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00:29Transcription by ESO. Translation by —
00:54Transcription by ESO. Translation by —
01:29Transcription by ESO. Translation by —
01:30I set out with a mission to go pole to pole and uncover the secrets at our planet's extremes.
01:38And I've discovered most from the people who live there.
01:42My ancestors drew over 4,000 rock paintings here. We are looking at images which are over 30,000 years
01:52old.
01:52That's magnificent.
01:56So now I've come to meet a group whose ancestors were around when woolly mammoths and saber-toothed tigers roamed
02:05the earth.
02:08So what do you see when you look at this?
02:11This is a picture of how the sand used to live. Over there on top, these are the animals we
02:17have lived with. Elephants, giraffes.
02:21This is a group of men dancing. A woman carrying a baby. And seeing these handprints, I feel connected to
02:28my ancestors.
02:29So this is the story of my people. That's what they've put up here for us, the younger generation, to
02:35come and witness this.
02:44The sand are the first inhabitants of Southern Africa. We are one of the oldest populations on the planet.
02:53The sand are pretty impressive. That's quite a life span.
03:00When I think about successful people, I picture Olympic athletes or entrepreneurs.
03:07But if endurance is your measure, the sand are some of the most successful people to ever walk the earth.
03:15I want to find out the secret to their success.
03:35On the penultimate trip of my pole-to-pole journey, I've come to Southern Africa, to one of the most
03:43extreme environments on earth.
03:47The Kalahari.
03:50So where exactly are we headed?
03:53We are heading to go and see the narrow sand.
03:56The original hunter-gatherers.
03:59Got it.
04:01How similar to how you grew up is what we're going to see?
04:07Exactly the same.
04:11I was born under a tree.
04:14I grew up well with my parents as a nomadic child, as a hunter-gatherer.
04:19We were on the move constantly, looking for food, foraging.
04:26Some days I went easy like a week with no proper food.
04:31We had pet scorpions when we were growing up.
04:34We used to make them fight.
04:37Living in Kalahari is hardcore.
04:40It's not for everyone.
04:43It seems like the desert would be a hard place to live, you know.
04:49It's not always easy.
04:50You have to really work hard for your food, and you have to save it if there's a need to.
04:56Yeah.
04:57As far as the eye could see, it's just barren.
05:04The Kalahari Desert means the great thirst, the waterless place.
05:10And that's about right.
05:13It just seems brutal to try to live there.
05:17Yeah, it seems very difficult, but the same people know the land.
05:24Yeah.
05:24So I'll teach you what to hunt, what to gather, and how to stay safe.
05:30Yeah.
05:31I'm setting a challenge that we only eat what we find in the bush today.
05:36All right.
05:36Only eat what we find.
05:39Yeah.
05:39Eat off the land.
05:41Yeah.
05:42If you are happy with that.
05:43I trust you.
05:45I don't cook.
05:47Never been hunting.
05:50I don't know what I would do if I had to, like, kill my food.
05:55We're just going to eat vegetables.
06:25We're just going to eat vegetables.
06:28Oh, that's perfect.
06:34Oh, that's good.
06:36Oh, that's right.
06:36Oh, that's good.
06:38Will.
06:39Caroma.
06:40Charama.
06:41You look good.
06:44There's the click.
06:45All right.
06:47Bang!
07:01Will, Will Smith, nobody can say Will Smith?
07:14Will, there's different clans of the sand.
07:18These guys, they were the narrow, I am Bukakwe.
07:21Bukakwe.
07:22I want you to meet Kakao.
07:24Kakao.
07:25It's a pleasure for me to be here.
07:28From where I come from, this seems like a hard life.
07:33Does it feel like a hard way to live for everyone?
07:59Yeah, that's beautiful.
08:04In the future.
08:05Kakao ziing.
08:07Oh.
08:07I love Kakao.
08:14I love Kakao.
08:26I love the house.
08:34If I had to learn how to survive out here, could you teach me?
08:42My hands?
08:49Yeah, yeah, it's very soft.
08:52It's funny.
08:53They asked to see my hands and feet.
08:57You know, that's not normally something I get asked to show.
09:02Yeah.
09:03Yeah, that's not good.
09:05Yeah, that's not good.
09:07They're like, oh.
09:09They're like, that's a useless foot.
09:19I don't do bare feet.
09:21I keep my socks on on the beach.
09:23He said, you got to rub that in the sand.
09:27I'm not going to make it.
09:29I'm not going to make it.
09:30I have soft, non-survival feet.
09:33They're not Kalahari ready.
09:37That's bad.
09:38But these are the only feet I got, so you're going to have to teach me how to survive.
09:44So, Kakao, is there some, you know, beautiful secret about your way of life?
09:50Yo, Kaka Mataga.
09:53Kaka Mataga.
09:54All right, so I got, are we, are we ready to begin my education?
09:58Let's go, eh?
09:58All right, I need my walking stick.
10:03Looking around, it's crazy.
10:07No cars, no phones, no tech developed in the last century.
10:13All right.
10:15We're heading into the bush to hunt dinner for a whole village with nothing but a couple
10:22of sticks.
10:23I just can't see how that's going to work.
10:38Ah, there we go, see.
10:41That's part of why I wouldn't be good out here.
10:44Just a little bit too tall.
10:47Yeah.
10:48You descend are very short people, eh?
10:51Yeah.
10:55I've never been hunting.
10:57One time, I guess I was probably 22, and Quincy Jones took me fishing.
11:04I caught the fish.
11:06I was like, oh, wow, this is amazing.
11:09It goes down, and Quincy dropped a rock on it.
11:14I was like, oh, they're just walking through the bushes.
11:19Ah, ah, those things are sharp.
11:21This is how you use that, too.
11:23It will?
11:23Oh, it's like, ah, got to use the stick to put, okay.
11:25I'm just, I'm not that dude.
11:31Yeah.
11:32It doesn't look like there's any food whatsoever out here.
11:38The Kalahari is a tough place to live.
11:42It is the largest unbroken stretch of sand on the planet.
11:46It becomes so hot, it can get up to 120 degrees Fahrenheit.
11:53The dust can be so strong that you can't even see the next person next to you.
11:58You can't even see.
11:59We need knowledge and experience and skills to know where to find the food.
12:13So, there are lots of tracks here.
12:16Lots of tracks that have been here.
12:20The sand is like a goose pepper to us.
12:24It tells us who walked here and how long ago.
12:35This is my first hunt, so I don't know exactly how to do this.
12:42You use the wind direction.
12:44Wind is top of the range.
12:46Yeah, I saw see this.
12:47Yeah, yeah, get that.
12:49Yes.
12:50So, which way the wind is blowing?
12:51Wind is going that way.
12:53You have to be downwind.
12:55Downwind, got it, got it, got it.
12:56So that the animal don't smell you.
12:58Got it.
12:59You are using a bow and arrow, which you have to be like 20 meter to shoot.
13:05Hunting without modern weapons relies on stealth.
13:09You can only get close enough if you are totally entuned with everything around you.
13:22Akao is an excellent tracker.
13:46Akao is an excellent tracker.
13:58Akao is an excellent tracker.
13:58Those are kudos.
13:59A young male with three females.
14:11I'm still glad I have shoes on though.
14:15This is a, this would be a rough hunt.
14:17With no shoes on.
14:24The quieter you go, the better for your hunt.
14:44That saw us.
14:53I messed it up.
14:55And Kakao looked at me like I was keeping us from eating.
15:03That kudu could have fed Kakao's whole family for a week.
15:08That's a scary prospect that there's no guarantee of food out here.
15:16Will, we are hunter-gatherer.
15:19We have to keep going until we find food.
15:22Yeah.
15:24My first lesson is life out here is tough.
15:30You need resilience, adaptability, and above all, persistence.
15:38The sand have lived here over 100,000 years.
15:42In that time, this place has changed enormously.
15:46There has been volcanic eruptions, heavy droughts, giant earthquakes, and enormous sea level changes.
15:56But the sand have stayed and adapted to every single pressure they had.
16:05It's endurance on a whole new level.
16:11Will, in nature, you have to earn your food.
16:14It's not always easy, but we always find something if you know where to look.
16:19Okay.
16:20Yes.
16:20All right.
16:21I'm going to tune in a little bit.
16:22Help me see the secrets.
16:24First, we have to learn how you put your feet on the ground.
16:29Humans have been touching the ground with bare feet for millions of years.
16:34It's important to be barefoot.
16:36You get connected to nature.
16:38Got it.
16:39Okay.
17:03Kakao told me, when I walk barefoot, I can feel what's moving.
17:09A half mile from here.
17:12That's a very powerful idea.
17:14Now, we all have feet.
17:16But for the sand, they're not just a way to move, but a precision tool to sense the world around
17:25them.
17:26Almost like plugging into the earth to feel what's happening more effectively.
17:38There you go.
17:39There you go.
17:43There you go.
17:43There you go.
17:43There you go.
17:46These guineafow tracks are still very fresh.
17:50They're up, headed that direction.
17:53There you go.
17:58All right.
17:59So they need to snatch that out?
18:00Mm-hmm.
18:00Oh, so hold on.
18:01Sorry.
18:02Let me see.
18:02Sorry.
18:02What's looking?
18:03I come here.
18:05Ah!
18:06Mm!
18:07This is coming.
18:09Come back.
18:11Woo!
18:13Yeah.
18:14Now, it was interesting, because she was, like, sizing me up to see if I would be any help
18:20at all.
18:21Come back.
18:23Come back.
18:24Come back.
18:25Come back.
18:25Come back.
18:26Come back.
18:26This is all bad.
18:28I'm gonna let them, I'm gonna think I'm up there.
18:29Yeah, yeah.
18:30Yeah.
18:35That woman walked up and got that thing out of there so fast.
18:39It was the African equivalent of, move out the way, boy, you don't know what you're
18:44doing.
18:44So I did, and she handled it, thank God.
18:49So, Kakao, what are you making?
18:53Mm-hmm.
19:02I have no idea how that's gonna work.
19:05You don't just put a trap anywhere.
19:08Yeah, yeah.
19:09You have to see what they are digging, and you use that as the bait.
19:13Yeah.
19:15Yeah, it's wild.
19:16That was such intricate knowledge and understanding.
19:21Yeah, I remember doing a lot of this growing up.
19:25I made my first trap when I was about five years old.
19:28My father was my mentor.
19:31My father was my mentor.
19:58is better than that you borrow.
20:01Meaning the things that you learn through actual experience,
20:05that kind of knowledge is really powerful
20:09and the comforts of the city have kind of broken
20:13that basic simplicity in the transfer of knowledge.
20:20That's very cool.
20:24In the modern world, people think success
20:27is having all those fast cars and big houses,
20:32but in Kakao's world, success means understanding the environment.
20:38It's more about knowledge, teaching the youngsters,
20:42passing all the knowledge to them.
20:47They're going to set traps all around here.
20:50We can come and check the traps in the afternoon,
20:53just in case one of the traps has caught something.
20:56That's amazing.
20:58Yeah, if it was up to me, we wouldn't be eating tonight.
21:12Yeah, trying to get some food is an all-day gig.
21:20It's like an oven out here right now.
21:22At least the bird will already be cooked if we catch it.
21:30You look like you're a fisty wheel.
21:34Yeah, definitely.
21:39He can see my lips were all dry.
21:42Can I help with that?
21:43Can I help with the dig out?
21:44Yeah.
21:45All right.
21:45Ouch.
21:48If you are not resourceful to able to store water in the Kalahari,
21:54you're going to die.
21:56Water is gold in the Kalahari.
22:00It can be up to eight months without rain.
22:04When the rains come,
22:07the water is soaked up by the Kalahari sands.
22:12Animals can track over 300 miles in search of a drink.
22:17But we have the secrets to overcome this.
22:22We store water in the ostrich eggshell and bury it for later.
22:26Wow.
22:28That's fantastic.
22:32The hardest problem solved with the most ingenious simple solution.
22:38I've never seen anything like that before.
22:41One that probably worked just as well 100,000 years ago as it does today.
22:47That's amazing.
23:08That's fantastic.
23:16This will be our meal.
23:18It will be your meal tonight.
23:20Wow.
23:20Yeah.
23:21That counts as a good score for today.
23:24That's a very good score.
23:26That will make me happy.
23:28That also makes me happy.
23:30It's an achievement.
23:31We have got something to eat.
23:33That's enough for how many people?
23:35Depends on our numbers.
23:37Everyone should have a piece,
23:38but at least we have a meal to share.
23:42We?
23:45For you to survive as a hunter-gatherer,
23:48you have to share what you have with one another.
23:53As a child, there was times where I was very hungry and I was very thirsty.
23:57There was also times when I thought we are going to die, you know, because there's nothing.
24:05Kalahari taught the Sen to be cooperative, to be caring to one another.
24:15When you take everything away, all of the modern comforts and you get down to the basics of human survival,
24:25things just get really simple and really clear.
24:28How much we actually need each other.
24:33It's not different in New York, you know, you need each other just as much.
24:40It just feels like you don't.
24:43Yeah, all for one and one for all is a real idea in the Kalahari.
24:54There's many pieces of chicken and turkey that I've eaten.
24:59I've never seen this process before.
25:08Mmm.
25:11Wow.
25:19Yeah, I'm a city boy.
25:21I can see that right now.
25:23I think I would be in charge of entertainment.
25:28If y'all go hunt, you know, y'all can prepare the food.
25:35Oh, man.
25:43I've got some matches in my bag.
25:45Is it?
25:58Yeah.
26:00Oh, you're going to take time, is that?
26:02Yeah.
26:02All right, hold up.
26:04Hold up.
26:05All right, hold up.
26:06Hold up.
26:07Hold up.
26:09Hold up.
26:10Hold up.
26:12Hold up.
26:14Hold up.
26:14Hold up.
26:15The tip broke off.
26:17All right.
26:17Oh!
26:18OK.
26:18All right, you got it.
26:19You got it.
26:20You got it.
26:22Oh, look at that.
26:23Look at home.
26:24Oh, there you go.
26:26We're not going to fight yet because of me.
26:28Yeah.
26:28Hold up.
26:29Hold up.
26:32There it is.
26:36Wow.
26:38That's just an ember in there.
26:45That's fantastic.
26:47Come on, man.
26:48Come on.
26:48Come on.
26:59I am in awe of Kakao's ability to just conjure life in this landscape.
27:08Wow.
27:08Wow, we walked into the bush holding nothing but a few sticks, and by the end of the day, we
27:16were cooking a full dinner.
27:20Survival is not about the possessions you own, it's about what you know.
27:25There's a self-reliance that develops where you really know you can make it no matter what.
27:33You know, one of the reasons they're the longest surviving group on Earth is because of that resilience.
27:43It's such a different way to live, and one that's barely left a mark on the planet for all of
27:50those years.
27:51That was a new kind of revelation for me.
28:00I grew up in this lifestyle.
28:04You find food and you survive.
28:07You see your family, you see your grandkids, you teach them how to survive.
28:17But the truth is, hunter-gatherer populations are in dramatic decline across the world.
28:24This could be the last generation of sand to still live in the Kalahari.
28:35This is how to live in the Kalahari.
28:38The captain is on the right side of the ship.
29:05This changes are happening so fast that my younger brothers, they do not get
29:10the last bit of the raw hunter-gatherer lifestyle ahead.
29:41Now I live in a town, I'm a man that crosses two worlds.
29:50I start talking about my origin.
29:54I can see myself, remembering the best moments I've had.
30:06My parents, I thought they were poor, but as a grown-up, I just sit and realize they
30:16were able to give us food and give us protection without having nothing.
30:25Now I realize my parents were rich of knowledge.
30:49That's it? That's too much? Cheers!
30:56To live, you don't need many things. You have to judge between your wants and your needs.
31:04It's really nice to sit and watch the same people and the love they share with the little they have.
31:11It would be a real tragedy if the cave paintings were all that remained of this.
31:22You know, as life moves forward and things change and progress is inevitable, you know,
31:31the question is how do we maintain the knowledge and wisdom of the ages.
31:46We're not going to go back to being hunter-gatherers.
31:50That's amazing.
31:51But spending time with the sand made me think again about the history we tell ourselves.
31:58Thank you, thank you.
32:02The Egyptians built towering pyramids.
32:06The Romans laid the foundations for great cities.
32:12And our modern machines mean we can now reach beyond the sky.
32:17But alongside that, there is also a deep history of people successfully living with our planet rather than trying to
32:29conquer it.
32:33Those of us who live in concrete jungles, what is the idea that we're missing?
32:39Humans are not separate from nature.
32:43We are nature.
32:46That is the secret of all the sand.
32:56Bring it in.
33:08Now, this is a real moment.
33:15Theモデルazz of the
33:16plot in theありがとうございましたely.
33:19Let's see.
33:46North Florida, just the hell of us.
33:48The ambition of the entire journey is gigantic.
33:54That was a big one.
33:59This could be a breakthrough for climate change.
34:02How can you not be all in?
34:04There's no way this is a good idea.
34:08Come on, Will. Come on, Will.
34:10If somebody offered me that script as a movie,
34:14I'd be like, come on, man. Come on, really?
34:16Three, two, one.
34:20Descend at the Met, David.
34:21Go.
34:21Get out.
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