By Ashley Thompson

Amanda, 33, a survivalist from Texas who hunts snakes and is afraid of spiders (PSR of 5.8) meets Josh, 27, a gun smith from North Carolina (PSR of 6.1) at the southern border of Nicaragua near the San Juan River. She brings along a machete (which dulls quickly into the challenge) and he brings a long duct tape. Well, that's a Naked and Afraid first! But I don't think it's going to help much with the cayman, aggressive spider monkeys or over 150,000 species of insects, spiders and snakes.

Since Josh is more of a hunter than a carpenter, Amanda is in charge of the shelter while Josh takes it upon himself to make blankets, bikinis and cups out of his duct tape. It's all very effective but we may never know just how well the duct tape could help in a survival situation. After only 5 days and one pineapple Josh is forced to tap out due to overwhelming cigarette withdrawals. Who decides to use THIS as their rehab from caffeine and nicotine? At one point during this short stay he was sleep walking in-between vomitting spells, enough that the medic had to intervene not once but twice. Tapping out left Amanda alone in the rain forest for 16 days, longer than any other participant in Naked and Afraid history.

During her 16 days alone Amanda is left alone with her thoughts and it doesn't look pretty. Her diary cam catches glimpses of an incredible amount of spiders and glowing eyes, and the camp cameras catch glimpses of a million bug bites and not a lot of searching for food outside of camp.

Somehow Amanda makes it the 21 days but now has to trek several miles through a tributary stream, through the snake ridden jungle, then three more miles in order to swim to a boat for extraction. Somehow she makes it happen and couldn't look happier. Due to his tapping out at day 5, Josh's PSR goes down to 4.3. Amanda, even though lasting longer than any other survivalist alone, only raises her PSR to 6.3, and she is down 21 pounds.

The only thing I can think of is if I had that many bug bites I'd probably take an incredible amount of Benadryl and sleep through my first week post challenge.

Photo courtesy of DCL