As a child did you dream of having adventures?
Maybe trekking through the jungle to meet a lost tribe or find archaeological treasure
like Indiana Jones?
When Benedict Allen was young, he devoured tales of derring-do, idolized his test pilot
father and wanted to be an explorer when he grew up.
As an adult, his reality turned out to be a little different than his imagination.
When Benedict’s first trip to the Amazon ended up going awry, he was pushed to his
limits physically and psychologically.
Here's how Benedict survived 27 days in the Amazon.
In the spring of 1983 22 year old Brit Benedict Allen embarks on an epic six-month expedition
to go from the mouth of the Orinoco River in Venezuela through 600 miles (965 km) of
uncharted rainforest to the mouth of the Amazon River in Macapa, Brazil.
He even has an idea of finding the lost city of El Dorado along the way.
At first, Benedict simply wanders from remote settlement to remote settlement staying with
various indigenous tribes.
In a Brazilian village he runs across a stray brown and white mutt who is going lame from
infected ingrown toenails.
Benedict nurses the dog back to health and names it Cashoe, meaning ‘dog’ in one
of the native dialects.
A grateful Cashoe quickly becomes Benedict’s faithful companion.
Benedict hires Yepe and Pim, two local guides from the indigenous Kalina people.
Over the next few months, the 3 men and Cashoe travel deep into the rainforest.
Benedict is very dependent on the guides who are teaching him how to survive in their environment--how
to hunt, which plants are safe for eating and other skills.
Although Benedict has been previously warned about venturing into territory where dangerous,
illegal gold miners roam, he doesn’t heed the warning.
One day while padding on a river, Benedict and his guides see some trash floating in
the water, a sure sign that other people are nearby.
That afternoon they end up stumbling upon a gold miners’ camp.
Yepe and Pim start rummaging through the camp supplies and are fascinated with a can opener
and other items from modern life that they aren’t familiar with.
Benedict keeps trying to get them to leave the camp before the miners come back.
However it is too late, two illegal gold miners, a man named Mendez and his partner Edwardio
show up.
They want to know why Benedict is in their camp.
Benedict explains his quest for El Dorado and to travel to the mouth of the Amazon.
Mendez claims he knows the safest route over dangerous rapids and offers to guide Benedict.
The gold miners also entice Yepe and Pim with promises of wealth if they work with them.
Though Benedict is uneasy with Mendez and Edwadio, he agrees to let them guide him;
he doesn’t feel like he has much of a choice not to.
After a couple of tense days spent in the miners’ company, one night Benedict wakes
from a restless sleep.
Sensing danger, he creeps through the camp and overhears something chilling: a murder
plot.
Mendez and Ewardio are discussing slitting Benedict’s throat and robbing him.
They don’t think the guides will care what happens to Benedict.
Terrified, Benedict quickly packs what he can easily grab and sneaks out of the camp.
Hopping aboard his dugout canoe with Cashoe, he paddles away.
An hour or so downriver, Benedict sets up camp for the remainder of the night.
The reality of the situation hits him.
Benedict, who has limited survival experience is now on his own in the rainforest.
He’s glad to have Cashoe with him for companionship.
The next day Benedict takes stock of his supplies.
Thankfully he has enough beans, rice, sugar, coffee and dried meat for about 2 weeks.
Also he has a mosquito net, rope, a few first aid supplies with medicine including anti-malaria
tablets, pen and paper, a machete and a belt survival kit.
Benedict’s plan is to find a trail while continuing to avoid unsavory characters.
Over the next few days, Benedict paddles upstream, further into uncharted territory.
But there is a snag in his plans, and he encounters white water rapids.
Unable to paddle through them, Benedict has to hop into the water and drag the canoe through
the fast moving water.
It’s a hard going, exhausting task.
After 3 days Benedict has made some progress in his journey, but he’s beginning to worry.
He’s headed deeper into the rainforest and he’s found no evidence of a trail.
At night he’s exhausted and sore.
His hands are blistered and have friction burns from dragging the rope attached to the
canoe.
He can hardly write in the travel journal he’s been keeping.
The next day Benedict thinks he has made it over the worst of the rapids.
He climbs back into his canoe and starts paddling.
But the current is stronger than he thought and his canoe gets dragged back into the rapids.
Meanwhile, Cashoe is antsy and in the way in the narrow canoe space, making it hard
for Benedict to paddle properly.
The canoe hits a rock, shattering to pieces, and Benedict, Cashoe and their supplies are
thrown into the churning river.
Benedict fights to stay afloat and finally is able to swim to a river bank.
He’s lost everything; Cashoe is missing, the canoe has broken apart and the majority
of his supplies are at the bottom of the river.
A miserable Benedict takes stock of the items he managed to salvage from the river.
He still has his survival belt kit--inside are fish hooks of various sizes, fishing line,
a compass and waterproof matches.
Although he’s lost most of his notes, he still has a pen and small diary.
He has an empty rucksack, a cooking pan, a water bottle, pipe with tobacco, some distress
flares and a machete.
All of his food has been lost.
Benedict despairs, his situation has gone from bad to dire, how is he going to survive?
He knows that no one will be looking for him as his expedition is not due to end for another
3 months.
Benedict tries to draw a map from memory.
He decides that it’s foolhardy to stay near the river.
He should hike out on foot through the rainforest rather than stay at the water.
He thinks if he could walk 100 miles (160 km), he’d get out of the jungle.
Using the compass, Benedict sets off in a northeast direction.
He climbs over large roots and slashes his way through thick vines.The further he goes,
the darker it becomes because of the dense tree canopy.
There’s a heavy, wet smell of vegetation and the air is thick and hot due to the 100%
humidity.
Benedict stays wet.
At night he makes crude shelters using a technique he learned from the guides.
He makes fires to boil water to drink and dry out his clothes.The temperature rapidly
drops and he has no way to stay warm.
Maddening insects viciously and endlessly attack Benedict, especially while he’s trying
to sleep.
Four 4 days after the canoe crash, Benedict has only gone around 4 miles (6.4 km).
The rainforest is beginning to get to him; he feels paranoid--every loud noise makes
him jump.
He’s starting to weaken from hunger.
He attempts to trap rodents, but the process is tedious and unsuccessful.
Exhausted, lonely and scared, he trudges on.
By about day 11 of being alone in the rainforest, he’s made it through 25 miles (40 km) of
rainforest.
He hasn’t had much to eat, only the tips of ferns.
He’s beginning to feel frail, his skin stretched tightly over his bones.
He’s also struggling with dysentery from drinking water with bacteria in it.
He’s itchy, fungi is starting to grow on his always moist skin.
Some of his insect bites are becoming infected.
However, he keeps going, the only way to get out of this situation is to cross the rainforest.
Benedict comes across a palm tree with purple maraja berries.
Food!
Excited, he squishes them into a purple mush and drinks the liquid.
But Benedict is so weak and he’s been so long without food that his stomach can’t
digest the berry pulp.
He has cramps and he vomits it up.
Benedict rests up and collects some berries for later eating before pushing on.
In addition to starvation, Benedict is starting to feel off.
His worst fear is coming true, he has malaria.
He makes tea with the bark of a Quina-quina tree to treat himself.
He scavenges, eating whatever he can find, termite grubs from fallen logs, tiny snails
plucked from a stream and stewed, mashed berries.
It’s just enough to take the edge off, but not really enough to sustain him.
Around Day 13 of being lost in the rainforest, malaria begins to take a toll on Benedict.
He alternates between shivering with chills and sweating with fever.
At times he’s delusional.
Malaria even starts to affect his brain receiving oxygen.
Benedict is convinced that he’s going to die.
His thoughts turn to his family back in England.
He writes a goodbye note in his diary.
As Benedict stumbles through the rainforest, he can hear something following him through
the brush.
Paranoid, he starts thinking that he’s being stalked by a jaguar.
Hearing the creature behind him get closer, Benedict decides to confront it.
He fires off some distress flares hoping to flush it out or the brush or scare it off.
There he hears whimpering.
As it turns out, it’s Cashoe.
Two weeks after being lost in the river rapids when the canoe went down, Cashoe has miraculously
survived and tracked Benedict down through the rainforest.
Benedict fawns over the dog, his spirits lifted.
He vows to fight on and keep walking.
By day 20 Benedict has walked 70 miles (112.5 km).
He’s in the advanced stages of starvation.
Cashoe seems to lag behind; the dog shying away from him, perhaps smelling his sickness.
Benedict has an idle thought about eating the dog ...while the dog is skinny, there’s
some meat on his bones.
Once he thinks of it, the thought of eating the dog continues to tease at the edges of
his mind.
His malaria is full blown.
The area of the rainforest they’re in is lacking a good water supply.
Benedict gets dehydrated.
He desperately licks leaves and stones for water.
He finds himself on the ground lapping muddy water from a puddle with Cashoe, too impatient
and too sick to make a fire to boil the water.
By day 26, Benedict can hardly walk.
He’s at the end of his rope physically and mentally...the malaria is causing his brain
to shut down.
Only semi lucid he writes ‘No need to die’ in his diary, over and over.
He realizes that if he doesn’t do something he’ll be dead very soon.
He decides that it is time to kill Cashoe.
Too much of a coward to face the dog head-on, Benedict sneaks up behind him and delivers
a sharp blow to the back of Cashoe’s head with the butt of his machete.
He then slits the dog’s throat.
Benedict makes a fire and roasts what he thinks are the most nutritious parts of the dog--and
the liver, kidneys and heart.
He ravenously eats them.
But his stomach rejects the meal.
Malaria parasites are destroying his organs and his body is unable to digest the meat.
He vomits up the meat.
Feverish and wracked by cramps, Benedict falls on the ground, . To him eating Cashoe was
his last chance of survival, there is nothing more he can do, it won’t be long until he
succumbs to death.
It’s been 28 days since Benedict ventured into the rainforest.
He’s been lying on the ground in an illness induced stupor.
Despite the pain afflicting his body, by sheer strength of will, he gets up and stumbles
through the rainforest.
Ravaged by starvation and malaria he collapses again...but then his eyes focus on a plant
branch that’s been cut....The man made slice means humanity.
Benedict gets up and staggers forward.
He’s found a trail .For the first time in weeks, he walks out of the rainforest and
stands in full, blinding daylight.
He’s at the edge of a farmer’s cassava field.
A farmer notices him and is horrified.
Benedict looks like walking death, he’s nothing but skin and bones.
The farmer nurses Benedict for three days, before taking him to Macapa where Benedict
makes a full recovery at a local hospital.
Soon Benedict returns home to England.
He writes a book about his experience in the Amazon and mentions eating Cashoe.
The backlash is swift and he’s widely criticized for his actions which were seen as selfish
and hateful.
He receives hate mail from animal welfare groups and the RSPCA even visits his home
to check on the welfare of his pet dogs.
Benedict says he was haunted by his decision to east Cashoe, but thought it was the right
choice to make at the time.
Benedict has gone on to have many more adventures around the world.
Today, he’s considered a world renowned explorer and has starred in travel and explorer
TV shows and written several more books on his journeys.
Would you eat your pet to survive?
Why or why not?
Let us know in the comments!
Also, be sure to check out our other video I Was Trapped Underwater For 3 Days!
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