I have a huge man-crush on Bear Grylls.

And I'm not ashamed to admit it.

The Discovery Channel's Man vs. Wild is without a doubt one of the best shows out there. Last night I saw Bear take on Mount Kilauea and the Kenyan Savanna. Kilauea was one of the strangest environments I've ever seen - truly an alien landscape. Bear crossed the lava fields, typical of shots I've seen before, but then he reached a point where the lava was no longer flowing underneath. There were these big holes in the ground, old "lava tubes," which were now home to a significant amount of flora. Bear then made a little torch from a stick and a few oily nuts and explored the caves. He came upon an enormous root system coming down from the ceiling and collected water that was just dripping off them. He said it was some of the purest water one could get. It was amazing. Later he found avocados growing in a stand of jungle, climbed up and jammed one while in the tree. We learned that he loves avocados, and if he were stranded on a desert island (if? I think I saw this one) he would take avocados, mayonnaise(?!), and chocolate. He also smoked out some bees and filched their honeycomb. Pretty sweet.



The funniest part of the episode was when he was about to cross a section of the lava field with liquid hot magma right underfoot. As he told the camera crew to stay back, he said, "Test the ground before you walk across. If your boot melts, then it's too hot to cross." Thanks for the tip, Grylls. He then proceeded to leap across the lava and his boot burst into flames. Good times!*

The African Savanna episode was also fascinating. Bear parachuted into Kenya (by way of a back flip off a hot air balloon, immediately preceded by, "The last time I parachuted into Africa, I broke my back in three places.") and strolled off across the arid terrain. The interesting thing about the savanna is that evidently everything will kill you. Doesn't matter if the animal is a carnivore, herbivore, an obese serpent or even a tiny little mosquito, every encounter with the wildlife there has a high degree of potential lethality.

Because he is clinically insane and clinically awesome, this didn't faze Bear, as he came across the following: a herd of elephants, lionesses, white rhinos, and hippos. In every situation he slowly approached the animals, talked about the warning signs that they may charge, and without exception warned his camera crew, "We're too close. Move back. We need to get out of here." I didn't realize that elephants were so prone to charging, and being run down by the herd matriarch didn't look like it would be very fun. His advice to evade a charging rhino? "Stand your ground until the last second and then dive to the side and find cover." Um, right. His advice to handle a lioness sprinting at you at 60 feet/second? "Stand tall, spread your arms out and yell. They are chasers by instinct. You will not be able to outrun them, your only hope is to bluff them off." Um, right. One swipe of a lioness's claw can eviscerate a man. Mosquitoes carrying malaria account for one million deaths per annum. The puff adder, a lazy, fat snake, has enough venom to kill six men and can strike its body length in under a second. It is highly camouflaged and nonagressive, leading people to stumble upon it and incite an attack. Without antivenom, the victim will die within a day. Good times!*

Also, Bear reached new heights of grimness in this episode in his quest for food and water. I don't know if you've seen the Mojave Desert episode, in which he keeps his head cool by urinating on his shirt and wrapping it around his head. That was kind of grim. But on the savanna, Bear saw some vultures circling around the carcass of a freshly killed zebra. He knelt down and cut off chunks of raw zebra and just started jamming it right then and there. Despite his gagging a couple times and spitting out "a nasty bit," he leapt up after several chunks of flesh with an "Awesome!" Looking for water, Bear came across a huge ball of fresh elephant dung. He knelt down, took the ball of poop in his hands, held it over his open mouth, and squeezed the fluid out. "Not the best drink I've ever had," and the fluid may contain harmful parasites. Good times!*

I love this show.

P.S. Mean Rachel, I'm sure you've been here already, but check out www.BearGrylls.com.

*I know, I blatantly stole this from Simmons. Couldn't help it.