Free Lost in the Jungle by Yossi Ghinsberg Page A

against the current to rejoin the others.
    It was getting late. Karl decided it was time to stop for the night. We quickly set up camp a short distance from the riverbank. Fortunately, the rain had stopped, and we got a fire going. Karl made a big pot of soup from rice and bits of smoked pork.
    Marcus and Kevin, who had both brought a change of clothes, hung their wet clothes to dry by the campfire, but Karl and I had to dry our clothing while wearing it.
    ‘Don’t put your clothes too close to the fire,’ Karl said. ‘The threads wear out that way, and they’ll start falling apart at the seams.’
    Before we fell asleep, Karl promised, ‘Tomorrow I’ll find some kind of game, for sure.’
    ‘That’s good, Poppa,’ Marcus laughed. ‘You have to provide for your hungry children.’
    I awoke very early in the morning and found Karl already up and outside. He was whittling chips of wood from a broken branch with the machete. He placed the chips over the ashes from last night’s fire, bent over, and blew on one of the stillred logs. The fire rekindled. Karl added dry twigs and soon had a good blaze going. I crawled out of the tent and warmed myself against the morning chill. Kevin had also arisen and was breaking up a large branch. I took the pot and utensils down to the river to clean them.
    The weather was better than it had been the day before. It had stopped raining, our clothing was dry, and we were soon on our way, wading in the icy water of the river.
    At noon Karl noticed a gathering of dark clouds on the horizon. Before long a heavy rain was pouring down on us. Determined, we marched on, drenched to the bone.
    Flaca, who was being dragged by the rope around her neck, rebelled. Her legs went out from under her, and she lay down. Karl’s shouting and kicking did no good. He dragged her a long way over the muddy ground. She didn’t let out a whimper. Finally he got really mad, took the rope from around her neck, and shouted, ‘You don’t want to come? Fine, have it your way. Just stay here!’
    We went on, looking back sadly at the poor dog, sure we would never see her again. What a bum deal she had gotten, I thought to myself. We had bought her from her poor owners, thinking she’d be better off with us, but had brought her nothing but hardship. Now we were abandoning her to her fate. Alone in the jungle she would die of cold and hunger. I looked back again. Flaca was stretched out in the mud, watching us apathetically, as if resigned to the end that would soon be hers.
    ‘Look, cattle!’ Karl cried. ‘They belong to the people of Asriamas. They let them wander freely about the jungle to graze and breed.’
    About twenty head stood on the narrow riverbank. The calves frolicked between their mothers’ legs. One, all soft and white, nuzzled its mother’s udder.
    ‘She’s giving milk,’ I said. ‘Maybe we could catch her and get a little milk for ourselves.’
    ‘Why bother?’ Karl said. ‘Better we should take a young calf and roast it over the campfire. It’s even legal,’ he added. ‘There’s an unwritten law that a hungry man travelling through the pampas can slaughter a whole cow in order to have something to eat.’
    We were all starving, and it didn’t take much effort on Karl’s part to convince us that there wouldn’t be anything immoral about killing a calf belonging to the people who had sheltered us in Asriamas. So the hunt was on. Karl and Kevin sneaked up on the herd holding ropes. The cattle got wind of them and fled.
    ‘I have a great idea,’ Karl proclaimed. ‘We’ll keep spooking them in the direction we’re going until it’s time to set up camp. Then we’ll shoot one of them. We won’t even have to carry it that way.’
    We carried on enthusiastically, driving the cattle forward with loud shouts. They tried to give us the slip, but we managed to keep them together; only one or two got away. All of the others were ahead of us, and the moment of truth had arrived.
    I