- Hi I'm Les Stroud, host and creator of "Beyond Survival."

Within the scope of filming this series, I circled the globe eight times in 10 months.

I was never not in a state of jet lag.

To embed myself with cultures who still either live close to the earth or engaged in practices meant to keep their connection to the earth.

It was a chance to stretch my own skills and beliefs beyond what I knew.

Beyond survival.

In many cases, I had to come to these cultures in a state of humility offering a gift and seeking permission to take part in their lives.

To experience life as they knew it.

I went in without pretense, without presumption, without agenda, and left myself completely in their care so that I was open to learning their ways.

Hunting, fishing, eating, sleeping the way that they do.

Sometimes it was modern-influenced with much connection to the outside world.

And other times it was near primitive.

In all cases, I was challenged both in my own well-honed skillsets of survival and wilderness experience, but also in my own belief system about life itself.

I learned to go beyond the technicalities of hunting and fishing and shelters and fire.

And instead to dig deeper into what it means to be truly connected to the earth in profound ways.

To go beyond survival.

(dramatic music) I'm really just looking for a needle in the haystack here.

I'm looking for a couple of small little pea-sized grubs who can make poison for your arrows.

Those kinds of skills are vanishing rapidly.

I'm Les Stroud.

I'm on a mission to seek out the true masters of survival.

The last indigenous people from around the world before they're gone.

Before the past is lost.

Before their world vanishes, I can learn in their ways.

(upbeat music) The Kalahari Desert is 900,000 kilometers wide sprawling through Botswana, South Africa, and Namibia.

And I'm in Namibia on a journey to connect with a tribe called the San.

Believed to be the original inhabitants of Southern Africa.

It's possible that no other culture on the planet has lived and survived as long as the San people.

Around 3000 years BC, the Sahara slowly transformed from rich hunting grounds into desert.

The animals and tribes were pushed south and they've been surviving here ever since.

The San hunt with poison arrows and practice a legendary trance dance that allows them to communicate with the spirit world.

This is how our ancestors used to live and I've come here to learn their secrets.

(San people wailing) So we're finally heading out.

We were gonna head out early but instead we're getting out pretty late for a hunt.

But it doesn't seem to matter.

That's what their agenda is today.

So off we go.

It's an intense experience to follow along with the Bushmen hunters.

Watching how they walk, where they look, what they concentrate on, when they're quiet, and when they're noisy.

All of the elements of masterful hunting come together in the methods these Bushmen employ to seek out game.

And that game may be something as simple as a turtle, something as consistent as a porcupine, or something as grand as a kudu.

He just gave me a piece of that root to chew on.

It turns out it's about as juicy as a cantaloupe.

So it's one of the main plants for them to be traveling and to get their liquid from.

It keeps their mouth from getting dry.

It's quite tasty too.

Now that I can see what kind of plants that they eat at least maybe I could also have a part in this and help out by also keeping my eyes open for the same plant and for turtles.

So it becomes (chuckles) the absolute perfect combination of what we classically call hunting and gathering.

We're on the hunt and we gathered while we hunt.

It really is the basis of mankind's beginnings on through evolution.

Here we go.

A big hole.

You have to be very careful passing by these holes.

Because the leopards actually crawl down into them.

And if you walk right by the front, a leopard can jump out and attack.

So they're always very cautious going by these big holes.

It's a shame that they're reduced to... Well compared to where they once roamed, a very, very small area.

It makes their traditional lifestyle difficult but it's so important not to lose it.

(energetic music) Those are actually spider holes.

Awfully big spiders.

Five hours later the hot desert hunt continues.

The San's very survival depends on paying attention to their surroundings.

They have to foster a close relationship with every aspect of this tough land and be able to predict migration times and know how to find water.

Water is a constant challenge.

It's gotta be scrounged for it.

Sucked from beneath the mud with hollow reeds.

Caught in the hollows of trees during the extremely rare rains or stored in caches of ostrich eggs.

We've only been at it a short while but they've spotted some kudus.

The kudu is an antelope and would make for a fitting symbol for the San people.

They're sleek and strong animals who like the San are now sparsely populated over a large area due entirely to declining habitat.

Okay so far they've seen steenbok and kudus but I'm not sure what the problem is but I'm guessing that we've been spotted by them so they kept moving on.

Either that or we're doing one massive elaborate circle to come up and around and downwind of the animals.

And for the Bushmen, the wind is everything.

They must have the wind behind the animals.

If the wind is behind the hunter and it blows onto the animals, the animals are gone like a shot.

So it's everything.

Now that we've gotten to a certain spot, the hunters have spread out a bit.

There's a lot of tracks.

A lot of kudu tracks.

Kuda would be a fantastic score for these guys.

It would mean a lot of meat for the village.

Keeping up with them it's like being in an adventure race.

It's just constant moving.

They go straight, and then they stop when they think they've seen something.

So I think they see something up here.

Porcupine is a key survival food source for the San.

And the ones here are twice as big as the porcupines in North America.

Porcupine.

Their long sharp quills make them a dangerous prey when you get in close.

The only way to catch them is to get in close and use a short spear, thereby saving the poison arrows for larger, faster game.

So the whole time is spent looking at the tracks on the ground since they are pretty fresh from porcupines.

So they're scanning the whole area to see if they can follow the tracks until they end up to a spot where the hole is where the porcupine would be.

Hunting a porcupine can be risky.

Dozens of foot-long quills can penetrate deep into a hunter's flesh and lead to infection.

And out here in the desert, any infection can be fatal.

At this point I'm every bit as much (indistinct) as the others.

We're spread right out so that we can track down this porcupine while we're watching for anything else we see along the way.

It's like hunting anywhere really.

You have to be able to see your partners from a distance.

At the same time with some of these bigger trees you gotta watch out and make sure there's no leopards sitting in the branches or big snakes.

(crickets chirping) So we're at the... We ended up at the porcupine hole.

One guy's gone down in deep and he's digging out and the guy's waiting at the other end of the hole.

Hopefully he'll scare the porcupines through and then he'll be able to spear 'em as they come up with.

But there's two big fat porcupines down there.

That's a lot of meat.

After a few hours of tracking, all of the trails lead to a few large holes in the ground.

One of the hunters actually crawls into the deep hole under the ground to chase the porcupines out the other end for myself and another hunter to spear.

It's a dangerous way to hunt.

These tunnels can cave in on top of the hunter and there are no shovels to dig anyone out.

At the edge of a porcupine hole hours of walking boiled down to mere seconds of action.

Now every action is instinctual.

The kill must be made.

Survival for the Bushmen of the Kalahari comes down to this one moment.

(porcupine growls) (Bushmen speaking Khoisan language) These two porcupines are a good size.

With no one being hurt, this has been a successful hunt.

That's well worth the hunt.

Two large porcupines.

Two in one hole is obviously a good deal.

And the village is gonna be pretty happy about this.

So.

Most often this village eats only once a day, and it's usually something meager such as rice they received from the neighboring more civilized small towns but they would much rather feed themselves with substantial game.

And although this is not large game, the two porcupines feed the entire village tonight with a lot of meat and fat.

For the San, it's a feast.

(wood scraping) To sit and watch a San Bushman use a hand drill to start his fire is the ultimate touching of ancient history.

These are the people after all that invented it.

They can get matches once in a while from the outside world but knowing how to start a fire the traditional way is still vital to their survival.

(Bushmen speaking Khoisan language) Using his language of consonants, vowels, clicks, and pops the hunter speaks out basic instructions for help.

Though they're masters of desert survival and live a life most of us could never relate to, they are still simply people.

Just a small hunting group of men hoping for luck and happy to have received it.

That's the way I do it too.

It's funny how fire starting methods around the world seem to have evolved in the same manner.

Thousands and thousands of kilometers apart yet still primitive tribes everywhere learn to start a fire the very same way by rubbing some sticks together.

Whether it's the hand drill or the more advanced fire bow.

Charring the porcupine's outer layer allows for the San to remove dangerous disease-harboring ticks and sharp quills to safely get the most meat possible.

That's the best way to get the quills out.

Just drop the animal on the fire, burn off all of the quills, and then you can pop 'em out real easy.

Otherwise it'd be pretty tough.

That's best way to do it.

One of the great rewards of hunting around the world is having an immediate meal right on the spot.

The skin and fat though a bit grizzly is very high and rich and energy.

And who knows when the last time these men have had such a meal.

Today they've earned it.

They'll be happy to bring the catch back to the village.

Chewy.

It looks like it's pure fat.

I bet that's just getting your mouth watering now, isn't it?

So now we head back after having our porcupine lunch.

I was expecting to eat turtle for lunch.

Why eat turtle when you have porcupine?

So we're headin' back in the heat of the day.

In the middle of the day.

It's gonna be a bit of a hike.

Loaded down with porcupine and turtle.

It was a good hunt.

They're very happy.

Bring back two full porcupines to the village is important.

That helps to preserve this traditional way of life.

All activities are linked in a web of desert survival that is as delicate as it is tough.

This includes the trance dance ceremony.

I'm getting closer to learning if I have what it takes to connect with the ancients.

To learn from the true masters of survival.

This hunt was just the first step in connecting with the San Bushmen of the Kalahari.

I gotta tell ya that walk home was exhausting.

I'm completely parched and dehydrated.

They just look like they're still comin' back from a regular stroll.

You know when the San Bushmen talk about their forefathers and about how the very, very, very, first, first, first, first person, all the way back to the beginning passed the knowledge down to them now.

They may very well be speaking about the actual very first person not even knowing it.

(exhilarating music) It's now time to move further through the Kalahari desert to meet up with another group of San.

This village incorporates cattle into their survival and even farming.

(San singing in Khoisan language) The air and the atmosphere is more tense.

They're not just focused on hunting and gathering here.

This group is different.

These are the San healers, the Shaman, and they practice the trance dance.

(intense music) For a week now I've been in the Kalahari desert, surviving and learning from the San people.

Now I'm about to partake in the traditional trance dance.

These Bushmen have shown the trance dance to outsiders before, but this is different.

They know I'm here to not only watch but to learn and not only to learn but to find the path communicating with the ancients.

To connect with their masters of survival.

(man speaking in Khoisan language) So far so good.

It looks like they've accepted my words that I want...

I come here with respect and then I come here honoring them and that I want to learn and share in what they do to try to understand their culture better by being part of a trance dance.

So to begin.

The trance serves as a direct communication to the spirit world.

The San believe their soul's journey through space and time to the world of the ancients to give them insight and wisdom for survival.

Modern man has lost his ability to talk to the spirit world.

The San's devotion to the trance dance can lead me back.

They say the ancients are willing to talk if I am willing to dance.

The purpose of the trance is to gain insight and healing by journeying into the spirit world and connecting with the ancients.

The true masters of survival.

It's also known as half death.

The spirit of the dancer actually departs on a visionary journey to acquire knowledge.

All I have to do is remain open.

They'll go into the trance and they'll work hard to put the spirits into me.

That'll keep me strong.

The men circle the women with short, heavy footfalls.

The rattles surrounding their ankles pulsing and stressing each beat.

Their bodies hunched forward with arms close to their sides are tightly flexed waiting to fall into trance.

It's the women's singing and clapping that brings them to a frenzy.

It's so hot that they describe an energy boiling up their spinal columns and into their heads.

As this spirit rises, it overcomes them and they lose themselves to the trance.

Years ago this Shaman lost his arm due to a self-inflicted stab into the bicep with a poison arrow.

He was distraught over having beaten up one of the village members and he wanted to punish himself.

(San sing in Khoisan language) From the sheer physical exhaustion combined with the heat of the day, he's reaching the trance.

At this time, a man's body is indestructible.

He can walk through fire, rub hot coals against his body.

Shaking he finally falls into the comatose state known as half death.

The other Shaman explained to me that this is his actual first full trance after years of trying.

Perhaps it was an outsider's presence.

Perhaps just the heat of the day but he's finally reached something he's been trying for his entire life.

He was a Shaman in training until this day.

He's now reached full Shaman status.

There are times when Shamans will burn themselves horribly.

They described seeing themselves walking through the sky, their bodies left as empty vessels impervious to the pain.

The dance is relentless.

I'm feeling only the pain of exhaustion.

The heat in this desert is intense.

For hours and hours it goes on right into the night where it's one foot after the other circling for hours without end.

No distraction from the trance.

After traveling the harsh landscape of the Kalahari desert and participating in a successful hunt, I finally find myself attempting an out-of-body experience through the powerful San Bushmen ceremony known as the trance dance.

The healers have reminded me over and over again that I may not be strong enough to keep up the pace.

(stick thumps on ground) It's been nearly 10 hours of constant dancing and all the rhythms and the movements are familiar to me now.

I'm not trancing, but I am lost in the rhythm, and the heat, and the sweat, and the eerie singing, and the women never stop.

Their endurance is nearly inhuman.

The Shaman constantly touch me intending to put their spirits into me into my soul.

They say it's their honor to have someone take an interest in a vanishing practice.

So they focused on me, taught me, put spirits into me, chase demons out of me.

This stranger from the outside world who wants to connect with their spirit world.

With their lives of survival.

And in the end showed me the path to connecting with the ancients.

It'll be up to me if I continue to take it.

It'll be up to me if I utilize their teaching in my own world.

The wisdom of the ancients knows no political or geographical boundary.

The ancients are always there ready to be accessed, ready to impart knowledge, but only if I seek them out.

The men are connecting to what they consider to be the spirit world.

To appease the spirits, where do they need to hunt?

Where can they find water?

How can they survive?

(San singing in Khoisan language and clapping) All right.

So that was very intense and to walk through that experience and to dance through that experience from beginning to end you can't go through this kind of spiritual, physical, musical effect without it coming back on you again and again in life.

And it will come back on me many times.

I'm gonna leave the San now to their own trances.

(intense music) Crossing the sands of time I've walked in the footsteps of ghosts of the past, circling the fires of what may be the last generation of San Shamans.

(water splashing) (upbeat music)