When I booked onto the Woodland Ways Jungle Survival Expedition in the Amazon, I was excited, but I was also genuinely nervous.
The trip was two weeks long, with around ten days spent in the jungle, and unlike some expeditions there wasn’t really any specific training I could do beforehand. Other than making sure I had the right kit, it was mostly a case of turning up and finding out how I would cope.
I knew I wasn’t going into the trip at the fittest I could have been, and with the heat, humidity and physical nature of the expedition, that played on my mind quite a lot before we arrived. Then you step into the Amazon and realise very quickly that the environment itself is going to be one of your biggest challenges.
The heat is the first thing that hits you. It is stifling.
Not simply hot, but heavy. The humidity makes the air feel thick, and even standing still can leave you sweating. I have always found the transition between that sort of heat and air-conditioned rooms or vehicles difficult. Just as your body begins adjusting, you cool it down again, step back outside and get hit by the humidity all over again.
It took time to acclimatise.
The expedition itself was split into several stages. We began with jungle training, then spent time with local indigenous communities, including the Tatuyo, before eventually moving into the final immersion phase.
I deliberately don’t want to explain every element of the trip in detail. I think doing so would take something away from the experience for anyone who goes in the future. Part of an expedition like this is not knowing exactly what is waiting for you. So rather than turning this into a step-by-step account of everything we did, I want to talk more about an aspect of the expedition and what it actually felt like, what I took away from it, and how it changed the way I think about bushcraft.
One of the things that made the expedition so special was the level of experience within the instructor team. The trip was run by Woodland Ways alongside Costa Bushcraft & Survival, with Jason Ingamells representing Woodland Ways and Humberto Costa leading the Brazilian team.
Siquera, Kreknicki, Giuliano, Sgt. Jailton and Humberto Costa
We were surrounded by people with an extraordinary depth of experience in survival, bushcraft and the jungle environment. Costa himself has more than two decades of military and civilian extreme survival experience. Alongside him were Luciano “Tiger”, a military veteran, pilot, jungle survival instructor and television presenter known for his work with Discovery Channel Brazil, and Giuliano Toniolo, an author, survival expert and the pioneer of bushcraft in Brazil, who also acted as our translator. They were joined by other members of the Costa Survival team, including Siquera, Sergeant Jailton, Kreknicki and Gleuber, together creating a vortex of impressive specialist skills.
That level of knowledge made a huge difference.You can stand in the jungle and see an almost overwhelming amount of natural material around you, but knowing what is useful, what is safe and how to work with it is something entirely different.
The group itself was a mixture of people I had travelled with on previous expeditions and people I hadn’t met before. When you have travelled with people before, you already have some idea of how they operate when they are tired, uncomfortable or under pressure. You know who cracks jokes, who quietly gets on with things and who is probably going to have three completely different ideas about how the same shelter should be built.
That familiarity creates a real sense of community. And when you are heading into an environment as demanding as the Amazon, that becomes important very quickly.
Humberto and Jodie
A Transferable Skill Set
One of the biggest things I took away from the jungle was just how transferable bushcraft skills really are. I found myself in an environment where almost everything felt unfamiliar. The trees were different. The materials were different. Even the density and feel of the ground beneath my feet was different.
It felt like being dropped into an entirely new classroom.
Whether it comes down to impostor syndrome, or simply being surrounded by people with such an enormous depth of knowledge, I have never really considered myself particularly experienced when it comes to the vast subject of bushcraft. Being part of Woodland Ways can sometimes amplify that feeling. There is so much knowledge within the team that you are constantly reminded of how much more there is to learn.
Studying Materials
But being in the jungle actually changed the way I see bushcraft. For me, it stripped everything back to the fundamentals. I began to realise that bushcraft is not necessarily about knowing every tree, every plant or every material in a particular environment. It is about understanding the principles behind what you are doing, and then learning how to apply them somewhere new.
The trees were completely different, but the process of identification was familiar. The materials were new, but assessing them, processing them and working out how they might be useful relied on skills we had already practised in the UK. Suddenly, I could see the framework underneath it all. Of course, a new environment requires a completely new layer of knowledge, and there is an enormous amount to learn in somewhere like the Amazon. But the foundations were already there. There is something wonderful about stepping into a landscape where almost everything is unfamiliar and realising that you are not beginning again from zero.
You are simply learning to speak the same language with a different vocabulary
Alan, Jason & Giuliano by the river
Learning to Move Differently
My previous experience in the African bush transferred surprisingly well too.
I already had an understanding of certain safety habits: don’t put your hand somewhere you cannot see, be conscious of what you brush against, and generally think a little more carefully before you move. Growing up around UK woodland, you can wander through vegetation without giving it a huge amount of thought.
I have spent some time in the African bush and it teaches you otherwise. So much of the vegetation seems determined to grab, hook or scratch you that you quickly develop a completely different way of moving through it. You slow down. You look before you step. You become more deliberate. That mindset transferred incredibly well to the jungle.
Just as I would think twice about sitting directly on the ground in the Kenyan bush because of scorpions and other wildlife, I found myself exercising the same sort of caution in the Amazon.
The difference was learning what the jungle’s own hazards were. One of my particular concerns was swarming ants. They are genuinely a force. Once you have watched a column of them moving across the forest floor, you very quickly understand why paying attention to where you stand, stop, sit or leave your kit matters. A few of the group found this out the hard way.
Similarly, we also encountered a plant known rather appropriately as “razor grass”, which grows up through the jungle almost like a vine but looks like harmless grass and it can slice through clothes and exposed skin incredibly easily. Again, it came back to the same principle. The environment was different, but the mindset was familiar. You slow down. You observe. You move with intention. Situational awareness is another bushcraft skill that travels incredibly well.
Passing Knowledge On
Giuliano, Ben, Luciano and Humberto, fire session
Perhaps one of the most transferable things I noticed throughout the entire expedition had nothing to do with fire, shelter or plant identification. It was the passion with which people share knowledge. That passion seems to transcend environment, country and culture.
Whether I have been learning in the UK, the African bush or the Amazon, the people who truly understand these places often seem to have the same enthusiasm for passing that knowledge on to those who genuinely want to learn.
Humberto & Giuliano
I am hugely grateful to every instructor who shared not only their skills and experience with us, but their love for the subject. One of them said something that stayed with me: “This knowledge isn’t for everyone.” And perhaps it isn’t. It is for the people who are curious enough to look closer, patient enough to listen, and willing to keep learning. The people who want to seek out the jungle’s secrets.
The Jungle Sees
Something else that stayed with me was the way the instructors spoke about and respected the jungle. Regardless of anyone’s individual religious or spiritual beliefs, I got the sense that the jungle was regarded as something more than simply an environment.
Almost as if it had a presence of its own. That feeling began to rub off on me. During the expedition I found myself quietly asking the jungle for safe passage, or hoping that it would be kind to us during the immersion phase. I don’t want to disappear too far down the spiritual rabbit hole, but one thing became very clear to me: You have to respect the jungle. It does not care who you are. You are a tiny, temporary presence in something that has existed on a scale almost impossible to comprehend.
And yet, despite that, the jungle felt incredibly generous to us. There were several moments throughout the trip that could probably be described as signs, coincidences or simply very fortunate timing.
One in particular has stayed with me.
Kaleidoscope of butterflies
I have a long-standing interest in entomology, particularly moths and butterflies, and for around eight years I have collected and studied them at a hobbyist level. On our first night at jungle training camp, I sat talking with Giuliano about almost every subject imaginable. That is remarkably easy to do with a man who seems to have lived a thousand lives. Eventually, our conversation moved towards energy, belief and the way the team perceived the jungle. I was trying to understand where my own beliefs about energy fitted within it all. The simplest way I can describe what I took from that conversation is: The jungle sees. The jungle knows. You must flow with the jungle. And perhaps that is enough.
The following day I was happily admiring a small beetle when somebody in the group told me I needed to come and see a huge orange moth. I rounded the corner and stopped. It was enormous. At the time, I had absolutely no idea what species I was looking at, but I was immediately fascinated.
Orizaba Silkmoth
Its wingspan was somewhere around five to six inches. Its wings were a rich mixture of saffron and rust, bordered with black and white markings, with a soft haze of pink towards the edges. Most striking of all were the beautiful transparent windows in each wing, each roughly the size of a five-pence piece.
Naturally, I grabbed my moth book. I recognised that it appeared to belong to Saturniidae, the same family that includes species such as the Atlas moth, and began working from there.
Eventually, I identified it as an Orizaba silkmoth. I spent a little time studying and photographing it before carefully moving it away from the communal area, and almost everyone in the group came over to have a look. Ever since I knew I was going to the Amazon, there had been something quietly sitting in the back of my mind. I wanted to see a truly enormous, spectacular moth like this in the wild. And there it was. On my second day in the jungle. After I moved it somewhere safer, we watched it fly away and the group gradually began to disperse. Giuliano turned to me. “Do you remember our conversation last night? In all my years here, I have never seen one of those moths. Maybe it is the jungle welcoming you.”
Maybe it was a coincidence. Maybe it was simply extraordinary luck. But personally, I like to think it was the jungle.
Looking back, I think that sums up much of what I took from the expedition. I went into the Amazon worried about whether I was fit enough, experienced enough, or prepared enough for an environment so completely different from anything I knew. I came away with a much clearer understanding of what bushcraft means to me.
It is not about having every answer. It is about having a set of fundamentals that allow you to observe, adapt, learn and work with the environment in front of you.
The jungle taught me that the knowledge we build in one place does not stay there. Skills travel. Awareness travels. Experience travels. Even the way we learn from and respect the people who pass that knowledge on travels with us. Most importantly, it reminded me how much there still is to learn.
The Amazon felt ancient, overwhelming, beautiful and completely indifferent to our presence, and I think that is exactly why it deserves such respect. For ten days, we were simply visitors in its world. And I feel incredibly lucky that, for a little while at least, the jungle seemed happy to have us there.
A huge thank you to Jason, Humberto, Giuliano, Luciano, Siquera, Sgt. Jailton, Kreknicki and Gleuber for facilitating such an experience. Selvvaaa!