Forrest Galante's Crazy Stories from the Amazon | Joe Rogan

Yeah, I mean, I guess that's like what it must be to just be in the Amazon itself as well, right? For sure. In the jungle, not just the rivers and the lakes or whatever's out there, but the actual jungle itself. It was incredible. The jungle there, so we were in Columbia and Amazon, and like talk about untouched by people, there's been this kind of ongoing conflict in Columbia for many, many years. So we were the first Westerners to go there in over 60 years. So the village we flew into, they'd literally never seen white people before. And then we went 200 kilometers from that. So like middle of nowhere. Did they want to touch you? Yeah, hair. Because their hair was very dark and very different. And like, I'm not particularly fair, but just to touch like the hair and see the blue eyes and stuff, they were just love friendly, super friendly. Like the culture was very stoic. Like there wasn't a lot of smiling or crying, you know, there wasn't like a lot of emotional exchange, but straight away they came and greeted us like shook hands, you know, said hello. It was really cool. Wow. Now, how do you set something like that up? Do you have like a liaison that acts as a go between between you and the tribes? Yeah, so we did in this case have one guy who communicated. I speak Spanish, Spanglish, I guess. And they all speak Spanish from back in the day. So we set it all up. It's part of the wildlife stuff that I do. We literally flew a DC-3, a World War II cargo plane into this cocaine dealer's airstrip. What? That's how we got there. I mean, like mind blowing stuff. Current cocaine dealer or former? Former, former. Well, you know, TBD. It's still Colombia, right? Exactly. So yeah, that one was really cool, really remote. How crazy is it that they learned Spanish from people who came over on boats from Spain and it just stuck? Isn't that nuts? And took over the whole like... Regions. Yeah, the whole world. And there's this tribe in the middle of the Amazon that has this language from another continent. Well, and Brazil, right? From Portugal. Right. It's really incredible when you stop and think about it. It's incredible, but it's also part of it. It's a little sad. Like, wouldn't you have loved to have heard what their original language was? Oh, absolutely. What it sounded like? Well, they did. So it's funny because when they didn't want us to understand what they were talking about, they would switch to their native Indian language. So they still had... They were bilingual, a community of 25 people that have never left and they're bilingual. Wow. It's amazing. Now, their native language is what? What is it? It's an Amazonian-Indian dialect. I honestly don't even... They might have said the name, but I don't recall. What is the name of their tribe? Also, I'm not even sure. They're so isolated, they're unaware of what country they live in. They don't even know that they're in Colombia. Really? Really. They're just like, to them, they're Amazonian. They're not Colombian, Ecuadorian, Brazilian. They're Amazonian. Whoa. Yeah. So they just stay. Like, where they are, they stay. And the village we were in is literally... I think it's over 200 kilometers from the next village of 15 or so people and they don't have fuel, they don't have motors. They're just in this pocket and they just substance live. And they're all barefoot, right? Yeah. Do they have those crazy splayed out feet? Big feet. They're not very big people. They're like small Indian people, but really big, kind of useful feet. And the way that they could run up and down trees and climb stuff, I mean, it was unbelievable. So much more athletic than you could imagine. Imagine, right? They've been doing that their whole lives. Their whole lives, yeah. Now, when I say splayed out feet, what I'm talking about is that people that walk barefoot in the jungle for long periods of time with their whole life, their toes spread out and their feet almost look like a hand. Oh, no way. I did not pay enough attention. That might have been the case, but I didn't notice it. You just weren't looking at their feet. Exactly. Yeah, it is kind of a weird thing to stare at dude's feet. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, Steve Ranella, who's a good friend of mine, told me about that. He was in Guyana and is the same thing. And they actually got some pictures and videos of these people's feet. But look at these guys up there. Whoa. Oh, no. I didn't notice anything like that. Yeah. This is the... That's... How do you say that? Horani? Horani? Horani? Sounds right. Horani, you think? Horani. Horani, Indian splayed feet. So it's very strange. It's kind of the opposite of what happens to women when they jam their feet into those little pointy shoes where they get the toes kind of smoosh onto each other. The ballet feet. Yeah, it's horrible. Instead of that, they're all crazy spread out. What in the fuck is going on there? The guy's got... The top has hands, I think. Yeah, the top has hands. But the bottom is like wood feet. That's got to be like what our feet are supposed to be. Probably right. Right? Yeah. Thick ass toes that actually have muscles in them that move. That you can use like a tool, like your hand. So when these guys just can climb up trees with them, so they grip the side of the tree with their feet like a hand? Oh, I mean, I didn't notice, like I say, the feet just like that specifically. But the way they could like... Everything's covered in mud down there, right? It's all wet. It rains every day. And they could run up and down these tree trunks to get up and down the village. And here's me and my crew with our awkward cameras and stuff. And we're slipping inside and falling over. And they're literally like, what's wrong with these people? Why can't they walk? We must have looked like infants today. Right. You guys probably have like boots on and shit. Of course. They get muddy and fucked up. Oh, totally. Yeah. We're wearing, you know, muck boots and my one buddy's got waders on. And you know, we think we're all hard and cool because we got all this gear and they're just like running around in shorts barefoot. It is so fascinating when you see people that don't have contact with the outside world. Like I'm sure you're aware of that recent story. The missionary was killed by the people on North Sentinel Island. Absolutely. Which is one of the weirdest places because they've branched off from Africa with 60,000 years ago or something like that. Right. When you're around these people, like what do they do if they get injured? So funny you asked that because we kind of had that same question, right? And they don't leave. They stay in the village. They have a shaman at the village who blessed us with a crazy green powder. And that's a whole nother story. But they have a shaman and he is their doctor. However, he has no access to any Western medicine. So it's only his learned knowledge handed down through generations plus jungle powders and whatnot. And that's it. So we actually spent today because we had a medic with us doing like kind of village help if you will. Everybody had ringworm. Everybody had respiratory infections. There were a lot of lady problems in the village that our medic had to deal with. I mean there was a lot of health issues and you don't even realize it. I'm going to write something down before I forget. I'm sorry it's totally unrelated. No, all good. There's a doctor named Peter Hotez that's coming on the podcast now to follow up on him. When you're talking about the people in the jungle, he's an actual doctor who specializes in infectious diseases and jungle and tropical climates. And he's like, everyone's infected with something. Everyone. He'd have a heyday down there. Yeah, I'm sure. It's probably been. Yeah. So when these people have ringworm and all these different infections, do they treat it? Do they have like some naturopathic cure or some shit? I think it's kind of a 50-50. A lot of it they don't treat because it's just part of everyday life. Like when I say everybody had ringworm, I meant everybody had it. So I don't think there was any kind of treatment or cure. It was just kind of part of them. But other things, the witch doctor or the shaman was trying to treat. And then we kind of went in and we had like medication for ringworm. So we dewormed everybody. With the shaman's blessing and he was like super excited to have Western medicine in the village. Would you use like Lamisole or something like that? I couldn't tell you. I think it was not, it wasn't topical. I think it was like a vermox, like a pill that you take that kills the worms. The weird thing about that is like, don't you leave and then they're going to get it again, right? I mean, there's only so much you can do, right? Yeah, totally. That we were having the same dilemma. And it was like, do we interfere because we're from the outside world? Do we help? And we talked to the shaman through our translator and he said, please help, please help. So we gave, including him, everybody, this dewormer, but you know, they'll just come back. Yeah. And also they probably don't understand the consequences of taking some antibiotic that's going to do some weird shit to your whole biome. Right. Right. And these are all the stuff too. It's such a moral dilemma. You're there and you're like, I want to help. Do I, is it helpful? Is it hindering? Our medic was like, it's undeniably going to help. They need this. And so we went for it and it was, you know, it seemed to help. Everybody felt fine, but we were only there a couple more days before we left. So who knows? Wow. You know, when you're talking about ringworm, like are these guys covered in it? They have big patches of it. Like what's it like? Feet and legs had big patches of it. Yeah. Yeah. And this, if you don't know, that's the same shit that's athlete's foot. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. Ringworm and athlete's foot are the same kind of funk. Oh, fun. That's why people tell you to pee on your feet. I thought that was just for fun. It could be for fun. It depends on what you're into. But I think that's the idea behind it is that you're somehow or another, you're killing the bad bacteria when you piss on your feet and you have athlete's foot. That might be horseshit. Maybe. Yeah. With me, you always have to check. Yeah. Definitely give that a little looksy. But it's a real common thing with jujitsu. Gotcha. So guys, all the mats. Real common. So just guys get it. And there's people really fuck up where they like put bleach on it and a bunch of different things to try to kill it and it winds up getting worse and also it fucks up all the natural skin flora. Jock itch, athlete's foot and ringworm are all types of fungal skin infections known collectively as tinea. Tinea. Tinea. They're caused by fungi called dermatrophites that live on the skin, hair and nails and thrive in warm, moist areas. The jungle. So it seems like they're just going to get it. That's what it sounds like. But still trying to help. What do they do for it? What do they do for it? I didn't see them treating that at all. And when we pointed it out, they were like, yeah, yeah, we know about it. They were more concerned with things that were like dire. Like there was an infant, maybe not infant, maybe three years old and he was hacking up a lung and he was asthmatic according to our medic. So our medic gave them like an asthma medication and he just said, if he has an attack where you can't breathe, give him this. And like, you know, to be super real with you, when we walked away, our medic was like, I doubt he'll live to see adulthood. Oh, man. Yeah. And were you giving them inhalers? Did you give them? I'm not sure, to be honest, what it was that he left with him. What about like injuries? What if they break a leg or something like that? What do they do? I don't think anything. Yeah. I mean, you got to think these people are climate trees. They must fall. Constantly. Fall, get bitten by stuff. There's tons of venomous snakes out there. It's wet. It's slippery. They're building stuff out of very rudimentary tools. I mean, it's nuts. They have to get injured. It's so interesting that we have this understanding of medicine and doctors and hospitals, but that's probably pretty fucking recent. Oh, of course. Yeah. I'll tell you a story, Joe. I was in Myanmar late last year and we're down there filming this thing. And this kid, like 22 year old crab fisherman gets bitten by a crocodile. It grabs him by the arm, grabs him by the thigh and death rolls. So it breaks the arm in like, I don't know, 15 places, compound fracture, the real deal. I can show you pictures of it. It'll blow your mind. And we hear about this and we're minutes away. It's kind of one of the similar situations where the first Westerners would be there in a long time. We go bombing over at high speed and we get there and the mom is like off mourning the death of her child, but her child is sitting there still alive. Like they have written him off. And it's mom is mom is literally mourning the death of her child and he's lying there conscious but like in total shock. Fortunately, just because of the situation, we had a speedboat, everything else. We bandaged him up, you know, tried to keep his arm stable and his legs stable, put him in our speedboat and it was six hours by speedboat to a village that had a or to a hospital, really. And so he got there and his life was saved. But I asked we asked the people in the village, what were you going to do? And they're like, there's nothing we can do. So he was just going to bleed out or go septic and that was the end of it. What a fucking rough way to go. Right. How did he get away from the crocodile? I don't know. I think he was just hitting it or hammering on it. He was crab fishing in the water and it came up and grabbed him, rolled a few times. And at some point he escaped how he even got back in the boat and made it back to the village. I have no idea because his leg was shattered. His arm was shattered. It was brutal. And it was a canoe. You know, it was like he had a little motor or a wheel to drive. He canoed back. One of the most disturbing stories I ever read was these guys were kayaking in an African river and the guy in front of them got grabbed by a crocodile and that it went under and like it like plunged like a bobber as the crocodile pulled him out of the bottom of the kayak. Yeah. I'm like, fuck. That's awful. Imagine being the guy behind him and watching that shit. Just watching. Yeah. And knowing that you're pretty much helpless. Did you see any jaguars or anything? I've never seen a jaguar. I've seen a lot of lines. I'm from Africa. I don't know if you knew that. But so I've seen a lot of lions growing up. My family did safaris. And then I've seen, you know, mountain lions here in California, leopard stuff like that. I've never seen a wild jaguar. Really? Yeah. Even when you were in the Amazon. I think they're really elusive. I know there's areas that are our hotspots. All of the locals were very nervous and kind of knew about them. Like, you know, I went out for bushwalks at night and stuff and I just go me and one guy with a camera and they were like, Oh, be careful. Like Petit Grosso, you know, very dangerous. Don't do it. But. Petit Grosso means very dangerous. Petit Grosso. Petit Grosso. Yeah. And so we just go and, you know, I'm not trying to act like we were tougher than them or anything. We would love to have seen one, but they were very aware of them. So they were there. We just didn't happen to run into one. Sort of like mountain lions. Exactly. Yeah. Like they say that mountain lions are like, if you live in a place that has them, you know, Wyoming or Colorado or something like that, they know where you are. Right. Right. They might be around you all the time and you might rarely see them. Exactly. Maybe driving home. You see one skittering into the into the bush. There was a nuts video. I think it was from the L.A. area. Did you ever see it where the security cams picked up this mountain lion that was walking through this like very residential neighborhood and you'd see like people would walk by and then 30 seconds later he'd like dip out of the shadows and then dip back in and then the next set of people would walk by and nobody had any clue he was there. It's crazy that a giant predator can move around like that. Right. Yeah. So when you're there, like what would you have done if someone got bit by a venomous snake or a spider or something like that? Did you guys have any anti-venom? Were you prepared for something like that? I mean, that's my department, right? Like as the wildlife guy, that's that's kind of my my department is make sure nobody gets bitten, make sure nothing like that happens. And we handled very, very many venomous snakes and caught anacondas and all kinds of great stuff. We did have like my main camera guy's name is Mitch. He got absolutely lit up by these wasps one night and we all were. We got like 12, 14 stings each. But I look back in the canoe at one point and his eyes are just super swollen. He's bright, ready, sweating. I'm like, Mitch, you okay? He's like, uh, uh, his throat started to close up. He was having an allergic reaction. So we had to hit him with antihistamines. And I'm not actually sure if the medic administered the EpiPen or not, but he was like, we're in the middle of the jungle. We're six hours from a village that's then a full day's travel by a charter plane from a hospital. I mean, middle of fucking nowhere and and his throat's closing up. And thank that's why we take a medic with us. Thankfully we had this emergency medic. He administered the antihistamines and Mitch was okay. But these things do happen. Do you ever like while you're on these crazy adventures, do you ever out there going, this is the last one? No, no, no way man. I love it. I live for it. Wow.