Lost in the Jungle
Yossi Ghinsberg’s parents survived the Holocaust and relocated to Israel, where he was born and raised. At 19, when he was drafted to the Israeli Navy, his uncle gave him a book. He’d been through the Holocaust and told Yossi the book had protected him. As a navy recruit, Yossi Ghinsberg not only travelled out of the country, but also learned many survival tips, became fit and strong. After completing his service in 1981, Yossi became inspired to travel to Venezuela by Henri Charriére’s book Papillon, an autobiography about being wrongly convicted of murder in France, imprisoned in French Guyana, and eventually escaping to Venezuela.
Yossi Ghinsberg felt a calling for adventure. He endured many bosses and tried many jobs to save up enough funds for the trip to explore the Amazon rainforest. So, he set off on his own, hitched rides from Venezuela to Colombia. He met Marcus, a Swiss teacher, and the two decided to travel together to Bolivia. An Austrian, Karl, who happened to be planning a similar expedition in search of gold, and an American photographer, Kevin, then joined them, and the four men began their quest into the Bolivian jungle.
The Bolivians warned the group of the dangers that awaited them in the jungle, but they chose to disregard the warnings. After stocking up on provisions and supplies, they headed downriver, deep into the jungle. Eventually, they lost their way, their food ran out, and they started fighting among themselves. They discovered that Karl, in fact, was an Austrian fortune hunter, who had zero experience navigating the jungle. And that split the group.
Yossi and Kevin decided to part ways with the two Europeans, and built themselves a raft that would take them back to civilisation. Unfortunately, after setting out, they found their raft hurtling towards the edge of a waterfall. Kevin managed to jump off in time and swim to shore, but Yossi and the raft went over the falls into a deep canyon. Yossi spent the next three weeks alone in the Amazonian jungle, filthy and wet, without any real food, surrounded by stinging insects and animal predators.
On his sixth day in the jungle, he woke to find a jaguar, ready to attack. With no weapon, he grabbed the only things he had to hand — a can of mosquito repellent and a lighter — and improvised the flame-thrower. Yossi said: “I learnt the trick from a James Bond movie.”
He was hallucinating and feverish when he was found on the brink of death. Without Kevin, who returned to search for his friend despite all warnings, Yossi would have died in the wilderness.
He has since returned to Bolivia to thank the people who saved him. He promoted the building of an ecotourism resort with the aboriginal people in the area and taught them how to manage it. Yossi also published several books, which sold millions of copies, gained extreme popularity, were translated into 15 languages, and were published under a variety of names worldwide.
Kevin and Yossi remained friends. Although Kevin continued pursuing his love for photography, he was not as eager to return to the rainforest as Yossi.
What did Yossi Ghinsberg do on returning to Bolivia?
