Not many people can say they have broken multiple world records, come face to face with some of the deadliest animals on Earth, and battled life-threatening diseases with no access to medical facilities.
But for British explorer Ash Dykes, these experiences have been key learning curves, changing the way he looks at life, relationships and problems. The 33-year-old has just come back to the UK from his latest adventure in Suriname, a small country on the north-eastern coast of South America, during which he and his team discovered the source of an uncharted Amazon river, despite being stalked by jaguars and ravaged by insects.
During their 37-day expedition, Ash and his team teammates Jacob Hudson, Dick Lock, and Matt Wallace, had to kayak for three days and nights straight to complete their mission, suffering from sleep deprivation, infections and malnutrition. Not being able to sleep meant they also battled sickness and hallucinations, but they kept going – and after completing their epic journey, the team were awarded two Guinness World Records this week.
The four men reached the summit of Julianatop, the highest mountain in Suriname at 1,280 metres, before going on to become the first team to row the length of the Coppename River by canoe/kayak. They also set a new record for the fastest time to climb Julianatop as a team, with a time of five days, eight hours, and 35 minutes.
In an exclusive interview with The Mirror just one day after returning home to London, Ash, who is originally from St Asaph, Wales, opened up on the challenges he faced in Suriname – including not seeing any other humans for 34 days, having to survive on just 500 calories a day by eating piranhas and canned food, enduring broken toenails and hundreds of insect’s bites, and avoiding vicious animals such as tarantulas, jaguars, and alligators. Ash also explained how his passion for adventure began – and despite just coming back from Suriname, he revealed he is already planning his next expedition.
He told us: “I think growing up, in school and in college I was always very competitive, always into athletics and sports, and I think maybe the curiosity for adventure and for travel probably kicked in at age 15, 16, when I started hearing other people’s stories of travels, when I started watching documentaries and I didn’t want to watch them on TV, I wanted to be out there amongst it.” He said that as a teenager, he realised he wanted to be “out there” to experience life to the fullest, explaining: “I remember thinking, ‘I would love to get out there, there’s one life to live, and I want to spend it building up experiences that will develop me and change me.’
“But I come from a very normal background, a tiny coastal town in Wales, with no financial background, I didn’t have any university background, no military background, I was just working in a fish and chips shop as a waiter and as a lifeguard, so my parents always told me, ‘If you want something, you’ve got to put in hard work.’ So I worked multiple jobs, I had this idea that I wanted to go off and travel, and when I did travel, that’s when it all started to really kick off.”
He added: “I wanted to get off the beaten track, I didn’t want to share the same photos and experiences as all of the rest of travellers, I wanted a more unique perspective, understand the culture and meet the locals.” Ash was 19 when he embarked on first major adventure in 2010 and travelled to China, which he said at the time was “a totally different country to what it is now.”
He then cycled Cambodia and the length of Vietnam on a low budget, using £10 bikes, with no gears, no suspension, no pump, repair kit or map. Ash said the first three years of his adventures were “crucial” as they encouraged him to keep going and explore more.
In 2014, Ash became the first ever recorded person to hike across Mongolia solo and unsupported, covering over 1,500 miles in 78 days. During the expedition, he trekked over the Altai Mountains, through the Gobi Desert and the Mongolian Steppe, while pulling a wheeled trailer weighing 120kg which carried everything he needed to survive.
The following year, the explorer embarked on a gruelling 1,600-mile trek covering the length of Madagascar via its mountainous ridge. But halfway through his adventure, Ash contracted the deadliest strain of malaria and was rushed to hospital, where he received treatment and spent a week there to recover. But once he began feeling better, he continued his walk, completing it on February 15, 2016 – and winning his second world record.
But the enthusiastic adventurer didn’t stop there, as in August 2018 he embarked on another expedition, completing a 4,000-mile trek walking the length of the Yangtze river in China. Asked about his favourite adventure over the years, Ash told us: “The Vietnam cycle was the catalyst as that’s when I discovered my love and passion for adventure. The Mongolia record, when I was 23, was the career-maker.
“Madagascar was very challenging, I was held at gunpoint by the military and contracted the deadliest strain of Malaria, hiking through the jungle, crossing crocodile-infested rivers. It was 155 days of brutality. The Yangtze is the one where I officially made it.” He added: “There is something about China that I really love just because it’s got so many countries in one.”
When picking his destinations, Ash said he looks for “the wildest and most remote places that probably feature in most people’s minds, but no one understands those places or goes to them.” And while on his expeditions, Ash has to forget about all the home comforts he has while in the UK, as he is forced to shower in rivers and eat whatever he and his team can find – which can often be something unusual, such as piranhas or wolf-fish.
Asked what a piranha tastes like, Ash said they have many bones, but described the meat as “very tasty” when roasted over a fire. He also said he is always aware of the risk wild animals such as wolf-fish pose due to their sharp teeth – and described how he had to keep an eye out for stingrays for showering in the river.
Ash, who is a global ambassador for the charity Free The Wild, said the team also came face to face with a jaguar during the Suriname expedition. And he said that although he managed to contact loved ones and share his journey on social media via Globalsat and Viasat technology, he felt detached from the outside world.
Travelling to these remote destinations also means that planning ahead is difficult, Ash said, as things can change quickly. Talking about his recent expedition to discover the source of the Coppename River, he revealed: “We knew where the spot was, but we didn’t know how to get there. And we knew where the finish was, but we didn’t know how long it would take to get there.”
He also admitted that “the fear is there” during his expeditions but he has learnt to manage it over time. He opened up on his fear of stingrays due to the risk of being stung by their tails, which contain venom, saying: “I had fears of stingrays as I knew we were going to be in the river a lot of the time in a boat.” During the Suriname expedition, Ash lost three toenails, Matt was stung by a scorpion and a wild jaguar wandered through their camp at some point.
Overall, the team covered 600km via boat from the source of the river to the mouth, which leads into the Atlantic Ocean. After completing the challenge and winning his latest world records, Ash declared: “We truly became the wild, adapted, survived and thrived in one of the most difficult environments on the planet, to set out and achieve what many said was impossible.”
Asked whether adapting to these wild environments has become easier over time, Ash said: “I think it probably takes a week or two on any new expedition to break into your ‘wild side’. Eventually, you start to become comfortable with the uncomfortable. You break into this sort of ‘wild site’ mindset where you go from caring about washing in the river with caymans to then, there’s caymans, piranhas, stingrays, electric eels, and you’re happy to go in and wash. You’ve got a head torch on and you can see all of the eyeballs, you’ll be like ‘oh, there’s two caymans there’, there’s all of these spiders glaring back, but you don’t care anymore.”
Ash also said that being in the wild has taught him to appreciate life at home more, and not taking things – such as putting your kettle on and taking a hot shower, or ordering food delivered to your home – for granted. And he revealed that towards the end of their Suriname expedition, they didn’t sleep for three days, with his teammate Matt suffering from hallucinations. He said the reason for their sleep deprivation was that the river was becoming tidal, meaning they couldn’t decide when to stop paddling, and when eventually they found a place to stop, they would only try to rest for a short time in their kayak – before mosquitoes woke up, started biting them, and the river’s current changed, meaning they had to start paddling again.
Talking about the toll sleep deprivation took on the team, Ash said: “Altogether, that was three nights and four days we got under five hours of sleep for that whole duration. We started hallucinating. Matt would see objects and dark grey figures in the distance that we knew weren’t there, but he was seeing them.”
Ash said he missed “civilisation” during his most recent expedition, so towards the end of the trip he felt motivated to continue as he started to become more and more excited to come back home to see his girlfriend Shabnam and his family. But he was grateful for the Viasat and Globalsat technology, which allowed him to keep in touch with his girlfriend, saying: “I think what was crazy for me was to be able to speak to loved ones over the phone whilst I was in the middle of the jungle, knowing that thousands and thousands of years ago, the Indigenous stood here, and I’m here, able to flip open my Viasat telephone and I’m having a conversation with my girlfriend from the middle of nowhere. I’m looking around and everywhere is just unchanged, so I’m almost getting a glimpse into what the world would have looked like tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of years ago. That really kept us going.”
He concluded: “Out here, because there’s no human activity, the wildlife are all really curious. So the wildlife don’t necessarily run away or hide. They watch on to see if you’re a threat or not – or to see if you are prey. A jaguar came to the river bank and stood there staring for at least two minutes which was unreal. But I really hope Suriname stays this way and allows the jungle to remain relatively untouched and for the wildlife to be left alone.”
Ash praised and thanked Free The Wild, which was co-founded by Mark Cowne and Gina Nelthorpe-Cowne, for their support during the mission. Talking about what’s next for him, Ash revealed he has some plans in the pipeline – and while he is not able to reveal details yet, he is excited about his future expeditions.
