In Bolivia, a man says he survived alone in the Amazon rainforest for a month by eating insects and worms, collecting rainwater in his boots and drinking the water as well as his own urine. If confirmed, 30-year-old Jhonatan Acosta would have set a record for one of the longest struggles for survival in the Amazon.
Acosta was reported missing by his family in late January. He had set out with four friends on a rainforest hunting trip, but was separated from his companions on January 25. Exactly one month later, last Saturday, he was found by search parties.
“It helped me a lot to know about survival techniques: I had to eat insects, drink my urine, eat worms. I was attacked by animals,” he told Unitel TV on Tuesday. Acosta reported it rained for half the month. He used his rubber boots to catch as much rainwater as possible. “I asked God for rain,” said the 30-year-old Bolivian. “If it hadn’t rained, I wouldn’t have survived.” When the rain stopped, he drank his own urine. At night he was bitten by all sorts of animals.
In order to return to civilization, he walked about 40 kilometers through the rainforest without direction, Acosta reported. But he soon realized that he was running in circles. In 1981, the Israeli adventurer Yossi Ghinsberg had survived three weeks in the Amazon rainforest in Bolivia. His experiences were later filmed, starring British actor Daniel Radcliffe.
In 2021, pilot Antonio Sena survived a crash landing in the Amazon for 38 days in Brazil. In 2022, two brothers, aged seven and nine, were rescued after spending 25 days in the Brazilian rainforest.
