by Mireya Mayor
As hot as the days get on the African plains, the nights are chilly, and that night would have been miserable without a fire. Then there is the matter of prey. As the food chain goes, people are easy prey to many species in many remote parts of the world, and Africa is no exception. In the game of big cat versus human in a sleeping bag, more often than not neither the sleeping bag nor the human stands a chance. Without a fire to deter animals, we weren’t going to sleep, and it would be a long, cold, and hungry night.
Being an old-school purse packer, I offered a solution. I produced one individually wrapped magic fire starter—er, tampon—from my backpack and handed it to one of the researchers trying to start the fire. Despite being married and living in the Westernized world, he looked at the package and then looked into my eyes the way a husband does when you ask him to buy you Pamprin. Abject fear. But once I removed the cotton wadding and showed him what it could be used for, he put it to work immediately. In no time at all we had our fire. That may have been the night we were really short on food, and the camp cook produced what he assured us was a delectable dessert of big, white, icky grubs. “Packed with protein and other good things,” he insisted. Come morning, we were all completely green—sick as dogs. Nevertheless, we had our fire and dry socks for another day.
I mentioned dinner, so I should explain about food on an expedition. Since the only nutrition has to be carried on your back, you don’t bring much, sustaining yourself many days on a ration of rice and whatever else comes your way. Literally. And believe me, although there are more things out there that can eat you than you can eat. Other days, the locals welcome you and share their prized delicacies. Gag. Chewing gum is a great way to distract you from hunger pangs and can be offered to the Pygmy king who has just handed you the coveted goat kidney, raw.
Most girls in captivity worry about their weight and try a number of different fad diets before discovering that diets simply don’t work. Well, I have discovered one that does work: the Congo diet. You don’t necessarily have to be in Congo; any developing African country will do. It consists of raw goat kidney, termites, grubs, and running out of food, which often happens on expeditions (at least, on mine it does). The parasite loads you acquire by drinking the water are optional (well, no, they’re actually not), but they help a lot to keep you trim. I had a parasite load so large after one expedition that a doctor asked me if I had been licking toilets. I lost ten pounds that trip.
This diet, coupled with endless hours of hiking, running from elephants, trudging through swamps, and being so tired that you skip dinner altogether, is a surefire way of shedding unwanted pounds. Trust me.
Water is one thing you can never take for granted. I’m not talking about proper hydration to make your skin glow. I can’t seem to run to the grocery store these days without taking a bottle of water with me (in a reusable container, of course). In the wilderness, water equals survival, plain and simple. And water is heavy. So if you can’t carry it, you have to find it, which often isn’t easy. I am always amazed that two-thirds of our planet is covered by water and so little of it is drinkable. When you are thirsty, really thirsty, your standards for drinkable water change. It might be brown, gritty, crunchy, or smell funny, but when you are in a situation where water equals survival, you purify it the best you can, drink it, and hope you’ll live to see another day. Panty hose or dance tights, by the way, make a great water filter.
Speaking of dance tights, I have up to this point not discussed the amount of dancing I have done on expeditions. Seriously, I have danced with every tribe I have come into contact with. It’s like they know I used to be a cheerleader. Sometimes the social gatherings are informal, but often the villagers will put on their best getups. That’s where my little black dress comes in. Though I never made it into Girl Scouts, I learned to “be prepared.” And going to a party underdressed is a big no-no in my book. I impressed the Maasai with my jumping ability (though I could not match theirs; not even Superman could). I wowed the snake dancers with my prowess, and I am a legend among the BaAka. As I mentioned in an earlier chapter, I wanted to teach them one of our dances in exchange for everything they’d taught me. I taught them La Macarena, and I fully realize it will ruin any future documentaries about their age-old rituals. Mea culpa.
But that is one of the interesting things about being on an expedition. I can’t tell you how many times I have walked into the remote interior of a country only to be greeted by a tribal elder wearing a Hard Rock Hanoi T-shirt and a Cleveland Indians cap some missionary group gave him in 1985. It is like discovering that the Prime Directive on Star Trek has been violated. When Captain Kirk and his group landed on a foreign planet inhabited by early-development non-Federation humanoids, they were told, “Don’t teach them how to make laser beams or flying machines or taffy.” And don’t, for that matter, teach them La Macarena. Oops. I suppose it is not too different from using a bikini photo of Kim Kardashian to get our gear past customs agents, but somehow, when you are far, far away from civilization, it just seems culturally intrusive. But cultures are strong and resilient to foreign influence. They are not living museums, and we shouldn’t expect them to be. A Maasai wearing traditional dress with a cell phone on his hip is part of modern-day Africa. So what if the BaAka decide to summon forest spirits with a little Macarena?
No, it isn’t easy being a girl scientist in the jungle. Nor is it easy to be a woman in a largely man’s field. In fact, sometimes it isn’t easy being female at all. But on those rare occasions in the wilderness when the stars align and the moonlight kisses the top of your head just so, every frustrating, awkward, and difficult moment is so, so worth it.
The Vain Girl’s Survival Checklist
THESE ITEMS, IN YOUR BIRKIN OR YOUR BACKPACK, COULD SAVE YOUR LIFE.
Thirteen
A Near Disaster, I Presume?
NOVEMBER 4, 2008: So hungry and thirsty I can barely walk. For weeks we have been living off little to no breakfast, raisins and peanuts for lunch and dinner if we are lucky. Water has been abysmal, almost nonexistent throughout. When we do find some, it is usually in dirty, muddy, water holes with cattle bathing and defecating in it. I have not bathed in days, and I am tired, itchy, and dehydrated. I have had diarrhea for almost a week now. We have just arrived in a village, and after several weeks without news of the outside world, we listened to every word coming through the transistor radio. Through the crackling I heard that Barack Obama has been elected, the first black President of the United States.
When I tell people I am an explorer, they look at me skeptically, as if there were no longer such a profession. It is true, we are a rare breed today and a rather anonymous one, especially compared to explorers of the 19th century, the rock stars of their day. They were the modern-day equivalents of celebrities like Michael Jackson and Jennifer Lopez, or athletes on the level of Michael Jordan and Babe Ruth. They were revered, and their adventures offered a window to unknown lands during an era when travel was difficult and most of the world remained uncharted. Their expeditions made headlines around the globe.
Unquestionably, Dr. David Livingstone was the biggest rock star of them all.
In Victorian England, Livingstone was a true hero, believed by many to be the greatest explorer ever. His journeys, lectures, and many best-selling books on the mysterious African continent were legendary. He wore many hats. As a gentle Scottish missionary, he dedicated his life to the abolition of slavery. As an explorer, he discovered numerous geographical features, such as Lake Ngami, Lake Malawi, Lake Bangweulu, and, lest we forget, Victoria Falls. He filled in details of Lake Tanganyika, Lake Mweru, and the course of many rivers, especially the upper Zambezi. Livingstone’s explorations resulted in a revision of all contemporary maps and allowed large, previously blank regions to be filled in.
In 1865, at the age of 52, Dr. Livingstone set out on his most famous journey. Obsessed with finding the source of the Nile, he led an expedition into the center of the Dark Continent. He had al
ready survived numerous deadly diseases and a lion attack that crushed his left arm, rendering it forever useless. He was seemingly indomitable. The Nile expedition was his latest great voyage.
Then Dr. Livingstone disappeared.
Rumors swirled that he was being held captive or, worse, that he was dead. Months rolled by, and then years without the outside world knowing what had become of him. Just imagine if, say, Brad Pitt suddenly disappeared without a trace. The public’s fascination with Livingstone’s whereabouts reached a fever pitch. Enter American journalist Henry Morton Stanley. Stanley’s boss, James Gordon Bennett, Sr., the American tycoon who owned the New York Herald, dispatched Stanley to find both Livingstone and the biggest story of the decade. Stanley was no explorer, nor had he ever been to Africa, but he wanted the scoop. After almost nine months and the death of most of his team members, Stanley found Livingstone on November 10, 1871, in Ujiji, a small village on the shore of Lake Tanganyika in Tanzania. A thin, frail Livingstone stepped out of his mud-and-wattle house to meet him as Stanley bowed, took off his hat, and spoke the now famous words, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume.” Deep in the jungles of Africa those words have come to represent the most celebrated encounter in exploration history.
Zanzibar Island in the Indian Ocean off Tanzania’s coast was where pioneering European explorers began their journeys into Africa and where both Livingstone and Stanley began theirs. It would also be where I started my next expedition: to retrace the footsteps of Henry Morton Stanley’s famous search for Dr. David Livingstone in the unknown heart of Africa.
There was nothing ordinary about this mission. It was part of a Mark Burnett reality series but was neither a competition nor a game. Although Burnett is best known for his hit series Survivor and Apprentice, there would be no million-dollar prize and no one would get “voted off.” Burnett wanted to test whether some of today’s top explorers could survive the same terrain, dehydration, hippo attacks, and jungle fever that challenged Stanley. We would be stripped of satellite navigation, phones, tents, sleeping bags, water filters, even matches. Using only a compass and basic maps, we would attempt to relive the spirit of one of the most remarkable adventures in recorded history. This expedition was an authentic, visceral journey of survival. Only this time there would be cameras.
Cryptic discussions with Mark Burnett’s producers preceded the trip. I was not given so much as a clue as to who else was going. My only information was that “four elite explorers—each experts in their own field” had been selected. I was one of them; I wondered if I would be the only woman. The only thing I knew as I headed for the airport was that, in the company of three strangers, I would face the spectacular yet highly dangerous landscapes of Tanzania—its unforgiving terrain, ferocious wildlife, and deadly tropical diseases. I would get a glimpse into a world few have explored. And I would have to do it with no modern technology. Mind boggling.
The moment I stepped off the plane in Stone Town, I was enraptured by the beaches and sultry sea breezes of Zanzibar. The architecture mixed Arab and Indian influences and had a genuine Old World feel. Most impressive of all were the doorways—massive, carved, and elaborately decorated. When a house was built in Zanzibar, the door went up first and showed the status of the owner. The richer and more prominent the owner, the larger and more elaborate his front door. I was intrigued that many of the doors were studded with sharp brass spikes to prevent their being battered in by war elephants—purely decorative, as the elephants must have been long extinct before the Arabs built houses there.
Aside from the trip in to my hotel, I did no sightseeing. I was told upon arriving that I would have to spend the first three days within the confines of my hotel. The producers wanted to keep me and the other explorers in seclusion so we wouldn’t meet before the expedition began. A “minder” in the hotel lobby made sure I didn’t leave. To further ensure that we wouldn’t run into each other, we were all placed in different hotels, each with our own watchdog.
Excitement and fear about what lay ahead prevented me from getting more than three hours of sleep a night. In preparation for the journey, I had read all of Stanley’s and Livingstone’s journals, which revealed their worst fears and experiences. Livingstone’s journal entries on confrontations and massacres were vivid and horrible. Stanley described Africa as “the eternal feverish region.” Although Africa has clearly changed since their time, the challenges of diseases like malaria and typhoid and the powerful and deadly animals and insurmountable terrain have not. Their fears were now my fears. But like Livingstone, I have the love of exploration deeply embedded in my soul.
It was finally time to meet the others. My eyes welled up when I arrived at the British Consulate, the location from which the world’s most admired and accomplished explorers once set off. Nineteenth-century maps decorated the walls. Humbled to be there, I could feel the ghosts of Burton, Speke, Stanley, and Dr. Livingstone, all of whom I felt a kinship with through their books and journals.
I was anxious about meeting the rest of the team, sure they’d be more accomplished. Later I learned we all felt that way. I was so wonderstruck at my surroundings I didn’t even notice the tall, handsome, blue-eyed Brit standing in the room. He shook my hand and in a lovely accent said, “I am Benedict Allen.”
Benedict is a modern-day Indiana Jones, complete with leather hat. He was there as our survival expert, having come back from the dead half a dozen times. He even had to eat his dog on his first expedition. That’s one professional survivalist. I hoped our survival wouldn’t come to eating travel companions—each other. Benedict and I chatted about our experiences, trying to size each other up.
Next to walk into the room was U.S. war correspondent Kevin Sites, a clean-cut journalist if I ever saw one. Kevin wasn’t an explorer, but he was very accomplished at covering war zones. Like Stanley, he had never been on this kind of an expedition.
Kevin was quickly followed by Pasquale Scaturro. A gruff American mountaineer of Italian descent with a thick mustache, Pasquale is a life force. He has led expeditions for more than 30 years and was especially proud of having taken the first blind man up Everest. I have no idea how many times he mentioned “the blind guy” on our expedition, but it was a lot. He began citing his résumé and navigational know-how and quickly moved to assume the leadership role.
The four of us really did look like a group from central casting.
From the start, it was apparent that there’d be head-butting, especially between Benedict and Pasquale. But that wasn’t unexpected, as cast conflict is a hallmark of almost any Burnett production. That’s why he picked four type A personalities. Sure enough, a power struggle ensued. The role of expedition leader was up for grabs, and we all wanted it. I may have been the only woman on this testosterone-filled team, but I have more than enough determination, estrogen, and cojones to level the field. Conflict and drama were inevitable, and I was ready for it.
Accompanying our trek would be a film crew who’d follow our every step and listen to our every word 24-7. It would be Big Brother meets Survivor. The rules were tough and would be strictly enforced. The crew would not be allowed to say a word to us, help us, or interfere in any way; even “hello” was forbidden. We wouldn’t know their names. We had to completely ignore their presence, even if our lives were at risk. If one of us became deathly ill or a lion attacked, their only duty was to film it. We had been chosen because of our extensive experience and were expected to handle whatever came up, however deadly, as we would on our own expeditions. Only the two field producers could have any contact with us, to ask questions, and that was only once we’d stopped; they could not help or direct us in any way.
My teammates and I sat around a table at the consulate, four complete strangers with only 24 hours to gather supplies and plan a month-long expedition. Studying Stanley’s old maps, we knew it wouldn’t be easy. We broke into two groups. Kevin and Pasquale would seek out a dhow, an old-style boat with a massive sail that we’d use to cross th
e 25 miles of Indian Ocean to Tanzania. It is the same type of vessel both Livingstone and Stanley employed, and it is still used by the Zanzibar locals to reach the mainland. Meanwhile, Benedict and I headed off to the old market in Stone Town to buy provisions.
There was no magic formula. We were basically guessing as to what and how much to buy and how long we’d need to subsist on it. We had no idea how or when we’d be able to resupply.
Benedict isn’t just a survivalist, he’s a minimalist. He would have been happy with nothing more than a banana and a bag of peanuts. Pasquale, on the other hand, is Italian and likes cooking and comfort. He wanted us to come back with pasta, tomato sauce, and spices. I found myself mediating between these two different approaches, urging compromise between too much and too little. Consider this a foreshadowing.
If I had to choose a favorite, already it was Benedict, who had a wonderful sense of humor and, despite his toughness (I mean, the man had crocodile-teeth scars on his chest), was gentle and charming.
Still, I could sense conspiracy building. We had yet to agree on a lot of important things, and both Pasquale and Benedict seemed to be trying to co-opt me as an ally. They were appealing in completely different ways, I thought, but I predicted their egos and stubbornness would one day lead to an explosion. During our short meeting, they even compared the lengths of their knives. Boys. You never see women pull out their lipstick tubes to compare the relative length of their creamy accessory color. You know what I’m saying.
The “reality” aspect was daunting. We had to do in 30 days what took Stanley almost nine months to complete. For that reason, we would skip over sections of Tanzania that were now populated, traversing only the harshest of terrains.