Wilderness Survival: Live Lesson Turned Life Lesson

Aldo Dp
Aldo Dp
Nov 4 · 15 min read

Basic Survival Course

Survival Skills Indonesia — Batch XIII

Coach Mike Instagram @coachmike_id

This story began when I was scrolling through Instagram and came across Coach Mike’s account, I decided to follow him. A couple of days later, he posted about a survival training that would take place at the Baluran National Park in Banyuwangi.

For the past 5 years I have been going on outdoor recreations, and so immediately I knew that this was the kind of training I really needed.

If you ask me why I wasted my time and money to participate in this training, the answer is simple.

I have loved going on outdoor recreations ever since I graduated high school, albeit never having received any lesson whatsoever on Outdoor Recreations 101. I was never properly educated on the safety procedures and measures necessary to survive in the wilderness; I simply had a little bit of theoretical knowledge from textbooks as well as other people who shared to me their experiences.

On September 5th, I departed from Jakarta for Banyuwangi via Yogyakarta by train, which took about 24 hours in total, making it my longest train trip by far and arrived at midnight on September 6th at Buana Homestay, welcome by Pak Totok, our host, who is an ex Jagawarna (ranger) of the Baluran National Park.

The day that followed would be the first day of our training. We started with a Flag Opening Ceremony of the Basic Survival Course batch XIII led by Tante Fefe, and continued with a full-day theoretical lessons in a classroom that ran from the morning all the way until 2AM the next day, which was taught by Om Wawan and Om Mike.

Flag Opening Ceremony of the Basic Survival Course batch XIII
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BSC Batch XIII + Mentors
From left to right (top) : Om Asmoyo, Om Wawan, Oji, Lanang, Me, Anton, Coach Mike, Om Muryanto, Ringga, Tante Fefe
From left to right (bottom) : Dok Ismu, Mukidi, Arif, Dwi, Sakti, Wahyu

The lesson that really got to me on the basic skills of survival was that in order to survive, you need to build a Positive Mental Attitude (PMA), and that is the number one priority if you want to be a survivor.

They gave us a book that was really meticulous in each and every single sentence, not lacking a single word. That was how it needed to be done, since they were responsible for all of the information that is provided in the book. In a way, the book was like a bible: we wouldn’t understand the contents inside it and we could be misled if we didn’t have a teacher to guide us in understanding the teachings that the book contained.

The next day would be our second day. We were transported to the Baluran National Park and had our last proper lunch at the 07°50’40.3" S 114°27’37.3"E. I really treasured this moment as I was aware that the next 4 days and 3 nights were going to be hell. An absolute hell. After we had our lunch, we were divided into 3 teams, each one consisting of 4 people. I was teamed up with Mukidi as my buddy pair, and the other 2 people in my team would be Om Muryanto and Sakti, who were buddy pairs. The purpose of the buddy pairing system was to enable each one to pay attention to the health and mental condition of his buddy. We began to walk to our first camp located at 07°50’11.8"S 114°27’53.0"E and began to learn our first lesson, which was on how to start a fire using a fire starter with Ferrocium Rod. To start a fire, we needed to gather tinders, twigs, and logs that could be found in the surrounding area. For the tinder, we could use shredded bamboos (which I found to be the most ignitable material), coconut fibers, or leaves.

Sea Foraging

After everyone succeeded in starting a fire, we were told to start foraging on the beach. We found a lot of sea animals such as sea cucumbers, sea urchins, and conchshells. Those were the easiest to catch, but some of us managed to catch a Mooray Eel and some small fish, which were harder to catch.

Sea Foraging
Only 600ml for 4 Days & 3 Nights

We finished at around 5.30 and it was sunset already, so we were instructed to cook what we got from foraging and eat them. After that, we were called upon and asked to take out the foods, drinks, and phones from our backpacks since we were not allowed to use or consume them, and we would only be given 600ml of water for the next 4 days. At first I thought I’d be able to handle it, since I thought it would be just like the times when I would go on a hike: I rarely drank my water and only ate to satisfy my hunger. As it turns out, I was wrong, and this story that I’m going to recount next will give a detailed description of why that is.

Later at around 8PM, we were separated from each other at the wildlife crossing, and we had to light a fire by ourselves and build a shelter. I wasn’t as frustrated by the thought of wild animals passing by in front of or behind me, or some sort of non-humanly presence (i.e. those who are the “original” residents of the area), as I was by the energy I had spent for about 3 hours since I was aware that I still had another 3 days and I hadn’t even reached the savannah yet.

After 3 hours had passed, Om Muha and Leo patroled each camp to check on us. They gave me a hand in starting a fire upon finding out that I hadn’t done so. I was really glad that they did, because not long after, the fire became big enough that it formed a coal, and I could sleep and gave my exhausted body (and soul) a good rest.

In the morning of the next day, we shared with each other our “Blackout” experience camping out alone during the night. After that, we were instructed to perform transpiration and distillation. Both of them are methods to get drinkable water.

Transpiration method

We used a large, transparent plastic bag to put many leaves on the branches of trees inside the plastic, and then we would tightly wrap the plastic under direct contact of sunlight. The water contained in the leaves would evaporate and get trapped inside the plastic.

After we performed transpiration, we were led by Tante Fefe to go foraging in the forest. We got young Tamarin leaves (it was a little hard to find young ones since the monkeys had eaten most of them), Beluntas leaves, Ketapang nuts, and some sort of seeds that were located by the roots of Pandan trees. We also got some aloe vera; unfortunately, the temperature was really high and so they were dried up and became hard to eat, since we would need to slice them up without touching the sap, otherwise they would taste really bitter. Most of us ended up leaving the aloe vera be and not eating them.

After we went foraging, we performed distillation.

Dwi & water Distillation

In order to perform distillation, we would need to pour sea water into an aluminum bottle until the bottle is half full. Then, we would put the waterpass and wrap it with some leaves just before the tips, and then shove it into the mouth of the bottle so that the seawater doesn’t evaporate outside of the bottle nor touch the waterpass. Then, we would place the bottle by the fire in a 45-degree angle, and place the other tip of the waterpass to another container so that we could drink the evaporated fresh water.

We’d had multiple attempts in doing the distillation method yet only succeeded in getting about 300ml of water, and even that took about 3 hours.

Performing distillation under a high temperature beside a fire, needless to say drained a lot of our energy.

After we were done performing distillation, we took our transpiration plastic, and to our surprise, it had produced around 3 liters of water, which really relieved our dehydration since the volume of water that we had was below 400ml.

We proceeded in our journey by heading to the location of S 07°49'20.6" / E 114°27'41.1" in the evening. While we were on our way there Om Wahyu felt that his foot was hurting, and Om Shakti got a heatstroke, so our mentor took care of them on the coastline of the Bama beach. That brief timeout was also used to go foraging on the beach, and we were shown the technique to obtain water from the root of a Santan tree. We would simply cut the root, and there would be drops of water dripping at the end of the root. We treasured every single drop of the water since we were all running out of water (each person had less than 300ml left with them), and we hadn’t even reached the Savannah yet.

Drops of water from the root of Santan Tree

Our mouth stopped producing saliva and started to feel incredibly dry.

We continued heading into Camp 2 through a hill with the help of webbing.

We arrived at 07°49'20.6" S 114°27'41.1" E at around 6 or 7PM. The camping area was full of Acacia trees covered with thorns, and also tall dry grass. It was nighttime, but I could tell that if it had been the daytime, it would have only been a matter of time until someone collapsed, since there was no tree tall enough to shelter us from the scorching heat. Our mentor told us that the area was home to many wild animals such as tigers, deers, and boars.

For this night, we camped out with our respective team and we agreed it would be a good idea to take turn keeping guard of the area and ensuring the fire did not extinguish. We decided that 2 people would have a shift of 2 hours while the other 2 would rest from 7PM to 3AM the next day. While staying awake, we tried to perform distillation from the seawater that we had kept earlier before coming here. We didn’t get that much water — each person could only get like 6 spoons of water — however, it felt like the tastiest water we’d ever had in our whole lives, and it really boosted our mood.

We also heard the laughs and talks of our mentor, and we heard sounds that sounded like a snort, which we believed to NOT be made by our mentor and we assumed it was the sound of a wild animal. The next day, Om Mike confirmed that it was either a tiger or an ajag (a type of Indonesian coyote).

And then came one of the most frustrating days in my life: day 3 of the BSC. We woke up in the morning; it was still around 7AM but the heat from the sun was scorching and pierced through our bodies.

07°49'20.6" S 114°27'41.1" E

We started performing transpiration again since the heat would help speed up the transpiration of the water. After we were done, we all gathered in one place to continue our lesson in signaling.

Heliograph
King of Tambora & Fresnel Lens

We tried out using a heliograph to give signal using the sunlight to a plane or a ship. Then, we learned how to use a Fresnel lens. We would be using the sun’s heat to generate fire using a Fresnel lens, so it needs to be really hot. In addition, we would need extra patience in the whole process and extra focus in directing the light into one spot of a bunch of grass — preferably the dark ones since the color black would absorb more heat. All of us were rewarded with water from a shot glass (around 100ml) since we had successfully created a fire from a Fresnel lens.

The next lesson was how to make a signal using fire. The idea was to create 3 campfires to produce thick, white smoke; which came from burned green leaves. We all succeeded in doing so and afterwards were told to rest until the evening. It was 11AM, and we returned to the camping site of our respective teams. At this point, I did not have any water left. It felt like the longest day of my life, waiting for the next instruction.

We found a huge tree to shelter us from direct sunlight, but we had a hard time trying to get rest as it was incredibly hot. We were told later by our mentor that the temperature had reached 45,6 degrees. We couldn’t sleep at all, and I was struck by the stressor of a hyper-thermic temperature that I began to doubt if I could finish the course. I thought of giving up, I stopped believing in myself, I began to think that I was weak and that I couldn’t do anything compared to the other participants, and the thirst and hunger only made the already-negative thoughts worse. It was really hard to apply PMA in this condition.

At around 2 or 3 o’clock, we gathered around the mentor’s camp with our transpiration plastic and started packing. We managed to produce around 2 liters of water. While the others were ready, I felt like I didn’t have any strength left in me. It was really hard to just get up and stand on my own two feet. When I tried to walk it felt like the walk you would do when you’ve just woken up from your sleep in the morning — half-consciously — and it was incredibly difficult just to lift an item or move a single muscle of my body. Staggering and almost collapsing, our mentor ordered me to lie down and they gave me 1,5 liters of water with ORS (Oral Rehydration Solution, a type of fluid used to prevent and treat dehydration), and I swallowed it greedily without any hesitation. Yet at the same time as I was drinking it I felt so much like a failure, since my other friends could endure the situation.

Preparation

After I had regained my strength just a little, we continued to walk to 07°49'30.5"S 114°27'43.3"E using maps and compasses with the guidance of Om Mike and his team, who gave us the direction so that we would know which way to go.

Thick Thorny Road

There were the compass man, the flag bearer, and the parang (a type of Indonesian machete) man. The compass man would hold the compass and lead us the way, the flag bearer would walk first to the direction pointed by the compass man, and the parang man would follow suit. Not long after we had walked, my buddy pair told Om Moyo that he had left his bottle at 07°49'20.6"S 114°27'41.1"E, and then he went straight back there without telling the people who were up front. So we waited for him once we were aware of this, but not long after that, an SOS whistle sounded. Om Muha and Om Moyo searched for him and found him going berserk because he couldn’t find the way back and panicked. They tried to calm him down, and the good thing was that he was obedient to our mentor. It took about 30–45 minutes until they arrived back at where we were, and after that we continued our walk and arrived at S 07°49'30.5" / E 114°27'43.3" at around 5.30PM.

As night fell, me and some other people felt really worn out, so the ones who still had strength built a large shelter out of 3 flysheets. On this day, we slept together inside a shelter next to our mentor’s camp. We were told that since we were at the Savannah area and that we were close to the site where ajags and tigers hunt for food, we needed to create a barrier around our camp from acacia branches and woods, as the thorns would be effective in preventing wild animals from entering our camp. After the camp was set up, I went straight to sleep. 2 hours later, I, along with some other participants, was called by a mentor to their camp, and Om Mike checked my pulse, which was at around 100. And normally one’s pulse should be at around 60–100, so they again supplied me with 1,5 liters of water, along with my MRE mango drink sachet and some snack. I regained all of my lost energy, but I still needed a rest, so I went back to our camp. Just before I went to sleep, some people were talking about Arif’s experience getting lost at Mt. Tambora. He’s a funny guy, and at one point he said the F-word, which became, for some reason, the funniest word I’d heard that day. At the same time it also gave me a morale-boost: at that time, I began to fully understand why the mentor and some other people would had said, “We are not superman, we are humans with our own limitations.” It made my depression go away and I could smile and laugh again. And get this: being able to smile and laugh in one of your worst days can really help you overcome your situation. That night passed with us and the mentor taking turns watching over our camp.

And then the last day of our seemingly never-ending, full-of-despair journey, came.

We woke up early in the morning, packed, and did the BSC “water pass ritual” (thanks to Ringga for having agreed to become our “sacrifice”), and then we were briefed for our next journey.

On this day I felt energized as I’d gotten a lot of nutrition the previous night. The journey started at our first meeting point. We passed through the site where ajags and tigers would eat their prey, and we needed to clear away tall, thorny grasses.

We arrived at the meeting point at 07°49'42.8"S 114°27'12.7"E with a view of the Baluran Mountain, which was gorgeous. On top of that, we had a clear view range since the surrounding area was burned down by the ranger due to acacia trees overpopulating the area. We took a break for about 45 minutes, and then we started walking again to our next checkpoint.

Killing Fields
07°49'42.8"S 114°27'12.7"E
Break Time

The sun rose higher, and so we were once again struck by the heat-induced fatigue, and to add to that our compass had led us towards the wrong direction, so we needed to go back so as not to get lost.

Heated Savannah

It was at around 10 o’clock when we arrived at Om Mike’s checkpoint. We were really exhausted, so we were given 1,5 liters of water by the mentor, each person receiving a little over 100ml. To avoid heatstroke, we needed to maintain the cool of our body temperature by taking cover from direct sunlight. After about 45 minutes, we continued our walk to the next checkpoint and arrived at 11 o’clock. We rested for about 2 hours at this checkpoint, and at noon, we were told to take out our foods and drinks that we could eat/drink what we’d brought with us. So this time, at least we got to eat some proper food, which really gave us the amount of energy that we needed.

Naked hungry & thirsty bois

After we were done eating, we continued on our journey, until we saw two things that really elevated our mood and energy: a roof and a building. Never before in my life had I felt SO happy just to see a roof and a building… and the cherry on top? We also saw a WARTEG!

We bought a LOT of drinks and some of us started eating like they’d never had a meal in their lives.

Warteg Bekol!!!

After we were done drinking and eating, we continued on to participate in the closing ceremony.

The speech from Om Moyo was a highly inspiring tearjerker — sure enough, all of us cried hearing it. As for me, it was also the first time I had ever been moved to the tears by someone’s speech, and that fact alone had proven that the experiences that I’d gotten and the things I’d learned from this course has been deeply rooted in my heart.

Batch XIII

Having left the course, I am by no means a superman who can adapt to any situation and condition; I really am still far from perfection. I still need to improve my skills.

But the most tremendous impact that the course has created on me, such that I felt inspired to write down about my experience in this journal, is that ever since then, I have, more than ever, felt incredibly grateful for what I can have in this life. I realize that we need not worry about drinkable water, or about having food, or about things that fall outside of our comfort zone. Now every time I eat and drink, I treasure every drop of water, and I savor every bite of the food I eat.

This concludes the story of my experience undergoing the Basic Survival Course of Survival Skills Indonesia Batch XIII. If you have read this towards the end, I thank you sincerely.

Grammar by : Frederica Sizilia

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