1 year ago
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A Bolivian man who claimed to have been missing in the Amazon alone for a month has recounted eating insects and worms, collecting water in his boots and drinking his own urine to stay alive.
If confirmed, this could make Jhonatan Acosta, 30, one of the longest-ever lone Amazon survivors.
“It helped a lot to know about survival techniques: I had to consume insects, drink my urine, eat worms,” he told Unitel TV on Tuesday. “I was attacked by animals.”
Acosta was reported missing by his family at the end of January. He had been on a hunting trip with four friends in the Amazon rainforest but became separated from his party on 25 January.
Exactly a month later, last Saturday, he was found by search and rescue teams.
Acosta told Unitel it rained half the time he was lost. He used his rubber boots to collect whatever rainwater he could. But when the skies dried up, he had to drink his urine.
“I asked God for rain,” Acosta said. “If it hadn’t rained, I would not have survived.”
Disoriented, Acosta said he had walked about 40km (25 miles) in search of civilisation but soon discovered he was going around in circles. He was said to have lost 17kg and dislocated his ankle during his ordeal.
Exposed to the elements at night, he said he was bitten by all sorts of different creatures. His sister, Miladde Acosta, told Unitel TV that her brother “had to fight with a pig, which is a wild and dangerous animal”, and a tiger lurked nearby, CBS reported.
“I am very happy and grateful,” Acosta told the station after being reunited with his family.
In another well-known case in Bolivia, Israeli adventurer Yossi Ghinsberg survived three weeks in the Amazon in 1981, a feat that inspired a movie called Jungle starring Daniel Radcliffe.
In Brazil, pilot Antonio Sena survived 38 days in the Amazon after crash-landing in 2021. The following year, two brothers aged seven and nine were rescued after spending 25 days lost in the Brazilian part of the rainforest.
English (US)