Lost... In the Jungle of Doom (10 page)
Read Lost... In the Jungle of Doom Online
Authors: Tracey Turner
Y
ou look around for things that might help you make a raft. Not far away there’s a stand of bamboo, one of the most
useful plants in the rainforest. Because the stems are hollow, they float well. You manage to cut enough thick stems to make a raft. You lie them down side by side and tie them together securely
with lengths of liana.
You push your raft into the water – it floats! Cautiously, you climb aboard. You’re still afloat! You find a long, stout stick to help you push off from the side
and help you steer, then get back onto the raft and pole out into the middle of the river.
Click
here
.
Click
here
for tips on how to make a raft.
• You can build a raft from anything that will float – logs, oil cans, even empty bottles and cans. Bamboo is a perfect raft-making material because
it’s so buoyant. Balsa wood, which also grows in the Amazon, is another good material for making a raft because it’s extremely lightweight. Amazon tribespeople often make canoes
out of balsa.
• Your design can be as simple or as complicated as you like. The important thing is that it floats! In a survival situation, the simpler the better. But
ideally, you should attach some cross poles to the underside of the raft to make it sturdy. Attach the poles at right angles to the base of the raft.
• Don’t forget that you need to build your raft either right next to the water’s edge, or actually in the water. You don’t want to manoeuvre
a heavy structure across the forest floor.
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to return to your adventure.
Y
ou can’t resist picking up the cute little frog, which is no bigger than your thumb. But that turns out to have
been a very bad idea indeed!
The frog is brightly coloured for a reason – it’s very dangerous. It doesn’t bite or inject venom, but it is highly poisonous. In fact it’s a poison
dart frog. This one isn’t the most deadly, but it is still highly toxic.
You are blissfully unaware of this, though, and, after studying the little frog, which hops about on your hand for a bit, you gently return it to its tree-root home.
Unfortunately, the frog’s poison is entering your bloodstream through the various tiny cuts and insect bites on your hands. And because you don’t know that the
creature could be poisonous, you’re not being careful about hygiene. When you get another cut on your hand from a thorny vine, you wince and suck at it to make it feel better in exactly the
same spot that the frog deposited some of its lethal poison. In your weakened state, it is enough to kill you.
The end.
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to return to the beginning and try again.
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to find out more about poison dart frogs.
• Poison dart frogs are so called because Amazonian people sometimes use their toxic secretions to poison the tips of their darts for hunting.
• All species of poison dart frog are small (just a few centimetres in size), and all are very brightly coloured, warning predators that they are poisonous
(but not you, unfortunately).
• Three species of these frogs are dangerous to humans. The most poisonous is the golden poison dart frog, which is probably the most poisonous creature on
earth. It is only five centimetres long, but its skin contains enough poison to kill ten adult humans.
• Many species of this type of frog are endangered.
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to return to your adventure.
Y
ou float swiftly down the river, carried by the current. You wonder why you didn’t do this before –
it’s so much easier than making your way on land! There are no snakes to look out for, no thorny vines ripping your clothes, and no tree roots to trip over. Out of the forest and moving
quickly, there are fewer biting insects, too. It feels great to be resting! You watch the trees and the muddy bank slide past you.
It’s not long, though, before you begin to feel very hot. In the rainforest you were protected from the sun – now it beats down relentlessly, with no trees to
offer shade. Maybe you should make your way to the bank, stop, and find some way of making a sun shelter? On the other hand, it might be best just to keep going. You can put your waterproof coat
over your head, and who knows what other hazards you might find on the river bank.
If you decide to stop the raft and make a shelter, click
here
.
If you decide to keep going, click
here
.
Y
ou find a long, stout stick and sharpen the end with your Swiss Army knife, trying to make as little noise as possible.
You must be downwind of the tapir, because it doesn’t seem concerned, and carries on rooting about on the forest floor. With your sharpened stick, you creep slowly and carefully towards the
animal. A twig snaps and the tapir lifts its head, alarmed. You freeze. After a moment the animal goes back to feeding. You creep forward again, your spear raised . . . you are just within range
and you lunge forward for the attack . . . At the same moment, the tapir looks up and bolts, running straight at you in its panic and knocking your legs from under you as it does so! You fall
forward and the sharpened stick breaks underneath you, its tip sinking painfully into your leg.
The wound is deep and bleeding heavily. You are in extreme pain but force yourself to think – what should you do? You could make a bandage from your clothing but your
clothes are very far from being sterile, and you might end up causing a fatal infection. Maybe you should try and find some clean water, then wash the wound.
If you decide to go in search of clean water, click
here
.
If you decide to apply a bandage, click
here
.
Y
ou are suffering from warm water immersion foot, which is much, much worse than a few blisters.
Your feet get more and more painful. Eventually, even though you want to keep going, you can’t. You’re forced to lie down. You’re hot and exhausted, and by
now in extreme pain. You pass out. Unfortunately, not looking after your feet has spelled your doom . . .
The end.
Click
here
to return to the beginning and try again.
Click
here
to find out more about warm water immersion foot.
• Warm water immersion foot is very similar to tropical immersion foot, which was common in American troops during the Vietnam War, when soldiers were
constantly wading through paddy fields in army boots.
• It’s also similar to trench foot, which people can get in wet, cold conditions. Its name comes from the trenches of the First World War, when soldiers
had to live in cold, muddy trenches dug into the earth for long periods of time.
• If any of these conditions aren’t treated, the results can be very serious, and even result in amputation.
• Symptoms can include burning, numbness, swelling, thickening and softening of the skin. The skin might also turn white or grey.
• One sufferer, Yossi Ghinsberg said warm water immersion foot made his feet so painful that he tipped fire ants over his head so that their painful bites
would take his mind off the agonising pain in his feet!
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to return to your adventure.
W
alking in the humid heat of the rainforest, you soon feel worse. You deeply regret eating that fruit. You stagger
onwards, getting weaker by the minute. You’re in desperate need of water, and gratefully drink the rainwater as it falls – but it’s not enough to rehydrate you. You collapse
and, eventually, die.
The end.
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to return to the beginning and try again.