Hi, I'm an jungle expedition leader who recovers fallen LEO satellites and other equipment in the Amazon Rainforest in very remote areas! Further I am also a jungle survival instructor and expedition leader for all sorts of different expeditions. ...

Thanks for doing this AMA! What’s something even experienced people like yourselves dread running into or having to deal with while on one of your expeditions?

My Pleasure!
Quite a few things actually! I am not a big fan of flies that lay a larva under your skin for example.
Other ones would be:
Drug traffickers, Pirates (yes on the Amazon river), illegal gold miners, having to cross rivers in very remote areas which still have large black caimans, walking in to a wasp nest just to name a few.

Oh, this definitely needs to be a show! Stay safe!

Thanks, it might actually become show. Working on that!

What do you do if you run into such unsavory people?

De-escalate, back out and find another route.

Any times where you couldnt de-escalate and had to "work" with them or pay them off etc?

We have gotten lucky so far and were able to just de-escalate and back out without any money or other things involved.

What is the value in recovering the LEOs - are you contracted by the owners or is this a recovery of precious metals? Thanks!

Great question! We are contracted by the owners. Sometimes its information, sometimes its proprietary and other times just about cleaning up the mess.

Can you give us a range of what recovering a satellite costs?

If its a small LEO and it didn't fall in a too remote area then it could around 7000 US$. If this same LEO would fall in a very remote area then you are looking at at least 20,000 US$. For anything that is larger it becomes a lot more.

What is the net margin on those recoveries?

That highly varies from 4000 - 10000 per week.

Have you stumbled upon, or been contracted to lead expeditions too, any lost ancient cities?

I actually was once contacted to lead an expedition for a TV program for this purpose but unfortunately the person in charge of the emails at that time never forwarded me the request....

We have discovered during one of our recces an uncontacted indigenous community before (we did not make contact).

Are you required to report stuff like that to anyone?

Not required but most indigenous lands require permission from FUNAI.

How do you tell the difference between contacted and uncontacted? The level of technology?

Usually by how isolated they are and how far they are away from populated areas. There are many different levels so to speak in the Amazon:

- Indigenous people that live in regular cities that have normal jobs, etc.
- Indigenous communities that are not that far from major cities and who wear normal clothing have access to things like small motorized boats, shotguns and even electricity and TV.
- Indigenous loners/Family that live by themselves inside the rainforest in a self built home usually along the river. This includes most of our indigenous staff.

- Indigenous Communities that are contacted regularly but still hold on to their traditions (partly naked and still worship their nature gods). These can at time be hostile to strangers.

- Indigenous communities that have been contacted in the past but now refuse all contact. Mostly they will be hostile to anyone coming on to their land

- Indigenous communities that have never been contacted before. Most likely they will be hostile.

What tools, gear or accessories are a must during your expeditions? So cool!

The number one tool will always be the machete and something to sharpen it (file or stone).

Besides that we use old school ALICE gear (All-Purpose Lightweight Individual Carrying Equipment) as its lighter and less hot then modern day military MOLLE gear. this helps us have a lot of our gear in hand reach and keeps some pressure of our backs.

Important tech are GPS, satelite phones, radios and a compass to fall back on.

good med kits of course. Shotguns, rifles, handguns and crossbow for protection.

Water purifying kit is also important though often we drink from the clearer creeks without it.

There is a lot more of course.

A crossbow?

Crossbows are not regulated so they can be a good alternative for guns when we are not allowed to take any and are good for hunting and even fishing. Further since the last few years there are now repeating tactical crossbows that are both small, easy to carry, pack a punch and can shoot arrows quickly.

What's your opinion on Bear Grylls?

Haha great question. Honestly have never watched too many shows of his but he was SAS Special forces so that does say a lot.

Some of what they show might be a bit off but that probably more has to do with TV/show business then with him directly. For example I know form some of my coworkers who were part of the crew for other TV survival programs where the filming team would put a snake on the path of the survivor in advance without the survivor being aware of this. So the reaction of the survivor was authentic but the snake did not get there by chance.

That's interesting! As a survival instructor, is there a go-to checklist for things to do? I imagine there's stuff like water, food, and shelter, but I'm not really sure what comes next.

Its correct that you have the basics like Water, Fire, Food & Shelter. Food of course also includes making traps, etc. What is however just as important is navigation and being able to get out. My main part during the expeditions is navigation.

That must be quite difficult. How do you know where you are without GPS? I know where I'm going, but that doesn't tell me much.

We have always two people walking with a GPS and one person doing regular checks with a Compass just to make sure. In a survival situation in the Amazon lets say a Plane crash you can use the sun for your direction as you are at/near the equator.

Thanks for doing this AMA! I have always been fascinated by the Amazon and jungle survival.

I am deeply troubled by the level of deforestation being described in the media. I know deforestation in the Amazon increased under Bolsonaro. So - is the deforestation as serious as we are being told? Do you remain hopeful for the future of the Amazon & the Indigenous people who live there?

Thank you for your work!

Almost all of the deforestation is done at the edges of Amazon in areas we don't frequent often. I wouldn't be able to really give an accurate answer to that. What I do remember when a few years back when the media mentioned that the Amazon was burning that I never noticed this personally but again we dont go much to the edges of the Amazon.

It probably is up by a bit but I'm not sure by how much and personally haven't seen a difference.

What I have noticed however is that the problem with Illegal gold miners is getting worse and worse. The current government seems to do very little about it.

Its especially a big issue in the north in Yanomami territory where the illegal gold miners kill the Yanomami for their land, poison their waters and spread diseases intentionally like it's still the year 1700. Its heart breaking and now some of the last uncontacted tribes are even getting attacked.

We were on a mission last year May in the north of Brazil near the border of Venezuela when 15 boats full of armed miners opened fire on a Yanomami village. In the panic a 2 and 5 year old Yanomami girl ran in to the river and drowned.

Very little attention is given to this worldwide and its just really sad.

Thanks for your response. Yes, it is truly heartbreaking that this situation is not getting more attention globally. These people deserve our utmost respect & protection.

Maybe a change in government will help? There has been lots of talk about UNDRIP recently - UN declaration for rights of Indigenous peoples. But that doesn't seem to change much.

Again thank you. You lead an exciting life. I work in environmental enforcement but ocean based. I'd love to join an expedition!

It might, problem as the most of the previous governments were very corrupt as well. I think only internal pressure from the Brazilians and external pressure from other governments can really cause any change.

Sounds like you have a great job as well! Definitely you should join one of trips!

I just went over the plot of Rambo in my mind....especially the part where he ripped out a guy's trachea.

The French Foreign Legion fights Illegal Gold Miners in French Guyana. They might have some Rambo's there!

How do you remove them from remote locations once you have found them?

As it's often impossible to use a helicopter we have to take it apart and carry it out of the jungle to our boat. This can be tough especially if we have to swim

What's the longest amount of time you've spent on one expedition?

Most expeditions for salvage purposes take between 1 - 3 weeks and sometimes as short as 5 days. The longest was 7 weeks. Lots of tracking through the jungle with some days walking 16 hours a day and only eating one meal a day late in the evening. We lose a lot of weight during those trips.

Why would they land there, and wouldn’t they be obliterated on impact?

Mostly because of a malfunction. Their supposed to land them in places where their easy to pick up but this goes wrong at times.

These are Low earth Orbit satelites. Their not completely in space and they fall down with a parachute. That said at times they can be quite broken up.

That's insanely cool. Can I ask, how do people get into a career like "adventuring"? Like there's no bachelor's degree in adventuring. Is it usually a military background?

I always hear about these insanely cool jobs like backpacking through the Amazon or the Arctic- jobs exactly like yours. What skill sets would you look for? How could someone get into your field, or any similar field if you know of other similar "adventurer" companies?

Good question!

I would say the main way to get involved with this kind of work is to move to remote place somewhere in this world (for me it was Guyana and Brazil). Get involved with adventure travel and take as many courses as you can: Wilderness first aid, risk assessment courses, leadership & navigation courses, survival courses, PADI (scuba diving) certificate, mountaineering courses, etc.

Another way would be to do all those courses first and then apply with adventure travel companies.

Being former military definitely helps but it is not a must.

have you been contracted to take prospectors to remote locations to look for gold or gems?

I have a few friends in Guyana who try their luck themselves and some of my colleagues have been involved with Discovery channels gold rush.

Does it ever succeed?

I believe they found some gold but nothing too major. There are of course some larger and local Guyana mining companies that have mines in Guyana that do very well.

What was the scariest encounters you have in those jungles?

Probably when a very large Anaconda tried to get in our boat at night. It was spooky. One of our indigenous guides recognized its sounds as it was under our boat. Up to that point I didn't even realize they make any noises.

How to handle that situation? If a snake of that size wants to eat you, it will unless you kill it, right?

With Anaconda's if you are not in the water yourself its pretty much about moving yourself away. In this case we moved to boat to another spot. Their slow on land.

If you are in the water and one grabs you then your pretty much screwed. Even if it can not swallow you it will still drown you.

What is the most important tool that you carry?

Machete is definitely the most important tool. Besides that GPS/compass and Satelite phone.

Can you talk a bit about how exactly you navigate in the jungle when gps signals are blocked by the foliage? Navigating by compass in such a dense, featureless landscape seems almost impossible as even a small misstep in direction might throw you way off.

Also how long are the group expeditions you run usually and are they hiking or boating trips?

Thanks for the question! We have some very good GPS devices and almost never have problems with this. Sometimes the GPS can be off by 5 meters or so but that Is why we have at least 2 people walking with a GPS. On top of that one of our men walks with a compass to check our direction. He actually won several compass navigation championships in the Brazilian army so he is really good at it.

Shortest would be 5 days longest could be several months. It really depends where the equipment is located. We usually try to get as close as possible by boat and in some cases by 4x4. From there on at times we continue by canoe and of course by walking. We try to keep the hiking part to a minimum.

For example one of the mission we left from Manaus by boat and traveled for about 4 days by boat for 900 KM one way. We went as close as possible to the coordinates by boat but then still had to hike 10 days to get to the coordinates return it back to the boat and then go back the same 900 KM.

What really is a problem is Satellite phones. They really only work on the rivers. That is why we always have climber on our team so that if necessary he can climb above the canopy to make an emergency call.

Oh I'm really surprised to hear that. Most reports of jungle expeditions in modern times I've read seemed to suggest that gps devices are basically useless away from rivers, I think Lucy Edmondson also mentioned that they mostly relied on maps for that same reason. Are they special devices with better reception than phones or regular gps devices? What are they called?

I actually meant the group expeditions you mention on the website that you run in may and october that are open to the public. I'm looking at joining a long, challenging jungle expedition next year and have already had an offer from a company in Peru, but I'm still looking at other options. I'm mostly interested in the expedition element - moving across a large area of untouched jungle by foot or paddling a boat/packraft/kayak - rather than a survival/bushcraft course.

Certain specific GPS devices work better under the canopy then others even those of brands like Garmin, etc. Where they actually fail us more is on the river as the maps for the rivers are often incomplete and not detailed enough. When you get to really isolated places the rivers aren't mapped at all. Neither are there accurate physical maps for the smaller rivers. This can cause a lot of wrong turns, dead ends, delays and even cause us to run out of fuel.

It can sometimes take a few minutes for the GPS to find its signal initially but once it has the signal I have not had any real problems with it besides it being off a few meters at times.

Sounds exciting, Peru is a great place! If you are interested in other options please contact us through the website. Our expeditions are indeed focused on trekking, and discovery and not on Survival/bushcraft.

Interesting, thanks for the answer.

I'll drop you an email then! Is it ok if I send you a pm with some more questions as well at a later point? I'd like to pick your brain a bit about gaining jungle skills and such, but I need to organize my thoughts a bit before.

No problem at all! Looking forward to your email and DM.

Cheers!

Have you ever hired people without a military/indigenous background? For instance the people you've trained yourself

Yes we have. Our LT. who also worked as a prison warden for a few years took in one of the drug traffickers that he met there and we employed him after he finished serving his time.

So training with you would potentially prepare one for employment in such a field?

Yes if you would join one of our Jungle survival or expedition leadership course this could definitely help.

Sounds interesting, if I show up for one of your courses and tell you that I'm that guy from reddit who wanted to get a job with you, what are the odds of you remembering me lol?

We would remember you but it would still be quite unlikely that you would get hired on the spot as we mostly hire locals and secondly there would also need to be a position open. I meant to say more that it would help with building your resume to gain a future job in this field.

What should you never-ever do when spending the night in the rainforest?

If you need to go for number 1 or 2 at night never walk too far from your hammock. Especially at night when you slip out of your hammock and if you walk too far you will never find your way back to the camp. Even during the day just walking 10 meters in to the wrong direction can make you completely disoriented and lose your group.

Have you ever been attacked by the indigenous tribes? What did you do under such situations since it would be immoral to retaliate?

This is something we avoid and pretty much the only reason why our missions sometimes fail. If we go in to an expected indigenous area we do a lot of recconnesaince first. At any sign of indigenous activity we pull out.

So in short, no never.

How much of the satellite is left ?

Pretty much all of it can be recovered but sometimes it is indeed in several pieces.

I can imagine there are plenty of undiscovered plants and animals in the rainforest.. have you ever seen anything really strange or interesting?

Yeah there is still plenty of that for sure. Unfortunately the amount of scientists that go deep in to the rainforest in the Amazon is really limited when you compare it to the small rainforests of for example Central American.

Truth is most scientist still prefer to go for drink in the evening which they can when stationed there and not be stuck in the "green hell" for months where you are completely isolated.

I have seen some fishes and insects that I was not able to identify but I am on scientist. When we are on a mission we really don't stop as we are always on the clock. I barely ever get time to take a picture. Recently we were in area that was really unexplored and isolated and the amount of wildlife there was amazing. You would see hundreds of Macaws and dozens of toucans together in groups everywhere. In many places in the Amazon you have to be happy to see a couple of macaws a day and maybe 1 toucan in your entire trip.

What's the weirdest thing you've found by accident while tracking down a satellite?

hmmm honestly mostly what you expect lots of animals and plants. You do find the odd abandoned camp site, loners living out in the jungle which can often be a bit weird and we found some stone ruins once in the jungle where apparently a thriving community once lived until they all ran off as the whole town got overrun by ants.

When you get to really isolated places weird things do happen. One time we came around a river bend and there was a giant river otter sitting on the river bank eating a piranha. It dropped the piranha and started chasing our boat. It was completely fearless of humans and probably never saw a human before. I have seen many Giant river otters and they never react like that.

One of my friends there works as a diver for the Fire department in Brazil and he has to search and pull out the bodies of recently drowned people in the Southern Amazon. If you see how their bodies come back sometimes after just laying in the water for 30 minutes or so its crazy. After 30 minutes their bodies are filled with Candiru fish and after an hour or more just the bones are left.

How do you deal with insects while in a jungle?

There is really only so much you can do and in the end it is really about learning to bear up with them. Like if you start training MMA/kickboxing and you start with sparring you have to bear up with getting hit in the face. Initially it is tough but you get used to it.

You will get stung by mosquitos you will get bit and stung by ants (the stinging ones are mean bastards), you will walk in to wasp nest at some point, you will get needles of plants in to your skin, you will get cut by bamboo, you will be full of ticks all over your body. There is no way around it really without overheating yourself.

That said we do use mosquito netting where needed to sleep, we use long-sleeved clothing (except at camp), we use mosquito spray, alcohol and local indigenous salves on our skin.

When we sleep near cattle pastures it is more risky due to vampire bats which often carry rabies. I have seen people that got bit through mosquito net and they didn't notice it and they would wake up the next morning with their net and hammock just covered in blood.

How do you know where to look for the satellites? Most satellite deorbit predictions I’ve seen have an ellipsis that’s multiple kilometers/miles long. Searching a large area in dense jungle for a small object sounds pretty challenging.

Thanks for the question. I am not engineer and just the grunt on the ground. We are given coordinates. These coordinates I believe are send out by the device after it lands so for the most part they should be very accurate. Most of them actually have been pin point accurate but we had a few occasions when the it landed a 100 meters of or so and in that case it indeed took us several days extra to search for it.

Keep in mind that these are small LEO satellites that fall down with a parachute and not regular satellites that come crashing down.

Have you ever come across any ruins/ interesting something from hundres or even thousands of years ago?

Mostly just trees and plants! Wr have been to some caves with paintings in them. You do find the odd abandoned camp site, loners living out in the jungle which can often be a bit weird and we found some stone ruins once in the jungle where apparently a thriving community once lived until they all ran off as the whole town got overrun by ants.

Very interesting! Speaking of the ants, I saw in one comment your team once encountered an anaconda. When people think of the steriotypical amazon jungle they see it filled to the rim with jaguars, leopards, poisonous frogs, and so on. How much of a difference is there from what the average person thinks in inside the amazon versus how it actually is? I would assume you are not coming across jaguars often but maybe would coming across a dangerous insect is a more usual occurrence?

This is a good question and something people should be aware of when they travel to the Amazon or any rainforest for that matter.

Firstly once you are in the jungle its hard to really see anything as your view is very limited. You might see some insects and if you are lucky a few monkeys and birds but in General when hiking you see very little. As an example we tracked a group of 200 peccaries once and we could constantly hear them smell them, etc but never once they we get to see them. They knew exactly how to stay out of our fov.

When you are on a boat you see a lot more wildlife. But it is still limited compared to lets say Africa.

Coming to the next point most places tourists go to in the Amazon are not that wildlife rich anymore due to nearby population, hunting, poaching, etc. There a few exceptions to this like Manu national park in Peru but in general the popular places don't have too much wildlife to see.

You really need to get off the grid and travel to community run lodges in places like Guyana. There you can see a lot of wildlife. I see in general more wildlife there in 1 days compared to 1 week in Brazil.

However for our missions we often go in to very remote areas in Brazil and recently we were in an area that was completely untouched and you could see hundreds of macaws together and dozens of toucans together. You really don't see that anywhere anymore. So I guess in that sense Brazil still has the best jungle wildlife spots but it is not accessible to regular travelers.

For people that are mostly just interested in the Amazonian wildlife I would recommend to just go to the Pantanal instead. This is a super cool place and you get to see loads of wildlife including jaguars in the dry season.

In general when you got to the Amazon go for the adventure and vistas and just being in a very "alien" environment. Animals will be the bonus and especially if you enjoy smaller creatures like insects, frogs and birds you will not be disappointed.

What we see on a regular 4 day adventure travel trip in Guyana: Giant river otters, Black Caiman, spectacled caimans, Arapaima, turtles, a few snakes, frogs/toads, Iguanas, lots of birds including 3 species of Macaw and toucans, some agouti and Capybara, howler, capuchin, tamarin and spider monkeys and with a bit of luck a tapir. For jaguars you really got to go to the Pantanal. Anaconda's are also extremely hard to find.

What is LEO?

As was mentioned by another poster: Low Earth Orbit Satellites.

Have you encountered the pirates drug traffickers or illegal gold miners you mentioned and how did that go? How do you prepare for those encounters? Do you carry weapons?

We had some run ins with drug traffickers, corrupts police officers and bandits and have been in some hairy situations including where I was threatened at gun point. I have also witnessed a few gunfights but personally have not been shot at luckily.

Besides a load of knifes and machetes depending on the mission/location we carry rifles, hand guns, shotguns and a repeating crossbow.

Do you like apples?

Love apples! At times we take them on expedition and on a mission when we walked 50 KM a day in an area with little water I felt like they saved my life!

How would you use your skills as a jungle survivor instructor to defeat the 1987 predator assuming you were stuck in the Guatemala jungle and Arnold had already died ?

get to tha choppa!

Honestly what can you really do? If it was in the amazon maybe set some sort of trap in the river with a number of electric eels and try to get it out of its suit and then maybe have it follow you in to bow and arrow traps

Do you eat Brazilian farmed beef or dairy?

Mostly Fish! We do eat beef from the Savanna areas near Boa Vista

Aren’t you concerned about the cattle industry clearing out the old growth forests for more farm land?

Where we are in the central part of the Amazon this is not a big issue but I have seen it in the south western part of the Amazon near the borders of Bolivia especially. Its definitely bad there. Around Boa Vista in the north however the cows graze in the wild savannahs so there is not any forest getting cut down there.

Have a gun? If so how did you get.permissipn to carry it? Or do you even have permission?

It depends where we are as we all have licenses for different areas/countries. If I don't have permission and I feel I need some more protection then I carry a Repeating Crossbow (RX Adder). In some cases we also get the local military to tag along.