Free Destination Truth: Memoirs of a Monster Hunter by Josh Gates Page B

of buai . As the entire village looks on in delight, we make an earnest if pathetic attempt to chew the nearly inedible betel nut as drool comes spilling out of our mouths. We spit the juice out onto the ground, which is already stained red as far as the eye can see. The power of the bitter concoction hits us first-timers like a ton of bricks, and within minutes we’re all high as kites and stumbling around like a pack of fools. Marc Carter is dancing like a chicken, Neil is reeling and can barely stand, and the entire village laughs their collective ass off. For the next ten generations, they’ll probably be talking about the white idiots who came to their village one day.
    The effects pass quickly, and we’re warmly embraced by the entire tribe. They serve us a challenging lunch of stewed bananas and taro root, which we diplomatically consume as best we can. I teach the kids how to use an iPod (it turns out that a click-wheel really is pretty intuitive); they squeal with laughter, tickled by the strange sounds of a little-known band called “the Beatles.”
    A tour of the village is revelatory. There’s a vibrant community here that is totally divorced from the modern world. The discovery that the locals are still using seashells for currency is downright mind-blowing. I spend the better part of an hour trying to work out the dollars-to-shells conversion rate, but in the end I just give up. I’m offered a few thirteen-year-old brides, which I politely decline, as we weave our way between the simple huts and throngs of onlookers.
    We get down to business and interview eyewitnesses who claim to have seen the iguanodon creature. They nearly universally describe the animal as having a dog-like head, a long body, and a spiked tail. Villagers seem to think it’s a dinosaur of some sort. Several people claim that the creature has eaten local dogs. We also buy a live chicken to use for bait that the mayor strangles to death, a process at which he doesn’t appear overly adept. The zombie chicken keeps coming back to life again and again, and I gnash my teeth waiting for it to be over.
    Finally, with our (hopefully) dead chicken and a fan club comprising everyone in town, we head out to begin our investigation. One eyewitness is actually too scared to descend the slope where she spied the creature. This is a little nerve-racking, since it’s clear some kind of animal really did frighten this woman, iguanodon or not. A few of the locals assist in erecting a base camp, using machetes to create bamboo supports for our rain tarp. In the span of about three minutes, they turn the site into the Professor’s hut from Gilligan’s Island , fashioning a table, two chairs, and a roof out of bamboo, putting my own camp-building efforts to utter shame. I half expect them to install a coconut phone.
    Just before dark, we string out a series of infrared cameras to survey the area for any movement. Thermal imagers aid our efforts as well, piercing the darkness and illuminating anything that emits heat. While part of the team begins a preliminary sweep, the rest of the group continues to activate the equipment at base camp.
    The ensuing investigation is notable in that it marks the first of two instances when I nearly get my head blown off while making Destination Truth . It happens as we trudge through a swampy section of wilderness beyond our camp. I hack at a huge banana leaf that suddenly drops away to reveal a heavily cleared expanse and about twenty Papuans servicing construction equipment. The men immediately stop what they’re doing and accost our group, hysterically yelling and waving us away. Two of the men are holding pistols, which they wave about haphazardly in the general direction of my face; the rest step forward with machetes. I watch our Papuan security guard take the safety off of his machine gun and I motion the muzzle down while Steve politely apologizes for the intrusion. An argument ensues but is settled when we all