Will to Live: Dispatches from the Edge of Survival (4 page)

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.

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.