Lions, Ice, Death Road, and Snake Island: MrBeast's Tour of the "Five Deadliest Places on Earth"

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Overview

Jimmy (MrBeast) frames this video around one escalating challenge: he and his friends visit what he calls the five deadliest places on Earth. Each stop is meant to be more dangerous than the one before, ending on an island full of venomous snakes. There is also a bonus stop in shark waters. The video runs from a night in a cage on an African safari to an overnight stay on Snake Island, where the group ends up helping scientists collect snakes for anti-venom.

9 min read

A Night in a Cage on an African Safari

The first location is a cage in the middle of an African safari. Jimmy lists lions, cheetahs, hippos, and "a dozen other species that could kill us" as the threats. To make sure the lions actually come, he brings meat and spreads it around the cage. His companions question the plan as he does it: "Oh, man, are we trying to die?"

Jimmy says the real danger is the darkness. When the sun goes down, the humans lose their sight but the animals don't. After nightfall the group hears and sees more animals. Someone spots two lions, a large animal makes them wonder whether it's a rhino, and eventually they say they are surrounded by lions about twenty feet away. The lions keep circling, and one participant says they "might actually die in this video." Jimmy uses that moment to set up the rest of the video: each later place will be "progressively more and more deadly than the last," leading up to the snake island.

Climbing a Frozen Waterfall

Next, the group ice-climbs a large frozen waterfall using bladed boots and ice picks. Before they start, Jimmy calls it possibly "the scariest thing we ever do," and one of his friends says there is "no chance" of climbing the whole thing. Jimmy admits that he wasn't sure they could pull it off either.

Partway up, Nolan quits. He shouts for everyone to stop, says "I'm out," and answers "Watch me" when told he can't quit. The others keep going. The climb gets steeper as they rise. One climber loses grip with a foot and nearly falls, and Jimmy says he has about "ten percent left" and is "fighting the urge to cry." He also says in narration that he "definitely shouldn't have been doing this." They reach the top and celebrate. Afterward Jimmy concedes that "Nolan had the right idea," and sets up a question: can Nolan handle the third place on the list?

Bolivia's "Death Road"

The third location is a road in Bolivia that Jimmy calls the deadliest road on Earth. According to the video, the road caused nearly 300 deaths per year and was shut down about a decade ago because so many people died on it. Jimmy says he got the government's permission to reopen it just for their visit. He describes one rock drop beside the road as "literally as tall as a skyscraper," and the closing recap mentions driving inches from a 1,000-foot drop.

Most of this segment is the tension inside the car. Nolan complains about Jimmy's driving and about him reacting with "Oh!" while driving. At one point the steering wheel jerks and Nolan begs, "Hands on the wheel, please!" Jimmy estimates they are about seven inches from falling to their deaths.

The narration says they then reach the first of the three deadliest spots on the route, where the road becomes very narrow. Jimmy worries that a tire will go off the edge and asks Nolan to get out and guide him. Nolan gladly leaves the car and points out the steep drop into a ravine with a waterfall. His directions don't help much; he says he feels like he's mostly running away from the car. Jimmy calls him "useless" and tells him to get back in.

Jimmy also points to fog as a hazard. Parts of the road are fairly normal, but he explains that the extreme elevation changes in Bolivia can bring in sudden, blinding fog, which he calls "a silent killer." In thick fog they stop near the edge, and Nolan says the wheels look "about ready to fall." Later Jimmy asks Nolan to walk across a bridge first because the road has been closed for about a decade and he wants to be sure it doesn't collapse with him on it. The bridge holds, and they finish the road: "We survived Death Road!"

Bonus Stop: Swimming With Sharks Without a Cage

After the land locations comes a bonus stop at sea. Karl and Nolan are in the middle of the ocean, surrounded by sharks, and they get in the water without the cage normally used. The narration says the sharks in these waters are notorious for unprovoked attacks, which it says makes this the most dangerous water in the United States.

In the water they react to how big the sharks are. One warns the other about a shark behind him, Nolan refuses at first to get in, and someone says, "Hopefully I don't die." Their quick verdict is "I'm good on sharks." Jimmy then says this was "nothing compared to" the second most dangerous spot.

The Gocta Cataracts and an Amazon Flash Flood

The second-ranked location is the Gocta Cataracts waterfall in the Amazon rainforest. Jimmy says the forest's beauty is matched by its danger: a small rainstorm can make the rivers flash flood and overwhelm the whole area. At this waterfall, he says, a flood could sweep someone down more than 1,000 feet.

Jimmy brings two people from earlier videos: Hase, who spent seventy days in the wilderness, and Bailey, who spent 100 days in a cube. When Jimmy says the chance of death is "low," they immediately ask whether that means it isn't zero. The group spends hours trekking over slippery and sometimes very steep terrain. A guide helps them cross the river, and roped in, they look over the edge of the waterfall.

Then a heavy downpour starts. Jimmy says this is exactly why the place is so dangerous: the waterfall gets wider and wider and flash flood conditions set in. He suggests using the ropes to go down beside the waterfall, but a companion calls that a bad idea. Mud is pouring down on Jimmy's line, and the narration adds that they could be struck by lightning at any point. Jimmy describes the shoot as a "YouTube video turned emergency operation."

The only way out is back over the same steep, slippery ground they came in on, now during a flood. The flooding blocks the path, and they have to rope off several sections, which takes hours. One participant notes that he laughed crossing this river on the way in and now is "actually scared," with the waterfall right next to them. After hours more of trekking through floodwater and mud, Jimmy says, they "walked away from this mountain with our lives."

Snake Island: An Overnight Stay and Helping With Anti-Venom

The top spot on the list is Snake Island, which Jimmy calls the most dangerous island on the planet. The boat drops them off, and they are stranded there overnight until the next day. Specialized shin guards are their main protection against bites. When asked what happens if one of the snakes bites them, Jimmy says the venom entering the bloodstream makes "your skin melt off," and that you could be dead in under an hour.

Jimmy also explains a point that runs against expectations. With a name like Snake Island, you might expect thousands of snakes in the open. According to the video, though, the snakes killed off all the ground animals and now hunt birds in the trees, the only prey left. Once the group enters the jungle, they have to worry about snakes dropping from trees as well as snakes at ground level. One person spots a snake right next to his face.

The video explains the visit's purpose this way: scientists capture the snakes so they can extract venom and make anti-venom. During one attempt, a juvenile snake gets away. Jimmy jokes that the handler is "as chill about dropping that snake as I am when I drop my phone." Deeper in, the bushes get too thick to see two feet ahead, and they find more snakes. When Jimmy asks how many lives the anti-venom from one snake could save, the answer is "thousands of lives." The narration adds that this anti-venom can treat 90 percent of all snake bites in Brazil, so each snake caught could mean thousands of lives saved.

For the rest of the day, Jimmy says, the group helped find snakes and assisted the scientists' research. In one case, the scientists suggest shaking a tree to bring down a snake about 15 feet up. Someone objects that he would never camp under those trees, while another argues that they need the anti-venom because it can save lives. As it gets dark, the focus shifts to survival and setting up camp. Jimmy admits, "I have no idea if these tents are snake proof." Before sleeping, people say they hope no snake gets into their tent, that it's terrifying, and that they can't wait to be home.

Getting Out Alive

In the morning, everyone's only goal is to get off the island as quickly as possible. In the closing recap, Jimmy lists hanging off the side of a huge ice mountain, driving inches from a 1,000-foot drop, and swimming with sharks without a cage. He ends with: "We survived Snake Island, and no one died!"