WHAT IT TAKES TO SURVIVE IN THE WILD
From popular hole-in-the-wall eateries serving food next to urban legend and restaurants with a novelty factor to a polyglot cabbie who speaks 10 languages, UAE’s Hidden Gems has featured one exceptional story every week. In Episode 9, we travel all the way to Ras Al Khaimah to experience 24 hours of living in the wild as part of a Bear Grylls explorers camp, just like how the famous adventurer would do in his hit reality shows Who is Bear Grylls (if you didn’t know!)
Bear Grylls is the face of survival and outdoor adventure and is the celebrity host of reality shows like Running Wild, You Vs Wild, The Island & World’s Toughest Race. His ‘Man Vs Wild’ show is one of the most watched programmes. Grylls spent three years as a soldier in the British Special Forces, as part of 21 SAS Regiment. It was here that he perfected many of the survival skills that his fans all over the world enjoy and the reason for the launch of the Bear Grylls Survival Academy back in 2012 in the UK. He is also the youngest World Scout Chief Ambassador.
So, what’s your idea of fun in the mountains? If it’s a bit more than a nice drive in an SUV up Jebel Jais for a Friday BBQ with family and friends — then read on because this isn’t quite for the lily-livered and the chicken-hearted.
In fact, this involves surviving 24 hours in the wilderness of a Ras Al Khaimah wadi — an Arabic term for a dry riverbed — in the lap of the Hajar mountains, just like Bear Grylls. Yes, the same man who’s jumped off cliffs, cooked a field rat in his own urine, and lunched on a salmon left half-eaten by a bear with none other than former US President Barack Obama. All these while making survival a glamourous fodder for reality TV over the years.
But beyond the glare of the camera and the flash of the lights, the bare bones of surviving in the wild — out of the comforts of your living rooms and luxury hotel lounges — are just the same for all, as we found out recently in our 24-hour survival course. In our attempt to be rescued out of the wadi, we learnt to survive one whole day (and night) on three basic human necessities: Protection, water, and food, in that order.
And it’s the experience of it that you take home — beyond magical and perhaps unimagined for most of us used to city life. We slept under the expanse of the night sky glittering with stars and punc
tuated by the echoes of a hooting owl in a distant unmanned valley.
In this intense 24-hour survival experience, we also learnt practical life-saving skills as we pushed ourselves over the edge, literally, farther than what most minds can conceive. That’s because the pressure is on you to source food and water locally from the moment you arrive in the wilderness of Jebel Jais, with supplies limited to just two jars of water and a couple
of oatmeal bars. What makes it a fascinating trek is how the team of highly trained experts will teach you to identify animal runs, lay traps and forage to supplement your nutrition bars.
And what makes it far removed from a boy scout camp is when you learn how to skin and gut your kill with your own bare hands for dinner (pigeons in our case and completely halal) and then next morning make do with
mealworms (also halal) for breakfast, before you master abseiling down the trickiest of mountain faces.
By the time you have climbed down, you realise that you have not only mastered survival knife skills and fire lighting abilities while learning to use the rope for knots and harnesses — you have also acquired the courage to take a leap of faith.