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![Five of the nine volunteers trekking through the wilderness for the Discovery Channel's "Out of the Wild: Venezuela" admire the South American landscape that leads to their next camp.](http://mainecampus.bangorpublishing.netdna-cdn.com/files/2011/02/Style-Feature-4WEB-975x731.jpg "Five of the nine volunteers trekking through the wilderness for the Discovery Channel's "Out of the Wild: Venezuela\" admire the South American landscape that leads to their next camp.")
With enough determination and knowledge, even a fear of heights isn’t enough to pass up an adventure beginning on top of a 9,200-foot mountain in Venezuela.
Michael Merchant, a 47-year-old University of Maine graduate from Hampden, is not one for heights, but is one of nine volunteers starring in the Discovery Channel series “Out of the Wild: Venezuela,” which premiered Feb. 17. The show was filmed this past fall.
The six men and three women on the team were dropped off on the top of Mt. Roraima, and, armed with only basic supplies, left to find their way 70 miles back to civilization. They did not compete for a prize and could leave the show at any time.
Merchant, who has his bachelor’s degree in biology, works as a wildlife technician for the Maine Department of Conservation. He has a knack for identifying critters and insects, among other essential skills needed for surviving the treacherous South American wilderness. He was one of thousands of applicants who applied to be on the show.
“They went through the process with a couple agendas in mind,” Merchant said of the rigorous casting process involving psychological evaluations and IQ tests. “They wanted interesting people to watch and they wanted to pick people that would make it.”
The casted volunteers, accompanied by a camera crew, were left at the “tepui” of Mt. Roraima, a tabletop plateau that constitutes the highest part of the mountain. Merchant said it took three days just for the crew to find their way down, putting his fear of heights to the test.
“Even though the tepui is flat, it’s perpetually wet. There’s a lot of slippery rocks and sand up there. You’re way up high, but it reminded me of the peat bogs around here,” Merchant said. “There’s these huge crevices where water is always eroding.”
Once they were no longer standing on the edge of cliffs, Merchant said he was much more relaxed.
“Once into the Savanna and swamp, I was in absolute heaven, even though I was suffering,” he said. “The jungle is just awesome. Every day I would find a new species of frogs. The place is magical.”
The team was left with backpacks that had basic supplies, a map, spare pairs of shoes and a change of clothes. Merchant said he originally wanted to go barefoot for the entire journey, and only had sandals as backup footwear.
“I like to go barefoot. I walked the whole day on top of the tepui,” he said, but explained it would have been impossible to continue without shoes. “Realistically the terrain was so rugged and I was worried that I’d injure myself or I’d have to leave.”
According to Merchant, the oldest on the team by 17 years, working with eight other intelligent individuals while trying to find your way through the South American jungle is anything but easy.
“We kind of became like animals,” Merchant said. “We ate bugs and mud and rotten fruit.”
He said that although “it wasn’t the Brady Bunch,” the group was able to work together and help each other through life-threatening situations.
“We fought like cats and dogs,” Merchant said. “All these people have their own idea on how to do something. Even though we were fighting, we wanted to get everybody to the end, which may have been a little unrealistic.”
But Merchant said it was important not to hold any grudges and to keep the morale high, because they never knew when they would need each other’s help.
“You might be fighting with someone one day, and the next day that person might be the reason you can go on,” he said.
If a volunteer reached the point where they felt they couldn’t continue anymore, they could use a GPS to call for help — ending their adventure and their time on the show.
Merchant said it mentally wore him down to have the GPS, knowing that with the push of a button he could be rescued.
“Survival is 90 percent mental,” he said. “But if you slip off the cliff, you die. There are a lot of real dangers there. It’s the closest you’ll get to a real survival experience. You could get saved, but having that GPS really messes with your head.”
Although average temperatures in Venezuela remain around 70 to 90 degrees Fahrenheit, Merchant said the journey was no tropical vacation.
“I froze my ass off down there,” he said. “It was terrible. The top of the tepui is 40 degrees.”
He said the cold temperatures made it extremely hard to sleep. For much of the time, the team was soaking wet, trying to rest in 40 to 50-degree weather.
“In the jungle at night, it was very uncomfortable. Water just sucks the heart right out of you,” Merchant said. “Everything is completely different there than it is in a temperate forest.”
Since Merchant was young it has been his dream to travel somewhere like Venezuela and “just go wild.” He said that if the opportunity were presented to him again, he’d fly back to the tepui in a heartbeat.
But surviving in any climate takes something Merchant said is more than just black and white.
“Being stubborn and having some humor can go a long way,” he said. “Surviving, really surviving, in the wild takes something else other than what you’re going to learn from a book.”
“I came back with a whole appreciation for things I took for granted,” he said. “I feel permanently changed by the experience.”
