THE
YEAR WAS 1982. TWENTY-TWO-YEAR-OLD YOSSI GHINSBERG WAS SEVERAL MONTHS INTO ONE
OF THOSE MAGICAL OVERSEAS JOURNEYS WE ALL DREAM ABOUT AT ONE POINT OR ANOTHER
IN OUR LIVES, MAKING HIS WAY ACROSS SOUTH AMERICA. BOLIVIA WAS SUPPOSED TO BE
ONE OF MANY MORE STOPS ON THE TREK. IT TURNED OUT TO BE YOSSI’S LAST.
In
Survive! Essential Skills and Tactics to Get You Out of Anywhere . . . Alive, I
talked about the four additive forces at work in the struggle for survival, one
of which is luck. Well, if there was ever a survivor who demonstrates how
important luck, both good and bad, can be in a survival situation, Yossi
Ghinsberg is that person. Bad luck saw Yossi forced to survive on his own in
the uncharted Amazon jungle for nearly three weeks. Good luck? Well, let’s get
into the story first.
One
day, in the Bolivian capital of La Paz, Yossi met with a mysterious Austrian
expatriate named Karl Ruprechter, who introduced himself as a geologist and
wove tales of jungle adventure for the young Israeli. Karl told Yossi he was
planning a three-month expedition deep into the jungle to look for precious
metals and lost Indian tribes, and offered to take Yossi along with him.
Enchanted
by Karl’s stories and thirsting for a taste of untamed adventure, Yossi—along
with two other mochileros (backpackers) he had met in La Paz—agreed to join the
Austrian, who described himself as a born survivor of sorts: gold miner, jaguar
hunter, jungle master.
And
while Yossi may have had pure intentions, he was sorely lacking in many aspects
of wilderness travel, particularly when it came to planning and preparation. He
was young, carefree, and looking for adventure. So when he, Kevin Gale (a burly
American, legendary among travelers for his strength and endurance), Marcus
Stamm (a sensitive Swiss man), and Karl met to discuss the trip at length,
Yossi ignored the hard-line details and practicalities and instead focused on
the romance the trip promised.
It
was an ill-fated decision, because there was a lot about Karl that should have
raised red flags with Yossi: Karl often changed his story about his experience
in the jungle. He first offered to lead the expedition for free, then turned
around and charged the mochileros a hefty guide’s fee. He threatened to cancel
the trip because of an obligation to a mysterious uncle who supposedly owned a
ranch in another part of the country. But Yossi’s connection to Karl was based
on Yossi’s spirit of adventure, not analytical thought. So he didn’t ask enough
questions.
Yossi
certainly isn’t the first person to be guilty of this mistake. Many would-be
adventurers consider planning and preparation to be an annoying waste of time,
and one that only serves to get in the way of “fun.” A carefree attitude may be
fun in some circumstances, but the Amazon jungle is not the place to play it by
ear. The experienced traveler knows that you can be prepared and still have fun
and adventure. Had Yossi and his newly found friends recognized this, perhaps
tragedy might not have occurred.
With
a few free days before he headed into the jungle, Yossi set about informing
people of his plans. He left a note with the Israeli embassy, sent a message to
a local friend’s family, and mailed a lengthy letter to his brother Moishele in
Israel, detailing what little he knew about the upcoming adventure.
It
was the right thing to do. Telling three people of your plans is the best way
to make sure someone will take notice if you don’t return. Most travelers, even
the most thoughtful ones, tell only one person. This can be adequate, if that
person is very close to you and is responsible. Otherwise, it makes sense to
tell as many people as possible. But above all, the best strategy is to
establish a firm drop-dead date for your return. If you have not gotten in
touch with your contacts by this date, they must take swift and decisive action
(of a sort that you and they have clearly predetermined) and either come
looking for you or send out a search team.
Yossi
left many of his belongings behind in La Paz, including his wristwatch. Again,
his motivation was pure, as he thought he’d have no need to keep track of time
or schedules in the jungle, but ultimately, it was a bad move. Yossi didn’t
count on being in a survival situation, where he could have used the watch to
determine travel time, or even use it as a survival tool, but there was no
practical reason for him to leave it behind.
The
four men boarded a flight over the Andes to the village of Apolo, where their
trek would begin. Karl’s plan was to hike from Apolo to the neighboring village
of Asriamas, then through the jungle to their final destination, the village of
Riberalta.
It
wasn’t long before Karl got the chance to demonstrate his expertise. Their
first night out of Apolo, he impressed his compadres by improvising a shelter
from bamboo and nylon sheeting (even though they had a tent) and carpeting it
with a bed of leaves. Karl clearly knew how to handle himself in the jungle,
but he was no leader. He was a ruffian and a drifter, one whose inability to
keep the group focused on a collective goal would ultimately contribute to the
trip’s descent into discord and failure.
Nevertheless,
their first days proved idyllic, largely because they were still within the
confines of civilization. They hiked from ranch to ranch, enjoying the
hospitality of locals who housed them, fed them, and treated them as honored
guests. During one such stop, Karl insisted on buying an emaciated dog, which
he said would protect them from jaguars once they got deeper into the jungle.
The dog proved to be much more of a burden than it was worth and ultimately ran
away. Karl’s nearly neurotic insistence on buying the dog, despite his friends’
protests, should have been another red flag for Yossi.
The
first cracks in the group dynamic began to develop shortly thereafter. One
morning, Karl rushed along a jungle path with Flaca (“Skinny”) the dog, leaving
the others behind. Yossi, Kevin, and Marcus soon came upon a fork in the trail,
and only by luck picked the path that eventually brought them to the spot where
Karl and Flaca were resting.
This
was another Karl red flag. He was the one who knew the territory, he was the
guide, and he should have known enough to wait at every junction for those
trailing behind. When you’re traveling in a group in the wilderness, you always
need to assign a lead person and a tail person. The lead person is responsible
for stopping at all forks in the trail, while the tail person ensures that
nobody gets left behind and that the rate of travel is comfortable for the
slowest person. In addition, all of the members of the group should always be
either in sight, or, at the very least, within earshot of one another. Karl
ignored this basic rule of group wilderness travel.
Four
days after setting out from Apolo, the group arrived at the village of
Asriamas, on the banks of the Tuichi River. There they had the opportunity to
eat, rest, and replenish their dwindling food stores. Karl’s plan was to follow
the nearby Asriamas River upstream for a few days, then cross a range of
mountains to the Cocus River. They would descend the Cocus and continue
crossing mountains until they came to the Colorado-Chico River, which would
then lead them to the authentic “Indian village” and the gold they sought. An
ambitious plan!
With
full bellies and backpacks, the four set out from Asriamas. The going was
difficult from the start, and Yossi soon began to worry about the amount of
food they had. Trusting your instincts is everything in survival, and Yossi was
beginning to experience this instinctual characteristic of a true survivor,
though he didn’t know it. Karl had assured them there would be loads of game to
hunt along the way, though. The jungle, he promised, was practically bursting
with animals they could hunt with the rifle they brought along from La Paz.
For
several days, they fell into a comfortable routine. Karl would wake before
everyone else and prepare breakfast. He never asked for help and never chided
the others for lying in bed while he worked. Then again, he was a loner, and
likely preferred his time alone. The group had come to rely on Karl so much
that they started calling him “Poppa.”
And
while things seemed relatively safe at this point in the journey, the cracks in
the group dynamic that had begun to form before Asriamas began to rear their
ugly heads again. Karl and Marcus began spending most of their time together;
Kevin and Yossi did the same. Yossi was smart enough to broach the changing
group dynamic with his good friend Marcus, but in the end they walked away
without having resolved anything.
Never
underestimate the powerful negative effect that group dynamics can have on a
survival situation. Bad ones have been the cause of hundreds of emergencies.
Once tempers flare and emotions rule the day, tactical reason and intelligent
travel perspectives get thrown out the window. Of course, nobody wants to see their
travel mates come to ill fate, but if emotion begins to take the place of
reason, then stupid moves are made that can put other people’s lives in
jeopardy. Therefore, it’s vital that groups in remote wilderness situations
keep things running smoothly and that they clear the air during the trip rather
than staying quiet and letting things reach the boiling point. After all, that
boiling point may be hit in the middle of a dangerous set of rapids—clearly, no
place to lose focus by yelling at your partner.
At
the headwaters of the Tuichi, Karl led the group on the climb that would take
them over the mountains to the Cocus. Their poor excuse for a map confirmed
little of this, but the group again put its collective faith in Karl. Of the
many mistakes Yossi and his new friends made in going on the trip, failing to
familiarize themselves with Karl’s map was one of the biggest. The map was not
particularly detailed—they couldn’t find anything better in La Paz before they
left—but, at the very least, each person should have spent some time studying
it, to get a feel for the terrain.
Nobody
should venture into the wild without basic map-reading skills. And if your
guide is the only person in your group to have a map, don’t be shy: ask to see
the map as often as possible, familiarize yourself with the area and the route
you are traveling. It can also be helpful to use a global positioning system
(GPS) device, which uses satellites to display your location anywhere on the
planet. Satellite messenger devices such as the spot, which use one-way text
messaging and e-mail to inform your contacts of your location and progress, can
save your life when things go wrong.
For
what it’s worth, Karl knew his way around the jungle. He taught the others how
to collect water from the bamboo shoots that grew in abundance in the area; he
seemed to know the geography of the area like the back of his hand; and when he
shot a monkey from the treetops, he expertly built a domed structure in which
to smoke the meat. Yet Karl’s greatest flaw as a leader was that he taught the
others very little about route-finding. Similarly, the boys didn’t seem
interested in learning where they had come from, or how to find their way back
should something go wrong.
If
the others had been smart, they would have made detailed mental notes of the
trails they had been on and the ranches they had passed, the time between
locations, direction, and landmarks. But this kind of meticulous attention to
detail is difficult to maintain, especially when you’re with a few buddies and
the experience is about the adventure. Noting your surroundings is not a
difficult thing to do; you just have to set your mind to it.
When
I was hunting tapir in the Amazon with the native Waorani people of eastern
Ecuador, I made sure to keep detailed mental records of where we had been and
how I would get back to the village if need be. I knew that anything could
happen out there, and it might have been me who had to run back for help. So I
played something like a reconnaissance map in my head: “Okay, I came about
fifteen minutes and then turned left. Another hour and turned right. Past the
waterfalls, then past the cave, then turned right again.” I knew if I replayed
that in reverse in my head, I could make my way back, even by myself. I wouldn’t
have expected Yossi, Kevin, and Marcus to do the same, but they should have at
least tried to remember how to get back to the last populated village.
As
Karl predicted, the journey over the mountains brought them to the banks of the
Cocus River. Karl wanted to follow the river, then cross the mountains back
over to the Colorado-Chico, where they could pan for gold. Although the other
members of the group started to doubt the route at this point, there was little
chance that Karl’s mind could be changed. He was operating on sheer
determination and probably figured he was quite right about things.
When
this happens to the leader, the other members of the group usually put their
heads down and follow along, danger signs be damned. It’s a classic Pied Piper
scenario. But what Karl didn’t do was devise a backup plan. He seemed to have
no idea what he would do if the group ran into trouble, and this played a huge
role in the ultimate downfall of the trip. Planning a trip is one thing, but
you should always do it with an eye toward survival, especially since the most
common cause of death in the wilderness is unpreparedness.
It
was also around this time that the group’s collective hunger became much more
acute, even though they were less than a week out of Asriamas and had been
lucky enough to bag some wild game en route, including a goose, a monkey, and a
sloth. Nevertheless, their reliance on hunting as their primary source of food
was a huge mistake. It’s one thing for a traveler to depend on hunting when there’s
only one mouth to feed. But looking after four grown men is another story.
It’s
a common mistake. Accomplished hunters who have successfully provided for
themselves while alone in the bush often underestimate what it takes to feed a
larger group. A sloth is a lot of meat for one man and can last a long time.
Add three other adult men, and it’s barely a couple of meals.
With
their stores of food rapidly dwindling, their gear disintegrating, their feet
beginning to rot from being constantly wet, and the route ahead unclear, the
group could not face the prospect of another grueling climb over the mountains.
They decided to return to Asriamas, where they could restock their supplies and
alter their plan. (In my mind, the change should have included getting out of
the jungle—and away from Karl.) Once there, they discussed new options. Although
Marcus wanted to return to La Paz, the decision was ultimately made to stay in
Asriamas and build a raft, then float down the Tuichi River to a town called
Rurrenabaque.
The
week-long stay in Asriamas was good for their health. Marcus, who had developed
a bad case of trench foot, healed to the point that he felt able to go along
with the others rather than return to La Paz. But while their physical health
may have improved in Asriamas, the respite did nothing to improve group
dynamics, which continued to deteriorate. By the time they set off down the
Tuichi, they had separated into two factions: Kevin and Yossi; Karl and Marcus.
The
decision to raft down the river was a critical one in the evolution of the
journey. But despite its importance, the group didn’t seem to spend much mental
energy discussing it—or its potential dangers. I suspect that by that point
they were all tired and wanted to get home—a dangerous mindset to be in when
you are taking on the jungle—and floating down the river seemed like a much
friendlier option than hiking back to Apolo. It was an understandable position,
but it set in motion the wheels of impending peril.
The
group’s apparent inability to anticipate the danger of the river was no doubt
exacerbated by the fact that its members were no longer getting along. This may
explain why they never took the time to devise a plan should things go wrong
and they get separated in the vastness of the Amazon. This small
gesture—anticipating the worst-case scenario and preparing for it—is almost
always overlooked in situations such as these. What do we do if we get
separated? Where will we meet? And when? I have seen situations where
discussions like these have even annoyed careless and impatient people, but the
fact is that they can save lives. Yossi and his mates never had such a
discussion, and they paid the ultimate price.
With
the raft construction complete, the group was again ready to set out. They had
ten pounds of rice, eight pounds of dried beans, a bunch of plantains, some
vegetables, and spices. For some inexplicable reason, Karl—who had been
appointed to care for the group’s finances—traded off most of their survival
gear during their second stay in Asriamas. He gave away almost all of their
fishing line, all but three fishing hooks, and nine of the ten lighters they
had when they arrived in the village, leaving only one (and half-full at that!)
for the remainder of the journey. This did not seem to deter anyone, though, as
they set off down the Tuichi for the last time as a group of four.
If
anyone in the group had any nagging concerns about their lack of preparation
for what lay ahead, this was certainly the appropriate time to adamantly voice
their opinion and insist on beefing up their survival supplies. Nobody did, and
it was only a matter of minutes before they realized they were woefully ill
equipped for what lay ahead. The river’s personality changed from placid to
frenzied with a single bend in the shoreline, and the raft bashed from rock to
rock before the four travelers were able to get to shore and regroup. They
practiced a little after setting out again, and seemed to hit a comfortable
rhythm, a sensation aided by the fact that they happened to be in the midst of
a particularly calm section of the river once again. They pulled to shore for
the evening at the top of a tumultuous section known as Eslabon Pass.
Here,
Karl did the right thing (though perhaps motivated by his own
self-preservation) by insisting that they portage around the pass, after which
they would again take to the river. The other three were anxious to get going,
though, and chose to ignore his warnings. While Karl was out hunting, Yossi and
Kevin boarded the raft to take it through the pass; Marcus grudgingly joined
them. The three somehow made it through the pass alive, though they lost all
their oars and poles en route. Luckily, Kevin was strong enough to jump into
the water and pull the raft to shore, with Yossi and Marcus still on it. They
hiked back through the jungle, gathered up Karl and the rest of their gear, and
returned to the raft.
The
next few days followed a similar pattern: idyllic and calm, turbulent and
frantic. Yet things changed forever when they approached a notorious section of
the river known as Mal Paso San Pedro, a rock canyon that ends in a precipitous
waterfall. Here, Karl suddenly decided he was going no farther down the river,
and would instead spend a few days walking to a village he thought to be in the
vicinity, where he would rent donkeys to take him back to Apolo. Marcus agreed
to go with him, while Yossi and Kevin decided to take the raft through the Mal
Paso San Pedro and down the river. It may seem like a foolish decision, but it
was no more risky than Karl’s alternative. In fact, I think Karl and Marcus
should have pressed on with Yossi and Kevin, which might have seen them all
make it to safety. But the group dynamic had deteriorated so much by that point
that it was almost fated that they would go their separate ways in pairs.
With
the decision made to split up, the next order of business was to divide their
survival gear. Land-bound Karl and Marcus took the rifle, giving the fishing
gear and most of the nonperishable food to Kevin and Yossi. The machete went to
Kevin and Yossi; Karl and Marcus got the tent. Early the next morning, they
bade farewell to one another. It would be the last time Yossi ever saw Karl or
Marcus.
Kevin
and Yossi set off down the Tuichi on their raft, with a smaller life raft tied
on top in case of emergency. Things went wrong immediately; as the river
narrowed and the banks rose from gentle beaches to rock walls, the raft became
pinned up against a rock at the entrance to the Mal Paso San Pedro. As water
rushed furiously all around, Kevin decided to swim for shore, where he would
throw Yossi a vine and pull him to safety. Yet as soon as Kevin dove into the
water, the weight of the raft shifted and it came loose from the rock. Yossi
hurtled down the river and into the Mal Paso San Pedro by himself. For what
seemed like an eternity, he careened from rock to rock, until he was finally
thrown over the falls and into the torrent of the river. He somehow managed to
survive the drop uninjured, and miraculously found the raft floating not far
away. When he swam to it, though, he was shocked to find that the little life
raft—which had all the food and survival gear strapped to it in what Yossi
called a “lifepack”—had become dislodged and was lost. He was now well
separated from Kevin and alone in the Amazon, without a backup plan in place.
Yossi
saw the lifepack raft trapped between some rocks on the far shore and made an
attempt to retrieve it, but the current was too strong. So he did the right
thing by improvising a shelter for himself and deciding to wait until the
following day to try to rescue the raft. He fed himself that evening by
uprooting a palmetto tree and eating the palm heart, as Karl had taught him. He
had paid attention, and it served him well.
At
this point, he had two choices: give in to desperation or pull himself up by
the bootstraps and soldier on. For Yossi, the decision was clear: he would
survive. And in those moments when he began to feel hopeless, he would whisper
his new personal mantra to himself: “Man of action, man of action.” This was a
terrific survival strategy, whether Yossi knew it or not. Repeating a phrase or
a comforting thought can be a strong motivational tool in a survival situation,
one that helps keep the mind focused on the positive aspects of the situation,
not the desperation.
Survival
Kit for Rafting
bandana
belt knife (with
sharpening stone)
bug netting
candle
cup (metal,
collapsible, for
boiling water)
dried food
duct tape
fire-starting devices
fire-starting tinder
first aid kit
fishing lures
flares
flashlight
folding saw
garbage bags (orange)
GPS unit
hand lens (small)
map and compass
marker or “surveyor”
tape
money
multi-tool or Swiss
Army–style
knife (with saw
blade)
needle and thread
parachute cord (or
similar rope)
pencil and notebook
protein bars
safety pins
signal mirror
snare wire
solar blanket
SPOT personal tracker
water purification
tablets
water purifying straw
whistle
Ziploc bags
The next morning, Yossi decided to go
back and look for the life raft in the river. His innate survival instincts
began to demonstrate themselves immediately. He was careful and meticulous in
the route he chose down to the river, recognizing how dangerous it would be if
he hurt himself on the way. Eventually, he made it down to the raft,
where—through a huge stroke of good luck—he found the lifepack, too! Inside, he
was delighted to find its contents—rice and beans, flashlight and matches,
lighter, map, mosquito netting, poncho, first aid kit, insect repellent, and
wallet—intact.
Yossi’s
ability to think clearly in an otherwise desperate situation was amazing. In
his first day completely alone in the jungle, he used his red poncho to make a
signal in case Kevin wandered nearby; he successfully killed, skinned, and
gutted a poisonous lora snake (which he later used for fishing bait), harvested
an unidentified yellow fruit from a tree laden with fire ants, and improvised a
shelter in a stone wall. Yossi’s response in these early stages is a classic
example of how a person’s individual ability can come to the forefront when the
other members of the group are no longer around to overshadow it.
He
began walking back toward Kevin, but his feet were in bad shape. He had begun
to develop the same trench foot that had plagued Marcus for so long, only
worse. To help ease the pain, he swallowed a pill from a box labeled uppers in
the first aid kit, then made his way back up the Tuichi.
I’ve
found that strong pain medications can be very helpful in a survival situation.
I usually take Demerol with me, in case of a major pain-inducing injury like a
broken femur. It not only erases the pain, but also helps calm you down,
thereby preventing the shock (which can be as dangerous as the pain) that often
accompanies such serious injuries. As long as you are trained in the proper use
of strong painkillers (and it’s vital that you are), you can get yourself
through some pretty debilitating injuries.
Yet
the drug, combined with Yossi’s relatively empty stomach, was too much. Like a
man possessed, he ran through the jungle with reckless abandon for hours on
end. At one point he came to a sheer rock face. The Tuichi flowed some two
hundred feet below, but Yossi—determined to find Kevin and fueled by a feeling
of invincibility from the drugs—scrambled up the cliff, putting himself at
great risk. At one point, he even fell off the wall, but had his fall broken by
the pack on his back.
In
those first few days, Yossi was often stricken with fear at the thought of the
many potential dangers lurking around him, but he took active measures to stave
it off. He looked for a stick that he could use as a club or spear, an
excellent choice in a survival situation as it can be used for many tasks,
including protection from jaguars—the main large jungle predator. Unable to
find anything suitable, he practiced using his insect repellent as a
flamethrower, another brilliant bit of innovation.
Yossi
settled down on a plateau not far from the river and waited for five days
before concluding that he was not going to find Kevin. In the meantime, his
feet began to heal and his fever settled, so waiting proved to be the perfect
strategy. Too often, people ignore their bodies and try to push through the
pain, when they should instead stop, rest, and take care of themselves before
moving on. Five days later, Yossi was in much better condition, and he decided
to walk downriver to a small seasonal camp called Curiplaya, where he hoped to
find people.
As
Yossi started his journey to Curiplaya, he could not stop obsessing about food,
a classic reaction in these situations. I have done the same thing during every
one of my survival episodes. Usually, around the fourth day without food, I
start craving big, hot pieces of pizza dripping with gobs of melted cheese
because my body is craving fat, and melted cheese is the perfect solution. My
mind makes the connection, and dreams of pizza invariably plague me on long
nights alone in the wilderness.
Yossi
soon decided that traveling along the riverbank would be too slow and arduous,
so he made for higher ground and meticulously picked his way up the steep
mountainside that fell sharply down to the river below. After his close call on
the cliff nearly a week earlier, Yossi realized that getting injured would have
been the kiss of death. He was right. Even something seemingly as minor as
getting poked in the eye with a branch—not to mention tearing an ankle
ligament—is enough to turn someone from survivor to victim. All movements must
be measured and calculated and made calmly.
Back
near the top of the mountain, Yossi realized he had no idea which direction to
travel, as he could no longer see the river, which had been his only reference
point. Dejected, he decided to return down the treacherous slope; he seemed to
have no other choice than to pick his way along the steep banks of the Tuichi.
That trip had to wait until morning, though, as darkness was setting in. He was
near panic when he realized there was no suitable place to find shelter and he
was unable to make a fire. He fashioned a makeshift tent from the mosquito
netting, armed himself with what few items he had in his pack that he could use
in self-defense, and sat nervously as total darkness fell.
A
few hours later, Yossi heard sounds coming from the brush around him. He tried
to ignore them, but when the rustle of leaves was accompanied by what sounded
like footsteps, he turned on his flashlight to reveal a jaguar standing a few
yards away, staring at him and waving its tail slowly from side to side. Yossi
screamed, but the jaguar was not deterred. Near panic, he reverted to his
insect-repellent flamethrower: he pressed down on the nozzle and lit the spray
with his lighter, spitting out a jet of flame. When the can was empty, Yossi
was scorched and temporarily blinded, but the jaguar was gone.
The
next morning, Yossi was overjoyed at seeing the sun, a feeling I’ve experienced
every time I’ve been on a survival expedition, when waiting all night for the
dawn can be an agonizing experience. All you want is for the sun to rise, but
the darkness plays tricks with time and dawn never comes fast enough. Your
otherwise-helpful wristwatch can become your nemesis, too. There’s nothing
worse than looking at your watch and expecting to see 5 a.m., only to find out
it’s just past midnight. These are the lost and lonely hours of survival
situations, when you feel a chill rip up your spine and realize that daylight
is still hours away. It’s then, more than any other time in a survival ordeal,
that all you want is to be home.
With
the sun up, Yossi began the trip back down to the Tuichi. The brush was too
thick to show the way, so he again relied on his wits and began following
streams, knowing they would eventually lead him down to the big body of water
at the base of the mountain. This was another smart decision. As a general
rule, following a river downstream is advisable, if you are fairly certain of
what lies along the way. Following a watercourse downstream also works well in
the continental United States, where just about any river will eventually lead
to a town or city.
Yossi
eventually made it back to the shores of the river, where he swore never again
to venture into the heart of the jungle. At the rushing water’s edge, he felt
safer, more secure. As light faded into dusk, he came upon a cave at the edge
of the jungle, another of his many lucky breaks during his time alone. Here,
Yossi holed up for the evening, knowing that the cave would provide protection
from the wind, which had chilled him after an entire day of rainforest
downpours. Wind is one of the most dangerous weather elements you can face in
the wilderness, particularly if you’re wet and already chilled, even in the
jungle.
All
too often, people may remember a warm summer rain and figure they can’t get
chilled in the tropical heat. But rain and wind can lower your body temperature
to the point of hypothermia just about anywhere on the planet. At the very
least, this deadly combination can lower your core temperature enough to draw
precious energy reserves from your body when you need them most. Continuing to
think and act like a true survivor, Yossi warmed himself by pulling his rain
poncho over his head and breathing heavily into it to create a bit of warmth.
He correctly recognized that you sometimes have to put up with a little
hardship (in this case, claustrophobia) to protect yourself from further
jeopardy.
Having
now spent nine days alone in the jungle under extreme and sometimes horrific
circumstances, Yossi decided to spend a day at his new campsite to rest, heal
his deteriorating feet, and dry his clothes. While exploring the area, he came
upon a tree, some fruit of which was lying on the ground. Getting the fruit off
the tree was nearly impossible, however, until Yossi again relied on his
ingenuity to solve the problem. He tied some of his fishing line around a rock
and hurled it at the tree, where it wrapped around a branch and caught. By
tugging on the branch, Yossi was able to dislodge quite a few of the fruits. It
was a bounty for an otherwise starving man, and a whole new twist on fishing.
I am
continually impressed by Yossi’s survival mentality. He had an extraordinary
will to live, the creative genius to solve the many challenges that were thrown
at him every day, and a fair bit of luck. Of course, he was also helped
immensely by the fact that he had a survival kit with him, and that he knew
enough to keep himself in good physical shape.
What Would Les Do?
It
may be tempting, but deciding to eat fruit or other wild edibles you have no
knowledge of is potentially dangerous, too. One way to determine whether you
should indulge in a possibly life-saving food source is through the Edibility
Test, which ensures that only small parts of the plant contact your body at one
time, in slowly increasing increments. The Edibility Test requires a lot of
time and effort, so make sure there is enough of the plant in question to make
your efforts worthwhile. A final note: the Edibility Test is also a last-ditch
effort, and does not work on all poisonous plants.
1. Test only a single
plant type at a time, and don’t eat anything else during the test period.
2. Rub the plant on a
sensitive part of your body, such as your wrist. Wait forty-five minutes for
signs of any adverse effects like nausea, hives, dizziness, or shortness of
breath.
3. If no effect is
detected, take a small part of the plant and prepare it the way you plan on
eating it.
4. Before eating,
touch a small part of the prepared plant to your outer lip, to test for
burning, tingling, or itching.
5. If there is no
reaction after five minutes, place the plant on your tongue. Hold it there for
fifteen minutes.
6. If there is no
reaction after fifteen minutes, chew a very small amount for fifteen minutes;
be alert to any adverse effect. Do not swallow.
7. If you still feel
fine after chewing for fifteen minutes, swallow it.
8. Wait eight hours.
If you begin to notice any adverse effects, induce vomiting and drink as much
water as possible. If there are still none, eat a small handful of the plant.
9. Wait another eight
hours. If there are still no negative effects, you are likely safe.
After resting at his shoreline campsite,
Yossi set off down the Tuichi toward Curiplaya. According to the map, he
thought he would make it there the following day. He was right. He soon
stumbled into Curiplaya. It was abandoned, but he was overjoyed to find four
well-built huts waiting for him. And beds! Yes, he would sleep well in
Curiplaya.
Yossi
used his time in Curiplaya to plan the next part of his journey. He would walk
to a town called San Jose, which he estimated he would reach in a few days. His
rationale was sound: Curiplaya was used as a seasonal camp by people who lived
in San Jose, so the trail between the two places must be well marked and easy
to follow. He again afforded himself a little time to rest, exploring the camp
and looking for the trail that would lead him to safety. I agree with his
decision to move on. It showed proactivity in a tough situation. Staying put
was not a viable option.
Yossi
set out the next day. The trail began wide and well marked, but soon narrowed
considerably, forcing Yossi to search for machete marks on trees to find the
route. He sang while he walked, another great mind trick to make you feel
better and keep you motivated in an otherwise desperate situation. In a handful
of my survival situations, I have either sung aloud or played harmonica while
walking. It accomplishes a few things: it kills time, it gives you a focus
other than your pain or dire circumstances, it can lift your and your travel
mates’ spirits, and it can scare off predators ahead on the trail. I use this
method in thick bear territory all the time.
Yossi’s
confidence had grown to the point that he actually hoped he wouldn’t be
rescued. He wanted to walk into San Jose on his own. He soon came upon a sandy
beach littered with driftwood. Still thinking like a survivor, he piled the
logs into the shape of the letter Y and the number 12, representing his first
initial and the date. Yossi correctly recognized that every opportunity to be
proactive in effecting survival—or rescue—is golden. He rarely seemed to miss a
chance to better his circumstances. Later, he stumbled upon a nest with four
spotted eggs. When he cracked one of the eggs open, he was shocked to see a
tiny baby bird curled up inside. He couldn’t bring himself to eat it, but
finding the eggs was yet another sign of Yossi’s good fortune. He happened to
be in the Amazon at nesting time, which provided another opportunity for food.
The same thing happened to me when I spent a week on one of the Cook Islands.
It just happened to be the one week when the brown boobies were learning to
fly, a ritual that begins with them falling to the ground, where they waddle
around helplessly. Like Yossi, I first held back on making an easy kill of the
young birds. But a day or two into surviving without food, they no longer
looked like cute little birds to me. They looked like dinner.
Later
in the day, Yossi was extremely discouraged to find that he had been walking in
circles for hours. It was a heartbreaking moment for him, but one that again
illustrated his mettle. With desperation gnawing at his soul, he did not give
in to the situation, but decided to make the best of it. He would learn from
his mistake and continue on. Famished and exhausted, he trudged back to the
bird nest and ate the embryonic contents of each egg. He slept that night in a
makeshift shelter that protected him from the incessant rain.
The
next day, he was lucky enough to come across the nest of a wild chicken,
brimming with six freshly laid eggs. He feasted on four of them and carefully
stowed the others in his pack. Then disaster struck. Walking down a steep,
grassy hill, Yossi slipped on some wet grass and impaled his anus on a dry
stick. Drenched with blood, he pulled out the spear and tried to stop the
bleeding, which seemed impossible. Half an hour later he began to move on
again, cursing himself for having become careless. Yet Yossi’s bad day
continued when he stumbled through a thicket of bushes and disturbed a hornets’
nest. The hornets swarmed Yossi and stung him mercilessly, until he threw
himself, nearly blind and hysterical, into the river for relief. For whatever
reason, this was the day when Yossi’s luck turned bad, and this particular
additive force in the struggle for survival no longer benefited him.
The
jungle had begun to take its toll on Yossi. The rash on his feet returned with
a vengeance thanks to the near-constant rain, and his clothes were in tatters.
Yet he continued on, occasionally finding eggs and the odd bit of sunlight to
sustain him. The thought that he would soon be in San Jose—which he calculated
to be some thirty miles downstream of Curiplaya—kept him going. During these,
his lowest moments, Yossi began to hallucinate and daydream, his mind’s own
form of self-defense from the harsh reality of his situation. These kinds of
fantasies, which are extremely common among people who survive long ordeals,
can go one of two ways: they either keep you going or torment you into
craziness. Luckily for Yossi, the dreams kept him going.
Like
Yossi, I often dream during my survival expeditions, sometimes very vividly.
Usually, it’s around my fourth night alone that the dreams become very real. I
find myself in some wonderful place, often with my kids, only to wake up and
remember that I am still sleeping in the mud. Words cannot describe how
demoralizing that can be.
For
Yossi, though, the dreams came at a perfect time, because his journey was now
bordering on intolerable. He was constantly hungry and getting weaker by the
day. Yet he trudged on mechanically through the jungle. The trail was still
visible, but often blocked by thick brush and streams that seemed to become
more difficult to cross with each day’s new rain. Like so many people in
survival situations, Yossi also found strength in prayer and faith that someone
was looking out for him.
When
he finally found the place where he believed he needed to cross the Tuichi to
reach San Jose, the skies opened up and a terrible storm ensued. The rain
poured down all night; by morning, the Tuichi had risen dangerously and was
filled with debris. It may seem incredible, but torrential rains can cause a
jungle river or stream to rise fifteen to twenty feet in just a few hours. In
Ecuador, I fell asleep in a hut while the rain poured down. I was awakened by a
great rush of sound and ran to the river’s edge, only to find my dugout
canoe—which had once been on dry land—about to snap the rope that secured it to
a nearby tree. It took a great deal of patience and careful manipulation to get
close enough to it (now in four feet of rushing water) to be able to untie it
and bring it to higher ground. Without it, I would have been stranded for good,
as it was my only transportation.
Yossi
lay down to wait out the storm, but soon felt water running down his back. When
he got up to fix the makeshift roof of palm fronds he had erected the night
before, he was shocked to see that his entire campsite was being flooded. Both
the Tuichi and a nearby stream had crested their banks. In only minutes, the
water was up to his waist. Yossi was almost swept away in the flood, but
grabbed onto trees to keep himself on his feet. He slowly made his way, sinking
in the newly formed mud with every step, to higher ground, where he found a
place to spend a cold, wet, and windy night. On a survival expedition in New Guinea,
I once built my shelter too close to the river, and when the rains began to
teem down, the river rose quickly and dangerously. I spent the night awake,
watching the flood as it came within a foot of my shelter—four feet higher than
it had been when I bedded down. Luckily, it stopped there and I didn’t have to
go to higher ground. The additive survival force of good luck served me well
that night.
Yossi
awoke the next morning—his seventeenth alone!—and was determined to make it to
San Jose. As he fought his way back through the newly formed swamp to the
Tuichi, he imagined he heard a sound high above. Looking up, between the
treetops, Yossi saw a small plane glide overhead. He screamed and waved, to no
avail.
When
you are on the ground and can clearly see the plane overhead, all you want do
is yell out, “Why can’t you see me? I’m right here!” But to them, you are, at
best, a small speck on the ground. The smoke from your campfire may look just
like the million other wisps of steam rising from pockets of water below. Your
clothing is dirty and blends in with the forest, your shelter green, brown, and
gray . . . the perfect camouflage. So unless you have a time-tested signal
method at your disposal—bright colors, a huge, smoky fire, words spelled out in
massive letters on the open ground, a signal mirror, or a perfectly timed shot
from a flare gun—your chances of being seen are dependent on luck.
As
the plane flew away, so did Yossi’s last bit of optimism. Finally, he cracked.
He threw himself to the ground and prayed for death. But as he asked God to
take him, a beautiful young woman appeared before him, weeping. Yossi knew it
was his responsibility to comfort the woman and lead her to safety. Once again,
he regrouped and forged ahead, determined to save the imaginary woman.
Yossi’s
choice not to fight this hallucination and instead run with it could quite
possibly be the most important one he had to make, and it speaks to Yossi’s
greatest strength as a survivor: he made decisions. He never sat back and waited
for things to happen to him. As a survivor, you must be willing to make a
decision, right or wrong, and stick with it. Survival is a proactive
undertaking; there is no room for passiveness. So you must make your own
decisions, or, as the adage goes, the decision will be made for you. Making
your own decisions is vital, even if it means following a hallucination.
I
think the hallucination represents some kind of greater inner survival
mechanism that most of us don’t ever tap into, let alone understand. It would
seem that when Yossi had given up all hope, some part of his spirit rose to the
forefront to push him along even farther. It created a focus and a purpose for
him in otherwise intolerable circumstances. He was no longer fighting just for
himself. He had a responsibility, if only to an imaginary girl.
He
eventually made it back to the Tuichi, but there was no bank, only a bluff
dropping twenty feet into the turbulent waters. Yossi decided to lead the girl
back to a large beach he had rested upon a few days earlier. Here, he
rightfully decided, he’d have the best chance of being seen by the plane. This
is an important tactic in any survival situation, especially if you think that
people are looking for you. In essence, you must always help them find you.
Being rescued is not a one-way street, it’s an interactive undertaking. Your
job is to do all you can to be visible to your rescuers. Finding a person lost
in the Amazon jungle makes finding a needle in a haystack seem easy. On a very
long drive through the jungles of Peru while shooting my series Les Stroud
Beyond Survival, I looked out the side window of the Jeep 4x4 to a drop-off
that was about a thousand feet down and completely thick with dark-green jungle
foliage. This went on for hundreds of miles. If I had crashed off the road at
any spot along the way, during the constant rain storms (and of course it was
the middle of the night), I am confident that, without military-style infrared
search-and-rescue abilities (an impossibility in the middle of Peru), I would
have been lost forever.
The
quest for the beach was a race against time. Yossi was physically drained, not
much more than skin and bones, and his body was breaking down rapidly. His
trench foot had worsened to the point where walking was almost unbearable. At
times, he crawled on all fours to ease his suffering. But he continued on,
determined to get the young woman to safety. As evening fell, Yossi came to a
puddle of water in the mud and walked through it without thinking. In an
instant, the puddle swallowed him and he began to sink. Yossi panicked and
began to thrash around; that only made the quicksand take him more quickly. Now
immersed to his waist, Yossi contemplated suicide, but yet another sense of
determination took hold. He calmed down, regained his composure, and
methodically wiggled his way to freedom. Clearly, Yossi’s great supply of the
first additive force of survival, the will to live, was able to override the
force of bad luck.
Half
dead, Yossi curled up on the jungle floor for the evening, wrapping himself in
his poncho and mosquito netting, convinced he would be rescued the next day.
Sometime during the night, he realized he needed to urinate, but was too
exhausted to get up. With no other choice, Yossi relieved himself in his pants.
He enjoyed the feeling of warmth so much he did it twice more during the night.
As
the night wore on, Yossi was startled by something pinching hard into his
thigh. He reached down to the spot to find that what he thought was an ant had
dug into his flesh and would not let go. Yossi killed the creature, but was
startled by more bites down his legs. He began to fight like a madman, but the
biting continued incessantly. All night long, he was overwhelmed by what he
thought were ants. They came at him from all sides. They bit his face, the back
of his neck, his chest, waist, and legs. One even took several bites of flesh
from his rotting foot before Yossi was able to kill it.
As
morning dawned, Yossi pulled himself to a sitting position and was horrified to
find that the earth around him was teeming with thousands of swarming red
termites. They had been attracted to Yossi’s urine, eaten through the mosquito
netting and poncho, and latched themselves onto anything they could find,
including Yossi’s flesh. Horrified, he shot up and ran from the spot, crunching
termites under his feet. This is a perfect example of how just one brief moment
of giving in (urinating in his pants) can snowball into something quite
horrible. In a survival situation, you must measure every action carefully to
make sure that it won’t turn into something you’ll regret later.
How to Get Out of Quicksand
Getting
caught in quicksand or mud is only worsened when you struggle to free yourself
of the muck and mire. You can’t win a frantic struggle in quicksand, so each
movement must be slow and calculated. Imagine trying to get yourself out of the
deep end of a pool without using your hands, instead employing a rolling
movement across the water. The same is true in quicksand and mud: straight up
and out is nearly impossible. Rather, the path to safety lies in keeping your
body flat and rolling across the surface with your feet behind you, not
dangling below. It’s very similar to getting yourself out of a frozen lake when
you have broken through the ice. Roll with your chest until you are on safe
ground.
Yossi
stumbled and crawled through the jungle, determined to make it to the beach,
where he would either die or be rescued. Later that day, he came across a
beach, though not the one he had been seeking. Nevertheless, it had a hut in
the middle of it, in which Yossi collapsed. After an hour of rest, he explored
the beach, and was shocked to find that he was back in Curiplaya. The place was
radically different than when Yossi had last rested there, though, as the
floodwaters had washed away most of the huts. He spread his poncho out as a
signal and set to the task of tending to his rotting feet, an agonizing task
given that they were little more than festering, skinless flesh at this point.
Yossi
lay in the hut, contemplating his fate. Death was certainly an option, but
having survived nineteen days alone in the jungle, he began to realize that
perhaps he could do more, particularly if he stayed put. Maybe, just maybe, he
could survive an entire season until the San Jose residents returned to camp in
Curiplaya.
He
was roused from his plans by a distant drone. He did not get excited, though,
as he was convinced he was hallucinating yet again. But when the drone grew
louder, Yossi could ignore it no longer. He got up and staggered out of the
hut. Getting out of a canoe on the beach were four figures. One of them was
Kevin. And while Yossi may have hallucinated the young lady who accompanied him
on the trip back to the beach, Kevin was 100-percent real.
After
their separation at the Mal Paso San Pedro, Kevin had scoured the banks of the
Tuichi for a couple of days looking for Yossi. With no sign of his friend, he
floated down the river on a dried balsa log. He floated past Curiplaya and was
on his way to San Jose when he spotted two men hunting in a tributary stream. They
led him back to San Jose, where Kevin hoped to find Yossi. Nobody in San Jose
had seen Yossi, so Kevin hired raftsmen to take him down the Tuichi to
Rurrenabaque, where he again hoped to find his friend. People there told him
Yossi had no chance of surviving the waterfall over the Mal Paso San Pedro, and
even if he did, he would have starved in the jungle.
Undaunted,
Kevin took a flight to La Paz, where he began to work the bureaucratic
machinery of the Israeli embassy and Bolivian government. Precious days later,
he finally convinced government officials to begin a plane search for Yossi.
Every step of the way, officials assured Kevin there was little, if any, chance
of finding Yossi alive. The plane search proved futile, but Kevin pressed on.
He returned to Rurrenabaque, where he hired a local man, Tico, to boat up the
Tuichi as far as the Mal Paso San Pedro in search of Yossi. The going was slow
because of all the debris that now floated down the river, but Tico was a
master navigator.
Day
turned to evening, but there was still no sign of Yossi. Tico was disappointed,
but he informed Kevin that they had to turn around at the next suitable beach
and head back to Rurrenabaque. As the boat began to turn around, Kevin was
astounded to see what seemed like a corpse emerge from a dilapidated hut: Yossi
Ghinsberg.
Yossi Ghinsberg
ELEMENTS OF SURVIVAL
Knowledge 5%
Luck 20%
Kit 15%
Will to Live 60%
Yossi was a true survivor. He was
hampered on many fronts. He had almost no knowledge of the Amazon, or how to survive
there. His kit was adequate and helped him on his journey to survival, but it
was certainly lacking many critical elements. Luck was so-so, as it sometimes
ran bad and sometimes good, though having Kevin stumble upon him on the beach
was a near miracle. Yet Yossi did not let any of this get in the way of his
intense and overwhelming will to live, the one factor that ultimately brought
him back to safety—alive
astonishing story ,,,had to check out the book at our library
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