(gun shots echoing)
(footsteps through the vegetation)
- [Voiceover] This is our camp site.
So one thing when you're camping in the tropics is
vestibules of tents really aren't enough space
for cooking 'cause it just rains constantly,
so right there we have this tarp
set up over the cooking area,
and over here is where our trusty porters
have set up their tent, so they've actually
cleared that section of jungle yesterday,
just to get themselves onto higher ground
where it would be drier because the ground here
at the main camp area is quite wet.
That tent you're looking at there
was attacked by a rat last night.
So a rat has actually eaten its way
through the outer shell to get to some of the food inside.
In a moment, I'll take you upstairs over here to campsite B
where my tent is lucky we were not attacked by rats.
They're not city rats, they're kind of cute, little furry
native rats, so not quite the same as a city rat.
So over here is the cooking area.
There's a tarp on the ground.
It's all pretty wet.
So no need for tent poles when you're
setting this up, you just use jungle materials.
Couple of bits of wood there.
So that's a branch that was cut off a tree,
and at one end it's sharpened like a stake,
and driven into the ground, and there's one of me ropes
from one of my previous videos, just tied to that tree there
supporting the makeshift tent poles, lots of them around.
Over here we have a trekking pole that one of the porters
made for me yesterday out of bamboo.
Now we'll go for a walk to campsite B.
It's pretty rough here, so the camera might get a bit shaky,
and here's our tent set up, another tarp
positioned over our tent, and once again
I'll just mention with the sheer amount of rain here,
it can rain literally 24 hours a day, so that's why
here in the Philippines, in the tropics, it's best
to always have a tarp with you that you
set that up over your tent or close to your tent,
so it gives you the option of actually coming outside
without getting wet to go to the toilet,
or collect some of your equipment,
so I would not use a vestibule in these conditions,
just wouldn't be comfortable.
So I've got a few makeshift tent poles
set up there again, and at the top
of the makeshift tent poles you just have
a pair of old socks, socks that I was wearing yesterday,
just to protect the top of the tarp.
So you can see the other makeshift tent poles around.
So all the food is hanging up in the tree.
There's my peanut butter, and here's another
makeshift tent pole out of a large tree branch.
All my food is in that green supermarket bag,
just to keep all the food off the ground
because we don't want to tempt those rats,
and I actually saw a couple of them
running around last night.
So here's a makeshift clothesline,
so you don't necessarily need rope.
What I've done is cut out that u-shaped piece of wood,
driven it into the ground, sharpened it at one end
like a stake, and then you have this
horizontal section of wood just resting
on another y-shaped piece of jungle branch.
Again, that's staked into the ground.
We have a lot of upright poles also for the tent pegs.
There's another one there.
So at the top of that tent peg just have
a piece of equipment drying out.
So you can see a lot of our gear
is drying out at the moment.
So during the night it's generally about 18 degrees.
Right now, I think it's about 20 degrees.
It's pretty humid, pretty wet, so there's not much chance
that the gear will dry completely, but at least
it dries a little bit, and by keeping your equipment
off the ground, it makes it easier to pick it up,
and gives you some protection from the insects,
although there's not terribly many insects
at this campsite 'cause we are at
1400 meters above sea level.
Just show you another thing
I've got hanging up in the tree.
Just see this, one of the pieces of my titanium cook set.
Last night I had my meat inside that pot.
Another piece of cook set up there.
Here's the main cooking area, and a can of isobutane.
Sorry, it's not isobutane, it's regular butane,
and that black bit of plastic you see right there
is the adapter so that you can put a Snow Peak,
or Pocket Rocket isobutane burner
onto a regular can of butane.
So what I do also is dig a small hole in the ground,
just to stabilize that gas burner while I cook.
One thing you have to be careful
with regular butane is it will freeze quite quickly.
I've actually seen butane start
to freeze at only 10 degrees Celsius.
So it's a pretty low quality fuel compared
with isobutane or Shellite, but it's highly
available here in the Philippines.
Just come back around again,
to give you another view.
That's my eVent jacket drying on top of the tent.
So that's a, eVent is an innovation of Gore-Tex.
The tent itself is made also of eVent in the UK.
Let's just zip back around to campsite A,
and show you what's happening over here,
see if there's any developments 'cause we are about
to move out on a bit of a day hike
to the summit of the local mountains.
So underneath that tent that was attacked by rats,
you can see the porters have used the jungle
that they've cleared as like a cushion underneath the tent,
that has helped to keep the tent at least a little
bit drier than it otherwise would be.
There's one of the trusty porters,
and another (mumbles) guy.
Here's their campsite.
Again, absolutely no need for tent pegs.
All the guy lines are just pegged down with bits of wood.
Some people might wonder why carry a machete,
believe me here in the jungle,
it is an extremely necessary item,
and you wouldn't believe some of the things
these guys can make with machetes.
They even make houses using only a machete.
There's kuya's machete.
Local bolo.
So the ground we're standing on here
looks like it's probably only about one,
or one and a half meters above the height of that lake,
and I am told that this campsite has never flooded.
It never does flood, even in a typhoon,
the water level never rises
to the height of that campground.
Personally, I wouldn't feel completely comfortable
camping only one and a half meters
above the height of the lake, so that's why
I moved my campsite up to camp B area.
There's some fish in this lake too,
a couple of bits and pieces of fishing line there.
Over here there's someone's makeshift fishing rod,
beautiful rod there, obviously made out of bamboo,
very thin on the end with a line attached.
So again they would use their machetes
to cut out that piece of bamboo.
And that's about all I've got to say about this campsite.
Thanks for watching, and stay tuned
because we've got more campsites coming.
(machete cutting vegetation)
(conversation in foreign language)
More more more chopping
Nice here hey.
(machete cutting vegetation)