7 Toughest Days (2023-…): Season 1, Episode 1 - Gabon - full transcript
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(ethereal music)
(insects trill)
I can't even see around that bend,
because this whole place is just thick
with every bush you could imagine.
I get this sense that it's
so easy to get lost here.
DWAYNE (VO): I'm in Gabon, the most
forested country in all of Africa.
Nearly 90 percent of it
is just like this, rain forest.
It's such an unfamiliar environment to me,
and yet I feel like I'm at the
mercy of everything around me.
I can definitely tell you now
that I am well outside my comfort zone.
That's how I like to do things.
Learn by doing.
I've given myself seven days
to make it deep in the Gabonese jungle.
I want to learn all I can
about this mysterious place
and survive the experience.
It's smooth now,
but it can get nasty on rapids.
Gosh, it's getting loud.
It's make me nervous.
Can't see very far downstream, especially
when it's a river that you don't know.
(tense music)
There's spray. And that roar's
definitely getting louder.
That's not rapids. I can't see the river,
that's the waterfall.
****!
Get off the water, get off
the water, get off the water. (gasps)
Power, power, power, power.
I want to stay to that side.
Power through.
That's a drop, that's a drop.
Don't tip!
Push on, push on.
(gasps)
I'm Dwayne Fields,
explorer and adventurer.
(whoops)
Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop.
In the wilderness is where I come alive.
-Oh, viper!
-It's my true calling.
Whoa!
In 2010, I became the first Black British
man to trek to the North Pole.
Progress is that way.
(dramatic music)
I love to push myself to the limit.
(grunts) Whoa, whoa, whoa, that's a drop.
Now I'm challenging
myself to survive a week
in some of the harshest
environments on Earth.
(sighs) Man, this is gonna be intense.
Using all my skill,
determination and will to survive.
Here we go.
That's why I'm here in
the rain forests of Gabon.
This is gonna be my 7 Toughest Days.
I knew there was a waterfall coming,
but I did not expect it so quickly.
Back on dry ground is where
the real struggle begins.
The Gabonese jungle is unlike any
extreme environment I've ever faced.
In preparation for my challenge,
I met jungle guide Ghislain,
who's given me a few pointers
that may help me survive on my mission.
Are there any roads,
any footpaths, any…
There are no roads, but there'll
be definitely elephant trails.
-This area isn't very well mapped, is it?
-No.
It's remote, it's forest,
it's jungle, it's tropical forest,
so, it's gonna be tough.
It's hard to navigate any distance in the
deep canopy with no obvious landmarks.
Why did you come here?
I just can't learn
things from a book, man.
But Ghislain mentioned there's an
elaborate underground cave system
to the south, which I hope to find.
My plan is to meet up with Ghislain
in seven days at a remote airstrip.
With so little information to go on,
I have no idea what lies in between.
(grunts)
Let's have a look at what nearly ended me.
It's massive.
Whoa.
That looks like it's about 180 feet. I've
literally just come out just up there.
I can hear it, I can see all
the spray. Couldn't see it.
There's a ledge here,
but even that looks terrible.
The water's just flooding
off of this, hitting that,
there's no way I can get down here.
I'm gonna have to go downstream.
Some tall trees there, probably
use one of those as an anchor.
Make my way down to
the base of this waterfall,
see if I can find a way back
onto the water down there.
Up here, not gonna happen.
A sling around this,
that's not going anywhere.
(grunts) I've climbed before,
I've used ropes before,
but not with this much water.
Can't even tell if
it's rain or if it's spray.
The noise, the spray, absolutely epic.
That's my umbilical.
Here we go!
The water's blowing, it's hurting my eyes.
Should have brought goggles!
(tense music)
I've never been so wet
and not been fully submerged.
It's raining up, it's raining down,
it's coming from the side.
(grunts) Every single
thing is soaking wet.
The noise is deafening.
Awesome.
I'm gonna head downstream
and try and get down past these rapids
to see if I can get back on the water.
(grunts)
As much as I can hear
the waterfall, I can feel it.
When you touch the rocks,
you can feel it shaking, vibrating.
Huge amount of power.
In the peak of the rainy season,
it's estimated these falls launch nearly
1,000 tons of water every second.
That's like 900 small cars slamming down
this section of the river every second.
I do not want to go in there.
Gabon gets up to
11 feet of rainfall, each year,
and swollen rivers make kayaking
a dangerous option.
I'm here at the end of the wet season.
Rapids and waterfalls
are big hazards out here.
Working through this dense
jungle is really tough.
Along with crocodiles, Gabon has
30 species of venomous snake
and nearly 100,000 forest elephants.
(elephant huffs)
The thick, impenetrable growth makes any
encounter with them potentially dangerous.
I may not know how close
they are until it's too late.
This tree's massive.
Good. (grunts) See this resin?
I reckon… if this is the okoumé tree…
it should light.
This okoumé resin's got flammable oils,
making it a great fire starter.
Come on. Come on.
This is awesome. I can smell that.
I'm almost guaranteed fire tonight.
Also, the smoke, it keeps
mosquitoes and other insects away.
Alright, enough of that. Let me find
something to wrap this in, keep it safe.
That's a really good find.
A really, really good find.
What was that?
Something just slithered
down underneath that log.
Could be a crocodile, could be
a snake, could be a frog.
That's the thing,
you just don't know in here.
That direction's southeast.
Following the river down there's
gonna take me off course,
and I'm losing daylight quickly.
I'm gonna wade across.
I have to do it before it gets dark.
I know there's crocodile.
As night falls, they come out,
they get in the water, they start hunting.
I'm gonna do it now.
I'm gonna take my pack off. If it suddenly
gets deep, I can use this to float.
Oh, ****!
If there's a burrow,
there's a crocodile that owns it.
There's more burrows all the way along.
They could belong to dwarf crocodiles,
which aren't known to be dangerous,
but there are three species of croc
in Gabon, including the Nile crocodile.
Nile crocs can
grow up to 20 feet long
and are known to eat pretty
much anything that moves.
They're dangerous, stealthy predators,
and I've heard there are up to 200 deaths
a year in Africa from Nile croc attacks.
(tense music)
Whoa. The mud just sucks your feet down.
This is the creepiest thing
I've ever done.
There we go. Now it's
getting deeper. Whoa!
It's hard to tell if you're brushing
something or if it's brushing you.
(gasps)
There's just bubbles just
coming up to the surface.
It makes you wonder what's under there.
Oh, ****!
Something's in here.
That's dry land there. (grunts)
Good, I'm out of that.
I've only got about
an hour of daylight left,
so I'll be hard pressed to get
back to the river by nightfall.
It's getting to that stage of the day now
where I'm looking for a place to camp.
That's not too bad, is it?
Yeah, this is good.
Ants. Look at that.
That's why I chose a hammock.
Yeah, that's going far. Ants all here.
That's got ants flooding out of it.
Ants, ants, ants, ants, ants, just carries
on. Oh, look, there's a mass of them.
Ow.
I don't know how they find their way in.
Ants are the most
abundant insects on Earth.
20 quadrillion of them.
That's a 20 with 15 zeros after it.
There's 383 species of ants in Gabon, and
it feels like right now they're all here.
Something a mate of mine showed me.
Menthol rub on the cords between
where you're sleeping and the tree.
That way no creepy-crawlies
will get to you. They hate this stuff.
The other one… squash
balls. Down one side.
(exhales)
This is like a dream.
(birdsong)
Alright, shelter done.
Firewood.
It's just everything's soaked.
If I can't find dry wood, make dry wood.
I've just got to cut the outer parts
to get to the dry core inside.
That's gonna be really easy to light.
Fire is essential out here
for safety at night,
not just comfort.
It'll discourage any curious critters
from getting too close, hopefully.
Now for the pièce de résistance.
So glad I found this okoumé resin.
See if this works.
(groans) Come on, come on.
Don't play games with me.
Come on. Yes, keep going.
Come on. I'm in the middle of
a rain forest, and I have fire.
Morale on 100 right now.
It's so weird that a fire right here
in the middle of a rain forest in Gabon
can remind me of me being a kid in
Jamaica, thousands of miles away;
but it does.
It reminds me of building up
a fire just like this one,
and I'd roast cashew nuts on it.
(gasps)
Dwayne Fields, you bad boy.
You made fire in a deep, dark jungle.
I'm excited, it's going pretty well.
I think five, six-year-old Dwayne Fields
will be mad proud right now.
That I'm winning.
(soft music)
Alright, Dwayne, get to work.
(heavy breathing)
Didn't have any mosquitoes,
I didn't have any ants, so, top tip:
use menthol rub.
It's day two, and I've barely
made a dent in this wall of jungle.
There's a lot of green between me and
those caves I'm looking for.
(grunts)
****! That's a snake.
I think it's a bush viper.
Look at that.
Look how well camouflaged it is.
Bush vipers ambush their prey
and then strike within milliseconds.
The venom can be fatal,
and we're a long way from help.
I could have passed
50 on the way up here.
It's one thing knowing that they're
here, but until you see one,
I don't know, it just clicks something
in your head, in your mind,
every single thing looks like a
snake now. Makes my skin crawl.
This is so thick.
(winces) This is painful.
(grunts)
It's just these, they're taking
out my legs. This jungle's tough.
There's rocks, there's pitfalls,
and not to mention every single
thing has a spine on it.
Everything in here's just
out to get me, it feels like.
(exhales) I've had enough of this jungle
forcing me to change direction.
I'll never make it to the airstrip
if I have to keep fighting
through the jungle like this.
I'm gonna have to come up
with a different plan.
I've barely covered any ground.
The river will be faster.
I need to jump back on the water.
It's a lot calmer now, cover
a lot more ground before sunset,
and hopefully find a spot to
camp while there's still light.
Back into the unknown. (grunts)
I won't make it to the caves tonight;
I've burnt up too much time.
I need to find a spot to make camp.
We've probably got
an hour or so of sunlight.
There's this weird haze, like a mist,
just coming off all the trees.
It's proper mystic-looking.
As you lose the light,
you start listening more,
because you can't use your eyes as much.
It's like a whole list of
animals are coming alive now.
I can hear frogs or birds
or insects over there,
because they all sound the same
when you can't see them.
(animals trill)
What was that?
(dramatic music)
This inlet, the trees thin a little bit.
This is creepy.
That is hard ground. I think I lucked out.
Make sure there's nothing,
no crocodiles or anything in here.
Tree, tree, that's my hammock sorted.
That's dry wood. This is good.
Just in time.
This is a completely different world.
I've never been to a jungle like this.
It reminds me of when I lived in London
and feeling like I didn't belong.
Living basically a lie.
That sense of not fitting in,
not finding a place in the world.
And it led me down a path
where I lost myself.
I would like to think that I will
make it through this challenge.
If I do, I will have somehow gone back to
my roots after leaving them for so long.
On this map, the airstrip isn't that far
away. Well, in a straight line, anyway.
The rivers don't take me
where I need to go,
so I'm gonna cut my way through the bush,
which I don't really want to do.
Ghislain told me about a cave system
that could get me out of this
green hell for a while.
Trouble is this area
isn't very well mapped,
which means I don't know
exactly how to get there,
but I know I need to head south.
This jungle is full of so many challenges.
As I get further in, the heat is
really taking its toll on me.
We're so close to the equator,
and I'm feeling it.
This time of year, the temperature rarely
drops below 79 degrees Fahrenheit.
(indistinct calling)
(lowly) That could be people.
Ghislain said there are
people living in this jungle.
He said if I come across
people, give out a call.
(whoops) Feel a bit nervous
about that, actually. (whoops)
By calling, I'm telling them that I'm here
and I don't mean them any harm,
that I'm not a poacher.
I want them to know I haven't
come to take anything from them.
I'm not trying to sneak across their
property, across their land. (whoops)
(whispers) That's a woman's voice.
I can hear children as well.
It could be the Baka,
semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers.
They've been living here
for about 400 centuries.
That's 80 times older
than the ancient Egyptians.
That's singing. (whoops)
I'm trying to get a whoop back,
so I feel, like, safe going in.
I don't want to just walk into someone's
village or camp or… (whoops)
(person whoops)
(indistinct voices)
That was a whoop back.
(Dwayne whoops, voices respond in turn)
I've whooped,
I don't know what to do now,
because Ghislain never told me
what to do if they whooped back.
Uh… (in French) Hello. Uh…
(In English) So this is the awkward part.
I genuinely don't know what to do now.
(In French) Uh… My name is "to eat."
(speaks in French)
My French… very small.
-MAN: Oui.
-(In English) Yeah, oh, good.
DWAYNE:
What do I remember from French in school?
Uh. (in French) My name is Dwayne.
Ah!
I am long distance…
(In French) Large…large…
kilometer. Large journey.
Large journey.
(group murmurs)
Me. I "to eat?"
(In English) I would…I'm hungry. Hungry.
(group makes sounds of understanding)
See? Hey! (laughs)
(group speaks in French)
Yeah?
Down this way.
Uh. You show me? Okay. Show me.
Yeah, yeah, show me.
I don't have a clue what's happening,
the kids are telling me to go that way.
(people speak in French)
Step, step there.
I'm literally just following
instructions now.
They've blocked it there,
and they've blocked it here.
Okay.
They're trying to get me fish.
Poisson. Poisson. Fish.
Never seen anything like this.
You want me to do it? Take it up.
They're trying to show me something,
so I'm just,
I don't know,
I'm just doing what they say.
(people speak in French, laugh)
MAN:
Fish over there.
DWAYNE:
You've got poisson there. Oui.
This guy's doing something,
he's put his hand in a hole in the mud.
I've never, ever in my life
seen fishing like this before.
It's just so labor intensive.
-You've got fish. Poisson.
-Poisson.
DWAYNE: Ah. So it's fish that
lives in the mud. C'est bon.
Yeah, bon, très bien.
There's more fish.
Whoa. C'est bon, très bien.
Very good. That's three more fish.
-Bon. We go and eat?
-MAN: C'est bon!
(people talk indistinctly, continuous)
Wow. We're gonna cook some fish.
That's a big one.
They're wrapping the fish
in marantaceae leaves.
It's a good way to cook in the
forest, and it keeps the flavor.
They've brought out the expert.
I'm told the Baka people can survive
on this meager meal in dire times.
Two fish is enough to sustain one person,
depending on the size.
When fish is really good,
30 to 50 fish can feed a whole family.
The Baka flow with the forest.
When they're here, they set up temporary
camps following food sources.
They go where the plants and animals are.
I'm truly touched that they've so quickly
embraced me to their way of life.
(baby cries)
C'est bon. Yeah, très bien, très bien.
C'est bon. It's good.
Merci beaucoup. Merci beaucoup.
Yeah, thank you so much.
-Merci.
-Merci.
It's humbling for me to see
how the Baka seem
to live so harmoniously
with the environment.
I feel like I can learn so much from them.
But I can't stay around.
I need to get to the caves,
and maybe they can help me.
I don't know how to say this.
Walk… into, into cave.
Yeah, yeah. (in French) Cave.
(people speak in French)
That way.
I'm not entirely sure, but it sounds
like it's in that direction,
which is very good.
I just want to enjoy this fire
a little bit more,
enjoy the company, and then maybe
make my excuses and hit the road.
Losing my bloody hat and my mind.
I need to start thinking about
making a camp for the night.
I think that's an elephant print.
It's hard to tell.
(elephant huffs and groans)
There's an estimated 100,000
forest elephants that call Gabon home.
Right now at the end of the wet
season, they're migrating
from the protection of the jungle
back out to the swampy lowlands.
That's a lot of elephant traffic.
I'm just looking for a decent size tree
with enough branches
that I can climb up or get up there
and nest there for the night,
because I am not sleeping on the ground.
(grunts)
That's not too bad.
I'm gonna take my chances with this.
I can't imagine it's gonna be comfortable,
but at least I'll be off the ground.
I need a good weight,
so I'm gonna use these.
Tie my cord to a couple of these.
It's weighty enough, I'm hopeful.
(exhales) See how good my aim is.
Just through that one set right there,
straight through the middle, pull it up.
(gasps, grunts) Yes. Perfect.
So now I can tie my rope to this end,
pull it up and get myself up the tree,
nice and safe for the night. Oh, yes.
(grunts victoriously) Look at that.
On a day like today when I'm this tired,
this is not the easiest thing to do
when I've got a heavy pack on my back
and I've been making my way through this
jungle all day. I'm tired, I'm sweaty.
(grunts)
I can see some light through
the trees now as well.
And for the first time since
getting into this jungle,
I actually feel safe.
I never imagined I'd ever be in a deep,
dark jungle sleeping in a tree.
I feel like I'm supposed to be
beating my chest or something,
like, get my whole Tarzan vibe going on.
I'll try and get some sleep,
safe in the knowledge
that I'm not gonna bump into
any three-ton elephant in the dark.
(insects trill)
This place never sleeps.
Haven't slept a wink. (yawns)
Every single frog,
every single cricket, every bird,
they just never stop, and it feels
like they're all either in this tree
or around this tree, and I'm the show,
and they're the audience.
Just listen to this.
(animals trill)
You know, sleep deprivation
is the worst thing.
When you add that to
the fact that I feel like
the slightest movement I'm gonna fall,
I'm really regretting coming up here.
Oh God.
(strange sound)
(whispers) What was that?
(tense music)
There's something in the
bush, it's just down there.
Can't see a damn thing
out here. It's pitch black.
Think I'm in its backyard and it
decided it didn't want me here.
What a night. There was something
down there last night, I know it.
I don't know if it's me, or if this jungle
is getting thicker by the day.
I swear it's getting thicker
every single day.
It feels like I'm working harder
than the day before.
I'm gonna check out,
see if I can see any tracks,
find out what was down here last night.
(grunts)
Look at this. (grunts) I knew it.
That's an elephant print.
I can't mistake that,
that's what an elephant print looks like.
Round, toe, toe, toe, toe.
It was definitely down here.
This is a path. Only an elephant
would make a path like this.
It has to be something big.
And that's what they do.
They're known as
the ecologists of the forest.
Whatever they eat, they walk
around, they leave the seeds,
they're basically creating the forest
and the trails as they go.
Once an elephant clears a bit of a path,
other animals start to use it,
and that's when it becomes like
a proper visible, visible trail.
That's an elephant, that's an elephant,
this is an elephant here, look at the size
of that foot. This thing must be massive.
My heart's pounding. I'm like
a weird mix of excited and anxious.
An elephant could be 20 feet from me
and I wouldn't even know it,
it's so thick in here.
(inhales) But that's the direction
the trail goes in.
Ghislain said there's a waterfall
at the entrance to the cave.
If this trail was made by elephants
searching for water, I may be in luck.
(dramatic music)
(ethereal music)
It's my final day here in Gabon.
If I can find the caves and get through,
I'll have one more challenge left:
getting to the airstrip.
(thunder rolls)
(Dwayne grunts)
(distant waterfall)
It's a waterfall, I can see it.
Looks like a big waterfall as well.
Whoa!
I think that's the cave.
Ghislain said this cavern
is about a mile long and a single track.
It'll be nice to get out of the jungle.
(grunts)
Let's have a look.
This is flowing water.
If it can get out, I can, too,
which means I can follow this,
no more hacking, no more jungle,
just strolling down a river
underneath the jungle.
Gabon has some of the oldest
cave systems on the planet.
For millions of years,
water's been carving out the
underground highways into this bedrock.
Flash floods are a real
and present threat.
Bats. Whoa. There's thousands of them.
Not a massive fan of bats, to be honest.
Just reminds me of some old vampire movie.
(grunts) Oh, gosh. That's
bat poo. Ugh. It's moving.
All these little white dots are just
bugs crawling. Not touching that.
Their feces are called bat guano.
Don't want to breath this stuff in.
There could be fungus spores
in the air from it,
which can cause histoplasmosis,
an infection of the lungs.
Ugh. This is gross.
Oh, God, look, they're all waking up now.
Please don't poo on me.
Thought played in my mind,
all of this damp area of rock,
that was the water level recently.
It if rains up top,
down here will fill up.
And it could fill up fast.
Need to get out.
(grunts)
(tense music)
This is getting tighter.
C'est petite.
What's down there?
I can't get out there.
I really hope I don't get stuck.
Turning back now would not be good.
That's opening up.
Follow the water.
Covering a lot of ground.
Well, a lot of underground.
Could be anything in this water.
You just don't know what's down here.
(grunts) Oh, snake.
Oh, viper! That can kill.
It's a viper. I can tell from the
arrowhead shape on its head.
I think that's a rhinoceros viper.
The venom in that destroys tissue.
If it bites me, that can kill.
I'm moving straight on.
They can swim, and they can swim
fast upstream as well.
I am not claustrophobic, but
this is starting to do something to me.
I need to get out of this cave.
Just endless darkness.
That's light. Come on.
That's daylight.
(heavy breaths) Look those trees.
I'm out. This is like a lost world.
I've never been so happy
to see daylight and trees. (grunts)
That means it's back to bushwhacking.
Just seeing that vine and this vine here,
it's made me think of something.
When you get a good green one,
this is still alive, thick like this,
we might be lucky enough
to find fresh water.
Ah! Oh, yes.
(grunts)
It's fresh, it's good to drink.
That tastes like life.
The wood's like a natural filter.
The pores in the vine are small
enough to filter out bacteria.
The water's clear, not milky, no smells.
On a hot, humid day in the jungle,
that is as good as,
if not better than, a can of Coke.
So desperate to get out of here. This is
the thickest it's been so far. (grunts)
It's getting lighter. Come on.
That's light.
Hang on.
This has to be it, this is the airstrip.
(tense music)
How do we get out?
It's the airstrip!
-Ghislain!
-GHISLAIN: You made it!
How you doing?
DWAYNE: You'd never believe what's just
happened over the last week.
(Dwayne groans)
-It's so good to see you, man.
-GHISLAIN: Yeah, me, too.
Did you find the waterfall?
DWAYNE:
Did I find the waterfall? It found me.
-GHISLAIN: Oh, really?
-DWAYNE: Yeah, I nearly went over.
Oh, mate, I'm so tired.
I cannot believe it,
I survived seven days
in one of the wettest and densest
rain forests I've ever heard of,
and I learned some valuable lessons
from Gabon's rivers and nomadic people:
that no matter what I do, I can't fight
nature; I need to flow with it.
I feel rooted, and the roots here,
they run deep. That's why I do this,
connecting with nature,
to connect with myself.
---
(ethereal music)
(insects trill)
I can't even see around that bend,
because this whole place is just thick
with every bush you could imagine.
I get this sense that it's
so easy to get lost here.
DWAYNE (VO): I'm in Gabon, the most
forested country in all of Africa.
Nearly 90 percent of it
is just like this, rain forest.
It's such an unfamiliar environment to me,
and yet I feel like I'm at the
mercy of everything around me.
I can definitely tell you now
that I am well outside my comfort zone.
That's how I like to do things.
Learn by doing.
I've given myself seven days
to make it deep in the Gabonese jungle.
I want to learn all I can
about this mysterious place
and survive the experience.
It's smooth now,
but it can get nasty on rapids.
Gosh, it's getting loud.
It's make me nervous.
Can't see very far downstream, especially
when it's a river that you don't know.
(tense music)
There's spray. And that roar's
definitely getting louder.
That's not rapids. I can't see the river,
that's the waterfall.
****!
Get off the water, get off
the water, get off the water. (gasps)
Power, power, power, power.
I want to stay to that side.
Power through.
That's a drop, that's a drop.
Don't tip!
Push on, push on.
(gasps)
I'm Dwayne Fields,
explorer and adventurer.
(whoops)
Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop.
In the wilderness is where I come alive.
-Oh, viper!
-It's my true calling.
Whoa!
In 2010, I became the first Black British
man to trek to the North Pole.
Progress is that way.
(dramatic music)
I love to push myself to the limit.
(grunts) Whoa, whoa, whoa, that's a drop.
Now I'm challenging
myself to survive a week
in some of the harshest
environments on Earth.
(sighs) Man, this is gonna be intense.
Using all my skill,
determination and will to survive.
Here we go.
That's why I'm here in
the rain forests of Gabon.
This is gonna be my 7 Toughest Days.
I knew there was a waterfall coming,
but I did not expect it so quickly.
Back on dry ground is where
the real struggle begins.
The Gabonese jungle is unlike any
extreme environment I've ever faced.
In preparation for my challenge,
I met jungle guide Ghislain,
who's given me a few pointers
that may help me survive on my mission.
Are there any roads,
any footpaths, any…
There are no roads, but there'll
be definitely elephant trails.
-This area isn't very well mapped, is it?
-No.
It's remote, it's forest,
it's jungle, it's tropical forest,
so, it's gonna be tough.
It's hard to navigate any distance in the
deep canopy with no obvious landmarks.
Why did you come here?
I just can't learn
things from a book, man.
But Ghislain mentioned there's an
elaborate underground cave system
to the south, which I hope to find.
My plan is to meet up with Ghislain
in seven days at a remote airstrip.
With so little information to go on,
I have no idea what lies in between.
(grunts)
Let's have a look at what nearly ended me.
It's massive.
Whoa.
That looks like it's about 180 feet. I've
literally just come out just up there.
I can hear it, I can see all
the spray. Couldn't see it.
There's a ledge here,
but even that looks terrible.
The water's just flooding
off of this, hitting that,
there's no way I can get down here.
I'm gonna have to go downstream.
Some tall trees there, probably
use one of those as an anchor.
Make my way down to
the base of this waterfall,
see if I can find a way back
onto the water down there.
Up here, not gonna happen.
A sling around this,
that's not going anywhere.
(grunts) I've climbed before,
I've used ropes before,
but not with this much water.
Can't even tell if
it's rain or if it's spray.
The noise, the spray, absolutely epic.
That's my umbilical.
Here we go!
The water's blowing, it's hurting my eyes.
Should have brought goggles!
(tense music)
I've never been so wet
and not been fully submerged.
It's raining up, it's raining down,
it's coming from the side.
(grunts) Every single
thing is soaking wet.
The noise is deafening.
Awesome.
I'm gonna head downstream
and try and get down past these rapids
to see if I can get back on the water.
(grunts)
As much as I can hear
the waterfall, I can feel it.
When you touch the rocks,
you can feel it shaking, vibrating.
Huge amount of power.
In the peak of the rainy season,
it's estimated these falls launch nearly
1,000 tons of water every second.
That's like 900 small cars slamming down
this section of the river every second.
I do not want to go in there.
Gabon gets up to
11 feet of rainfall, each year,
and swollen rivers make kayaking
a dangerous option.
I'm here at the end of the wet season.
Rapids and waterfalls
are big hazards out here.
Working through this dense
jungle is really tough.
Along with crocodiles, Gabon has
30 species of venomous snake
and nearly 100,000 forest elephants.
(elephant huffs)
The thick, impenetrable growth makes any
encounter with them potentially dangerous.
I may not know how close
they are until it's too late.
This tree's massive.
Good. (grunts) See this resin?
I reckon… if this is the okoumé tree…
it should light.
This okoumé resin's got flammable oils,
making it a great fire starter.
Come on. Come on.
This is awesome. I can smell that.
I'm almost guaranteed fire tonight.
Also, the smoke, it keeps
mosquitoes and other insects away.
Alright, enough of that. Let me find
something to wrap this in, keep it safe.
That's a really good find.
A really, really good find.
What was that?
Something just slithered
down underneath that log.
Could be a crocodile, could be
a snake, could be a frog.
That's the thing,
you just don't know in here.
That direction's southeast.
Following the river down there's
gonna take me off course,
and I'm losing daylight quickly.
I'm gonna wade across.
I have to do it before it gets dark.
I know there's crocodile.
As night falls, they come out,
they get in the water, they start hunting.
I'm gonna do it now.
I'm gonna take my pack off. If it suddenly
gets deep, I can use this to float.
Oh, ****!
If there's a burrow,
there's a crocodile that owns it.
There's more burrows all the way along.
They could belong to dwarf crocodiles,
which aren't known to be dangerous,
but there are three species of croc
in Gabon, including the Nile crocodile.
Nile crocs can
grow up to 20 feet long
and are known to eat pretty
much anything that moves.
They're dangerous, stealthy predators,
and I've heard there are up to 200 deaths
a year in Africa from Nile croc attacks.
(tense music)
Whoa. The mud just sucks your feet down.
This is the creepiest thing
I've ever done.
There we go. Now it's
getting deeper. Whoa!
It's hard to tell if you're brushing
something or if it's brushing you.
(gasps)
There's just bubbles just
coming up to the surface.
It makes you wonder what's under there.
Oh, ****!
Something's in here.
That's dry land there. (grunts)
Good, I'm out of that.
I've only got about
an hour of daylight left,
so I'll be hard pressed to get
back to the river by nightfall.
It's getting to that stage of the day now
where I'm looking for a place to camp.
That's not too bad, is it?
Yeah, this is good.
Ants. Look at that.
That's why I chose a hammock.
Yeah, that's going far. Ants all here.
That's got ants flooding out of it.
Ants, ants, ants, ants, ants, just carries
on. Oh, look, there's a mass of them.
Ow.
I don't know how they find their way in.
Ants are the most
abundant insects on Earth.
20 quadrillion of them.
That's a 20 with 15 zeros after it.
There's 383 species of ants in Gabon, and
it feels like right now they're all here.
Something a mate of mine showed me.
Menthol rub on the cords between
where you're sleeping and the tree.
That way no creepy-crawlies
will get to you. They hate this stuff.
The other one… squash
balls. Down one side.
(exhales)
This is like a dream.
(birdsong)
Alright, shelter done.
Firewood.
It's just everything's soaked.
If I can't find dry wood, make dry wood.
I've just got to cut the outer parts
to get to the dry core inside.
That's gonna be really easy to light.
Fire is essential out here
for safety at night,
not just comfort.
It'll discourage any curious critters
from getting too close, hopefully.
Now for the pièce de résistance.
So glad I found this okoumé resin.
See if this works.
(groans) Come on, come on.
Don't play games with me.
Come on. Yes, keep going.
Come on. I'm in the middle of
a rain forest, and I have fire.
Morale on 100 right now.
It's so weird that a fire right here
in the middle of a rain forest in Gabon
can remind me of me being a kid in
Jamaica, thousands of miles away;
but it does.
It reminds me of building up
a fire just like this one,
and I'd roast cashew nuts on it.
(gasps)
Dwayne Fields, you bad boy.
You made fire in a deep, dark jungle.
I'm excited, it's going pretty well.
I think five, six-year-old Dwayne Fields
will be mad proud right now.
That I'm winning.
(soft music)
Alright, Dwayne, get to work.
(heavy breathing)
Didn't have any mosquitoes,
I didn't have any ants, so, top tip:
use menthol rub.
It's day two, and I've barely
made a dent in this wall of jungle.
There's a lot of green between me and
those caves I'm looking for.
(grunts)
****! That's a snake.
I think it's a bush viper.
Look at that.
Look how well camouflaged it is.
Bush vipers ambush their prey
and then strike within milliseconds.
The venom can be fatal,
and we're a long way from help.
I could have passed
50 on the way up here.
It's one thing knowing that they're
here, but until you see one,
I don't know, it just clicks something
in your head, in your mind,
every single thing looks like a
snake now. Makes my skin crawl.
This is so thick.
(winces) This is painful.
(grunts)
It's just these, they're taking
out my legs. This jungle's tough.
There's rocks, there's pitfalls,
and not to mention every single
thing has a spine on it.
Everything in here's just
out to get me, it feels like.
(exhales) I've had enough of this jungle
forcing me to change direction.
I'll never make it to the airstrip
if I have to keep fighting
through the jungle like this.
I'm gonna have to come up
with a different plan.
I've barely covered any ground.
The river will be faster.
I need to jump back on the water.
It's a lot calmer now, cover
a lot more ground before sunset,
and hopefully find a spot to
camp while there's still light.
Back into the unknown. (grunts)
I won't make it to the caves tonight;
I've burnt up too much time.
I need to find a spot to make camp.
We've probably got
an hour or so of sunlight.
There's this weird haze, like a mist,
just coming off all the trees.
It's proper mystic-looking.
As you lose the light,
you start listening more,
because you can't use your eyes as much.
It's like a whole list of
animals are coming alive now.
I can hear frogs or birds
or insects over there,
because they all sound the same
when you can't see them.
(animals trill)
What was that?
(dramatic music)
This inlet, the trees thin a little bit.
This is creepy.
That is hard ground. I think I lucked out.
Make sure there's nothing,
no crocodiles or anything in here.
Tree, tree, that's my hammock sorted.
That's dry wood. This is good.
Just in time.
This is a completely different world.
I've never been to a jungle like this.
It reminds me of when I lived in London
and feeling like I didn't belong.
Living basically a lie.
That sense of not fitting in,
not finding a place in the world.
And it led me down a path
where I lost myself.
I would like to think that I will
make it through this challenge.
If I do, I will have somehow gone back to
my roots after leaving them for so long.
On this map, the airstrip isn't that far
away. Well, in a straight line, anyway.
The rivers don't take me
where I need to go,
so I'm gonna cut my way through the bush,
which I don't really want to do.
Ghislain told me about a cave system
that could get me out of this
green hell for a while.
Trouble is this area
isn't very well mapped,
which means I don't know
exactly how to get there,
but I know I need to head south.
This jungle is full of so many challenges.
As I get further in, the heat is
really taking its toll on me.
We're so close to the equator,
and I'm feeling it.
This time of year, the temperature rarely
drops below 79 degrees Fahrenheit.
(indistinct calling)
(lowly) That could be people.
Ghislain said there are
people living in this jungle.
He said if I come across
people, give out a call.
(whoops) Feel a bit nervous
about that, actually. (whoops)
By calling, I'm telling them that I'm here
and I don't mean them any harm,
that I'm not a poacher.
I want them to know I haven't
come to take anything from them.
I'm not trying to sneak across their
property, across their land. (whoops)
(whispers) That's a woman's voice.
I can hear children as well.
It could be the Baka,
semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers.
They've been living here
for about 400 centuries.
That's 80 times older
than the ancient Egyptians.
That's singing. (whoops)
I'm trying to get a whoop back,
so I feel, like, safe going in.
I don't want to just walk into someone's
village or camp or… (whoops)
(person whoops)
(indistinct voices)
That was a whoop back.
(Dwayne whoops, voices respond in turn)
I've whooped,
I don't know what to do now,
because Ghislain never told me
what to do if they whooped back.
Uh… (in French) Hello. Uh…
(In English) So this is the awkward part.
I genuinely don't know what to do now.
(In French) Uh… My name is "to eat."
(speaks in French)
My French… very small.
-MAN: Oui.
-(In English) Yeah, oh, good.
DWAYNE:
What do I remember from French in school?
Uh. (in French) My name is Dwayne.
Ah!
I am long distance…
(In French) Large…large…
kilometer. Large journey.
Large journey.
(group murmurs)
Me. I "to eat?"
(In English) I would…I'm hungry. Hungry.
(group makes sounds of understanding)
See? Hey! (laughs)
(group speaks in French)
Yeah?
Down this way.
Uh. You show me? Okay. Show me.
Yeah, yeah, show me.
I don't have a clue what's happening,
the kids are telling me to go that way.
(people speak in French)
Step, step there.
I'm literally just following
instructions now.
They've blocked it there,
and they've blocked it here.
Okay.
They're trying to get me fish.
Poisson. Poisson. Fish.
Never seen anything like this.
You want me to do it? Take it up.
They're trying to show me something,
so I'm just,
I don't know,
I'm just doing what they say.
(people speak in French, laugh)
MAN:
Fish over there.
DWAYNE:
You've got poisson there. Oui.
This guy's doing something,
he's put his hand in a hole in the mud.
I've never, ever in my life
seen fishing like this before.
It's just so labor intensive.
-You've got fish. Poisson.
-Poisson.
DWAYNE: Ah. So it's fish that
lives in the mud. C'est bon.
Yeah, bon, très bien.
There's more fish.
Whoa. C'est bon, très bien.
Very good. That's three more fish.
-Bon. We go and eat?
-MAN: C'est bon!
(people talk indistinctly, continuous)
Wow. We're gonna cook some fish.
That's a big one.
They're wrapping the fish
in marantaceae leaves.
It's a good way to cook in the
forest, and it keeps the flavor.
They've brought out the expert.
I'm told the Baka people can survive
on this meager meal in dire times.
Two fish is enough to sustain one person,
depending on the size.
When fish is really good,
30 to 50 fish can feed a whole family.
The Baka flow with the forest.
When they're here, they set up temporary
camps following food sources.
They go where the plants and animals are.
I'm truly touched that they've so quickly
embraced me to their way of life.
(baby cries)
C'est bon. Yeah, très bien, très bien.
C'est bon. It's good.
Merci beaucoup. Merci beaucoup.
Yeah, thank you so much.
-Merci.
-Merci.
It's humbling for me to see
how the Baka seem
to live so harmoniously
with the environment.
I feel like I can learn so much from them.
But I can't stay around.
I need to get to the caves,
and maybe they can help me.
I don't know how to say this.
Walk… into, into cave.
Yeah, yeah. (in French) Cave.
(people speak in French)
That way.
I'm not entirely sure, but it sounds
like it's in that direction,
which is very good.
I just want to enjoy this fire
a little bit more,
enjoy the company, and then maybe
make my excuses and hit the road.
Losing my bloody hat and my mind.
I need to start thinking about
making a camp for the night.
I think that's an elephant print.
It's hard to tell.
(elephant huffs and groans)
There's an estimated 100,000
forest elephants that call Gabon home.
Right now at the end of the wet
season, they're migrating
from the protection of the jungle
back out to the swampy lowlands.
That's a lot of elephant traffic.
I'm just looking for a decent size tree
with enough branches
that I can climb up or get up there
and nest there for the night,
because I am not sleeping on the ground.
(grunts)
That's not too bad.
I'm gonna take my chances with this.
I can't imagine it's gonna be comfortable,
but at least I'll be off the ground.
I need a good weight,
so I'm gonna use these.
Tie my cord to a couple of these.
It's weighty enough, I'm hopeful.
(exhales) See how good my aim is.
Just through that one set right there,
straight through the middle, pull it up.
(gasps, grunts) Yes. Perfect.
So now I can tie my rope to this end,
pull it up and get myself up the tree,
nice and safe for the night. Oh, yes.
(grunts victoriously) Look at that.
On a day like today when I'm this tired,
this is not the easiest thing to do
when I've got a heavy pack on my back
and I've been making my way through this
jungle all day. I'm tired, I'm sweaty.
(grunts)
I can see some light through
the trees now as well.
And for the first time since
getting into this jungle,
I actually feel safe.
I never imagined I'd ever be in a deep,
dark jungle sleeping in a tree.
I feel like I'm supposed to be
beating my chest or something,
like, get my whole Tarzan vibe going on.
I'll try and get some sleep,
safe in the knowledge
that I'm not gonna bump into
any three-ton elephant in the dark.
(insects trill)
This place never sleeps.
Haven't slept a wink. (yawns)
Every single frog,
every single cricket, every bird,
they just never stop, and it feels
like they're all either in this tree
or around this tree, and I'm the show,
and they're the audience.
Just listen to this.
(animals trill)
You know, sleep deprivation
is the worst thing.
When you add that to
the fact that I feel like
the slightest movement I'm gonna fall,
I'm really regretting coming up here.
Oh God.
(strange sound)
(whispers) What was that?
(tense music)
There's something in the
bush, it's just down there.
Can't see a damn thing
out here. It's pitch black.
Think I'm in its backyard and it
decided it didn't want me here.
What a night. There was something
down there last night, I know it.
I don't know if it's me, or if this jungle
is getting thicker by the day.
I swear it's getting thicker
every single day.
It feels like I'm working harder
than the day before.
I'm gonna check out,
see if I can see any tracks,
find out what was down here last night.
(grunts)
Look at this. (grunts) I knew it.
That's an elephant print.
I can't mistake that,
that's what an elephant print looks like.
Round, toe, toe, toe, toe.
It was definitely down here.
This is a path. Only an elephant
would make a path like this.
It has to be something big.
And that's what they do.
They're known as
the ecologists of the forest.
Whatever they eat, they walk
around, they leave the seeds,
they're basically creating the forest
and the trails as they go.
Once an elephant clears a bit of a path,
other animals start to use it,
and that's when it becomes like
a proper visible, visible trail.
That's an elephant, that's an elephant,
this is an elephant here, look at the size
of that foot. This thing must be massive.
My heart's pounding. I'm like
a weird mix of excited and anxious.
An elephant could be 20 feet from me
and I wouldn't even know it,
it's so thick in here.
(inhales) But that's the direction
the trail goes in.
Ghislain said there's a waterfall
at the entrance to the cave.
If this trail was made by elephants
searching for water, I may be in luck.
(dramatic music)
(ethereal music)
It's my final day here in Gabon.
If I can find the caves and get through,
I'll have one more challenge left:
getting to the airstrip.
(thunder rolls)
(Dwayne grunts)
(distant waterfall)
It's a waterfall, I can see it.
Looks like a big waterfall as well.
Whoa!
I think that's the cave.
Ghislain said this cavern
is about a mile long and a single track.
It'll be nice to get out of the jungle.
(grunts)
Let's have a look.
This is flowing water.
If it can get out, I can, too,
which means I can follow this,
no more hacking, no more jungle,
just strolling down a river
underneath the jungle.
Gabon has some of the oldest
cave systems on the planet.
For millions of years,
water's been carving out the
underground highways into this bedrock.
Flash floods are a real
and present threat.
Bats. Whoa. There's thousands of them.
Not a massive fan of bats, to be honest.
Just reminds me of some old vampire movie.
(grunts) Oh, gosh. That's
bat poo. Ugh. It's moving.
All these little white dots are just
bugs crawling. Not touching that.
Their feces are called bat guano.
Don't want to breath this stuff in.
There could be fungus spores
in the air from it,
which can cause histoplasmosis,
an infection of the lungs.
Ugh. This is gross.
Oh, God, look, they're all waking up now.
Please don't poo on me.
Thought played in my mind,
all of this damp area of rock,
that was the water level recently.
It if rains up top,
down here will fill up.
And it could fill up fast.
Need to get out.
(grunts)
(tense music)
This is getting tighter.
C'est petite.
What's down there?
I can't get out there.
I really hope I don't get stuck.
Turning back now would not be good.
That's opening up.
Follow the water.
Covering a lot of ground.
Well, a lot of underground.
Could be anything in this water.
You just don't know what's down here.
(grunts) Oh, snake.
Oh, viper! That can kill.
It's a viper. I can tell from the
arrowhead shape on its head.
I think that's a rhinoceros viper.
The venom in that destroys tissue.
If it bites me, that can kill.
I'm moving straight on.
They can swim, and they can swim
fast upstream as well.
I am not claustrophobic, but
this is starting to do something to me.
I need to get out of this cave.
Just endless darkness.
That's light. Come on.
That's daylight.
(heavy breaths) Look those trees.
I'm out. This is like a lost world.
I've never been so happy
to see daylight and trees. (grunts)
That means it's back to bushwhacking.
Just seeing that vine and this vine here,
it's made me think of something.
When you get a good green one,
this is still alive, thick like this,
we might be lucky enough
to find fresh water.
Ah! Oh, yes.
(grunts)
It's fresh, it's good to drink.
That tastes like life.
The wood's like a natural filter.
The pores in the vine are small
enough to filter out bacteria.
The water's clear, not milky, no smells.
On a hot, humid day in the jungle,
that is as good as,
if not better than, a can of Coke.
So desperate to get out of here. This is
the thickest it's been so far. (grunts)
It's getting lighter. Come on.
That's light.
Hang on.
This has to be it, this is the airstrip.
(tense music)
How do we get out?
It's the airstrip!
-Ghislain!
-GHISLAIN: You made it!
How you doing?
DWAYNE: You'd never believe what's just
happened over the last week.
(Dwayne groans)
-It's so good to see you, man.
-GHISLAIN: Yeah, me, too.
Did you find the waterfall?
DWAYNE:
Did I find the waterfall? It found me.
-GHISLAIN: Oh, really?
-DWAYNE: Yeah, I nearly went over.
Oh, mate, I'm so tired.
I cannot believe it,
I survived seven days
in one of the wettest and densest
rain forests I've ever heard of,
and I learned some valuable lessons
from Gabon's rivers and nomadic people:
that no matter what I do, I can't fight
nature; I need to flow with it.
I feel rooted, and the roots here,
they run deep. That's why I do this,
connecting with nature,
to connect with myself.