![]() ![]() I watched teenagers flirt at a convenience store across the street. Outside the window, past a locked gate, I could see palm trees, flowers blooming on dirt. ![]() I did yoga in the hallway and snooped in the kitchen, where I found a glass bottle of Coca-Cola and some cartons of juice. The place was empty, no staff or other guests, and I was forbidden to leave. I spent the red-eye flight studying flash cards of sub-Saharan plants, hoping my seat neighbors would ask what I was doing so I could say, “Oh, nothing.”Ī young man with a goatee picked me up at the airport in Polokwane, about 200 miles north of Johannesburg. He dropped me at a stucco-walled guesthouse called Alldays and Onions, established in 1640, where I found a room with a twin bed and a cold shower. The news came in July: I’d be sent, promptly, to South Africa, and my husband to Honduras. The Beatles were famously pricey, right? If I got diarrhea, I’d sing “Hey Jude” at the top of my lungs. I even made a plan for moments during the challenge that I didn’t want filmed: I would sing songs with expensive licensing fees so that Discovery couldn’t use the footage. My dad forwarded me articles about how it’s dangerous to eat slugs. “Or the meth dealers,” said the other nurse. “Could you do it in the forest here?” one of the nurses asked. Then he called in his nurses to tell them the news. “I’m going to be on Naked and Afraid,” I told my doctor. I got vaccinations for typhoid fever and Japanese encephalitis. I drank milkshakes to gain weight and studied how to tap rubber. I quizzed him: Which birds can you eat? Which reptiles? When I walked in the woods, I saw each plant in a new light: the stalks that could structure a thatch roof, the fibrous stems that could twist into rope. I built deadfall traps from logs and made snares with yarn, catching my husband in doorways throughout the house. I sprayed a stinky liquid called Tuf-Foot on the soles of my feet. Every morning for an hour, I practiced starting fires with a bow drill. That summer, as we got ready, it all felt like a game. “I see it as a test of creativity.” Boom. “I don’t see this as a test of toughness,” I’d say, squinting at the setting sun. I’d recognize my partner as my greatest survival asset, even if he wasn’t someone I’d pick. I’d set up a cozy lean-to on a tropical beach, tip rocks for hermit crabs (four calories each), and weave rugs and baskets by firelight after dusk. In books, it seemed like survivors either shaped the wilderness-made it like home-or went feral, becoming part of it themselves, and I had a pretty good idea how my experience would play out. I’d guided and thru-hiked and crossed the Arctic by dogsled, and I’d read a lot of survival stories. At 30, I had worked in the outdoors professionally for more than a decade. I thought I’d do pretty well at the challenge. From then on, it was all we thought about for months. After we flew home to Wisconsin, Discovery called to say we’d gotten the gig-but that we’d be separated and sent to different locations. We sent in some videos, traveled to Los Angeles for interviews, took extensive multiple-choice personality tests, and tried our best to seem charming and competent. We thought the wilderness challenge seemed like fun. Apparently, years ago, I had nominated us for a now defunct couples’ survival program-which I don’t remember, though it’s something I would do-and the application made its way to a casting agent. In April 2018, my husband and I were invited to apply for the show. It’s a sufferfest for glory, a chance to face nature and win. The finished episodes, with their blurred genitals and Edenic concept, are strangely wholesome, family-friendly. Their goal is to survive for three weeks, but there’s no prize for completing the challenge, and anyone can tap out at any time. They face predators, parasites, sunburn, cold, hunger, and each other. They’re deposited into wilderness with just a few tools, often a knife, a fire starter, and a pot. Here are the rules to Discovery’s long-running reality show, Naked and Afraid: Two people, a man and a woman, are naked. ![]()
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