Yossi Ghinsberg · 1985 · survival

Yossi Ghinsberg's memoir of survival in the Bolivian Amazon. In 1981 four young travellers set out from La Paz on an adventure deep into the rainforest; when the group splits and a raft is wrecked in the rapids of the Tuichi River, Ghinsberg is swept away and left alone in the jungle for three weeks, starving and hunted, before an unlikely rescue. The route runs from the Andes down into the green heart of the Amazon.

1. 1
   La Paz

   In La Paz, Yossi Ghinsberg and three companions, lured by talk of untouched jungle and lost tribes, set off east toward the Amazon lowlands.

2. 2
   Apolo

   From the frontier town of Apolo they trek for days into the rainforest, the romance of the expedition giving way to exhaustion, hunger and quarrels among the group.

3. 3
   The Tuichi River

   Splitting from the others, Ghinsberg and his friend Kevin build a raft to ride the Tuichi River downstream toward Rurrenabaque and safety.

4. 4
   The Rapids

   The raft is torn apart in the rapids and the two are separated, and Ghinsberg is swept alone into the wilderness, lost, with almost nothing, as the days stretch into weeks.

5. 5
   Rurrenabaque

   Half-dead and hallucinating, he is found at last by a search boat that Kevin has driven back upriver from Rurrenabaque, and carried out of the jungle alive.