Original subtitles

There. There.

Ran up the hill.

There's food all over the place.

It's going to be really hard to hunt here.

Not good.

I cannot drink the water out of the lake

without boiling it, because I know

I will have diarrhoea, and I will drop out.

Thank God.

I feel a little nauseous.

.

Hello, this is Pablo.

I'm officially tapping out.

I couldn't keep up with hydrating myself.

I got to throw up, man.

All points, we have red button alert.

Hopefully, there's many chapters in this legend,

and, hopefully, it is a lot more triumphs than failures.

They call this place the Land of Great Thirst.

The great Karoo Desert, South Africa.

We are in one of the most inhospitable places on Earth.

Ten participants.

Whoever can stay the longest wins.

It's pretty simple.

Oh, I found the baboons.

There's ten of them, but I only have five arrows.

This place is dry, dry, dry.

The sun's beating down on you every day.

I'm so tired, and I'm so thirsty.

Oh, man.

I really don't feel safe drinking this water.

This is a place to be, if not feared,

treated with a lot of respect.

I changed my mind!

Look at the size of that thing.

There's a big herd of wildebeest right there.

Rhino tracks.

Meat's back on the menu, boys.

They call Cape Buffalo the black death for a reason.

They'll just straight up kill you.

We don't control the game.

Here you go. Flooding.

This is nothing compared to what's coming.

It hurts so much, man.

It's freaking ice.

So the question is, how strong of a mind

do you need to have to win this?

Whoo!

What the did I get myself into?

Long cold night.

The last one to tap walks out of here with 500 grand.

This is one of the hardest things

that a person can do in their life.

Oh, my gosh.

It's another great day in Africa.

Well, good morning from

beautiful, cold, Africa.

It was a brutal night.

I think it's the coldest it's ever been.

I've only got a blanket and a bivy sack and a fire.

So I'm thinking about beefing up my shelter.

I think that's what I have to do

to maintain

my time out here.

All right, well, I'm going to get started.

My survival philosophy is,

if you plan on doing the days ahead stuff,

the hourly stuff could kill you.

Days is water, weeks is food,

but hours is body temperature.

Last two nights, it just gets cold.

That's just going to get worse.

So right now, my shelter, that's my priority.

Now, got to mix it in between.

All the books you read about Africa

talk about using grasses as thatch,

but there's not a lot of grass in my area,

and so I'm using bulrush.

But you can see, this is going to take a hell of a long time.

But if it keeps me warm.

Thatching is to protect you from sunlight.

It's to protect you from wind.

It's your protection from rain.

But rain is probably not going to be an issue

because of the dry season.

It needs to be thicker.

I'm going to get more.

I cut most of the reeds up there this morning.

So I can take the next batch up,

which is a task.

This has been a dream to come here since I was a kid,

and I had a great childhood.

Yee-haw.

My mom and dad bought a cabin in Kentucky

out in the middle of nowhere.

I had thousands of acres of woods to explore.

And so I grew up being a feral kid.

Ah.

You know, living out in the woods,

and go walking miles and miles,

and your parents didn't know where you were at,

or what you were doing, and looking for stuff,

and using sticks, and bones, and rocks,

and didn't realise some of the stuff I was doing

was primitive technology.

Being out here, it feels like that.

Oh.

It's finished enough for today.

But I hope I'll be able to see some type of change

and not be freezing tonight.

I don't know. We'll see.

Fire.

♪ The best part of waking up ♪

♪ Is buffalo thorn in your cup ♪

This water is still going to be really hot.

Awesome.

Let that cool.

I'm just taking the decorative stitching off this belt

so that I can use it for a fishing lure.

Let's see.

Ooh, that could be nice on the surface.

Hmm.

I'm just hoping it looks enticing.

OK, time for the big reveal.

So the white is from my underwear tag.

This is a feather I found.

The red is from the stitching on my belt,

and the brown is from the stitching on my belt.

I'd buy that.

Would you?

I'd definitely buy that.

I don't really know what these fish like,

so I'm going to have to do some experimenting.

See if I can find a shorter route to the water.

I grew up in rural Vermont in a small house

that my mom and stepfather made themselves.

As a kid, I was hyperactive.

I liked to know how things work,

but that usually just meant I took them apart,

and that was something that drove

my father in particular crazy.

Oh.

An entire leg, complete with hooves.

That's super cool.

My folks got divorced when I was five,

but I visited my father every other weekend.

He was an avid fisherman and hunter.

Whoa.

Holy [bleep].

Here's the entire carcass.

Wow.

Look at the size of that. It's huge.

Those horns are amazing.

This isn't that old really.

So something took down an animal this big.

My dad, he loved me, but he had an intensity about him

that made it hard to know what exactly he was thinking

or what he might expect of you,

and I always found that pretty challenging.

I often felt like there was something I was supposed

to be doing, but I wasn't doing it,

or I wasn't doing it well enough.

Just threw the line in.

Belt and boxers lure is on the line,

just letting it sit for a second.

I think my relationship with my dad

does drive me to an extent now,

and some of that comes from a desire

to prove that I'm worthy.

And so while he's long gone and he never said, you know,

"You need to go out and survive

in the wilds of Africa,"

I think there's a part of me that wants to say,

"Hey, look what I can do."

No sign of buffalo.

Oh. Whoa, whoa.

Whoa, whoa. Holy [bleep].

Holy [bleep]. Holy [bleep].

Holy [bleep]. Holy [bleep]. Holy [bleep].

Did I say holy [bleep]? Wow.

Wow. I got a fish.

I got a [bleep] fish.

Holy [bleep]. Oh, [bleep].

Wow. Wow. I got a fish.

I got a [bleep] fish. Holy [bleep].

Oh. Oh.

Oh.

I had a fish.

Well, that's, I guess, positive, right?

I had a fish on.

It's hard not to feel disappointed,

but in reality, that's one step closer

to having a fish in hand.

Add it to the experiments.

First I determine that there are fish there,

and I try one lure, I try another,

try evening, try morning, try on the bottom,

try on the surface.

I don't know what these fish are all about.

I don't know their behaviours,

so I've got no choice but to just keep trying stuff.

Well, crap.

OK, come on.

No fish,

so there's something I want to try.

It's funny, all of my plans,

you know, it kind of all goes out the window

when you're hungry.

Oh, that could be--

that's got potential.

Scorpion time.

I stick my knife into the hole so it will come out.

And got to cut that stinger off.

OK, we'll give this guy a quick death.

So what we're left with is that,

which I'm going to roast right now.

I know that scorpions are edible,

and this is probably the time to try it.

I mean, I'm feeling good about the plants I've found.

The crabs are good,

but I don't see them all the time.

What kind of survivalist would I be

if I had never tried a scorpion?

When my dad got into something,

he got way into something

and was very goal-focused,

and because of that, I learned to be very self-critical.

Scorpion kebab.

But out here, I'm learning

that I'm never going to be perfect,

and I think realising that and being OK with it

is a huge step,

and I'm starting to learn to see things a different way.

I can tell you how this is going to taste.

Burned.

Because I am going to cook the hell out of it.

Even though the fishing situation

has been a little maddening,

there's a story about Edison that he tried

almost 10,000 things to make the filament

for the light bulb,

and someone asked him, like,

"How can you deal with that much failure?"

He said, "Failure?

"I've discovered 9,999 things

"that aren't the filament for a light bulb.

I've succeeded."

I think it's time.

It's time for a scorpion kebab.

Mmm.

Wow.

It's good.

I mean, it's burned, but it's good.

Maybe with a little bit of a seafood aftertaste.

Thumbs-up on the scorpion.

Today, I need to move my shelter

because this wetness

was slowly creeping up,

and now it's at the fire pit.

It seems like I need to move my camp from here

to just over there.

I am happy the way my shelter is built is light, mobile...

come on.

And I don't have to disassemble it.

I hope this is a good spot.

OK, should do something about fire pit.

I think I need to go closer.

First thing first, gather more firewood.

I don't have a ferro rod, so I have to keep

the fire alive all the time.

At least there is a lot of dead wood on the ground.

Dead wood means easy access to firewood.

All right, I'm feeling thirsty.

I am taking water very seriously.

Boil, filter, drink as much as I can.

About 4, possibly 5 litres a day.

Water is boiling.

OK, let's try this.

Ah, sitting down in my shelter.

It's shady.

It's nice.

OK, right now, I need to find something to eat.

Hunting is not going well.

I see a lot of animal tracks here,

but I haven't seen anything that I can hunt.

Maybe they're spooked by my presence,

and that not bringing a ferro rod was a bad strategy.

So I'm going to have to try to catch fish,

but I did not bring a fishing kit

as one of the ten items.

Now that my fishing rods are ready,

I need to find a good fishing spot.

I have bank line, and I made some hooks.

Oh, a piece of wire.

That could come in handy.

I found a piece of wire.

I heat it up in the fire, and I bend it with my multi-tool

into a round hook.

That should do it.

I believe that fishing is one of the stronger aspects

of my survival abilities.

And from my experience, I knew I would be able

to find something that I can use as a hook.

I chose not to have a long line

because the fish comes close to the shore,

and the hook should be just under the water level.

One fish would be great.

The ability to adapt to the situation you're in,

for me, is the way of survival.

I don't feel accomplished about today.

I'm hungry.

Food security, that's what I need.

I feel like I hear something.

That's by the water.

What is that?

Oh, we're in business.

Check this out.

I caught a fish.

OK.

Wow, it's a catfish.

I would love to kiss it right now.

Tonight, I'm eating.

This catfish right here is a lot of meat.

Look at that. Don't you love it?

And I know catfish is fatty fish.

She's a good size.

Thank God I have something to eat.

The head, I'm going to eat first,

because head is one of the parts of the fish

that really hard to preserve.

I'll put fish in the pot.

From childhood, the outdoors gave me a sense of peace,

sense of balance.

I felt like I'm more connected to this

than to a life in a city,

because life in the city is stressful.

Yes, I can see it's falling apart.

In Kyrgyzstan, we lived in a capital city,

in a tiny apartment.

Oh, so good.

Partially because of that, I talked to Dina,

my wife. I said, "We need to go."

We already had our oldest daughter,

and we were able to scramble up $1,500 U.S.

Tastes very good.

In the United States, we stayed in Ohio

three years before we moved to Canada

to a city called Kitchener.

But I realised that I am still trapped in this city cycle.

Go to work, make money, spend money, go to work.

The only thing it's missing is my wife.

That's why I ran away in the bush.

I wanted to leave my children a legacy

that does not come with chains.

Now, they'll know what a connection to land is.

They will know the value of nature itself.

Also, I'm glad I brought salt.

Without salt, it wouldn't have tasted so good.

Catching fish gives me promise,

gives me great hope for a comfortable stay.

Thank you, nature. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, nature.

Another day, another couple of prickly pears.

I don't know if you can see this,

but I can see nine waterbuck

grazing on that western side of the hill.

It's exciting.

If I can get a sense of their routine,

I could at some point ambush them.

All right.

I need to go fishing.

Not ready to set up little ambush spots yet,

but I'm getting ready.

I feel like I need to dial the fish in first,

and then I'll be able to do that.

I think if I just get excited and push right up there,

I could push them right out of the valley,

so I don't want to do that.

Here we go.

I'm going to try to be really patient

because there's a long time I've got here.

And next, fishing adventure.

In the meantime, I've got lots of plant food.

I am eating. That's a great foundation.

But, obviously, I would like it to include more meat.

There's a lot of rocks here,

so this is a good area in terms of fishing

for catfish and bottom feeders

like that fish I got the other night.

I'm not going to give up until I get fish.

Again, must have fish.

My little boy, Hunter, he's quite the fisherman.

Hopefully, he'll bring me luck with the fishing.

Today is his 12th birthday,

and wish I could be there. 12 years old, it's amazing.

He's growing up to just be such a beautiful young man.

Come on. Where are you guys?

I home-birthed both my kids, Ella and Hunter.

Motherhood is a foundational part of my life.

I love it,

but coming into this, I've had a lot change.

My relationship with my partner

of 20 years has come to an end,

and that was really hard for all of us,

and I worry about that with my kids.

Nothing yet.

You can't help it as a mum wanting to know

that you're just not mucking your kids up.

But it's tricky.

No fish. Damn it.

Hunter's birthday, it is a reminder

of my motivation to be here.

If I win, I could buy us a house to live in.

It would be a huge thing for me and my kids.

And we can start a completely new phase in our lives.

I have to make it work somehow.

What is that?

Oh, my God, guys.

Oh, that's protein.

Get my boots back on and see if I can snare that ibis.

Can't really afford to let opportunities go.

I think I can shoot that ibis.

Bummer.

Bums me out.

I mean, it was straight, the shot.

It just-- it was too low.

God, that would have felt good.

So good if it was a crunchy hit.

Bummed I didn't manage to get that ibis

'cause I really was hungry for him.

And I'm still hardly got any fish.

Could take me a bit of time to dial in my food.

Probably just say, "Just keep going.

Keep fishing, Mom."

I wouldn't mind throwing my two lines in tonight.

Eventually, I will have consistency.

It's a journey, this thing.

Out here, it's a big transformational time

for me right now.

I'm coming out of building my life with another human,

and now, I'm building my life by myself

with looking after my kids.

So I'm off fishing again.

And I'm 46.

It's almost like I'm nearly blindfolded

and with full faith, just surrender,

and just say yes to what's coming,

but it's been really challenging,

the loss of having a family, and having a mom and a dad,

and the two kids, and going through

the ups and downs of life, but sticking it out together.

Out here, this is a journey of finding my independence

and standing on my own two feet.

OK, so I've got my lines in.

I feel like I'm about to embark

on creating a completely new phase in my life.

Yeah, really just trusting in the process

that this is where I'm meant to be.

It feels like I'll be different

when I leave. I can feel that already.

Oh, shoot. Line broke.

I just lost another hook. Damn it.

There's ants living in there.

I'm trying to get bait.

Oh, yeah.

There's a nice, big scorpion.

This one will make some good bait.

So I'll cut the stinger off this one.

Actually, I might start eating these guys.

They're pretty decent size.

It's definitely a little sauce of protein.

For now, I'm going to use them for bait,

but I think it might come to eating.

We'll see.

But before I fish with that scorpion,

I'm going to get started working on that line,

see if I can make a play on these big catfish.

This 30-pound test is not working,

so I'm going to make a four-ply line here

that should have 120-pound breaking strength.

The giant catfish here in this spot

keep breaking my 30-pound test line.

I can barely hold them, and the line just snaps.

I'm going through hooks at an alarming rate.

So I'm going to put an end to that here.

Here, we have two lines.

Go down to the other end, and I'm going to twist these.

Don't want to twist it too much,

just the right amount of tension.

And it's been since I was a kid

that I actually did this technique.

As a child, I definitely had that sense of wonder

about nature and primitive things,

and thanks to my father for providing that opportunity

for his children to sleep on the ground, to get hungry,

to try and figure out how to find food for real.

Twist looks good.

Next step, I'm going to fold it in half.

These two-ply will become four.

Got it pinched off here where I'm tying it.

So that did not come unspun.

We can do research and practice things in our garage.

That's all really helpful,

but nothing can replace the amount of time

in the wilderness, because there are so many variables

that come up out there,

and you can't really manufacture those.

Strong. No flaws.

Being there and having those experiences

accumulates to an ability to adapt

to whatever situations come up.

So here we have our 120-pound braided

fishing line and my largest hook.

I'm going to see if we can land one of these big cats.

We'll leave it alone.

We'll see how it goes.

So I strung up my 120-pound test line,

went for a little walk,

and saw a mouse running around,

and the main reason I want a mouse is for catfish bait.

So I'm going to build a trap right now and...

See what happens.

There's some monster catfish,

and I'm kind of consumed right now with catching one.

It's got the fossils in it,

which I think are coral fossils.

Pretty cool.

We'll set this up.

I'm going to do a figure-four deadfall trap.

My bait stick here with a little bit of dried fish on it

that the catfish are not interested in.

I'm going to see if the mouse will go for it.

Here we have it.

So I'm going to leave this up all day.

I don't know if this mouse will come out again,

but we'll set it off tonight.

I'll use my rubber gloves in the morning to set it

so I don't put fresh scent on it

and hope for the best.

It's time to go check the fish line.

While I've been out here, I've felt a sense

of awareness for my father.

Even things like set a deadfall trap,

that's a deep connection for me.

So I do have a feeling that he's in this game with me.

Oh, man.

I want to show you what I just caught with a big scorpion.

Finally.

And I apologise for not filming that.

Whoo.

Oh, my gosh.

I was starting to lose faith in catching fish.

Oh, man. This is awesome.

Going to feast tonight and in the morning.

Eat this guy.

I'm going to bait up my four-ply 120-pound line.

Put that back in here with some of this--

part of this guy's head.

Hopefully, make this into more fish.

Teeth are sharp.

Certainly, I want to honour my father

through this experience applying

the skills that he taught.

Look at those brain juices ooze out.

It really brings them in, I hope.

He was so passionate about it from a young age,

and it was his career for so many years.

It's what he thought about and loved.

Yeah.

Now, I'm nothing near the survivalist that he was.

I've had other passions and interests.

I ended up studying agriculture in college,

got a degree in soil science,

went and farmed in Turkey for three years,

farmed in Romania,

and I came back to do an MBA because

I wanted to get more into the agribusiness side

of third-world countries,

but got distracted and ended up

starting a software company with my brothers,

and that's what I've been doing ever since.

Nothing yet.

Let that line sit for a minute, get some dinner cooking.

Yet, all along the way,

free time involved a lot of time

in the wilderness, so his legacy lives on.

More salt.

I've chosen to boil this fish

to keep every nutrient on that fish inside the pot

and then into my stomach.

I also got the liver, heart, and brain in there.

I'll just make the broth really good.

If you roast the fish over the fire,

some of the oils present drip into the fire,

and you lose those calories.

Huh, OK, I want more salt.

Additionally, I add a lot of salt to that.

Then I have a lot of fishy broth,

and I think that's a really great way

to stay well-hydrated.

It's pretty well-boiled.

It feels good having food go into my belly again.

But tomorrow's another fishing day.

I've got to keep this coming, for sure.

Feel pretty clear about the waterbuck,

like where to go, where to sit.

I think the main thing is just the shelter.

And then once that's set up,

I can start doing some ambush hunting.

Getting a waterbuck now

without even having a shelter up,

it would be challenging.

OK, here's my little shelter spot.

It's waterfront property.

It's got a beautiful view, access to fishing.

Ugh, there's poo everywhere.

Plenty of shade in the morning and in the afternoon.

It just feels like a bit of an oasis.

So if I slept here...

that'd be OK there.

Last night was the first night that I felt cold,

and if I'm going to stay for any more length of time,

I need a nest.

These two will start the process.

I'm planning to make a half dome.

It's going to be like a little sleeping tent.

There we go.

And I'm just going to sort of, like, sweat lodge-style.

Just, you know, put saplings in the ground,

and bend them over, and weave them together.

Then canvas on top of that.

OK, you two.

Your job is to hold each other up.

All right?

I just need it to be something that's

going to keep me secure and warm at nighttime,

and to keep my basic things inside.

I'm going to make string

out of the inner bark of the acacia.

These need to soak.

I just want to get the sap out of it.

This is awesome string for the shelter.

String.

I haven't been able to live like this for a while.

I've been busy being a mum,

doing everything for everybody,

and this is not that.

This is like I'm getting gifted

to go back to my roots.

Hold.

And I'm really interested to make a life for myself

and create space where it feels like

I have a belonging to the country.

I really see this as a rite of passage,

and I'm going to see it through to the end.

It's getting cold.

Here in the Karoo, we're going into winter.

OK, we need to go and get a couple more saplings.

It's going to still be really hot during the day,

and then it's going to plunge down at night.

We haven't hit the most extreme weather yet.

Oh, my God. Check it out.

It looks like there's some wet weather coming.

I haven't really done that much on my shelter.

Back home, rain clouds like that

would be, like, in three days to a week,

there's going to be proper rain.

Storms are circling.

The main message is, I need to build my shelter.

I just need to get it done.

Definitely some crazier weather coming.

We have some decently dark clouds coming in.

A little windy. A little breeze picking up.

It's freaking ice.

Holy [bleep].

The rainstorm's getting progressively more intense.

Oh, [bleep]. Here we go.

Batten down the hatches.

It's absolutely downpouring.

Holy hell. We have a river.

All my stuff's flooded.

Well, if this doesn't make you want to tap...