King Of The Jungle

Yossi Ghinsberg survived three weeks alone in the Amazon rainforest but how has he fared 30 years on, assimilating into society as a changed man?  MEI ANNE FOO finds out.

- Mei Anne Foo

YOSSI GHINSBERG’S EYES resemble lakes in a forest. Reflecting green and golden at the same time, with a ring of azure streaming in as if trying to inundate the irises, the pair has seen him through truly kaleidoscopic experiences.

From staring straight at the face of a jaguar mere centimetres away, to looking down at his body covered in a blanket of ants, these eyes have even bore witness to a frail woman in the middle of a jungle, whom Ginsberg claims to have aided for a few days before she vanished into thin air.

These were just some accounts the 58-year-old relayed in his memoir Jungle , which was adapted into a major motion picture of the same name and released in 2017. Daniel Radcliffe, proving he could do more than Harry Potter, played the 22-year-old vagabond Ghinsberg when he turned up lost in the dense rain forest near Bolivia’s Tuichi River. The ex-Israeli Navy officer was separated from his mochileros (Spanish for “backpackers”) friends — an American named Kevin, an Austrian named Karl, and a Swiss named Marcus — and spent almost three weeks alone, with only his hallucinations for company.

But he insisted the encounter with the lady was not contrived. “At that time, it was a mystery and even now, after more than 30 years, it is still a mystery,” says Ghinsberg. “My imagination was a major tool to my survival. I knew how to apply it because I couldn’t sleep, and it helped me rest. But this girl, she appeared. I didn’t tell myself to invent a girl. She just appeared.”