Lost in the Jungle

by Yossi Ghinsberg

  Six years after coming back from Tuichi, I was contacted by an Israeli magazine with an offer to write several articles about South America. This was my first opportunity to return to Rurrenabaque. I found that it had changed. The town was bigger, busier. Settlers from the altiplano had flocked there by the thousands. Convoys of trucks, arriving empty, left creaking under loads of mahogany. Saloons had materialised and with them loud music and the stench of urine.

  Tico seemed happy to see me and delighted to take me up the Tuichi in his motorboat. The river was as magnificent and wild as before. We set out for San José, still the only settlement on the river, and continued to Progreso, where I had been rescued. It was a less emotional journey than I had expected. In fact, I was surprised how much I enjoyed myself. There was no animosity between me and the rainforest. On the contrary, I felt a strong attraction and was determined to make the jungle a part of my life.

  Back in Rurrenabaque I was introduced to an old Hungarian, a refugee from World War II, and though he was drunk when we met, I found what he told beyond compelling. He began by claiming to know Karl well. He hadn’t seen him for some time, but just a few months earlier in Cochabamba a Swiss priest had mentioned that Karl had visited not long before.

  Excited, I flew to Cochabamba and found the priest, Father Erich, at a mission just outside town. Both he and Sister Ingrid, a nun who also lived at the mission, confirmed that Karl was alive, living nearby in the town of Santa Cruz. They showed me a photo they said was recent and told me stories of troubles he had caused them. I left bewildered: I wanted to believe, and I didn’t want to believe. In no time I was in Santa Cruz and spent a week doing the best detective work I could but found not a single bit of corroborating evidence.

  I had maintained contact with Marcus’s mother and knew that she had never accepted her son’s death. About two years after my return from Rurrenabaque I flew at her request to Schaffhausen to meet with her. She insisted that she had new information to share, information, it turned out, she had received from a clairvoyant renowned for his success in finding lost relatives.

  ‘Marcus is still alive,’ she told me. ‘That is certain. He lives in Peru on a high plateau with Indians who found him nearly dead and nursed him back to health. He has lost his memory, which prevents his coming home.’ On a map of Peru she had marked a remote Andean community. She gave me the map and asked me to go there to look for him. I agreed.

  Cuzco, the ancient Inca capital, is one of my favourite South American cities. I have a friend there, José Ugarte, who happens to be a mountain guide. Looking at the map together, we determined one thing was sure: the clairvoyant couldn’t have picked a better spot. Huanacaran was one of the most dangerous places on the continent, a zone controlled by Shining Path guerrillas. The night before our departure my friend came to my hotel room and, with his eyes fixed on the tile floor, told me he couldn’t go. I didn’t blame him, though it was too late to find another guide.

  I remember that night so clearly. Marcus’s mother had made just one request before I left: have faith in her conviction. But I lacked her confidence. The story she told was too far-fetched. That night in Cuzco, however, I knew I had to believe as she did, otherwise it was better not to go. I thought of Marcus, and suddenly I was back in the jungle, where one discovers the darkness in one’s heart. How frightening that can be. Marcus, your mother can still hear your heartbeat; she can hear your voice singing. Wherever you are, I am coming to take you home, my brother. You know you’ll always live in my heart. Wait for me there, Marcus, I am walking toward you.

  There were three of us at the train station: a cook who spoke Quechua, a helper from Lima too broke to say no, and me. The journey was full of surprises. At the first station José Ugarte appeared. He had spent a sleepless night, repenting his decision not to go. Farther down the line, representatives of the military climbed aboard. They briefly checked our documents and destination, then trouble started. The cook was dragged away in handcuffs. At the point of submachine guns the rest of us were taken off the train for interrogation. A gringo escorted by a suspicious-looking little band, well equipped for mountain survival, claiming to be looking for a friend lost years ago in Bolivia! They weren’t buying that. But I guess the calls they made to the contacts I gave them convinced them of my story, since they let us go and even provided a letter of introduction to the mayor of Azángaro, near our destination.

  We reached Azángaro and found the station all but deserted. Once a prosperous city, Azángaro had been largely abandoned. Suspicion clouded the faces of those who remained. We couldn’t help but laugh at the derelict municipal palace, where we went to present our letter and seek the mayor’s assistance. No guards, no staff, an empty antechamber leading to a short, echoing hallway. We knocked and opened the door of the mayor’s office, and the man lost not a second jumping out the window at the sight of us. The night before, three officials had been murdered in Asilio, less than fifty miles away. So much for assistance.

  We couldn’t find a driver who would carry us to our destination but caught a bus that still made the run partway. José didn’t know the region, but he knew mountains. The second day we reached the point marked on our map. Its pastoral tranquillity belied the terror of the Azángaro locals. Marcus could have lived there, but he never had. No one recognised the man in the photo that I carried. Ultimately we travelled through ten similar communities. Never had a gringo lived in any of them.

  Back in Azángaro I sought out the local priest, who ministers to all sixty-eight communities in the province of Azángaro. He had never encountered a foreigner in residence nor heard of hermits living alone in the mountains.

  Karl and Marcus’s disappearance remains a mystery. It is difficult to imagine what could have become of them. Karl was tough and strong and knew how to take care of himself in the jungle. He could have survived even without food and equipment. He had had a shotgun, which made it almost unthinkable that they had fallen prey to jaguars or wild boars. The village of Ipurama was only four days’ walk from the point where they’d set out. Kevin had been back and forth over the route without finding a trace of them. What had become of them?

  I can think of two possibilities. One is that Karl might have been seriously injured, perhaps in a fall. Marcus, who had been ill, thin, and downhearted, would never have made it out of the jungle on his own. The other possibility is falling trees. On rainy nights, as I had seen, trees uproot themselves and topple over, taking other trees with them. A tree could have fallen on their campsite, crushing them as they slept. To this day the mystery remains.

  The rainforest has ever since been a major part of my life. While visiting San José on the Tuichi River, I found out that the situation in the village was desperate; the small, isolated community was struggling for survival, forced to destroy their ancestral lands with their own hands. They had no options for income other than slash-and-burn agriculture, hunting, or working as cheap labour for the loggers and miners, who are in the process of overtaking the region. I met with the community leaders and heard their fears about the steady elimination of the rainforest villages, since the youth are lacking employment and thus forced to leave for the big city. So together, we initiated the Chalalan Project.

  The Chalalan valley lies not far from the Tuichi banks, about an hour downriver from San José. It is the most amazing rainforest scenery I’ve ever seen in my life: monkeys hanging from palm trees and a lake surrounded by precious, undisturbed hills. The beauty of the place makes one’s heart sing. So we obtained from the government an official concession of this land to the local indigenous people, and the community of San José declared it a protected area for conservation of nature and development of alternative economic routes for the forest dwellers. A group of volunteers, together with the indigenous community, worked with scientists and designers and engineers to build an ‘eco-village.’ Our goal was to prove that the forest could provide its inhabitants with all their needs and even make them prosper, if only
it were treated with respect and that the sustainable use of renewable resources would be far more lucrative than the destructive exploitation of the non-renewable resources.

  In July 1998, the Chalalan project finally became reality. It was officially inaugurated as one of the most celebrated ecotourism locations in the entire Amazon. I passionately invested all my faculties and facilities in Chalalan and completely immersed myself in the project.

  It was the involvement of the Inter-American Development Bank and Conservation International, both out of Washington D.C., which made it possible. The bank granted us an amazing one and a quarter million U.S. dollars, and Conservation International agreed to take on the execution and provide their technical expertise and much-needed ongoing supervision.

  Through my humble role in this project, I had the opportunity to experience moments of grace in the mightiest of all forests. I shared unforgettable times with exceptional people, some of whom became the best of friends. I served a purpose that was bigger than I, and together with a few others, I made a small difference. I feel fortunate, blessed, and grateful for that experience.

  The nomadic life that I had adopted kept me constantly on the move. For a while, I settled in California until I was approached by an international company that was implementing a new technology they had developed for curing opiate addiction. They recruited me to help expand their role in the international marketplace. So I had to become an expert in a new, exciting field, learning everything I could about addictions to heroin and methadone.

  Through my work I met thousands of people who were living in hell and desperate for help. I named my vocation ‘the field of agony.’ Like an emissary I kept travelling the world lecturing about opiate dependency. I helped in establishing seven treatment centres, moving from Mexico to Europe and back to the United States. I worked in Thailand and China, finally settling in Australia, where I established my own clinic of treatment and research of addiction. In Australia I also initiated the Alma Libre Foundation, which promotes abstinence-based treatment for opiate-dependent individuals and invites society as a whole to revisit the unjust prejudice and discrimination toward thousands of people suffering from a disease that is a sign of our times.

  In the last few years I have changed my work and moved to ‘the field of joy,’ working in the capacity of inspirational keynote speaker and seminar leader. I have also developed a training program called The Manifestation of Vision.

  I speak mainly in corporate environments, travelling the world as a guest of companies and organisations to support their conferences with an opening or closing keynote presentation. This has been an amazing personal growth opportunity for me, for I am challenged to keep a tight tension between my talk and my walk.

  Having lived a rich life since my adventure in the Amazon, I feel it is time to share my experiences and insights in a humble effort to contribute to the spread of harmony on this planet. The release of my upcoming books, Laws of the Jungle and Glimpses, will mark the beginning of this new endeavour.

  I now live with my family in the depths of the Australian rainforest where I am surrounded by the purity and lushness of the natural world. The remoteness from civilisation, complete immersion in natural surroundings, breathtaking mountains covered with forest, fresh water springs, and rich flora and fauna inspire me every moment I am there. I feel part of it; moreover, when I step out of my house at night I clearly discern that I am standing on a living planet, turning and moving in its course under the brilliance of the Milky Way. I realise just by looking up to the sky that I am part of something infinite, and I feel infinitely grateful for life.

  a note from the author

  UNCHARTED DOMAINS

  Since my experience in the jungle, I’ve discovered that sometimes the extraordinary can be seen by the naked eye, allowing a quick glimpse into the miraculous. When this happens, the world as we thought we knew it ceases to exist; it is uncharted from that point forward. Overwhelmed and puzzled, the mind rushes in like a fool, desperately trying to make sense of it all. But how can we understand what cannot be grasped by the senses?

  I lived through my jungle adventure at a young age many years ago. And though I had encountered the forces of creation, felt the hand of providence caressing my skin, and seen the work of miracles, I was too young to comprehend it all.

  And when we cannot fully understand the significance of something, when we cannot validate the total experience with the senses – can’t see, can’t taste, can’t smell, can’t touch, can’t hear, and cannot conceive – we are left with a choice: to deny or to believe.

  I have experienced miracles first-hand, and tried time and again to use reasonable explanations to deny or believe until my mind tired. Now, no explanations are needed. I do not deny and I do not believe; I simply know miracles to be part of the world I live in.

  There’s an old myth about a young king lost in a forest for days. He finally finds a camp, but to his dismay, it is deserted. In the remains of a campfire, on the shimmering coals, he finds a piece of salmon. Famished, he quickly shoves it in his mouth only to find that it is scalding hot. He burns himself so badly, in fact, that he is too wounded to live – but not wounded enough to die. He becomes the Fisher King, and, tortured, he awaits redemption in his castle.

  The legend continues and tells about a young knight who ventures out into the world aspiring to be its saviour. He rides like all other knights: to defend good values while searching for the king and his castle. But this young knight is particularly naive – in fact, most think he is a fool. On his first venture he finds the Fisher King, but young and innocent as the knight is, he fails to bring redemption or an end to suffering. Instead, his visit brings only heartbreak and strife; he is simply too young to carry such responsibility. It takes decades for the castle to appear again, but by then he is mature and ready.

  I have identified myself as a dreamer fool just like the knight in the legend. If you are just a dreamer without being a fool, you will never leave home and risk losing everything you own – your assets, your ideals, your image. And what if it is all in vain and there is nothing to find? Only the fool can take such risk. I was that fool, for the dream was bigger than everything I risked. And I’ve lost it all time and again, and through those experiences, I have found what I truly own, for all that can be taken from me is not mine to begin with. I have found home now; there is no longer a need to search.

  May you find the courage to walk your own path. May you dare to venture into the uncharted domains of your own heart. Here is my advice to you, the adventurers – fear will show you the way; walk steadily toward it, for otherwise you will always be running. Have trust and faith to guide you like a torch piercing darkness. Do not believe and do not deny, but find out for yourself – for there is no truth but the one you have earned in your own experience.

  Quandong

  Mount Jerusalem National Park

  2005