WILDERNESS EXPLORER HAZEN AUDEL TAKES ON HIS
TOUGHEST CHALLENGE EVER IN NEW ADVENTURE SERIES
PRIMAL SURVIVOR: ESCAPE THE AMAZON
PREMIERES 4 MAY 2022 ON NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
National Geographic’s original edge-of-your-seat adventure series, Primal Survivor, fronted by wilderness explorer Hazen Audel, returns to the channel (DStv 181, Starsat 220) with an exhilarating new five-part series, Primal Survivor: Escape the Amazon premiering on Wednesdays at 21:00 (CAT) from 4 May. In the new series, explorer Hazen Audel takes on his toughest challenge yet, fighting his way through 500 miles of tropical Amazon jungle using only traditional survival methods at the most perilous time of year, the rainy season.
Hazen’s journey is continually hampered by rain, flooding areas and blocking his paths. However rainy season has its rewards. Wildlife is on the move meaning Audel gets to witness some astonishing sights, from dense primeval forest and savannahs filled with snakes, to tall granite mountains and swamps filled with caiman. Will he complete his long journey and escape the Amazon before the rains make it impossible?
Filmed using National Geographic’s trademark high-end documentary style, each episode sees Audel tackle a different challenge in his perilous journey as he bravely takes on the mission to escape to the edge of the forest before being trapped by the floods of the rainy season. With the help of the forest’s Wai Wai people, he makes poisoned darts and traps monster fish in the dead of night. He uses all his jungle know-how when he comes face-to-face with a variety of threatening animals and insects from a goliath bird-eating tarantula to a giant anaconda.
Continuing to battle against the elements, Audel tackles the soaring Kanuku Mountain forests. Using the survival skills of the local people, he hunts for electric eels, climbs a sheer mountain peak, and hacks through an impenetrable forest of bamboo to reach the far side of the mountains before floods and landslides block his path. With time running out to complete his journey, the intrepid adventurer then faces one last ordeal, crossing miles of snake-filled mangrove swamp to reach the Atlantic Ocean. With the help of the local Warau people, he learns how to live on water and braves killer bees in a daring night raid, before attempting to deliver a prestigious catch.
Tune in to catch the adventure: Primal Survivor: Escape the Amazon on National Geographic, from Wednesday 4 May 2022 at 21:00.
Hazen Audel Biography
Over the past 27 years, Hazen Audel has learnt to navigate and survive in some of the most extreme environments on the planet. At age 19, Hazen was invited to join an indigenous tribe of Quecha people in Ecuador, where he stayed for over eight months. Hazen graduated with a BSc in Biology before heading to Hawaii for further graduate studies in Ethno Botany and Tropical Ecology. He then worked as a field biologist in the Americas, remote Pacific, Australia, and Indonesia. Fuelled by his great experience, Hazen has since become a leading expedition specialist, sharing his skills and knowledge as a survival instructor, jungle guide and university professor, with notable skills in mountaineering, river travel, and remote first aid and rescue.
Episode Synopses
Episode 1: Poison Jungle
Explorer Hazen Audel faces impenetrable rainforest as he begins a 500-mile survival challenge. In this first leg of his journey, he must escape to the edge of the forest before being trapped by the floods of the rainy season. With the help of the forest’s Wai people, Hazen takes on lethal snakes, makes poisoned darts, and traps monster fish in the dead of night.
Episode 2: Deadly Plains
Survivalist Hazen Audel attempts to cross the open savannah in the second leg of his 500-mile Amazon challenge. He joins the native Wapishana cowboys in a desperate cattle-drive north, tackling giant anaconda, venomous rattlesnakes, and a treacherous river crossing as they attempt to escape the coming floods
Episode 3: Peaks of Peril
Survivalist Hazen Audel tackles the soaring Kanuku Mountain forests in the third leg of his 500-mile Amazon challenge. Using the survival skills of the local mountain people, he traps electric eels, climbs a sheer mountain peak, and hacks through an impenetrable forest of bamboo to reach the far side of the mountains before floods and landslides block his path.
Episode 4: Storming Waters
Survivalist Hazen Audel faces thundering waterfalls as he enters gorge country, in the fourth leg of his 500-mile Amazon challenge. Against faeces-squirting spiders, and the world’s most dangerous snake, he relies on the traditional skills of the fierce Arekuna people to survive, learns to hunt with a blow-pipe and rides the wild water of the region’s rapids.
Episode 5: Mangrove Maze
Survivalist Hazen Audel faces the final ordeal in his 500-mile Amazon challenge, crossing miles of snake-filled mangrove swamp to reach the Atlantic Ocean. With the help of the local Warau people, he learns how to live on water and braves killer bees in a daring night raid, before attempting to deliver a prestigious catch.
