Man Vs. Wild

Since it’s Summer and there’s not much on TV, I’ve started to watch Man Vs. Wild on the Discovery Channel with Chris. I have to admit I’m strangely intrigued/horrified every time we watch an episode.

For those of you that have never seen the show, it follows host Bear Grylls (ex-SAS) as he is dropped (sometimes literally!) into various remote locations all over the world with usually just a canteen full of water, a knife and maybe a flint. He’s got 5 days to find civilization. A camera crew follows, but can offer assistance only in a life or death situation.  He doesn’t remind me of a typical survivalist or adrenaline junkie, actually he looks like he could be related to Prince Charles.  So far I’ve seen him traverse the Rockies, Copper Canyon in Mexico, lava fields in Hawaii, and the Australian Outback. Last night we watched the Australian Outback episode. 130 degrees with no water. And you can tell this guy loves what he does. Me? I’d be laying down waiting for death. I have no survival instincts.

The first thing Bear does in each episode is to get his bearings. Using his trusty watch and the sun he figures out which way is south and starts on his way. Since it’s so blazing hot he soon runs out of water and with no water in sight he proclaims, “I’ll just have to drink my own pee!” At this point I think I said “Oh hell no!” and fast forwarded past the part where they actually showed him peeing into his canteen. He also regularly eats worms, bugs, raw animals… just anything edible he can find for energy. Last night he ate a big nasty spider (again, I fast forwarded).  Once he bit into a fish Gollum-style (yep, fast forwarded, maybe we shouldn’t watch this show during dinner?).  Luckily it finally rained, but all I could think about was Bear washing out his pee mouth instead of talking to the camera.   Even though it grosses me out sometimes, and whenever he starts to rock climb or scale a cliff it freaks me out, it really is a very good show.  The Discovery Channel has been running back to back episodes this week, so check it out!

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