Posted on 04/06/2007 8:55:55 PM PDT by bruinbirdman
Emaciated and riddled with insect bites, two Frenchmen emerged alive yesterday after surviving seven weeks lost in the Amazonian jungle on a diet of bird-eating spiders, frogs, centipedes and turtles.
Rescue officials described as "extraordinary" the escape of Loïc Pillois and Guilhem Nayral, both 34, who got lost in the heart of French Guyana, a French overseas department bordering Brazil and Venezuela.
"I was so hungry that I even had a go at the turtle's shell and tucked into his claws," said Mr Nayral after the ordeal in which he lost almost four stone.
He was infested with worm parasites that had burrowed into his flesh and had trouble speaking and moving after swallowing venom from a poorly cooked giant spider. He was covered with bites from "poux d'agoutis" - a particularly itchy tropical flea.
His brother, Gilles, said he looked like "he'd just come out of a concentration camp". His blood pressure had plummeted and doctors said that without proper nutrition he would have died within three days. Amazingly, Mr Pillois was in reasonable health.
The jungle of French Guyana, which is virtually untouched, is teeming with animal and insect life, including numerous species that are deadly to man. These include jaguars, coral snakes, anaconda and the dyeing poison dart frog, whose secretions tip the arrows of indigenous Indians. Contact with its skin can cause paralysis and death.
French authorities had given the pair up for dead 10 days ago after three weeks of fruitless searches but their families believed they were still alive and reached Saül, the village where the men had been heading, just as their relatives resurfaced.
Armed only with a compass, a map and 12 days of food, the two friends had been dropped off on the Approuague river at the Grand Kanori rapids in the centre of French Guyana. They had planned to trek 60 miles west to Saül, population 60, a former centre of the gold rush. It is the only inhabited village for hundreds of miles except for the uncharted camps of Amazonian Indians.
But the two landscape gardeners from the Bordeaux region and the Riviera lost their bearings under the bewildering tropical canopy.
Realising they were completely lost, the walkers built a shelter and stayed put for three weeks, lighting fires in the hope of attracting attention. Several times they heard helicopters but the forest's thick canopy blocked them from view. They managed to catch two turtles, which added to their diet of centipedes, spiders, palm seeds and frogs.
"After three weeks we started walking again, three hours a day," said Mr Pillois. "It rained so much that we had a lot of trouble with marshes. We ended up stopping as Guilhem began to feel bad. Then I heard a plane and said to myself, 'We are a day or two's walk from Saül, so I'll try to get there.' "
Mr Pillois finally reached Saül on Thursday morning, emerging from the jungle on to its airfield. Four hours later, following the directions of Mr Pillois, the search party located his friend. "We found him on the ground, completely out of breath, extremely emaciated and dehydrated," said Martin André, from the gendarmerie of Cayenne, the administrative capital.
"To have found Guilhem at this place is nothing short of a miracle," said Thierry Le Guen, a doctor. "That forest is as thick as broccoli and the canopy shoots up 40 metres."
However, Mr Pillois's wife Angélique said she had never given up hope of finding her husband, an experienced trekker. "They had previously trekked around Saül with a friend who was an insect specialist. He told them that if they got lost in the forest, they could always eat certain types of larva," she said.
Doctors said that Mr Nayral would remain in hospital for several days.
For indigenous Indians, bird-eating spiders, some of which can reach half a pound in weight, are a delicacy. They cook them over a fire with their legs tied together, plunge them in hot water to remove the harpoon-like hairs, cut them up and eat the soft parts. Spider omelette is a favourite - Indians squeeze out the eggs on to a leaf and smoke them over a fire.
I thought the enviros said all the rainforest would be wiped out by now. I wonder how this patch escaped.
(Okay guys, watch this...)
Hey humble!
Yoo-hoo!
Over here!
A story about nummy, crunchy spiders!
(hee hee hee....)
Well duh. French people eat snails. They can eat anything.
Whatever happened to nurturing Gaia? Wasn’t she supposed to bathe these trekkers in love and caring and keep them fed and disease-free?
Another placed added to my “list of places where humans are not the top of the food chain”.
What's for dinner?!
He was infested with worm parasites that had burrowed into his flesh and had trouble speaking and moving after swallowing venom from a poorly cooked giant spider.
LOL! Couldn't be that the libs are wrong again, could it? The Amazon must be like oil deposits - the less libs say we have, the more that appears.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
For indigenous Indians, bird-eating spiders, some of which can reach half a pound in weight, are a delicacy. They cook them over a fire with their legs tied together, plunge them in hot water to remove the harpoon-like hairs, cut them up and eat the soft parts. Spider omelette is a favourite - Indians squeeze out the eggs on to a leaf and smoke them over a fire.
:-D
Well I guess one does not know what one would do when faced with a daunting situation such as this.....but spiders and CENTIPEDES? Ish!!!!
http://angkorjourney.asievoyage.org/images2/Kcham2656.jpg
A culinary speciality very particular to Skon, at some Kompong Cham’s kilometres. As soon as you stop off on the highly-rated of the central market, some women arrive at top speed by carrying trays of cooked spiders
It’s spider shake and bake and I hailped.
Hey humble, where’s the beef?
Spider tastes good like a spider should.
Certain to become classic advertising slogans...cough.
Theres one thing worse than Giant spider, and thats poorly cooked Giant spider.
Sheesh, kind of reminds me of eating lunch at the Y.
What creeped me out was the mention of parasites burrowing into the skin. Granted they still have problems with them, but any idea how locals who live near or in the jungle deal with them?
That’s just about the most repulsive thing I’ve ever seen, except for a couple of liberal politicians in swimwear.
Do they eat the whole spider?
Yes, they hold elections and re-elect the parasites on a local, regional, statewide and national level.
I'm not asking.
;-)
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