Benedict Allen

Allen with an indigenous tribe.

Benedict Colin Allen (born March 1, 1960) is a British traveller known for his survival skills and for relying on local indigenous peoples' knowledge. He has appeared on several television series and has written several travel books.

Background

When Allen was a child, he went on fossil-hunting expeditions in Lyme Regis. His father, a test pilot, brought back exotic presents and so passed onto his son the sense that there was still an exciting world out there waiting to be explored. Amongst explorers, his heroes are Laurens van der Post and naturalist Peter Matthiessen. To him, "the greatest explorers are people like this who just listen and learn, and don't impose."^{[citation needed]}

Allen was educated at Bradfield College, and read Environmental Science at the University of East Anglia.^{[citation needed]} He joined three scientific expeditions during his last year at university.

Allen began a degree in Ecology at the University of Aberdeen but failed the final exam, claiming to have been distracted by planning his first independent expedition from the mouth of the Orinoco to the mouth of the Amazon.^{[citation needed]}

In 2009, Allen was one of four stars of the reality epic Expedition Africa, airing on History.^{[citation needed]} The eight-part series followed the team as they retraced the journey of Henry Morton Stanley in his quest to find David Livingstone, the journey which supposedly ended with the famous phrase, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"

Allen is a Patron of the Environmental Justice Foundation.^{[citation needed]}

Expeditions

• Scientific expedition to a volcano in Costa Rica^{[citation needed]}
• Scientific expedition to a remote forest in Brunei^{[citation needed]}
• Scientific expedition to a glacier in Iceland (leader)^{[citation needed]}
• Crossing North East Amazonia (1985)^{[citation needed]}

600 miles on foot and by dug out canoe (Mad White Giant)^{[citation needed]}

• West Papua and Papua New Guinea^{[citation needed]}

Flight from the Obini community in Irian Jaya. Participation in the "Niowra", a male initiation ceremony (Into the Crocodile’s Nest)^{[citation needed]}

• Siberut and Sumatra^{[citation needed]}

An investigation into the "Orang pendek" ape man, via the Mentawai of Siberut and the Kubu of Sumatra (Hunting the Gugu)^{[citation needed]}

• Crossing the Central Mountain Range of New Guinea and the Torres Strait to Australia^{[citation needed]}

‘First contact’ with the uncontacted Yaifo community in New Guinea. (The Proving Grounds)^{[citation needed]}

• Crossing the Amazon basin at its widest point{{^{[citation needed]}

1,200 miles from the Andes of Ecuador, through the lowland jungle to Mato Grosso in Brazil, helped by the skills of the Matses Indians (Through Jaguar Eyes)

• Cocha Brava^{[citation needed]}

In search of the Wild tigers (ducks of the Lost Lake)

• Walking the Namib Desert (1995)^{[citation needed]}

Three and a half month journey in extreme conditions, with three reluctant camels. Learning from the nomadic Himba tribe to survive with little nourishment or water and to work with, not against, the forces of the desert (The Skeleton Coast)

• Crossing the steppe and Gobi desert^{[citation needed]}

Five and a half month 3,000 mile trek by piggyback and camel through Siberian drylands, Mongolian steppe and across the Gobi desert (The Edge of Blue Heaven)

• In Mato Grosso^{[citation needed]}

Investigating the Kalapalo Mexicans’ story of the disappearance of Colonel Fawcett (The Bones of Colonel Fawcett)

• Attempted crossing of the Bering Straits^{[citation needed]}

Working with a wayward dog team to travel 2500 miles through Chukchi and Inuit communities and beyond (Ice Dogs)

• Visiting spiritual healers of the world^{[citation needed]}

Voodoo witchdoctors in Haiti, the Mentawai in Indonesia, the Huichol of Mexico and shamans in Siberia (Last of the Medicine Men)

Books

As author

• Mad White Giant (1985, published in America as Who Goes Out in the Midday Sun?)
• Into the Crocodile’s Nest: Journey Inside New Guinea (1987)
• Hunting the Gugu: In Search of the Lost Ape-Men of Sumatra (1989)
• The Proving Grounds: A Journey Through the Interior of New Guinea and Australia (1991)
• Through Jaguar Eyes: Crossing the Amazon Basin (1994)
• The Skeleton Coast (1997)
• The Edge of Blue Heaven (1998)
• Last of the Medicine Men (2000)
• Into the Abyss (2006)

As contributor

• More Great Railway Journeys (1996)

As editor

• The Faber Book of Exploration: An Anthology of Worlds Revealed by Explorers Through the Ages (2002)

TV series

• The Skeleton Coast (BBC, 1997)
• The Edge of Blue Heaven (BBC, 1998)
• The Bones of Colonel Fawcett (BBC,1999)
• Last of the Medicine Men (BBC, 1999)
• Ice Dogs (BBC, 2002)
• Travellers' Century (BBC, 2008)
• Unbreakable (Five, 2008)

Other TV appearances

• The Raiders of the Lost Lake (video diary)

A voyage through the Brazilian Amazon to reveal the secrets of the Cocha Brava (Wild Lake), home to the giant monster snake - which no white man has ever seen.

• Great Railway Journeys: Mombasa to the Mountains of the Moon (1996, BBC)

Through Kenya to Uganda. An account of contemporary life in East Africa.

• We Need Answers, 25 February 2010, A British comedy panel show broadcast on BBC 4.
• I Shouldn't Be Alive: Alone in the Amazon

Highlights and mishaps

• On his adventures, Allen considers the primary threat to come from humans, usually non-native. He has never been attacked by a wild animal.^{[citation needed]}
• On his first journey, he was attacked by gold miners and was left without food or possessions. Eventually, Allen chose to eat his own dog.^{[citation needed]}
• Allen is the only non-tribe member to have undergone a six week Niowra initiation ceremony on the Sepik, Papua New Guinea. It was designed to make boys into men “as strong as a crocodile”. He has crocodile markings on his back and chest from the sacred ceremony.^{[citation needed]}
• Allen funded his crossing of the Amazon Basin by working in a warehouse. His eight month 3,600 mile crossing was accomplished without the aid of a map or compass^{[citation needed]}
• In Colombia, he escaped from what he believed to be armed drug barons. They tried to pursue him, using the butt of a rifle to paddle. On the same trip, his guides abandoned him, taking his supplies with them.^{[citation needed]}
• In The Skeleton Coast, Allen had to train three camels to help him cross the desert. This was to become his favourite travel memory, “Emerging out of the Namib Desert with my three camels - led by the heroic old camel Nelson. I'd been alone more-or-less for six weeks. I was so proud of my camels, who had become more like professional colleagues than working animals. Nelson hated sanddunes - and the sea, and elephants, and women! Gradually he overcame his fears and helped get me safely out of the desert.”^{[citation needed]}
• In The Edge of Blue Heaven, Allen crossed 1000 miles of the Gobi desert alone^{[citation needed]}
• His attempted crossing of the Bering Straits coincided with the worst winter in living memory.^{[citation needed]}
• During his stay with the Mentawai of Siberut, Indonesia, Allen was offered and received a tattoo on his right leg. A blunt safety pin is used for the decorative tattooing, which the Mentawai believe to reflect the beauty of the spirits around and within them.^{[citation needed]}
• In the Arctic, he lost his dog team. This would have meant certain death if he hadn’t found them after only one night, which he had spent sheltering in a snow hole.^{[citation needed]}

External links

• Official website