Visiting a 2,000 Year Old Tribe in Sumatra

For the next 72 hours, we will venture into the depths of the Indonesian jungle to live among a tribe whose way of life remains unchanged for centuries. Where they still hunt with poison arrows and use skills passed down through generations to turn trees into their main source of food. This is a place where beauty takes on a different form. The women are considered more beautiful with sharpened teeth and the men are draped in loincloths with their bodies covered in sacred tattoos. The Mentawai tribe have lived deep in the jungles of a remote chain of islands off the coast of Sumatra for over 2000 years, living in traditional longhouses where they proudly display the skulls from recent hunts. Join us as we travel far beyond our comfort zone to one of the most remote places we have ever been to uncover the mystery of the mental.

We're Kara and Maeve. What started as a one year backpacking trip around the world has turned into an insane seven year journey of full time travel that's taken us to over 100 countries and all seven continents.

These days you can find us exploring the extreme ends of the travel spectrum.

Absolutely insane.

From the world's best first class seats to pushing our bodies to the limit. Searching for the best wildlife encounters or exploring the most remote corners of the globe.

Good morning. It is very early and we are at a ferry port here in West Sumatra about to begin our 12 hour journey into the jungle to find the tribe that we are going to be staying with for the next three days. This whole journey started days ago. We flew from London to Singapore, then to Kuala Lumpur. Then yesterday we landed in Padang.

And the real it adventure starts from here.

Morning. Morning.

Air conditioning.

All right. It appears that this is home sweet home. For the next six hours this has to be the most remote place we have ever been.

After a very long boat ride, we have made it to the island of Sibaruk. But the crazy thing is we are only halfway there. Also, this place is surprisingly busy considering that we're going to be living with drive in the jungle by the end of the day. Here we take a car. Do we ride in the back? Yeah. Nice. Nice view, huh?

Now we're in the back of a pickup truck with some people we know and some people we don't. This truck is going to take us an hour to the river where we get in a canoe. That takes us another couple hours up the river and then from there we hike to the drive nuts.

So we're making a quick pit stop at the local market to bring some gifts to the tribe. Apparently the children like Cookies. And the adults like cigarettes, but they must be pretty particular because we've gone to three shops looking for a specific brand of cigarettes.

We stocked up on our food for the next few days, which is all in this white bag. We've just left the concrete behind, and this is what the road looks like for the rest of the time. Adrian was telling us this is the main road. Apparently, they have plans to pave it and put in electricity, maybe even have cell phone service.

We lost cell phone service at 7:00am when we left the FER this morning.

Wow. Look at this.

Mode of transportation number.

Okay.

This is awesome.

It's so shaky.

I'm never in my life been in a canoe like this.

Is this normal? Yeah, normal is meant to. Why.

Now it feels like a proper adventure from here. We have two hours into the jungle. It's so nice.

Not only is this guy navigating upstream around obstacles, but I just noticed that the rudder isn't even attached to the boat. He's using a paddle as a rudder. One, it takes a lot of skill. And two, you have to be really strong.

Also, this canoe that we're riding in is a dugout. 3. And then to give us a little more clearance from the water, they just caulked an additional piece of w make the boat taller. But even with that additional beam of wood, we still have about 6 inches of clearance of the water.

My thigh hurts.

Mine too. This is the longest I've ever sat with my legs crossed.

First act, please don't get. I'm just going to keep the camera out of the water. If we go in, he's standing up. Oh, my goodness. Oh, the river is way shallower than I thought. Good work, captain.

Good job. Feels good to stand. Nice work.

Sure. We made it to the next step. We're still not there.

I'm going in the river.

Whoa. Oh, I was so close to filling up my boot. Ah. Ah, ah, Ah. Oh, it's sinking.

Ah.

Oh, no, that's full. The boats made it as far as it could, and from here, we hiked in wet shoes, apparently. Dang it.

Yoga.

Off to a good start. Thank you. You did a good job. Our new cameraman. You're hired. Okay, man.

Wow. We have just emerged into an entire village. As we were coming up the river, we saw a few people standing by the side, but basically it was just empty canoes. And I would have thought the same about this place, but as soon as we came up over the riverbank, it's just put us straight into a village with a concrete Soccer field and electricity.

And some solar panels.

It's felt like we were in the middle of the jungle, but apparently we're not as far away from civilization as we thought.

Nice. Thank you.

It's like doing a workout in a steam room. I literally have sweat dripping off of my nose.

Viewing this is a really great exercise. Like I'm detoxing in a sauna makes it way more enjoyable.

We haven't even gotten there yet and I can already tell that this is going to be the adventure that I was hoping for.

You think they're walking us in circles just to like make it feel like we're having the full experience. Oh, they're deep in the jungle. Let's just cross the same river a hundred times.

Somehow we have done 12 river crossings. @ this point, I'm not even trying to keep my feet dry anymore. Just embracing the nice cool water filling up my.

Boots. Yeah, I like it.

I think this is our new.

Home. There it is. We have made it. This is it. Well, we flew halfway across the globe for then took a couple more flights. 4. And jumped on a ferry. 4. And a truck. 4. Then a canoe. 4. And then a long hike and we're.

Here. That was honestly way hotter than I thought it was going to be. I was like, oh, we're going to sit all day and then we're.

Going to go on a little hike. No big.

Deal. It was a big deal. I was so nervous. Are you.

Ready?

Nice to meet.

You. Oh, so happy. What is your name?

Ah.

My name is.

Cara. Cara and Nate. Nate Salamo. Salomo.

Al.

Nice to meet.

You.

Wow. I think we just became best friends.

You're.

Beautiful.

What is your.

Name?

Cara.

Baijal. You like banana? Yeah, it's very good. Very.

Good. Wow. We finally made it. As we settled around the kitchen table, it became clear that the next few days would be a welcomed departure from our fast paced lives. Without tv, WI fi or cell service, we're going to be forced to slow down and be fully present. We quickly learned that out here, good conversation is the best form of.

Entertainment. Very.

Strong. Over tea, in the lingering smoke of countless cigarettes, we spent the next few hours learning about each other's lives while Vincent, who you'll meet tomorrow, prepared dinner over the open fire. Hearing Salomo's stories only made us more excited to step into his world and experience a day in his life.

Tomorrow. Okay, enjoy. Thank.

You. Like ramen with some veg? My favorite.

We had no clue what the sleeping arrangements were going to be when we arrived, so I was Pleasantly surprised when the bug net.

Appeared. Any concerns I had about this being too touristy are completely gone. How is.

It? It's.

Hard. This is more like a blanket than a.

Pad. Yeah. We're sleeping on hardwood floors with a bamboo mat and on top of a quilt.

Hey, this is what we signed up.

For. I think this is a sleeping bag, but I doubt I'll be needing.

That. And we have some inflatable pillows, which we didn't think we were.

Gonna.

Good morning. Based on all the activity I can hear going on around me, I think we're the last ones up. It is 6:20 in the morning.

Okay. Okay.

So this tree that they've been working on all morning is called sagu. It's basically the staple food of the mentawai, and it's essentially what enables them to be able to survive out here in the jungle. They eat it. The animals eat it. I've just seen the chickens pecking directly off of this piece of tree. But I'm pretty sure in order for humans to consume it, it has to be ground down into a flower. And what we're watching right now is the first step. Since I woke up this morning, they've already ground down two tree trunks of this stuff. And I think throughout the day, we're going to get to see the process of how it goes from what is essentially a tree into flower.

Okay, you can join me on my morning trip to the bathroom.

Shift to balance on this log and balance on this more stable log. Salomon showed me the toilet last night, and it was all pretty funny. He just led me down this dark path, balancing on these boards into the jungle after dark. And then once we got there, I needed a little clarification on which side was the one that you, you know, did your business in? I go with my butt that way. Yes. The poop there, which was kind of confusing because there's a pool of still water and then there's like running water. And I guess it makes sense that you can't go in the still water since you can't flush it. But also in a normal, like, western style toilet, you go into still water anyway. It was funny. Last step is to walk through the mud. And this is the toilet. So pretty much the way it works. Stand here on the logs, squat down like this. The toilet surprisingly, does not smell at all. The water creates almost a sound machine. And the squat position is surprisingly comfortable. So the bathroom experience, I would say 10 out of 10 as far as how sanitary it is, because I'm pretty sure it all just washes straight down into the river. We'll just. Just try not to think about that for.

Now. So the plan for today is just to go about daily life with our new family. As far as I know, nothing that's happening right now is being put on for us. Like, they're not acting. They're just doing what they usually do, and we get to be a part of it. We're just going to to see if we can be of any assistance and not be in the way. So far, all I've done today is drink three cups of coffee and cuddle with my new baby.

Kitty. Also, if you're a little confused at what's going on, so are we. We're just following people around, moving from one thing to the next. I think by the end of the day, we'll kind of have a better understanding of how everything fits together and hopefully be able to put some cohesive thoughts together for you, explain a few things. But for now, you're having the same experience we are, except I would say, say sitting at home. Your feet are probably a lot more clean. Oh, wow. There's a whole production facility over.

Here.

Wow. This thing is.

Cool. If I'm eating this later, your feet better be clean. Okay. So I think I finally wrapped my head around how they create the sagu flower. It starts by shaving the tree like we saw this morning. Then they bring it here to what I'm going to call the processing plant, where they mix it with water.

Like making mentawai wine. And they stomp on it, and that creates this thick liquid that then flows down into this trough where it sits for a.

Week. There really is a technique to this, eh? It kind of feels like I'm stepping on.

Oatmeal. After that, they move it into these homemade barrels, and it sits in those barrels and starts to dry out for three.

Weeks. Smells.

Fermented. Not even fermented.

Yes.

And then for some reason that I wasn't quite able to understand, they put it back into the water inside the barrel for three weeks, then bring it back out and finally let it completely dry out. And that's how you get the finished product of the flour that's ready to eat. Also, this backpack right here, this is enough food to feed a family of three for one month. Should I put it on? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I have a feeling this is gonna be really. Wow. Oh, you're very strong. This has to be 70 pounds. This is crazy. And they're doing three of these backpacks today, so it'll be enough food for three months. And one tree, one of these sago trees that we see all around us, is enough food for an entire.

Year. I mean, sagu trees are everything here. Like, they make their houses, their food, their animals, food, their clothing, everything out of the sagu tree. They use every single inch of.

It. We're just surrounded by them. There is no shortage of sagu trees. Those are sago trees. Those are sago trees. That's a sagu tree. Those are sago.

Trees.

Now, I think me and mom are gonna go take the flour that is the finished product of that whole process and wrap it up in some leaves and cook it. By the end of this trip, I'm gonna be running down these.

Things.

Good morning.

Morning. How do you say good morning?

Ah. Wrap it around. You do it so fast and so pretty. This is a sagu trunk filled with sagu flour wrapped in sagu leaf.

Good job.

Look at all of these. She does them so well. She's been sitting here maybe five minutes and has made 15. So I noticed my jala had really pointy teeth. And apparently the strong women in the Mentawai tribes carve their teeth to be pointy for beauty, apparently. It's really painful. She was 20 years old when she had hers done. She does have the most beautiful smile. She smiles all the time, and I love it. I got you. I can finish this.

One.

In 1965, the government tried to come here with the police army, and they want. Government want to make Mentawai people same like people in the city. So no tattoos, no long hair for the men. No. No.

Ceremony.

This dog believes that me and mom wrapped this morning, have finished cooking the fire, and all of this hard work has led us to this moment. This is it. How do you do it? Oh, here we go. Here we.

Go.

Ah.

We did it.

Smells like charcoal. It feels like when you leave play DOH out and it gets a little hard.

Here we go. Trying saga for the first time.

It doesn't have much.

Taste.

Whoa.

That was not at all what I expected. It's like stale bread on the outside and Jell O on the.

Inside.

Nailing our descriptions.

Today. In all seriousness, it's actually pretty good. It doesn't taste like much, which I think is a good thing if you're eating it twice a day every day for your entire life. Like, you can just dip it in different things, and then it just takes on the. The consistency and flavor of the things that you mix it with. And it's probably the only way of getting Natural carbs out here. It's a good combination. Sagal and condensed chocolate. Condensed.

Milk. All right, now it's a dessert. This is literally chocolate syrup.

Oh yeah, that's way.

Better. Okay, we're trying what we think is going to be the best combination. Sago and coffee. It's just a vessel, it just gets whatever flavor you want into your mouth. But it has a nice consistency because it doesn't dissolve in the.

Coffee. All right, it's 9:30, everybody's been working all morning and it's seems like it's social hour. Another family came over. We're just sitting around drinking coffee, eating sagu and chit, chatting, smoking.

Cigarettes. Of.

Course.

I'm loving this social hour right now. Apparently, since there are no phones or social media, families often when they're wandering through the jungle, they'll pop into another family's house and just sit and chitchat. And this is.

How.

Amongst the.

Drama, they're all just like gossiping right now, talking about, I don't know, the latest relationships, family drama.

It's just so nice. Like it's the middle of the day and everybody's just.

Taking.

Oh my.

God. Promotion. Yeah, yeah. It's an.

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Below. I know it looked like that whole thing was set up and you probably won't believe me if I say it wasn't, but Kara genuinely just started to make one. We had to do an ad in this video anyway and that just all. We didn't ask them to Say anything. So in the middle of hanging out with his friends, out of nowhere, Solomo just went and picked up a machete and decided that it was time for us to go into the woods searching for worms, which I have a bad feeling we are about to be asked to eat. This is such a surreal experience. I just. I can't believe what I seeing with my own eyes. And I'm watching it through the camera, just following Telomo through the jungle, having him cut a path for me.

Oh, wow. I was afraid that's what it was going to look like. So we've learned that when they cut down the sagu tree, they intentionally leave a portion of it sitting on the ground to basically grow these grub worms. So these black beetles that look a lot like cockroaches will crawl into the tree and turn into grubs, and then they eat the grubs for their.

Protein.

I thought we were gonna cook them at least.

Oh, my gosh.

There's so much movement. It's so squirmy. Oh, gosh. The guts are coming.

Out.

Ready? I just have to do it. I have to do it. Here we.

Go.

Simple.

Coconut.

More. No.

More. It's.

Okay. How do you.

Taste? Actually, it has the taste of, like, a raw, unseasoned potato. It's just whatever is left in my mouth. I really don't like. Nate's.

Turn.

Why is my hand shaking? Okay, okay. Ah, good.

It exploded.

If you cannot think about what you're eating, the taste is not bad at all. It tastes very earthy. I don't mind it at all. It's the explosion inside of your mouth that just, like.

Nice work. I think you actually handled that better than I.

Did. I don't know about that. These are the things we're gonna look back at this experience. That's what I just have to remind myself. I don't want to remember coming and just watching. Is this a cacao? Do you know what this.

Is? Yeah, it's cacao or chocolate.

It's just a pineapple growing here in the middle of the jungle. It's like the Garden of Eden out here. You never know what you're gonna.

Find.

Adrian says he prefers his grubs fresh, but he grills some up so we can see what they taste like.

Cooked. Okay, here we go. Here we go. What do you have, Nat? I have grubs that we found in the sagu tree. Now they've been grilled over the fire. We're about to try.

It.

Yeah.

It's much better cooked. Much Better cooked. So you both prefer the after cook? Yeah, I think it's because the guts came out, so it's didn't all explode in my mouth. The rest are for you.

Enough for me. Too much for the.

Nice.

Work.

So in between trying all the local ment foods, our friend Vincent has been making us the most magnificent meals we're about to have. Rice, vegetable curry and fried chicken, tofu chili, all fresh produce that we got from the market yesterday. This is not typically what the Mentawai eat, from what I understand. Like the onion and the garlic and the things that they can't grow here are a bit much for their taste buds. But it's a very local thing over in Padang, where we came from, and I'm so excited. I'm sorry. Go ahead.

It's delicious.

Especially because I saw where it came from, I saw it being made, and I'm eating it in the middle of the jungle with the Mentoi tribe. Like, it just couldn't be any better.

So in the Mentawai tribe, the women are the fishermen, and Mama has invited me down to go fishing with her also. I started calling her Mama because that's what Adrian calls her, and I like it. I'm Mentawa and Mama, and if.

We'Re being honest, it's easier to say.

Mama invited their neighbor Sakui to join us. Is it a lie? And if you can't already tell, we became fast friends.

Sakui caught a fish immediately, and then she wanted me to try.

Show me your.

Way. Did you take your shirt.

Off? Some of the women the past few years have started wearing what I would consider regular clothes, and I was kind of sad about it at first because it's traditional for the women to just not wear a shirt. But I was quickly grateful that Mama has been wearing a shirt because it's less blurring that we have to do for YouTube. However, for fishing, she's wearing the traditional dress, which is just a cute red skirt and a piece of bamboo stuck in the back to put the fish in when she.

Gets. Is this real life? Right now, Kara's just fishing with the tribe. Oh, my.

God. Oh, my.

Gosh.

So it seems like the strategy is to go close to the bank and move sticks and rocks around, but position your net downstream so that whatever swims out when you move it around swims into your net. And then if they catch something, they put it in the little bamboo pole that's on their back. And surprisingly, they're not catching fish, they're catching shrimp, which I definitely did not expect to see in this river. Here we.

Go. This is the.

One. Yeah.

I love how much fun they're having. So one thing that I've noticed today is there doesn't really seem to be a separation between work, play, and relaxing. It's kind of just all happening at the same time. They're kind of constantly working, but at the same time, it just seems like they're always having fun. I've yet to see anyone be in a rush to finish anything. They'll just, like, be working on something, and then all of a sudden they'll just be laughing and they'll sit there and chat for a minute, and then they'll go back to working. I feel like in the Western world, we have very dedicated work, play, and rest time. I asked Solomon last night what made him happy, and he said working, which kind of confused me at the time, but now I understand. It's really more. More of just doing and living. Like, he just enjoys living because there's never really one time that you're working. He said the only time he feels stress is when he's sitting still, not doing anything. And it seems like there's always plenty to do here.

Okay, so Kara's pretending to sleep, and me and mom are eating our catch.

She's pretending. Can I have some more sagu? Yeah, yeah. The sagu dipped in the broth is actually really nice. And the shrimp look just like the ones that would come out of the ocean.

Missing out.

Hello.

Bye. Bye.

Bye, bye. You come.

By.

I love their fascination with the drone. This is.

Amazing. You built a very big house.

Very big. Yeah. We'll go up the river. Yeah. Whose house is that?

We've fallen to his friend's house.

Magic. Magic. Oh, there it is. Yeah, we found it.

Hello. Hello. Welcome.

Thank you. Thank.

You. That was so.

Fun. That was great. I think that's one of my new favorite things, getting to show someone their house from above for the time. First. First time. But I think what impressed him more than anything was that it could fly all the way to his friend's house. It was just like half a kilometer up the river. Okay. They don't sit still long out here. We are heading back into the jungle, and if I'm understanding this correctly, we are about to harvest a sagu tree.

So basically, the way this entire day has gone is we'll just be sitting there drinking coffee or tea, and then all of a sudden, Salomo will hop up, start grabbing stuff, and motion for us to follow him. See, I'm Telling you, I never fully understand exactly what's going on. I thought we were going to cut down a tree, but really there's a tree that he's already chopped down that we're just going to take a piece of back to the house. So I'm assuming this is where the pieces of sagu that we saw this morning that were turned into sawdust, they came from this tree.

So I'm not sure how they did it. That literally took him five minutes. That was crazy. So he stuck a harder tree through the sagu tree and that allowed him to rotate the whole tree and finish chopping the other side. Genius.

He just took all the bark off of that tree in one connected piece like he was unwrapping a Tootsie.

Roll. What's more impressive is I'm dripping sweat just standing here. And I don't think he's broken a sweat chopping off an entire section of a tree and then skinning.

It.

Wow, that is so heavy.

No. Look at this full squat.

What is happening right now? Okay, see you at the house. Yeah.

How about he's too heavy. I get on one side, you get on the other side. Oh, this is good. This is good. He is 70 years old. There's no way he weighs more than 100 pounds. And I would bet money that that log weighs 150. He's like an.

Ant.

I can barely walk and I'm not carrying a single thing. And he's carrying an entire tree trunk on his back. Unbelievable.

Woo.

Nice.

Work. Yeah.

Jeez. I could barely keep up with him. But Adrian and Nate are nowhere to be found when they go back for him.

Nate.

I was saying that with the backpack it must be a lot easier, but it's still really hard. I must keep going. Okay. Oh, this actually hurts so.

Bad. Don't give up. Next is the water feature.

Keep.

Going. I just want to make Salomo proud.

Wow. I figured if a 70 year old chain smoker could do it, I should be able to too. But it's now no mystery why his body looks the way it does if he does that every single day. That's crazy. My shoulders are torn up.

Maybe 10 kilo.

50.

SA.

Morning. I tried some.

Coffee. Yeah. How's your.

Sleep? Pretty good until 4.

Because that's what everybody wakes up.

It's 6:30 in the morning and they have already ground down the entire tree trunk that we carried back yesterday. Three backpacks full of sagu. And I just rolled out of beddy. Is not used to sleeping on the ground. Breakfast. Amazing. Pretty sure this is died in.

Traditional tribal breakfast that we're eating here with chocolate sauce. Wow. We have eaten much better than expected on this trip. There was a time when I was worried about going hungry, and I was thinking we should buy extra snacks, but that has not been a.

Problem.

So the house we were staying is called an uma, which is a traditional long house. And I'm going to show you around. It's split into three different sections. This front section is where we've been having all of our meals. This is kind of the main hangout area. There are always random people coming out of the woods to hang out. It's crazy. I love it. Here in the center, we have some decorations that Salomo made. There is one little mirror right here, which is one of those things you don't realize how much you use a mirror until you don't have a mirror. So I appreciate this. This door right here is basically all their leftovers. So whatever doesn't get eaten at a meal gets put in here basically to keep it away from the animals and the bugs. So it's like the refrigerator, except for it's obviously not cold. And whenever people get hungry, they just go to the fridge and grab some food. Up here we have a bunch of tools, things that they're making things out of. I'm not really sure what it is, but they were building a basket with some of these supplies earlier. Back here is the middle section of the uma. We have these giant, like, garage doors that they close at night so that critters and animals don't bother us while we're sleeping. Much appreciated. And the first thing agreed with when you walk into this part of the house are hundreds of animal skulls, all hunted by Solomo himself. Pretty crazy. There are monkeys, deer, and pigs. Specifically, this pig skull with a huge tusk attacked Salomo. He gets a big scar on the back of his leg, but somehow with one leg, he still killed the pig. He hangs all the skulls from every animal he's ever hunted for two different reasons. The first one is it's a sign of power and prestige. So when you come into his house and you see all these skulls, you're like, not gonna mess with this guy. And the second reason is the Mentawai are very spiritual people. And after people die, they believe that their spirits are still alive. And that actually goes from people and animals. So this is kind of their way of paying respect to the dead animals by having their skulls on display. On a lighter note, to my right, we have the kitchen.

Area. Adrian's taking some credit for being in the kitchen, but this is the first time I've seen you here. Vincent's been cooking all of our meals for us. An excellent.

Chef. So this is where he works. We have a water filtration system. So they take the water from the river, and it goes through this filter and into a bucket. And then they boil it for our coffee and tea and.

Drinks. And.

We. Oh, I don't want to say it is.

Him.

Yeah.

Haven't had diarrhea yet. Over here in the center, we have this grand stove. It's pretty much always a fire going on here, either to boil water or Vincent. As soon as he finishes breakfast, he's already starting on lunch and dinner. He's amazing. Really adds a vibe to the house, like just the orange glow and the stove. This is sort of like the guest bedroom area. Our bed setup is pretty simple. They have a bamboo mat and then a slightly thicker, softer.

Mat. It's more like a thick blanket than a mat, really. And then, honestly, it's so warm, you don't even need a blanket. But there is a sleeping bag thrown in.

Here. And, of course, this cover is for the mosquitoes, which haven't really been a problem, thankfully, and I slept pretty decent. Moving into the bath. The third and final section of the house is kind of like mom and Dad's room. This is where they sleep. They have their mosquito net and their bamboo mat, but they make their bed every morning, so maybe we should be following that example. But they have a really cool setup. So instead of a pillow, they have this bamboo mat that's at an angle, so when they see asleep, it props their head up like this. This mat rolls out like ours. But then this is like a bamboo pillow. It's actually really nice. And then they have all of their clothes and things just hanging. It's like an open closet.

Design.

There was one other thing that Salomo was super excited to show me and very proud of, and that was his electrical setup. So this little motorcycle battery right here is what's powering the whole house, as you can see. I was able to to charge a couple camera batteries off of it. Super simple setup. Two wires that lead up to a switch. One of the lights is back here by the stove, and the other is hanging back over the table. Technology has made its way into the tribe. These are all the guests coming over to charge their phone. And all this power comes from one solar panel that's set up right outside the house.

Well, it's been a lazy morning. For us and a busy morning for Solomo. He's already spent two hours stomping Sagu, and all we've done is drink a bunch of coffee. But now we are heading out into the jungle for the first of what I assume will be multiple times today. I do know what we're doing this time, but I'll keep it a bit of a secret. I'm interested to see the process. I'm not so sure about the final result.

All right, any guesses what we're making this morning? I'm pretty sure we don't actually need a new one of these. He might just be doing it for his own enjoyment.

So we stripped down the inner bark of the tree, and now we're making it more flexible, using.

Wooden mallet with some ridges in it.

It's hard work, actually. Anything you do out here in the jungle makes me look like this.

Okay. The final step is washing it in the river, because it is very important that it is not itchy or scratchy. Are you starting to get it?

So Salomo disappeared into the jungle for about an hour, and he's come back with five ingredients that they use to make poison arrows. And this is not like something they used to do. This is still the way they hunt. They put the poison on the end of the arrows and they shoot it into something. And depending on how big the animal is, it kills it over the course of a few hours. This tiny chili is one of the five key ingredients in the poison.

It's like when it's just on one spot of your tongue, it really burns, but it's fine because it's just in one small spot. But it's when you swallow and it spreads to the rest of your.

Mouth.

This is wild.

Wow, my tongue is tingling.

That's crazy. Do you eat.

It? Me? No.

Problem. No problem.

No. Yes.

Okay. So the five ingredients have been mixed together.

And now he's squeezing them all into a bowl.

Wow. He's tasting the.

Poison. Is he going to spit it.

Out?

What?

So.

Mysterious.

I'm staying on Solomo's good.

Side. I'm very glad there's not an arrow on the end of that.

I touched my nose after holding the chili. Now my whole face feels like it's on fire.

So the last step is to let them dry out here in the sun. And then once they're dry, he'll take them back inside and he'll add multiple coats to the arrows to make them even more potent. So the arrows that have the metal tips, those are meant for deer and pig. And then the ones that are just sharp wood on the end, those are the ones that are flat for the monkeys. But apparently, if I were to just stub my toes on one of these and the poison were to mix with my blood, I would die.

Really gets in there.

Oh, no. Hasn't quite gone around.

It. How does this make you feel.

Nate?

Exposed. You want to explain what's going.

On? The craft that we made this morning. Oh, I like.

That. That kind of nice. Finish the.

Look. Let's gall out. Why not? Wow. This is one of the most exposed I've ever felt. In case you had not guessed what we were making this morning, you're about to have the big reveal. Oh, wow. Nay, take off the hat. Wow.

Wow. Now we're going this way.

Not sure where we're going right now. There you.

Go. Oh, my.

Gosh. I would have. Would have been working out more if I would have known we were going to do this. How do we look? Good? Yes, very nice. Handsome. Yes, handsome. I'm just trusting that you tied this on.

Good. Once again, we were completely clueless as to where Salomo was taking us. Apparently, Adrian had told him that we wanted a photo together before we left. And we hadn't realized that Salomo had been dressing made up for photo shoot. One big happy.

Family. Just go like this. One, two, three.

Here we.

Go. Family.

Selfie. Thank you for having us. Thank you. It's leaving me.

Hanging.

We have a really special bond, don't we? As our photo shoot ended and our time in the jungle drew to a close, one of the Salomo's friends appeared from the jungle holding a chicken. And as the sun went down, a ceremony began.

It was a very special night.

For.

Everyone.

Except for the chicken. As their songs continued long into the night, we were filled with gratitude for the short time we got to spend here living with the mentor. Why, not only did we make memories that we'll look back on and smile about years from now, but our time here has been a great reminder of the joy that can be found in living a simple and balanced life.