turned around and commented that "we" need to move around so they don't see us. I am guessing on that show he had someone filming. Either way, he didn't share his raw Zebra meal with anyone on camera.