Top 10 Toughest Tribes

By Robert Lamb, HowStuffWorks.com
 
The Volcanic Workplace
Think you've got a tough life, do you? Was the cellophane on your ready-to-cook dinner a little hard to open last night? Is your smartphone "acting all weird" and keeping you from playing Scrabble all day at your snug little desk job?

You might not have a smile on your face, but rest assured your life is a big, fluffy piece of cake compared to these 10 amazing tribes. Unlike you, these groups of men, women and children live their lives on the roughest edges of Earth's habitable zones. Ready to meet them?

10: The Volcanic Workplace

We get it. You're not all that happy with your workplace. The coffee resembles sludge and — surprise, surprise — your commute is a little longer than you'd like. Take a lesson from the sulfur miners of East Java, Indonesia, and man up for once in your cushy life.

These sulfur miners go to work each day inside an active volcano. Yes, an active volcano. For roughly $10 to $15 a day, these men brave searing clouds of hydrogen sulfide and sulfur dioxide gas. It jets from fissures in the rock, burning the miners' eyes and poisoning their lungs. Protected by little more than a damp rag over nose and mouth, they haul heavy baskets of sulfur up from an acid-filled crater.

It's work that scars. It's work that changes you. Many of the miners wind up with hyperdeveloped shoulder muscles and learn to hold their breath for extended periods. All the while their bodies accumulate scar after scar after scar.

Even filming the sequence proved daunting for the Human Planet film crew.

"The problem is we could protect the team, but the cameras really, really felt the pain," says series producer Dale Templar. "We were constantly having to stop filming and go back to base camp. We were doing open-heart surgery on a camera every day, and all three cameras broke down."

#9: The Long Walk to School »

 
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