Worthless Guide to Survival - Part 2: Jungles

By Henry
The Jungles of the world may seem like a lively and fun place to visit, but they can seem cold and uninviting when you are lost inside one. This is part 2 of my survival series, and here I will give you the inside scoop on how you can survive being lost in the jungle. This article will also not contain the phrase “Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!” because it is ridiculous. The jungle has no bears except if you count koala bears or pandas. Are they jungle bears? Probably.

Part 1 – Bears
Part 2 – Jungles
Part 3 – Mountains
Part 4 – Urban
Part 5 – Island




Keep Out
This first tip might seem obvious, but it might be good for shut-ins and children to read: The easiest way to survive in the jungle is to not go into the jungle. What this means is, if you can, I would walk around any jungles you come across. Don’t whine and complain just because it might take a month to walk around the edge of some jungles; if you do you are a child. You can usually see (and hear) a jungle from a long ways away and if you do, don’t go in unless it’s completely necessary. When would it be necessary?

1. You are on a boat piloted by Jon Voight and Ice Cube and they want to go in. What can you do? You aren’t going to fight Jon Voight
   
   
2. You need to go in and rescue a group of researchers that went in to study a group of insane and aggressive white gorillas (great idea, idiot!)
   
   
3. You are traveling through the jungle up a river up a jungle which is supposed to be symbolic of your decent into madness or something

This goes double for those of you who are in aircraft of any kind. Don’t try to fly into the jungle with a plane because you will most likely scare away all the animals and beasts of all kinds will flow into your propeller. No creature deserves this. Well, maybe one of those a-hole grizzly bears but there definitely none of them around jungles. I bet that would teach them to tear a man limb from limb if you sucked a few of them into a jet engine though.


Clothing
What should you wear in a jungle? Well aside from the Khaki short shorts you should have one of those safari hats and really long knee socks and khaki short-shorts. Also grow a thick jungle mustache (but no beard please).


I hear it also gets very cold at night in the rainforest so bring along a winter coat and some furry boots to keep your feet warm. If you are a nice-looking woman I would ask that you wear only a thin shirt and that the shirt get all torn up on brambles and things as you travel. That would be great.


Foraging
If you run out of food you can forage for some, just like in olden times. There are 3 sources for food: Plants and animals and hallucinogenic plants. If you aren’t sure about what plants are safe to eat; just remember this rhyme “Don’t eat any plants.” For animals, eat whatever you want. I seem to remember something about brightly colored animals being poisonous too. If you aren’t sure, lick them first. Hallucinogenic plants should be your last resort. After you consume them the terrors of the jungle will either be amplified significantly or dulled until they are meaningless. Staggering around the jungle screaming racial slurs at giant beetles might seem preferable to starving to death, but it is important to remember that beetles have rights too.

 

Day & Night
In the day jungles are sweltering hot, sticky, loud, and full of bugs. But at night, jungles are pitch black, sticky, loud, full of bugs, and glimmering green and red eyes glare out at you from the darkness. These eyes could either be harsh natives or a sasquatch (more on these in a later guide) or even giant spiders. In honor of this, the only way I would travel at night is if you have Bilbo’s sword Sting, and since this sword is a fictional object in a book, I think you’d better stick to walking during the day.


Reference Films
As far as traveling goes there are also a couple of movies you can watch which might prepare you for the horrors of the jungle:

• Jungle 2 Jungle
  
  Home Improvement superstar and ex-con Tim Allen stars in this light-hearted version of Tarzan for kids. Tim is a guy who travels to the jungle for some reason and kidnaps a native white kid for a slave. But it turns out he loves the kid (in a nonsexy way!) and soon they begin to ride on rollercoasters and have food fights and finally help to foil a ring of jewel thieves. Actually now that I I think about it, that stuff was probably from that Jonathan Taylor Thomas movie Getting Even With Dad but who cares.
  
  
• Goodbye Earl
  
  This isn’t a movie and it isn’t related to jungles (it’s a song by the Dixie Chicks) but I thought I’d put it in here because it’s so messed up! The song is a story about this mountain trash woman who falls in love with some drunk and gets married to him because she obviously isn’t too bright. Then she gets all indignant when he starts to abuse her! Like what the hell did you expect was going to happen, you dumb broad!? If you go around marrying dudes named Earl straight out of high school, you’d better start learning to take a few punches if you ask me.
  Anyway, she and her friend decide to get back at the abusive husband, so what do they do? They murder him! That’s right, you marry some drunk, he beats you up, and so you murder him! Why don’t you kill yourself too lady, it’s half your fault! I’m not a big fan of guys who slap woman around either, but killing the guy seems to be excessive don’t you think?
  Then, after they commit premeditated murder on an innocent man and cover it up, they are free to finally live out their dream of opening some kind of stand and selling food along the highway. Now you know you’re ignorant white trash when your deepest fantasy involves murdering an abusive husband and opening a fruit stand. But back to jungles:
  
  
• Delta Force 2
  
  This film gives you good advice on jungle survival if you are a supersoldier. It stars Charles “Chuck” Norris as he runs around shooting evil Columbian drug cartel guys with handlebar mustaches. Maybe I should clarify: I do not mean that Chuck Norris runs around shooting members of a South American drug cartel USING HANDLEBAR MUSTACHES as ammunition; but instead that the vast majority of the cartel members sport a handlebar mustache, and that they are subsequently shot by Chuck Norris. Whether or not this has anything to do with the mustaches themselves I cannot say, but I am pretty sure that Chuck’s character didn’t have any sort of vendetta against men who would choose to wear a handlebar mustache (but could you blame him if he did) and that their deaths most likely occur because they play bad guys in a Chuck Norris film and thus have no recourse but to shoot at Mr. Norris, miss, and then die.
  
  
• Jungle Fever
  
  I haven’t seen this movie but as far as I know it has something to do with a black guy and a white woman who get lost in the jungle and then want to be married. But to their horror, all the animals in the jungle council vote against them being allowed to be married because interracial marriage is against ape law. Then the two humans escape from their cages by bending the bars (the dumb monkeys made them from sticks) and run away to the ocean and Charlton Heston screams at the Empire State Building. The film is directed by Spike Lee.

This is the end of Part II in my survival series: Jungles. If you have any more questions for me feel free to send them in using the contact form at the bottom of the page, and I will post your question and an answer. I will also not be ending this section by warning you to “Be careful” and then adding “it’s a jungle out there” because if I did I would be a terrible, terrible human being. Thank you.

Continue to Part 3