Yossi Ghinsberg – 3 weeks alone in the jungle

Yossi Ghinsberg is an Israeli author and explorer who in 1981 took the opportunity to join a small expedition into the Amazon rainforest in search of gold near an indigenous village.

He was hiking from Venezuela to Columbia when he and a friend he had made along the way decided to head further south into Bolivia, where they ran into a man named Karl Ruprechter, who claimed to be a Geologist from Austria. He told Ghinsberg he was planning a trip into the rainforest in search of an Indigenous village he had heard was in possession of quite a bit of gold, and he wanted to find the source.

Ghinsberg was always passionate about exploring the rainforest and wanted to seek out new tribes and explore as part of his adventurous nature, so he jumped at the chance to venture into the unknown.

They were joined by a 4th member who was also exploring the south, an American photographer who wanted to capture never-before-seen shots of the rain forest, and so the group took a plane over to Apolo in La Paz.

After following the Tuichi River to a local settlement called the Asariamas, which sits on the point where the Tuichi River and Asariamas Rivers meet, the group stocked up on food and supplies and headed by boat down the Asariama River, hoping to find a rumored tribe deep within the trees.

After crossing a small mountain range and not seeing any sign of the tribe they were looking for, they realized their supplies had got too low to find the village safely, and so decided to turn back.

The food they had with them was far below what they should have taken and ran out, and soon after they decided to turn back. They had to resort to eating monkeys at first, with one member of the group refusing to do so which saw him quickly weaken.

The group safely made it back to the village and after a short rest period were up for another try at finding gold in the jungle. They decided to head down the Tuichi river to a small gold quarry they’d heard about, and then from there go down river to a place called Rurrenabaque, before circling round back to La Paz.

Soon after setting off, Ruprechter told the group about a series of rapids and dangerous rocks down the river, combined with how he couldn’t swim and so refused to go any further. Why isn’t quite clear but when the group got a little further downriver and saw he made it up, distrust grew and they spit up into pairs. Ghinsberg and Gale, the American photographer he’d met previously decided to head further downriver while the other pair headed back to Apolo.

Ghinsberg and Gale didn’t get very far down the river before they ran into a waterfall, and despite their best efforts to land the raft on shore, they lost control. Gale made a swim for land while Ghinsberg tried for a little too long to regain control of the raft and was swept over the falls.

Ghinsberg was swept downriver a short distance before managing to climb out uninjured. He started to walk back up the river but the waterfall was flowing over a cliff which took some time to walk around. He spent the next 4 days walking up the flow of the river to try and find Gale before he realized he was all alone.

Gale got lucky and was rescued by local fishermen who took him back to La Paz where he went to the Israeli and Austrian consulates to try and organise a rescue operation. He was informed at the Austrian consulate that the supposed Geologist they had with them by the name of Ruprechter was a globally wanted criminal being hunted by Interpol.

No rescue operation was launched and Ghinsberg was all alone in the jungle, not knowing which direction to walk in and completely without food. The first week was the easiest since he was still in relatively fresh condition and was still able to move around, which all ended during a flood at the start of the 2nd week.

A flash flood in the area caused Ghinsberg to sink into a bog twice, and both times it took all of his strength to pull himself back out again. On the second occasion, he was so exhausted that he collapsed on the ground, spending the next 5 days with nothing to eat and with a rapidly worsening foot fungus taking hold.

After going through the “I wish it would just end” phase, he decided to give it another try and got up, slowly stumbling his way through the trees to find some kind of food. At several points when he was walking through the trees and heard monkeys overhead, he’d wait around on the ground beneath them in the hope one would fall so he could eat it.

Apart from the occasional piece of fruit or a small handful of nuts, there was next to nothing to eat and Ghinsberg was close to the point of collapsing for good. To his complete surprise and joy, he heard an engine nearby and ran as fast as he could to the source, which turned out to be his friend Gale who had hired a few locals to mount a search party.

They found him on the 3rd day of their search but Ghinsberg was missing for a total of around 3 and a half weeks. He was taken straight to the hospital where he spent the next 3 weeks recovering. The other pair that had split off, Ruprechter and Stamm were never seen or heard from again, despite a search and rescue mission to find them.