Paul Rosolie is a conservationist, explorer, author, filmmaker, real life Tarzan, and founder of Junglekeepers which today protects over 50,000 acres of threatened habitat. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
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OUTLINE:
0:00 - Introduction
2:33 - Amazon rainforest
13:47 - Discovery of the Amazon
18:24 - Werner Herzog
24:30 - Jane Goodall
38:19 - Anacondas
1:02:08 - Eaten Alive
1:14:32 - Joe Rogan
1:22:51 - Surviving in the Amazon
1:50:03 - Uncontacted tribes in the Amazon
1:59:58 - Surrounded by black caiman crocodiles
2:17:35 - Graham Hancock and ancient civilizations
2:23:06 - Aliens
2:53:08 - Climate change
2:58:19 - Jordan Peterson
3:15:41 - Hunting
3:22:57 - Ayahuasca
3:31:24 - Meaning of life

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It was just like 1 of those moments where we saw it at the same time and we're standing by the tail and the snake was so big that, I mean, this must've been a 25 foot anaconda dead asleep with a probably a 16 foot anaconda sprawled across her, and they're laying in the starlight and we're floating on top of a lake, standing there in the middle of the Amazon.

And JJ just, I could feel the blood drain out of his face.

And as a however old I was, maybe 20 years old, I just said, if we could somehow show people this, we'll be on the front cover of National Geographic and we can protect all the jungle that we want.

Yeah, so I jumped on the snake and the only measurement I have of this animal is that when I wrapped my arms around it, I couldn't touch my fingers.

And so I was, my feet were dragging, and to her credit, this anaconda did not turn around and eat me, because her head was this big.

And she went and she reached the edge of the grass island and she starts plunging into the dark.

And so I'm watching the stars vibrate as this anaconda is going.

And I had to make the choice of either going headfirst down into the black, which no thank you, or stopping and just keeping my hand on this thing as it raced by me and I just felt the scales and the muscle and the power go by and then eventually taper down to the tail until it slipped away into the darkness and I was laying there just panting.

The following is a conversation with Paul Rosley, a conservationist, explorer, author, filmmaker, and real-life Tarzan.

Since for much of the past 17 years, Paul has lived deep in the Amazon rainforest, protecting endangered species and trees from poachers, loggers, and foreign nations funding them.

He is the founder of Jungle Keepers, which today protects over 50, 000 acres of threatened habitat.

And Paul is 1 of the most incredible human beings I've ever met.

I hope to travel with him in the Amazon jungle 1 day, because in his eyes, I saw a truth that can only be discovered directly by spending time among the immensity and power of nature at its purest.

To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description.

And now, dear friends, here's Paul Rosli.

In 2006, at 18 years old, you fled New York and traveled to the Amazon.

This started a journey that I think lasts to this day.

What in your heart pulled you towards the Amazon jungle?

From the time I was, you know, 3 years old, I'd say, you know, it was dinosaurs, wildlife documentaries, Steve Irwin, you name it.

And like when my parents said, you know, nature versus nurture, they nurtured my nature.

I was always just drawn to streams, forests.

I wanted to go explore where the little creek led.

I wanted to see the turtles and the snakes.

And so I was a kid that hated school, did not get along with school.

I was dyslexic and didn't know it, undiagnosed.

I didn't read until I was like 10 years old, like way behind.

Like I remember 1 time in first grade, they had you doing those, you know, those multiplication sheets.

And so I actually got so upset that I couldn't do it that I ran out, the classroom ran out the door and went to the nearest woods and I stayed there because that was safe.

And so for me, like once I got to the point where I was like high school isn't working out, I had incredibly supportive parents that were like, look, just get out, take your GED, get out of high school after 10th grade.

You gotta go to college, but like start doing something you love.

And so I saved up and bought a ticket to the Amazon and met some indigenous guys.

And the second I walked in that forest, it was like, It's like the first scene in Jurassic Park when they see the dinosaurs and they go, oh, this is it.

I walked in there and just, I looked at those giant trees.

I saw leafcutter ants in real life and I just went, oh.

Can you put into words, what is it about that place that felt like home?

What aspect of nature, the streams, the water, the forest, the jungle, the animals, what drew you?

I mean, for any forest, I mean, whether it's, you know, upstate New York or India or Borneo, but the Amazon, it's all of that turned up to this level where everything is superlatively diverse.

You know, you have more plants and animals than anywhere else on earth.

Not just now, but in the entire fossil record.

It's the Andes Amazon interface, there's just, that's terrestrially, that's where it is.

That's the greatest library of life that has ever existed.

And so you're just, you're so stimulated.

You're so overwhelmed with color and diversity and beauty and this overwhelming sense of natural majesty of these thousand year old trees and half the life is up in the canopy of those trees.

There's stuff without names walking around on those branches and it's like, it just takes you somewhere.

And so going there, it was like, the guys I met just opened the door and they were like, how far do you wanna go down the rabbit hole?

You list a bunch of heroes that you have, he's 1 of them.

And you said that when you're unsure about a decision, you ask yourself, WWSD, what would Steve do?

Why is that such a good heuristic for life?

He's a human being that like everything we saw from Steve Irwin was positive.

If he was getting bitten by a reticulated python, he was smiling.

If he was getting destroyed in the news for feeding a crocodile with his son too close, he was trying to explain to people why it's okay and why we have to love these animals.

Everything was about wildlife and protecting.

And to me, a person like that, where you only see positive things, that's a role model.

And it's just like an endless curiosity and hunger to explore this world of nature.

Yeah, and an insatiable madness for wildlife.

I got a, if it's okay, read to you a few of your own words.

You open the book, Mother of God, with a passage that I think beautifully paints the scene.

Before he died, Santiago Duran told me a secret.

It was late at night in a palm-thatched hut on the bank of the Tampapata River deep in the southwestern corner of the Amazon basin.

Besides a mud oven, 2 wild boar heads sizzling, sizzled in a cradle of embers, their protruding tusks curling in static agony as they cooked.

The smell of burning cecropia wood and cinched flesh filled the air.

Woven basket containing monkey skulls hung from the rafters where stars speak through the gaps in the thatching.

A pair of chickens huddled in the corner conversing softly.

We sat facing each other on sturdy benches across a table hewn from a single cross section of some massive tree now nearly consumed by termites.

The song of a million insects and frogs filled the night.

Santiago's cigarette trembled in the aged fingers as he leaned close over the candlelight to describe a place hidden in the jungle.

That line, the songs of a million insects and frogs filled the night for some reason hit me.

What's it like sitting there conversing among so many living creatures all around you?

Every night in the jungle, you live in constant awareness of that out there in the darkness are literally millions of heartbeats around you.

And so like, we exist in this, you know, domesticated, paved world most of the time, but when you go out there past the roads and the telephone poles and the hospitals and you make it out into earth, just wild earth.

And there's no, it's not like this is a national park.

There's no rescue helicopter waiting to come get you.

You are out there and you're surrounded at night by, I mean, there are snakes and jaguars and frogs and insects and all this stuff just crawling through the swamps and through the trees and through the branches.

And we put on headlamps and go out into the night and just absolutely fall to our knees with wonder of the things that we see.

And most of it doesn't make sounds like the insects do.

The insects do, the frogs do, you have some of the night birds making sounds, but a lot of it, everything has evolved to be silent, invisible.

There's another line in Mother of God where I said, you know, like life is just like a temporary moment of stasis and like the churning, recycling death march that is the Amazon.

Like it's been called the greatest natural battlefield on earth.

I mean, in any square acre, there's more stuff eating other things than anywhere else.

And you go through a swamp in the Amazon and there's like, there's tarantulas floating on the water, there's frogs in the trees, there's tadpoles hanging from leaves waiting to drop into the water, There's fish waiting to eat them, there's birds in the trees.

You literally are surrounded by so many things that your brain can't process it.

Some of the creatures are waiting and some of them are being a bit more proactive about it.

What do you make of that churning death march?

That the amount of murder that's happening all around you at all scales.

What is that, you know, We dramatize wars and the millions of people that were lost in World War II, some of them tortured, some of them dying with a gun in hand, some of them civilians, but it's just millions of people.

What about the billions and billions and billions of organisms that are just being murdered all around you?

Does that change your view of nature, of life here?

I've always kind of wondered like that, like when you see like a wildebeest taken down by lions and eaten from behind while it's alive.

You know, you go, how could they let this happen?

In the Amazon, I find personally that these natural processes make up almost a religion, that it reminds you how temporary we are, that the bot flies that are trying to get into your skin and the mosquitoes that are trying to suck your blood and that when you sweat, you see the, you literally can like hold out your arm and watch the condensation come off of your skin and rise up into the canopy and join the clouds and rain back down in the afternoon.

And then you drink the river and start it all over again.

So the Amazon reminds me that there's a lot that we don't understand.

And so when it comes to that overwhelming and collective murder, as Werner Herzog put it, It's just part of the show.

It's part of the freak show of the Amazonian night.

certain moments, able to feel 1 with a mosquito that's trying to kill you slowly.

What I mean is like you're part of the machine there, right?

So like we have bullet ants and like, you know, you get nailed by a bullet ant and you

Today's over, I'm going back to bed and I'm taking a pile of Tylenol.

Do you think in that sense, when you're out there, are you a part of nature or are you separate from nature?

I think that's what's so refreshing about it, is that out there you truly are.

And so whether we're bringing researchers or film crews or whether we're just out there ourselves on an expedition, you truly are a part of nature.

And so 1 of the things that my team and I started doing when I became friends with these guys, this is a family of indigenous people from the community of Inferno, and they took me in.

And as we got close, they started saying, you can come with us on our annual hunting trip.

And it's 4 guys in a boat, and you don't wanna get your clothes wet, so we're all in our boxers in a canoe with a motor going out past the places that have names, and you're out in the middle of the jungle.

And the thing is, when your motor breaks, you are so quickly reminded of the inerrant truths, like the things that nobody can argue with.

And we live in such a human world where everything is debatable, religion and politics and perspectives on everything.

And then you get down to this point where it's like, if we don't figure something out, the river is going to rise and take the boat.

That's the truth, and ain't nobody gonna argue with that.

And it's like, to me, there's a beauty in that truth, because then all of us are united there in that truth against the natural facts around us.

And so to me, that's a state where I feel very, very at home.

And the Amazon is more efficient than most places on earth at swallowing you up.

So just to linger on that, because you've spoken about Francisco de Arellana, who's this explorer in

and 42 that sailed the length of the Amazon.

And there's just a few things I should probably read.

I should probably find a good book on him because the guy seems like a gangster.

So he sailed, he led the expedition that sailed all the way from 1 end to the other.

So because it speaks to the thing, it's like nobody's gonna come and rescue you.

You have to, if your boat dies, you're gonna have to rebuild it.

Yeah, so they came down the Andes, entered in the headwaters of the Amazon, constructed some sort of raft, boat, craft, something, and made it down the entire Amazon basin.

Of course, his stories are the ones that led to the Amazon being called the Amazon, because he reported tribes of women.

He reported these large cities, places where the tribes lived on farms of river turtles that they corralled and they lived off of that protein.

And then when they came out to the mouth of the Amazon, if I remember it correctly, that just through navigation and the stars, they were able to calculate where the way was back to Spain and make a boat seaworthy enough to bring them home.

Do people like that inspire you, your own journey?

Like what gives you kind of strength in these harshest of times and harshest of conditions, you can persevere.

Yeah, I mean, you look at the stories of people that are so, you know, these stories of people that have overcome incredible suffering like that, or like, you know, what Shackleton did or something like that.

And so like when you're, you know, I've been, you know, your tent gets washed away, you go to sleep and the river rises 20 feet and washes away your tent and you crawl out and all you have is a machete and a headlamp, literally no bag, no food, no nothing, and you go, wow, the next 6 days before I reach back to a town is gonna be just pure hell.

I'm gonna be sleeping on the ground, covered in ants, destroyed by mosquitoes.

And then it becomes, am I in any capacity, any percentage as tough and resilient as the people that I've read about, that have made it through things far worse than this?

All you got is the headlamp and the machete.

Like I've gotten a chance to interact quite a lot with Elon Musk, and he constantly puts out fires having to run several companies.

There's never a kind of whiny deliberation about issues.

You just always, 1 step forward, how to solve, right?

This is the situation, how do you solve it?

Or do you also have a kind of self-motivating, almost egotistical, like I'm a bad motherfucker.

Almost like trying to fake it till you make it kind of thing.

There may have been a little bit of that when I was like 14, 15 years old, I'd have a hunting knife and my dog and I'd go out into the woods with the cat skills and survive for a weekend.

You get 1 match and you got to make shelter.

And then I'd bring like a steak and make a fire and stuff.

And at that point there may be with some ego, but in the Amazon, you get stripped down so completely that you, it's like that thing, like, watch the atheism leave everyone's body when they think they're about to die.

It's like when you find yourself staring up at the Amazon at night and you go, there is no hope of getting out of here.

I mean, I was once lost in a swamp where it took me days to get out of there.

And there was moments where I just said, this is clearly it, there's no ego there.

You start realizing what you believe in and praying that you'll be okay and then trying to summon whatever you know about how to survive and that's it.

And so it's actually, again, it's kind of a blissful state if you can walk that line between adventure and tragedy and sort of keep yourself right at that very, very fine line without going over.

I wanna, you know, I love the people in my life and there's a lot of things I wanna do, but every time I've been certain that I'm gonna die, it's been, I've been very, very calm.

Very calm and just sort of like, okay, well, if this is how the movie goes, then this is how it goes.

Just to venture down this road of death and fear and so on, There's been a few madmen like you in this world.

What lessons do you draw from Grizzly Man or Into the Wild, those kinds of stories?

Were you ever afraid that you would be 1 of those stories?

Oh yeah, I actually think that it's in Mother of God where I said I almost into the wilded myself.

Like I went out there and really I got so lost and so destroyed that I said this is gonna be the next 1.

This is gonna be the next story of some idiot kid from New York who went to the Amazon thinking he was Percy Fawcett and then vanished.

Because if you do vanish out there, your body's gonna be consumed in a matter of days.

You know, if we see an animal dead on a trail, you got dung beetles and fly larva and vultures and there's a whole pecking order.

You get the black vultures, the yellow vultures, the king vulture, they all come in.

That thing is picked clean in a couple of days.

What would be the creature that eats most of you in that situation?

It's really quick, it's really, really quick.

Like even as far as like you can't leave food out.

You know, like if you have like a piece of chicken, you say, oh, I'll eat it in the morning.

Grisly Man, for example, like what, because that's a beautiful story.

It's both comical and genius, and especially the way Herzog tells it.

Well, first, do you like the way he told the story?

I do, I love Herzog, and I love his documentary, The Burden of Dreams, which is in the Amazon, not very far from where I work.

And the sheer madness that you see this man undergoing of just trying to recreate hauling a boat over a mountain is wild.

And the extras that he hired to play the natives are the, I think they're Machiganga tribesmen and they just look like all the guys that I hang out with and it's like, they're doing all this stuff in the jungle that months and months and months and you can just see him deteriorating with madness because the jungle, you know, your boat, you know how many times I've tied up a boat to the side of the river?

This just happened like a year and a half ago.

I tied up, through COVID, I pretty much just lived in the jungle for a while.

And there was nobody there and there was no support and I tied up my boat and the rain is just hammering.

Like the universe is trying to rip the earth in half.

The rain is just going and the river's rising and I tied up the boat, but then you go to sleep and you gotta wake up every 2 hours to go check the boat.

And the boat is thrashing back and forth.

So all night, every 2 hours I'd wake up barefoot in driving rain, like golf ball raindrops and just go down and check the boat.

And then by morning I was like, I fell asleep, woke up, checked the boat and then I was like, I'm just gonna go make coffee, I was so done.

I was so like at the end of my rope every time bailing the boat out and stuff.

And then we got 15 minutes of heavy rain that filled the boat, sank it.

And so now I'm stuck up river with no boat.

And it's like that type of thing where it's like no matter how hard you try, the jungle's just like, listen, you're nothing.

And so Herzog really threw himself into that, in that film.

What do you think he meant by the line that you include in your book?

It's a land that God, if he exists, has created in anger.

Yeah, overwhelming and collective murder.

So that's, so you didn't really appreciate the beauty of the murder.

I think he appreciated it, but to him it was very dark.

You know, I think he saw the darkness in it.

As soon as you do Ayahuasca, that door opens and you see the darkness, because that brings you right into the jungle, like the heart of it.

But I think that for him, I think that darkness is something that he embraces and that he loves.

There's another film of his, and I don't know if this is accurate, but my memory has it that there's a penguin, and I think it's in Antarctica, and the penguin's going in the wrong direction, away from the ocean.

And I feel like he goes on this monologue about how he's just had enough.

This 1 penguin is just marching towards, you know.

Well, his, because I remember that clip from that documentary, and what Werner says is that the penguin is deranged.

Like how do you know there's not a lot more going on?

Or it's a lost mate and he last time he saw her was going in that direction.

We assume animals are like the average of the bell curve.

Like every animal we interact with is just the average, but there's special ones, just like there's special humans.

And I had the same thought where I was like, I found it beautiful how he interpreted it.

What I took away from that was I found that Werner Herzog's monologue there was brilliantly dark and also comedic, but maybe irrelevant biologically speaking towards penguins, which happens a lot with animals.

I find there's so many times where I'll find people be like, do you think that animals can show compassion?

And you hear a bunch of people that have never left the pavement talking about, wow, this 1 animal helped another animal.

It's like, go ask Jane Goodall if animals can show compassion.

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Paul Rosolie: Amazon Jungle, Uncontacted Tribes, Anacondas, and Ayahuasca | Lex Fridman Podcast #369