A Harrowing True Story of Survival in the Amazon - Jungle (Movie Tie-In Edition)

So some of the trolls are bashing this book for not being well written...let's just remember Yossi didn't set out to be an author, he had an incredible experience and wrote a book to share it with others. If you can get past the fact that he isn't the next Shakespeare, his story truly is amazing. Yossi is refreshingly honest and admits his mistakes and naivete, something he could have chosen to gloss over. This book makes me both desperate to visit the the store, and terrified to. It's hard not to feel a deep respect for this man, particularly when reading about what he has done with his life since.

"Jungle" is a wonderful, thrill ride of a book. Its the true story of Yossi, a young man just out of the Israeli army who is traveling around South America after his tour of duty. I can easily picture him, backpack and guide book in hand, striking up conversations with people at hostels and in bars as many travelers are wont to do.

His travel plans get changed when he meets a man in Peru: Marcus. Marcus convinces him that instead of heading to Machu Picchu he should go to Boliva, with Marcus, instead. There they meet two other people, a new travel companion Kevin and a more odd, strange man, Karl, who offers them a chance of a lifetime; a hike into the jungle.

Now for people who travel, you man be amazed that Yossi and his friends would travel into the the store without first wondering about their guide, maybe do a little research to see if he has, I dunno, killed someone or if he's even who he claims to be. Especially when the "cost" goes from free to a few hundred dollars. But no, our protagonist is blissfully aware of nothing. There are many moments in this book where I wanted to shake him and go "stop that! Haven't you read at least one guidebook's scam section?" This is the second dumbest thing you can do! (the first is fighting a land war in Asia).

The book details their trek, their getting lost and separated, and finally the outcome. Yossi is a very good writer, his words kept me glued to the book and I found myself drawn into his struggle to survive. I also learned that peeing on yourself in the jungle is a really bad thing - a life lesson I hope to never put into practice.

If you are looking for a quick, fun and exciting read, this is a book for you.

This book isn't bad, but it isn't good either as you can probably tell from my giving it only two stars. The book was interesting and entertaining as far as survival stories go but what bothered me was that it wasn't particularly well written. I think the author would have benefitted from a professional writer penning the book instead of he.
I was bored with about the first 100 pages of the book. I kept wondering when it was going to become interesting but it just ran on and on. I didn't really care about the history fo all the players, a few pages of setup would have been enough. I mean really, do we need to be told that they have no idea of what lies ahead and should have taken more precautions? I think the history was written only for filler as this book is quite short and is written in big type.
I am not saying don't read this book but take it off your wish list and get it at the library instead.

I couldn’t put it down. Yossi’s story of survival is truly incredible. What he has to endure and his unwillingness to give up during his harrowing experience was inspiring. Definitely recommend this!

One review on the back cover on this nonsense has Bryce Courtney calling it breathtaking and that Yossi's story of survival haunted him for weeks. Others build it up as a real page turner that you won't put down.

Perhaps this would apply if you were into cook books.
Given that it's half the subject matter in this book it would be better placed in the cook book section of a bookshop under the title "Jungle Food and Other Cuisine"

Yossi Ghinsberg has learnt through his adventure guide Karl just what wildlife and vegetation can be eaten. Some of this life sustaining food many of us would not wish to try.
Nonetheless Yossi gives us the impression he has no problem eating raw unhatched bird chicks, monkey meat etc.

So we read and yawn through more than half the book with the only drama being mosquitoes, bees, foot rash, stinging ants and some irritation between personalities.
Ghinsberg finally decides try and wake the reader up after some food and gift trading with some native villagers that build a Balsa raft for our four white travellers (Karl the Austrian guide, Marcus the Swiss romantic, Kevin the American photographer and our Israeli hero adventurer).

At this point of the story the four are all still together trying to navigate the raft down areas of a river that are fast flowing.
Controlling the raft past rocks and tree debri obstructing their way caused some tension between their guide Karl and Kevin.
Karl who had been generally accepting of whatever the group decided or wanted on their trip up to now declares that they have no idea how to control the raft. He wants to carry on no further and suggest calling it off.

After some discussion the group split with American Kevin and Yossi intending to continue down river.

Now while and in spite of whatever subsequent stories or mystery surrounded their suspicions about Karl he gave a lot of good sound advice. He'd warned about the different dangers in the jungle such as poisonous snakes, insects or ant's being attracted to urine. He also advised in case of accidents, the importance of staying by an injured partner and by the river for rescue and other assurances before dividing their equipment. Fairly he gives Kevin and Yossi the choice of what they felt they needed.

Their problems almost start immediately after lightening the raft and setting off. It hits a whirlpool Kevin gashes his knee and eventually the raft gets caught on rocks close to a twelve foot drop Kevin swims to shore and calls out for their machete and his shoes intending to cut a vine and ferry off their equipment but then the raft loosens off the rock and goes over the drop as does Yossi and the rest of their supplies.

Now separated, Kevin left gash kneed wet clothes and machete while Yossi is swept some way down the river and ends up on its bank.
As luck would have the raft is once again caught on rocks. After he had trekked back up stream looking for it Yossi also finds their equipment bobbing up and down in the buoyant rubber back pack that included everything else they felt they needed including mosquito netting and repellent. Also a torch, matches, some medical, bright red poncho, fish hooks, fishing line some bean and rice food.

So Yossi is alive and not seriously injured somewhere down the river with their survival pack. When last seen his companion Kevin was on the bank upstream with nothing but his clothes and the machete but very much alive.

This is where I start having problems with Ghinsbergs' own account of the story.

Yossi has their supplies as well as matches for his own heat comfort. A fire at night and fire smoke in the day to signal his position so stay put. Don't abandon your companion who has none of these.

He also had the comfort of knowing he had quite sensibly given notice of his intensions and left details with the Israeli Embassy in LaPaz explaining he planned to be back on the 15th December Also giving further information where he'd left his bags and to his own brother. He had no reason to doubt Karl's assurances that after a certain date he'd arrange a search group if Kevin and Yossi hadn't returned.

Now Yossi had told us Kevin was a big strong guy so it's hard to imagine that he wouldn't just wait for him to show up knowing of the abundance of food in the jungle and with their supplies that they would be alright.
Be it pig, monkey, snake, snails, grub, bird, bird eggs, berries, fruit, fish and fresh mountain water from the river. At worst he (or perhaps they) need to survive three weeks before any alarm will be raised. Around then or even before (for Kevin) he could have laid out the bright red poncho over a clearly exposed rock to attract attention.

But he doesn't. He heads off only after a few days and oddly our hero can't go any more than two days without food before he thinks he's dying of starvation which is another red flag in his story as he comes across unhatched eggs he describes a delicious, fruit and berries.

All the time he carries some beans and rice that he avoids touching too much??? After rescue by none other than Kevin he mentions that Kevin asked why he hasn't eaten them. I do too as it looks so much better to still have them just in case the friend you abandoned shows up alive.

Compare this tale to some of the real deals of survival.
That of Juliane Koepche who's plane gets struck by lightning and disintegrates over the Peruvian jungle from 3 klms above. Strapped in her seat which crashes through the tree canopy she survives unconscious with a broken colour bone a thin cotton mini dress, one sandal and without the glasses she is so dependent on. She wanders through the same sort of inhospitable jungle with those poisonous snakes, jaguars, piranha for ten days with absolutely no idea where she is."When I fell from the Sky"

Steven Callahan "Adrift" for 75 days at sea in a raft surrounded by thousands of miles of salt water.

Aron Ralston "127 Hours" canyoning accident. No choice but to cut his own arm off.

"Touching the Void" and "Alive" where terrible choices and decisions had to be made.

Yossi's pumped up misadventure is a walk in the park that probably brought him the money he fantasised about and I'm sorry I contributed by buying his book.

Seriously, that's what this book reminded me of as Yossi blundered around like the dumb blonde in a Friday the 13th sequel that insists on wandering into the basement with nothing but a single match for light while the audience shrieks "NO NO NO!!!!"

The other aspect that stumped me was the inexplicable contrast between Yossi's wide-eyed ingenue personae and his callous treatment of his friend. The Israelis I met during my rambles were by and large a fairly guarded, cynical lot (with good reason). But, after all, Yossi's misadventure was pre-Intifada, and by his own description he's lived longer outside of Israel than in it.

One thing is certain: this is an honest, unvarnished look into the most admirable and petty facets of the human psyche. NOBODY would make up a story about accidentally sodomizing himself with a tree branch while sliding down a hill.

I had the privilege of meeting Yossi at an international event that I had attended and it touched me to meet him in person after such a harrowing experience. He has definitely humbled and has become more spiritual and I guess thats what becomes of people who go through such unbelievable and miraculous escapes in life.

This book is not a fiction. Its real, its raw, its creepy but more than all that it is a real life situation. I pray nobody gets to go through this ever in their lives.

A brilliant episode, I truly believe Yossi was meant to go through this and tell this tale to the world.

Hats off to his courage.

Liz

This was a great read! It's a real gripping, amazing, page turning book for me. I simply couldn't set it down, and I'm the type of person you wouldn't normally see reading a book during my free time. For the author to live to tell his tale is truly outstanding as someone who survived the the store alone for about three weeks. The author's description of what he ate when he was alone, and his foot disorder still makes me cringe. After finishing the book, I came across a documentary on the Discovery Channel (I Shouldn't Be Alive) and it was Yossi's story. The episode had interviews of Yossi and Kevin, and it was like the book was summed up in a short movie.

The author used many methods of writing such as over-generalization, bias, sterotyping, and association. An example of over-generalization is, "'Yossi, come trade places with me,' Marcus said. 'You should get some practice back here in the stern.' Good for you Marcus, good thinking, I thought sarcastiscally. Any minute now and Poppa will give you a nice pat on the head." (91). In this quote i think the author over-generalized Marcus's idea because in thie part of the book, Yossiand Kevin singled out Marcus since they thought he wasn't cut out for the Jungle and adventure. With that said, i think the overgeneralizing of Marcus will occur more often throughout the book.

The author also has much valid information in the book. For example, the author talks about how he and his friend go try the San Pedro Cactus, which is one of the strongest natural growing hallucinogens. i was skeptical about it until i looked it up and found out the hallucinogen has been in use for over 3,000 years.

In some reviews i read about the book was negative, saying that this wasn't a good survival story, and that Yossi is a selfish person. I strongly disagree because if you really think about it, what would you do in his situation? what if you were in his shoes when he was alone and lost in the jungle? i guarentee that whoever wrote negatively towards his book wouldn't be saying anything like what they said if they went through an experience like Yossi's.

I recommened this book and the episode on the Dicovery Channel (I Shouldn't Be Alive). Because this a really awesome survival story that really got my attention.

It very sad that this is based on a real story. I can't imagine having to go through any of the things he did. I knew that there had to be a happy ending though. Otherwise he would not be alive to write the story. LOL

This book gets a 3 on quality, but a 5 on easy read. It makes great airplane reading, or other times when you don't have quiet chunks of time for deeper reading.

The main character of this story is a bit of a dope, and it is hard to feel sorry for him at times. He comes off as a bit hard-hearted, and he makes some crazy mistakes and decisions (I would probably make them too, though!).

Compared to some of the better true-life adventure books out there, I was not impressed. Still, the story had some educational merit. It might keep me from wandering around in the the store.

I really enjoyed this book and when I got done of course I google some of the characters in it, and was disappointed there wasn't any corraborating story I could find on any of the characters (marcus, karl, kevin - did they exist? where are they?). Maybe I'm too skeptical after getting halfway through 'The Long Walk' and found it was fiction . If it's true, it's a 5 star book

Flooding recedes without the river. Crawling without pressure on your feet and being one big open wound. Confronting the pain to uncover the secret of it. Stoping the voice of the intellect. Letting go of the suffering from the voice and thinking your a victim. Under the canopy of heaven.

Great story. Starts off like the adventure you always wanted to have, but ends up being the one you'd rather read about happening to somebody else. It has everything you need; South America, criminals, awkward sex with a cute European girl, a mysterious tour guide, raging killer rivers, getting lost, isolation, soggy skin, stinging ants, and emotional breakdowns.

There is rarely a true survival story with great twists and unbelievable coincidences, so I was quite surprised by this book. The story is of four unrelated men, that meet each other in South America and decide to go trekking through the jungle together. They get separated and some barely make it out, and some don't. The author's amazing survival is matched by the coincidences in his journey as well as twists in the plot all the way to the end (which I won't give away here). Because of this, you realize, by the end, that every detail the author gave you was important. He also tells the story very honestly, often willing to show himself in a bad light. This helps make what is already a great book even greater.

Excellent.

I even "snuck" into the bathtub to read...leaving my husband with our 4 year old bundle of (ahem) energy for over 2 hours.

Again, excellent read...i saw Yossi on Larry King Live and had to go find the book...however, I kept having people look for "the store" instead of Jungle. Ayyye.

The writing in this book is incredible..I very much felt as if I was able to truly see the jungle...especially at night. (Note to self: Must not make trek into jungle anytime soon.)The fear i felt reading along with his thoughts of being alone was gripping.

Amazing.

It is a lucky story of survival but that's it. Probably not unique - many people who are completely ignorant to the wild life are attracted to it and then find themselves helpless. "into the wild" book had a sad ending, this one has a better one. However, the author is obviously not a writer (nor does he claim to be). It is basically a published diary. There is very little description of the settings as he "travels" through the jungle. I had to actively remind myself to picture the jungle.

This book is a must read for anyone interested in travel. It was an absolute page turner. I read this book in one week. I just could not put the book down. Normally it takes me about a month to finish a book but this was just simply an amazing read from start to finish. The writer Yossi Ghinsberg told his story in an honest and inspiring way.This is what I call a true test of survival. You feel you are in there in the jungle with him through the tough and thin and every experience is re-told in such a way that you feel you too are experiencing it. I loved this book. I have recommended this book to my best friends.

Great book. I read it in about three days it was so good. A great account of how creepy it would be to spend days and weeks alone in the jungle with minimal supplies. A very lucky fellow to make it out.

I simply could not put this book down! Every time I was forced to temporarily part ways with it my mind and imagintation remained with Yossi deep in the heart of the Bolivian jungle, and I simply could not cease to wonder where his torturous adventure would lead him next. With each detailed page I was forced to ponder if I too could fight the jungle, or if I would have given up. It's an amazing and addictive story, and any travel addict has got to read it! I love it!

When their raft hung up on a rock in the rapids of the the store's Tuichi River, one adventurer tried to dislodge it and fell overboard. He swam to shore. Strong currents swept the raft downstream, sending the author over the falls below. The ill-fated journey had begun in Bolivia a month earlier, in the early 1980s, when Ghinsberg, an Israeli, and a Swiss and an American companion agreed to go into the interior with an Austrian who had worked there for several years. A remarkable tale of daring.

Very simplistic in structure, making for a very easy read. Picks up adventure-wise around the 5th chapter and it is hard to put down. May be difficult for the animal lover at first, because of the treatment of the dog, but keep going.

Imagine four guys acting like stereotypical Junior High School girls, i.e., whining, immature, disloyal, sniping, hurt feelings.... If this is the kind of "harrowing" survival story you want to read, then have at it. However, there are so many amazing true stories in this genre that this one is made to look silly and much-ado-about-not-much.

If you're looking for great books in this genre, please read:

Skeletons on the Zahara
Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage
In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex
Into Thin Air
Over the Edge of the World
The Long Walk
Touching the Void
We Die Alone

This is one of the most honest & fascinating accounts of real life adventure I've read. Though it's easy to read, the writer also shares deep insights into human nature that I could certainly relate to. I felt I was transported into the very the store jungle where the ordeal took place. I have no hesitation in recommending this book - it has stayed with me for a long time afterwards.

This book kept me up all night as I just had to keep reading to see what happened! I was impressed with the author's honesty & really 'telling it like it is'. What he endured during his time in the the store was quite amazing & that he lived to tell the tale, even more so. I highly recommend this book to anybody who is interested in the power of the human spirit & what it can overcome, when really tested to the extreme.

This book has had a very positive effect on me & I expect most who read it. It had me so curious to find out what happened, I found it hard to put down. Mr Ghinsberg, through his survival experience, explores a wide variety of human situations & emotions & though he was young at the time, displays insight far beyond his years. Highly recommended.

This book had me literally on the edge of my seat. I read it all in one sitting, and for days afterward I could not get Yossi's incredible story out of my head. More than just an exciting, unbelievable tale, the book provides valuable, thought-provoking insights into the very nature of our existence. Definitely a must-read.

Yossi's incredible story had me turning the pages far into the night - how would he survive in the the store jungle now that he was alone? A spellbinding tale all the more remarkable because it is true - Yossi's indomitable spirit & will to survive against huge odds left me in awe of this amazing man. A truly inspirational read.

This captivating and inspiring story is an amazing adventure into the spirit of being human, connected to its enviroment in the full sense of the word. A genuine story telling that is so facinating I couldn't stop contemplating its insights long after I read it. A book that facilitates true transformation.

A well-written, engrossing tale. I had a difficult time putting it down for any length of time. Not only is the story interesting, it is told with compassion. After two quick days of part-time reading, I'm already looking for another similar book. Enjoy the book.

I read this book five years ago and still remember many of the details and get an adrenaline rush when I think about it. It is well written and very compelling. It reveals on a very deep level many truths about the human experience, all within this amazing adventure. I highly recommend it.

This is a story of young Israelis who sought adventure and got more than they bargained for. It is story telling at its finest - suspense, betrayal, courage and loyalty are woven into the dangers of the most inhospitable environment on earth. Don't let it pass you by!

If you want to read a true survival story: read Steven Callahan's "Adrift". I really disliked Yossi and his story. He's alive, not because of courage or any innate skills he possesses, but because of dumb luck. I didn't want to put his book down because I wanted to be done with it. As much as he tries to disguise it, Yossi is a jerk. He's pompous, reckless, and whiney. I don't think he learned anything from his experience, and he's not a good writer. There's no insight here. Save yourself some time, and skip this book.

Apart from being a tremendous tale of human endurance by a seemingly average male, Yossi's writing style allows the reader to climb into his skin and feel it all. I couldn't put Jungle down once I started. One of the best true stories I have ever read.

I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys adventure, though indeed Yossi Ghinsberg was just an ordinary young man at the time of this experience. He writes with refreshing candour & touches upon many human emotions that I could relate to. A very interesting story.

This is a story of young Israelis who sought adventure and got more than they bargained for. It is story telling at its finest - suspense, betrayal, courage and loyalty are woven into the dangers of the most inhospitable environment on earth. Don't let it pass you by!

If you want to read a true survival story: read Steven Callahan's "Adrift". I really disliked Yossi and his story. He's alive, not because of courage or any innate skills he possesses, but because of dumb luck. I didn't want to put his book down because I wanted to be done with it. As much as he tries to disguise it, Yossi is a jerk. He's pompous, reckless, and whiney. I don't think he learned anything from his experience, and he's not a good writer. There's no insight here. Save yourself some time, and skip this book.

Apart from being a tremendous tale of human endurance by a seemingly average male, Yossi's writing style allows the reader to climb into his skin and feel it all. I couldn't put Jungle down once I started. One of the best true stories I have ever read.

I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys adventure, though indeed Yossi Ghinsberg was just an ordinary young man at the time of this experience. He writes with refreshing candour & touches upon many human emotions that I could relate to. A very interesting story.