Travel Channel Mark and Olly

Andy,I think these expeditions & how you're documenting them are of high value. Your building a great frame of reference for attracting the right key people for future exploration as a team. Good because with the right team you'll likely be emboldened to go deeper into the unknown & hopefully eliminate a few variables that hampered the journey somewhat (if).In such a challenging environment (beyond where you turned back) seeking a team of around 6 as you've mentioned is a good idea for group satisfaction. See Expanding Dunbar's Numbers & Group Satisfaction (scroll);The Dunbar NumberTo me the incentive would be to gain ancient skills from those that live so close to the earth & who have never integrated into "civilization" (the untainted). To have the confidence to know you can survive with not much more than just your bare hands is invaluable, imo.“In Wildness is the preservation of the world”- Henry David ThoreauEric

I went in 2009 to discover what was possible. Do I need guides? What size boat is possible? What provisions are needed? I also realize any time a person goes up river in the Amazon, they may arrive at a point where the people are not civilized. To separate reality from the noise the press is making is difficult, plus it appears very few adventurers are able to be honest. They truly wish to sensationalize a truly unique experience to a point where I do not trust them. I do wish honest study, honest interpretations, honestly was considered valuable.To receive praise for an illusion of adventure destroys my adventure, yes the reader has a better story. However, if I wanted to write an exciting novel, I would write exciting novels.Real life is to valuable to make it a lie.This Dunbar Number is great, a truly insightful concept and correct.

The Mark and Olly show just started here in the US. Last week was an intro to their upcoming adventures, just highlights. If it is anything like the other "Living with" programs there will be as much drama as they can manufacture. You wouldn't want them to spill the beans so soon and ruin the show would you?BTW, you need to do a google on Verlen Kruger and the "Two Continent Expedition". Kruger and his wife paddled canoes up the Rio Negro and down the Amazon on a self supported expedition that started on the Bering Sea and ended by rounding Cape Horn.

So the story is more important than reality...? A person can add things to a story, however reality has an ending that is real.To be respected or to be laughed at, I supppose this is the diliberation. I am always intrigued by Traveler Writers, and 99.99 percent of the time I laugh at them.

Mark and Ollie stumble upon pre-cilivized tribe ? Well except for the odd Nike cap and the kids wearing 19-0 New England Patriots perfect season shirts they did look rather primitive.

They must be primitive. New England Patriots lost last game making them 18-1...ignorant people .

They'll be wearing Arizona Superbowl champs shirts this year :)

Mark and Ollie !Oh my golly. These too Darwin award winners can hardly keep a strait face when talking about the first "White Man" to visit them. They mention many White men but do not interpret it. they ignore it as if they are wrong. Nice show just like "Mutual of Omaha" was back in the day..... nice to watch and who the hell cares if it is B.S. it sells stuff.Andy there is no hope for the truth. Fake it up a bit and include a Coke soda or a Nike CAP TO MAKE SOME $$$My great grandmother 93 still cooks with a wood stove in Maine and the food is great !! a White primitive women that is news !!!not bug eatin morons

Funny stuff, when people get in front of a camera there ability speak the truth disappears.

Mark and Ollie should do a show from Detroit. Now that would be daring and risking life and limb.

Hello everyone,Please don't go and visit. Truly uncontacted groups are uncontacted because they fear infections and worse from outsiders. A cold to us is death to them. Visits are a form of self-indulgent, criminal negligence. Mark and Ollie's production company, Cicada Productions, has already caused enough chaos in this area.Daily Telegraph (national daily newspaper)http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/03/26/nperu126.xmlDaily Mail (national daily newspaper)http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/showbiz/showbiznews.html?in_article_id=546608&;in_page_id=1773The Guardian (national daily newspaper)http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/mar/27/conservation.realitytv?gusrc=rss&;feed=mediaThe Times (national daily newspaper)http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article3629105.eceBBC News (this was on the front page)http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7318021.stmMail on Sunday (national Sunday newspaper)http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/pages/live/articles/showbiz/showbiznews.html?in_article_id=546608&;in_page_id=1773Metro (London morning newspaper)http://www.metro.co.uk/news/world/article.html?in_article_id=128118&;in_page_id=64

Mark and Olly are not visiting un-contacted or isolated tribes. The whole show is staged and scripted.Andy Graham of HoboTraveler.com

Dear Andy,I don't know what you mean by "staged and scripted." Do you mean that Mark and Ollie did not visit anyone, and the tribes are actors? Clearly not. Let me repeat myself. The production company, Cicada Productions, have been accused of causing a lot of chaos and took illegal risks. They threatened Survival International with a lawsuit when the story broke and then backed down when their own lawyers were shown the weakness of their case. People like Mark and Ollie are not brave, and they are not heroic. They are not even especially adventurous. They are just fantasists wishing that they could be real Indian Jones, and they feed off the public's wish to do the same. Don't be fooled by them, and don't be as pathetic as they are.

Ron said on Thursday October 1st, 2009 06:04:34 AM

The whole thing was a fraud. My family lived with the Machiguengas for 30-some years. I just returned from Peru, where my mother and I attended a meeting of over 100 Machiguengas in Quillbamba. I asked if anyone knew anything about Mark and Ollie.

Turns out that the "village chief" and the translator for the project were both at the meeting. I won't go into all of the details here (there are so many bizarre things I'd wondered about), When they went to the village, they were on a well traveled path and only stepped off the path a few feet to "hack their way into the jungle." They contracted for cushmas so everyone in the village would be wearing shiny white ones for the film. The stayed in a village below the Pongo but claimed to go by balsa raft to the Pongo, which is impossible. Indeed, they used motorized boats to get into the Pongo.

Worst of all, they told their translator that if he would send $150.00 with them, they'd send him back a digital camera. They didn't do it. They also told him to put his things into a bag that they would deliver to his home village of Timpia, so he did, including about $350.00. He never saw the bag again.

I'm looking for a way to expose these guys--the Machis are some of the neatest, most helpful and kind people on earth, and this was a total sham.