Jhonatan Acosta, a 30-year-old Bolivian, got lost in the Amazon rainforest in late January during a hunting trip with friends. He survived by drinking his urine, eating worms and insects, and after having to fight a pig.
«You have no idea what I had to endure to survive». Lying on his hospital bed, his face swollen from insect bites, having lost 17 kilos and visibly still in shock, Jhonatan Acosta is a man who cheated death. « I asked God for rain. If it hadn’t rained half the time, I wouldn’t have survived.» does he bear witness.
After getting lost during a hunting trip he was taking with 4 friends in the Beni department (north-eastern Bolivia), he walked about 40 kilometres but soon discovered that he was going around in circles.
The cocoa farmer survived thanks to survival techniques : «I had to eat insects, drink my urine, eat worms. I was attacked by animals.» Her sister, present at her side, continues the explanation: «He must have fought with a pig, which is a wild and dangerous animal, while a tiger was prowling nearby.»
He was rescued by a search team on Saturday 26 February, 30 days after having lost in the Amazon rainforest, after the authorities called in a specially trained dog named Titan to sniff him out in the jungle.
This story is reminiscent of that of the Iraqi Yossi Ghinsberg, who survived three weeks in the jungle in Bolivia in 1981. His story inspired the film «Jungle» released in 2017, starring actor Daniel Radcliffe.
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