Original subtitles

[ Leopard growling ]

♪♪

I am hearing a lot of leopards.

They are intimidating-sounding.

[ Leopard growling ]

I mean, the fact that I'm out here, completely alone,

I got leopards all round, and right now...

I am vulnerable as hell.

♪♪

Narrator: On the drought-stricken savannas

of Africa's selati basin,

12 "naked and afraid" veterans

are taking on an epic challenge... -Croc. -Gah!

...to survive 40 days and 40 nights

in the deadliest killing fields on the earth.

But as they have banded together against relentless predators...

Hyenas, they're just out there by the water.

-Ahh! -Don't let him in our shelter.

...they have no idea that another survivalist

has been taking on Africa, naked, afraid...

Wright: Who's stalking me?

...and alone.

Wright: I definitely may have underestimated how hard this is.

In this hour, we follow the epic journey

of elite xl veteran Matt Wright,

who entered the bush with only a knife, a bow,

and a thirst for redemption...

In my last challenge, at day 20, I had to get pulled out.

...alone in a land that is kill or be killed.

He'll be tested like never before.

Wright: Redemption shouldn't be easy,

and this is not very damn easy.

Narrator: Does he have what it takes to make it out alive?

Wright: Yet another thing out here that could kill you.

-- Captions by vitac -- www.Vitac.Com

captions paid for by discovery communications ♪♪

Wright: This area looks exactly like some sort of horror movie

where everybody's probably gonna get eaten,

everything being kind of dark,

a lot of dead and winter trees.

It's just eerie-looking.

And I'll tell you right now, I am ready to take it on.

This is Matt Wright from lakewood, Colorado.

I'm here to earn my redemption.

Ever since I was a little kid,

I've dreamed of hunting two places on earth --

the Amazon... Holy [bleep]. [ Laughs ]

...and Africa.

And in the Amazon, I got to fulfill that dream a little bit,

taking down a jungle peccary.

We are kings!

However, last challenge in the Amazon,

I had to get pulled out from a flesh-eating bacteria.

Woman: It's imperative that you have to go to the hospital.

Wright: Yeah.

[ Voice breaking ] Bacteria can't be treated.

To make sure I save my foot, I've got to go.

-[ Sighs ] -What?

I had more I wanted to complete.

But that ate away at me

like I've never had anything eat away at me.

The warrior is essentially defined by his spirit,

and his tenacity to never stay down.

The Amazon hit me hard, but you can't keep me down.

So being able to survive 40 days solo out here

is the most epic redemption I could ask for.

♪♪

Narrator: With the other camps of xl survivalists

clustered near the selati river,

Matt enters the basin eight miles to the west

in the barren scrub land of the kolobe plain,

an area inhabited by leopards

and highly aggressive packs of hyenas.

All right, here I am.

Hey, welcome to Africa. Gah!

Ever since the Amazon,

getting a flesh-eating bacteria in my foot,

I've grown to love boots.

The sand is hot as [bleep] right now.

But we've got to leave them

and show Africa everything I've got.

Going solo in Africa, it's gonna be tough.

Even though somewhere out there is a group of survivalists,

this is my redemption.

Everything I do, I will have to figure out on my on.

[ Laughs ]

Am I glad to see that!

Narrator: The only supplies Matt will have

are his primitive bow and arrows, a pot, and a blade.

Matt: Got the same knife that's followed me

on the other adventures.

Then I've got a map.

If I were to just keep heading down this direction,

it looks like I'm gonna be hitting some termite mounds,

looks like some grass fields where maybe

some impala might hang out,

and then, more importantly, there a water hole

and I could definitely use some water.

♪♪

♪♪

I am in what feels like a ghost town.

Just isolation.

First impressions of this part of Africa right now

is it's rough.

Bushes have thorns.

Ground has thorns.

Everything appears to be dead.

Right here on this game trail, I can see cat tracks,

about the size a leopard track would be.

It's going to be a challenge.

♪♪

♪♪

Well, it's water.

It is some dirty, green, mucky-looking water,

but it's pretty damn important.

This water hole is not just my hydration,

but this is the hydration of a lot of animals around here,

and this is where I'm gonna be hunting.

What I don't want to do is I don't want

to camp upwind of this pool

because my human scent's gonna come down here

and contaminate the whole area.

So I'm gonna need to pick a spot just downwind of this

and make a home for myself.

♪♪

♪♪

It's absolutely endless-looking landscape out here.

All right, well, where this is located here,

we got some fairly tight trees coming up.

I'm looking at this downed log.

Can use that to help support a pretty good boma, I think.

So I'm gonna get to work.

Narrator: A boma is a protective enclosure made of sticks,

logs, and thorny branches, built to keep predators out.

Matt: Every situation has its own priorities.

Here, I'm alone in a predator-rich environment.

So before I even boil water,

I need to make sure that before it gets dark,

I can setup a proper shelter.

For the most part, I'm protected enough.

This is gonna be my doorway.

I'm gonna pull this into the opening at night

and help keep anything else

from wanting to come through the door.

I'm working hard by myself.

Everything is three times slow.

If I, right now, was in a group of three,

we'd be able to build a heck of a better shelter than myself.

But it will do for tonight, I think.

All I got to do now is get a fire started.

♪♪

You want to create a nest, first thing to get that fire going.

And we've also got some zebra poop.

It's gonna hold a Ember for a really long time.

And I'm actually dusting this all through there.

All right, so what I got here is magnesium.

And when magnesium is shaved off small enough,

it will actually catch fire.

That's gonna go like so.

Mmm, nothing says "survival" like a nice

burning pile of zebra poop.

I'm about to spend my first night alone in Africa,

and I don't even know what the night's gonna bring.

These animals gonna start coming alive.

But one thing I know for sure

is I'm gonna be sleeping with one eye open.

♪♪

♪♪

It's sometime in the middle of the night right now.

It's creepy.

Being out here alone, there's a whole different feeling.

[ Growling ]

Second day in and I'm pretty damn filthy.

Last night was the first night solo here in Africa,

and it was just creepy.

But today, it's all about bettering life a little bit.

I've got shelter.

I've got water. I've got fire.

So now, what I don't have is food.

♪♪

♪♪

You know, spots like this could be a good ambush point.

There is a part of me that's always wanted to come out

into Africa and hunt like a native.

And I've evolved myself to be able to primitively hunt

where I feel like I could survive anywhere in the world.

♪♪

This water hole, this is where animals

are gonna need to come down to,

get some hydration, and it's where I'm gonna ambush them.

So the best bet is probably to sit at that water hole

and see what comes in.

♪♪

All right, warthog just came in.

Fast little piggies right there.

♪♪

[Bleep]

No.

♪♪

Ugh.

♪♪

Africa humbled my hunting skills.

Because there was no greenery, my arrow,

as soon as it flies off the bow, they're seeing that movement

and they're starting to spook.

So tomorrow, I need to revamp my blind a little bit.

I definitely may have underestimated how hard this is.

♪♪

I am starting to feel a little bit discouraged,

but the strongest and the fastest animals

are not always the ones that survive.

It's the ones that are most adaptable.

♪♪

Got it, got it. Yep, yep, yep.

Watch, watch, watch, watch.

♪♪

She's down.

Oh.

Awooo!

Beautiful girl.

My entire life, I've essentially trained for this moment.

Part of the warrior spirit here.

Thank you, girl. Thank you.

Narrator: An impala of this size can yield about 60 pounds of meat,

enough to last well over a week, if properly preserved.

Matt: To embrace the animal's spirit,

you have to take a bite out of the heart.

♪♪

♪♪

That's actually delicious.

If I was with somebody else,

we'd probably strip this thing entirely clean.

Me, by myself, I've got to pick my battles.

So what I'm gonna do is quarter it up, get all the meat

I can off of it, wrap it up in the hide, carry it back,

and start cooking some of this meat before it gets dark.

♪♪

Right now, I'm hanging up meat, just like the bushman did,

and hopefully, I can kind of create smoke going up this tree,

help preserve it to make African biltong,

which is dried-out meat.

Also, it'll help keep animals away.

If I'm successful, it'll work.

If I'm not, we're going to get meat sooner than later.

♪♪

All right, I've got this impala's hide.

With this hide, I'm gonna use the brain-tanning method.

It's been dried out.

So I'm gonna take -- this is the impala's head,

and everything here gets used,

so we're gonna crack it open and get the brain out,

and I'm gonna smear the brain on top of that hide.

Narrator: The brain contains lecithin,

a fatty chemical found in egg yolks

that breaks down the cell structure of the hide,

making it softer.

What I'm doing is I'm taking it, smells a little bit ripe,

but it's a necessary means.

Then, I am taking this and I am going to rub this into the hide,

and I'm trying to cover every single nook and cranny.

As I'm rubbing it in,

it feels exactly like rubbing in some lotion.

So that fat should allow this to stay soft,

flexible, and durable.

Not gonna lie, it's a lot of work.

Out here in the bush, hide is the difference

between making it or breaking it.

This is clothing and warm.

Everything that this place doesn't have to offer,

that impala pelt's gonna do for me.

♪♪

Taking down the impala was a complete game changer.

It puts me back on, say, day 1, energy wise.

However, what I need to do now is continue on the hunt,

not just to give myself food today,

but to give myself enough food and enough resources

to make it 40 days.

♪♪

♪♪

Here in Africa,

it was a tough start, I'm not gonna lie.

Soon as I got here, I was pretty much kicked back to reality

and realized how freaking hard it is to do it solo.

Whoo!

It's been a journey of me evolving to figure out

how to hunt here in Africa.

Oh, beautiful impala.

It's got a heartbeat to it.

It's got its own Cadence to it.

Now, I feel like I'm at the same rhythm as this place

and to already secure two major kills is pretty awesome.

Jungle warrior just struck again.

♪♪

Well, just to be a little creative,

we're gonna eat some impala testicles.

Actually delicious.

Tastes like our rocky mountain oysters back home.

That makes me a little homesick somehow.

I came out here for redemption and an epic redemption at that.

So I don't want to just survive,

I want to come out here and show

that I dominated, that I conquered.

And right now, I am surviving and thriving

and frickin' living like a king in Africa right now.

♪♪

[ Thunder crashes ]

♪♪

Night 6 sucks.

I'm in a frickin' forest that has no greenery

to make a damn roof.

So, I'm trying to hide my big ass under one impala hide.

The wind's coming down at a hard angle,

so it's hard to protect myself.

It's also hard to protect the fire.

It sucks bad.

[ Thunder crashes ]

[ Thunder crashes ]

It's at the point where I would be snuggling up

next to somebody if I could, but...

The only one to keep myself alive is me.

[ Thunder crashes ]

[ Thunder crashes ]

[ Matt groans ]

Last night was a son of a bitch.

It was a cold, long night of rain.

It felt like a damn tornado a couple times.

It was hellacious winds.

So I'm gonna need a proper shelter,

and I'm not about to get sent home from some damn rain.

I took a second impala, which means I have two impala hides

I can use for clothing,

but they're not big enough to make a proper roof,

and this location's got absolutely nothing

to cover me from the rain,

so I'm gonna have to journey out,

see if I can't find a better spot, you know?

♪♪

By the looks of this, it looks like there's a water hole

with some green trees.

And I don't know how far it is exactly,

but I should be able to make it in a day.

Gather up my stuff, load up all my biltong, and head off.

[ Fire hissing ]

There is a lot of game here at this spot,

but I have to leave in order to better my shelter.

It's a gamble, but that's survival.

♪♪

♪♪

A lot of things you got to be careful for on a trek

like this first thing in the morning.

This is the time predators hunt.

I get complacent out here right now,

and I could find myself in big, big trouble.

I have no idea how far I have to go.

All I do know is I have to make it there

because the longer I'm out here,

the longer I'm exposed to the elements.

♪♪

I see some stuff that's been cut.

And that is definitely a boma.

There has been some people right here somewhere.

Narrator: Matt has arrived at the original camp

of Sarah, duck, and Mel,

who abandoned their camp three days ago.

Duck: We on the road to starving,

'cause this place is a wasteland.

Melanie: I got the shakes.

We got to get someplace more green.

Nothing to do except move on.

I know, I agree.

Why would we stay in this place that's not producing anything?

That's about four times, three times the size of my boma,

and I can see a water source right here.

This is the boma of the "xl" people.

I almost bet it.

And that's pretty cool.

This is kind of the first sign that there is others,

you know, surviving like myself.

It's kind of a bummer that they're not here

when I showed up.

Makes me wonder how they're doing.

I don't see any -- what looks like any kind

of fresh-kill bones,

and no sign that they butchered anything.

So my guess is they may not have been too successful.

Because I don't know when my next food's coming around,

plan for today -- I will continue to hunt.

When you're out here surviving,

you have to make sure you're prepared for the unpredictable.

As soon as you get complacent in survival, you die.

That looks like a little weasel.

♪♪

Ugh. I just missed him.

Hunting in Africa is tough as hell,

and hunting in Africa

while continuing to change locations -- real tough.

♪♪

♪♪

Yes.

All right, I just got a beautiful warthog down.

Yes, yes.

I do not know if I've hunted anything better capable

of getting out of the freaking way of my arrow,

but not today.

I'm out here alone, and it makes me feel very good

that I'm able to thrive where, obviously,

the others had to leave.

The warrior's eating some warthog tonight, baby.

♪♪

It's day 15.

I'm eating myself some warthog breakfast.

Narrator: With this latest kill,

Matt now has a meat reserve of over 80 pounds.

Matt: I've got a surplus of meat right now.

Only thing I'm lacking is, I wish I could share it

with the "xl" people that are out here somewhere

and I hope aren't hungry.

So it makes me want to find them

and to see if they need my help.

When I had to leave the Amazon because of my foot,

I had to leave a team when I was providing them

with a lot of food, really, when they needed me most,

and it was an absolute horrible feeling.

So I feel like the only way to really get that redemption

is to join a team and finish this.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

Narrator: After securing food at his first two stops,

Matt is heading north toward the river

in search of other survivalists.

Matt: I am headed downhill where that river's gonna be.

It's my hunch that if the other survivalists went anywhere,

that's where they would want to go to try to

better their survival.

If I head down that way, I think I could find them.

♪♪

♪♪

Look at this.

Tell somebody's been here.

I see a little hut somebody had made up

on the side of that hill.

I'm getting close to that camp, here.

Very close.

♪♪

They've got themselves a little nook on the side of this hill.

Oh, wow.

This is, like, almost a little Swiss family Robinson

kind of feel.

Narrator: After struggling with predators,

lack of food, and brutal weather,

the remaining survivalists at shosho ravine packed up

and headed east 2 1/2 days ago.

There's a little, tiny, tiny bit of warmth

in the bottom of this,

but there's nothing that tells me

that they were here any time here recently.

I feel like I missed them by at least a couple days.

♪♪

I know it's risky to put this much meat where you sleep.

It is scattered with biltong 'cause it wasn't quite dry yet,

but the best way for me to protect it

right now by myself is to put it in with myself.

So, all I can do is sit here,

ready to fight if I have to.

[ Leopard growling ]

[ Leopard growling ]

I am hearing a lot of leopards.

They are intimidating-sounding.

I mean, the fact that I am out here completely alone,

I got leopards all around,

I've got what sounded like something just eating

the [bleep] out of something else over here.

I am vulnerable as hell.

[ Leopard growling ]

♪♪

♪♪

Last night was just crazy.

Leopards were about 20 feet from my shelter,

walking right next to me in the night.

I was nervous.

Pretty much sleeping with my knife in one hand

and a war club in the other.

Right now, I'm just gonna have a little breakfast

and strategize the next move.

♪♪

There's definitely advantages to being alone.

It's quiet, there's no argument,

I can go and do whatever I want to do,

but at the same time, this place is full of danger

and I would love to have some people look out for me.

I have trained and tracked down

some of the most elusive animals on earth,

so I'm gonna go on the hunt again,

but this time not for food.

I'm gonna go hunt the other survivalists down.

♪♪

♪♪

Oh, look at this.

We got a little human activity.

Some little pictograms of some zebra, "c + l."

My guess is, if they were spending

this much time on this rock,

they'd build a shelter up over this hill.

I see some sort of -- what looks to be some palms

or some kind of roof material, a boma.

No fresh tracks.

It doesn't look like they've been here for a while.

Hello?

[ Sighs ]

This is a village inside a boma.

These are dwellings.

You can tell --

I would say a minimum of four people stayed here,

if not a couple more than that.

Narrator: At one point, this camp at makubu gorge

was home to as many as six survivalists...

So, as my great-grandmother used to say, mangia.

-Mangia. -Mangia.

But he's missed them by just a day and a half.

Yet another case of my family moving out and not telling me.

Oh.

♪♪

When you're out here long enough, you really get

to the point of lacking, you know, some friendship --

that camaraderie that comes between friends.

Right now, I'm just myself and some skulls to keep me company.

But I'm not gonna stay in this location long.

I know that much.

Even though it's full of resources,

I need to find these survivalists.

Being out here in complete solitude,

it's starting to get to me.

♪♪

♪♪

It's night 23, and it's cold.

Wind-chill factor's kicking in.

So I got the fire roaring,

and the wind is making the fire burn

through a hellacious amount of firewood.

[ Wind whistling ]

Ah, [bleep]

Narrator: Throughout his 40-day solo challenge,

experts have evaluated Matt's performance

and assigned him a "naked and afraid xl rating,"

or xlr that reflects his skill, progress,

and likelihood of success.

Over the last three weeks,

Matt has endured the severe physical demands

of surviving alone.

His elite, primitive hunting skills...

Jungle warrior just struck again.

Narrator: ...Have allowed him to stockpile a huge amount of protein...

Freaking living like a king in Africa right now.

Narrator: ...But the effects of isolation have begun to take their toll...

When you're out here long enough,

you really get to the point of lacking some friendship.

...and his grueling journey

to track down the other survivalists

has yet to pay off.

As a result, his starting xlr score of 8.6

has been reduced to 8.2.

With 16 days left,

does Matt have what it takes to claim his redemption?

♪♪

Matt: 30-mile-per-hour winds, highly flammable grass.

Yet another thing out here that could kill you.

And I mean to tell you,

I don't know if I've ever seen anything go up

and out as fast as it did.

I almost slept in there, and what would've happed

is it probably should've sucked every bit of oxygen

out of the air immediately.

If you didn't wake up in time,

you would've just passed out from no oxygen.

That was a freaky moment, 'cause I'm out here by myself.

There is nobody to save me.

♪♪

Well, it's me against Africa,

and right now, Africa's putting up a big fight,

but out there somewhere is my naked family

trying to kick Africa's butt just like I am,

and I want some battle buddies.

I want some friends who I can go to war with.

So all I have to do is find them.

Only logical place for any of these survivalists

to go on the way to extraction is gonna be these two ponds.

So, I'm gonna cross across this mopane woodland here.

Gonna be much longer than any walk I've done so far,

but I've made a backpack to carry all my things,

and, you know, staying hydrated all day,

so I should be able to make it.

Seeing every one of their homes and smelling their campfires,

I feel closer to every one of them,

even though I don't know who they are.

It's a family who I've never met,

and I need to find my family out here.

Narrator: From his original insertion point

on the kolobe plain 24 days ago,

Matt has trekked over 20 miles in search of resources

and his fellow "xl" survivalists.

Now, he heads south, away from the river,

in hopes of finally locating the others

near these two water sources six miles away.

♪♪

♪♪

There's hot, and then there's real-African hot.

Right now, I think this grass is ready to catch fire

just purely from the heat.

I can't tell you how many times I feel like the puppy dog

whose family left him.

If I go all that way, and I find another abandoned camp,

it's just gonna be heartbreaking.

I see a couple of little downed saplings,

a couple cut saplings,

and, oh, we got a little fire pit.

Aha. Somebody's been catching big ol' catfish.

Narrator: At noja cliffs,

the all-female team flourished as a threesome

for almost three weeks... -Yeah! -Oh, my god.

...before the arrival of five more survivalists on day 19.

-This your home? -This is our boma.

-Yay. -Hi.

Kind of looks like a boma right here.

Hello!

Hello?

That is a fortress of a boma.

Anyone home?

Ugh. Oh, not again.

Nobody's home-a at the boma.

We got a sign.

"Club boma big 8."

It might be eight survivalists that were just here.

We've decided -- because we've lost

most of our plentiful food supply --

that it's time to move to a better area.

Are we good? We ready to go?

Woman: All right, let's roll.

Bye, boma.

Narrator: They broke camp and trekked southwest

just four hours ago.

There's actual smoke in the fire,

but there's dirt covering it,

which tells me they left and they're not coming back.

I just missed them.

The good news is, I'm hot on their trail.

I'm not even gonna stop.

I'm not even gonna set my stuff down.

I'm gonna go find them.

♪♪

I know those other water holes are southwest of here.

I'm gonna head that way, and I can get there

before the sun goes down.

♪♪

Even though it's hot, and I'm thirsty and tired,

I'm gonna keep going on

because I'm not stopping till I find my family.

♪♪