Naked and Afraid

Ouch!

Can you stop biting for five minutes?

When I say these bugs are relentless,

I mean, I'm out there doing the shelter

and they're biting me on my , on my ass, like everywhere.

They just don't give a .

Maybe they're like the FBI or the CIA of the bugs, I don't know.

They will hunt you down and find you.

Going into the heart of the jungle,

I feel a little cursed energy here.

There's also things that are deadly.

Pretty dense terrain here.

I've got to watch out for sticks in the eye and branches,

and there's a million things out here that can kill you.

It's going to be quite the adventure.

Ooh.

At the southernmost edge of Mexico

lies the ominous rainforest of Chiapas.

For centuries, it was home to the Maya and later the Chiapa Indians,

who were all but decimated by the Spanish conquistadors by the 1700s.

Today, the jungle is steeped in legends of unsettled spirits haunting the area.

The thick and humid undergrowth makes it an ideal environment

for deadly jaguars, coral snakes and swarms of biting insects,

and strong winds and heavy rains from the Central Highlands

can drench it up to 120 inches a year, making it even more unforgiving.

Whoa!

- Sorry. It's all right, all right. - Ahh!

- In fact, no previous survivalists... - Ahh!

- It's eating me alive. - I can't pick the bugs anymore.

I want to tap out.

...not even Naked and Afraid all stars

have been able to last the full 21 days here.

The nights are absolutely miserable.

Holy .

- It's on fire. - Get it off.

This place is haunted or something.

I definitely think this place is survivable.

You know, the Mayans did it for many, many years.

Is it going to be easy?

No.

You know, I've done a lot of things in my life,

a lot of hard things, a lot of beautiful things.

And I've always been like the black sheep in my family.

And they would call this challenge crazy white people .

But my philosophy is give no .

All right.

If you truly want to be alive as a human being,

you have to live as primitively as you possibly can,

because this is what we're designed for.

I really love being outside in nature naked.

It makes me really feel just primal, powerful and, you know, like

I'm in the Garden of Eden.

Naked and free.

You know, I've done primitive survival in the wilderness before,

but always on my own.

So, I've... I've never had a partner before.

Different ideas that maybe aren't my own that I have to accommodate.

When people meet me, they say I exude this like calm energy.

Can you feel it?

Hey! Funny that we meet like this!

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I thought I was a little underdressed, but I see you wore the same outfits, so.

I'm Shanika.

Nice to meet you, Shanika. I'm Jeremy.

Turn around, let me check you out.

- Let's get this over with. - Yeah.

All right. All right.

- Check me out. - Yep.

It's a little awkward, you know, but it is what it is.

Yeah, we both signed up to... for this awkward nudity.

You got it.

So where's our, where's our bags at?

Oh, I think I see them over here.

I'm just going to claim this one.

- That one? - Yeah.

Here's my item.

Mosquito net.

I'm glad you brought that.

I brought my knife, my cookery knife.

That's beautiful.

Due to the extremely wet jungle climate,

the survivalists have also been given a fire starter.

Now, do you have a map or do... I don't think I have.

Um, I think they gave me the map.

You know, they know I have superior navigational skills.

Yes, you're probably right. I am a guy, so...

All right, I would say that's us right there, right?

That sounds like us. Mmm-hmm.

So, I see there animal danger.

- Snakes... - Coral snakes, jaguars.

And then it looks like we have food sources here and then there's water.

- Water. - We want to get somewhere in that neighborhood.

Oh, yeah, definitely by the water.

- All right, it looks like we're going to head that way. - South?

- Yep. - All righty.

Watch yourself, it's muddy.

Yeah. Whoa!

You good, Shanika?

Yeah, I'm good. Thank you for asking.

So, where are you from?

I live in Atlanta right now.

But I'm from... from Jamaica.

Oh, from Jamaica? Nice.

What do you do in Atlanta?

Well, I do a few things. I'm a midwife and...

Oh, nice, you work in medicine?

Transformational coach.

Nice.

Yeah, I'm not religious.

No, I'm not either.

But I'm spiritual and I say, like, nature is my church.

We're like-minded on that.

What got you into primitive survival?

Well, I started attending primitive skills gatherings.

Mmm-hmm.

So then I got really inspired because

there were no people of color.

Nature means everything for me.

Whoo!

And I really wanted to break through that lack of diversity.

So, I want to be that example for,

you know, Black girls everywhere to know that it's okay to be powerful

and to show up in places where we're not fully represented.

That really made me want to like continue my learning and journey.

Shanika has mental fortitude and good primitive skills,

but her spiritual approach may not be enough to conquer the Mexican jungle.

She begins with a primitive survival rating or PSR of 6.5.

What got you into all this nature stuff?

I'm a big fan of like primitive man and feel like it's good to reconnect,

and I think primitive survival is a great way of doing it.

Yeah.

I was an outdoorsy type kid, you know, playing outside, catching bugs.

When I was in college, I actually bought the US Military Survival Guide,

and I was hooked, man.

I started practicing primitive survival skills in my backyard.

I started kind of going into the mountains about a week at a time.

Whoo!

I'd take a knife, I'd take an enamel cup, really, that's about it, man.

Got my shoe done.

Had to leave these bad boys in there and run supporters through.

You know, I'm a football coach,

and as a coach, I preach mental toughness to my players.

I preach, you know, resilience, persistence,

things that you, that you definitely need out here.

And I'm not a guy who's going to half-ass through something.

If we're going to build a tree house in the backyard,

then we're going to build the Taj Mahal of the treehouses,

because that's just how I roll.

I'll pull this for cordage.

Jeremy has competent primitive survival skills

from many days solo in the wilderness,

but his over-eager personality may prevent him from pacing himself.

He begins with a PSR of 7.0.

Oh, you hear that?

Yeah, we're getting close to water.

Nice body of water, yeah.

And I see some clouds coming in.

So you know what that means. Shelter, shelter, shelter.

Soon enough.

I don't think we want to be right on the water.

Yeah, 'cause of the chance of flooding and all that.

With all the rain that we get, yeah, I think, you know...

It's nice to be close to it at least.

Oh, yeah, for sure.

That water, I don't think we have any problems drinking that.

Ooh, hallelujah.

I don't know about you, but...

Yeah, it feels nice.

Might be a clearing up here.

We've got the bamboo right there,

- so we won't have to haul it that far. - Yeah.

Holy , look at this.

This is nature like providing.

- So maybe we could just stack... - This is not bad.

...stack over across it to make it more waterproof.

But yeah, I mean, we have... this is a built-in ridge line.

- Yeah. - You know what I mean?

We're going to use that tree as a ridge line and fashion a roof pretty quickly.

Oh, that's messed up here.

It legit looks like an alien head.

- Look. - I know I saw that.

It's like a voodoo head looking at us. It's kind of creepy.

I'll start clearing and looking for portage.

Awesome.

We're not walking this journey alone.

There's a local myth that says this place, it's cursed.

You know, invaders come to the land and rape and pillage it.

So I want to come to the land with a honoring and a reverence

to know that I'm not here to do that.

I'm like saying a prayer in my head to like connect to this landscape

so that I'm not seen as like a foreigner here.

These bigger ones will make good shelter building material.

So far, you know, with Shanika, she's a go-getter.

She's... she's working hard, which concerns me

a little bit if she's going to be able to hack it physically.

But regardless, she's my partner out here.

I'm going to make sure that... that I try to get her through to 21 days as well.

I mean, we're in it together.

Bamboo is strong as hell.

When I harvest anything,