Getting Gay with Kids is here!
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.
;-)
Spider diet? I just naturally assumed they were robbing spider webs for flies.
Oh come on.
They’re well cooked. Taste like chicken.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!
That's reeeeally gross.... I guess that's what I get for picking on poor humble who's scared to death of spiders....
:-)
yitbos
Note to self:
Remove "Have lunch at the Y" from Life List.
ROFL!!
Kampon Cham, Cambodia.
Lobster and shrimp are icky to me.
I have never had that kind of pleasure. Brings a whole other meaning to the saying, “taste like chicken.”
Isn’t a Frenchman eating a frog, well, cannibalism?
FOFLMAO!!
This just in...
from the headline I thought it was some Star Trek fans. (sometimes called trekkies)
I'd much prefer my Giant Spiders medium well to very well done, thank you.
Gakkkkk!
yitbos
There are a lot of quite delicious foods which, once you cross the international date line, it’s simply better not to ask about.
Some of the more tame: snake soup. Snake. Big honking squid served whole (about five inches long). And the more common duck feet, etc.
The most surprizing one this poster has thus far encountered - a very tasty (seriously) concoction: of entrails and congealed ducks blood. Served in a world class hotel
Luckily I had no idea what I was eating until after I had decided it was actually delicious.
The quiet question then asked, almost an afterthought: How is it?
“good”
Really?
“Really. I like it”. (speaking truthfully)
Do you know what it is?...
(at that moment, you realize you might not want to ask)
:)
Are you being cheeky? Well, if you’ve eaten Balut, I salute you(no pun intended). The Frenchmen should have asked you to be their guide.
I have a relative that will eat just about anything, including road kill. He’s eaten, to the disgust of his co-workers, rotting food with maggots(I do believe some of the employees got sick watching him). He has had monkey(some say on the brain). But to my surprise, in all of his travels to all of the countries he’s visited, my relative refuses to eat Balut.
Frankly, I wish I had to constitution to stomach(pun intended) such “delicacies”.
By the way, we considered moving to Boulder City. We love the place.
Ooooh, crunchy spider with recipe. ooohhh, uck.
Also, raw food, especially Japanese cuisine, is standard fair. Although I’ve never tried this, my family has dined on squid.....while it was still breathing. Also, raw sea urchin. Shark fin soup is delicious. And although I’ve never tried it, my other half has tried to bird-nest soup and loves it. Most people don’t realize what bird-nest soup is.
Getting Gay with Kids is here!
One thing I appreciated about being in Kazakhstan is that even if they wanted to tell me what I was eating, I wouldn’t have been able to understand.
If it came down to eating spiders I think I’d be done for.
There’s a place called the rainforest that truly sucks ass!
Let’s knock it all down and get rid of it fast!
You say save the rainforest, but what do you know?
You’ve never been to the rainforest before!
Getting Gay With Kids is here!
To tell you things you might not like to hear!
You only fight these causes cause caring sells!
All you activists can go f**k yourselves!
And someday if we work hard boys and giiiirls...
There’ll be no rainforests left in the entire wooooorld...
Yaaaaa-haaaaaaa!
Getting Gay With Kids is here!
To tell you things you might not like to hear!
You only fight these causes cause sells!
All you activists can go f**k yourselves!
It’s totally gay.. it’s toally GAY!
“French Guyana” ?
Thought it was French Guiana. Guyana is the former British Guiana.
Regardless, it is indeed a nasty place, the French military run jungle survival courses there with attendees from many western countries’ military services.
Half pound spiders ? Yuk !
Opposite situation here...
Westerner who lived in Asia a couple years, as the token foreign contract employee, in a local company.
This meant going along, to get along sometimes. Which led to some dining ... adventures. :)
Note username. Robin gumbo is superior to blackbird gumbo.
yitbos
Robin and blackbird gumbo? You must have to use a lot of bird in order to whip up a hearty gumbo.
Please refrain from giving the Cajuns any more ideas!
I hear they taste like shrimp.
The compass and map were obviously adversly affected by that dang bewildering tropical canopy!
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