Yossi Ghinsberg, Survival Speaker, Inspirational Storyteller, Conference Keynote, Testimonal Letters

As you are aware at Aegis we have some incredibly powerful speakers at our annual meetings, but you are among the most impressive we have ever had.

It was amazing to all who attended how you could weave a gripping tale of survival in the Amazon, against all odds, into a story that had practical application in all of our lives. Somehow you were able to open up the complexities of the universe with all its wonders and its bounty and demonstrate how it has a positive message that correlates to the most common levels of everyday life.

Our team of senior managers left your presentation filled with an inspiring view of how each of them could take the adversities that are sometimes thrown at them, put these challenges in perspective and turn them into positive growth experiences. Yours is a message not of some ethereal value, but it touches all who hear it with a sense of wonder and of awe at the power each of us has.

For me, personally, I know your message is something I will always carry with me.

With all warmest regards and affection,

Jerry C. Meyer

Chief Operating Officer

Aegis Living

Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceuticals
A Division of Bristol-Myers Squibb Australia Pty. Ltd.

Mr. Yossi Ghinsberg
16 Lodge Road
CremorneNSW 2090
Statement of endorsement:
Yossi is an amazing story teller. His presentation at a function to Cardiologists during an
intensive workshop to improve treatment of heart disease in Australia was one of the
highlights of the weekend.
The way he tells his story of survival and describes the details of his and his companions
plight makes you feel that you are right in the midst of it.
I only can recommend Yossi and his ability to capture audiences to anyone who has the
need to add the extra and unexpected to a function of any kind.
Yours truly,
Erika Gisser ,
Hospital Business Executive
Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceuticals Australia
A Bristol-Myers Squibb Company

 Mr Yossi Ghinsberg


Dear Yossi
I am not sure where to begin to thank you for your generous gift of time to Greening
Australia; for the undeniable energy and passion you put into our corporate breakfast
and for offering your ongoing support for our environmental work.
When Anne used the term - Once in a lifetime you will hear a speaker you will never forgetto
advertise the breakfast, ~ felfwe had come up with a strong line to attract interest in
the event. I didn't fully appreciate just how true these words would prove to be.
The positive feedback from our guests at the breakfast has been nothing short of
overwhelming. Astounding, in fact! You certainly moved, inspired, challenged and
motivated people Yossi. It was a privilege to be amongst the guests and to hear your
incredible story. .
I just wish we could have stopped the clock so that we could all have heard more of
your thoughts and memories. I guess that a.ccounts for the many, many people who
'queued to buy your book!
We look forward to getting to know you better as you journey with Greening Australia
as an ambassador, and thank you once again for a morning we will never forget.
Kind regards.
Pam Usher
Chief Executive Officer

 ING AaJ
ING (NZ) Limited
PO Box 7149, Wellesley Stree
Auckland 1036
Level 27, ASB Bank Centre
135 Albert Street, Auckland
New Zealand
Telephone: 09-356 4000
Toll free: 0800-737 575
Facsimile: 09-3564001
Yossi Ghinsberg
Dear Yossi
---
THANK YOU
Thank you for making your valuable time available to speak at the ING (NZ) Limited conference
held at the Outrigger Beach Resort and Spa, Palm Cove
The feedback we received from attendees was that your presentation was well received and of
great benefit to them. Overall, the conference was a huge success and we thank you for the part
you played in making it so.
Once again, many thanks.
Yours sincerely
W J Becker
GeneralManager Retail Distribution
ING (NZ) Limited
D A Greenslade
Managing Director

Bryce Courtenay, author of The Power of One
Simply breathtaking. Yossi’s story of survival haunted me for weeks.

The Los Angeles Times
A powerful story of self-discovery, survival in the wild.

Sun Herald
Told simply and yet with a novelist’s eye for structure and drama, the story unfolds like a nightmare movie.

BOOK REVIEW: NON FICTION A Powerful Story of Self-Discovery, Survival in the Wild, BACK FROM TUICHI: The Harrowing Life-and-Death Story of Survival in the Amazon Rainforest, by Yossi Ghinsberg; Random House, $22, 239 pages

The Los Angeles Times (Pre-1997 Fulltext); Los Angeles, Calif.; Jan 26, 1994; JONATHAN KIRSCH;

Abstract:
At the moment of greatest crisis, Ghinsberg finds himself utterly alone in the mal paso of the Tuichi River, an impassable canyon where white water crushes the improvised raft that was to carry the young men to safety. And now the real adventure begins: can Ghinsberg survive - alone, unarmed, untrained and poorly provisioned in the Amazon rain forest?

What allowed Ghinsberg to survive alone in the wilderness? As in other classics of the literature of survival, Ghinsberg describes the blend of physical courage, practical knowledge and quiet spirituality that allows him to survive the deadliest threats of the wilderness.

Some of the most fascinating passages in "Back From Tuichi" describe the improvised jungle craft that allowed the intrepid Ghinsberg to prevail against hunger and injury, leeches and fire ants, jaguars and wild boars, high water and thunderstorms. And yet Ghinsberg's bravery and ingenuity are not the only secrets of his survival. Ghinsberg placed his faith in a little book that a beloved uncle bestowed upon him, a talisman that saves his life and his sanity.

All great stories of survival start out as something else - an airplane fight over the Andes, a cruise around the world by sailboat, or, in the case of Yossi Ghinsberg's "Back From Tuichi" an expedition into the Amazon rain forest in search of gold, wild animals and natives.

Like many young Israelis, Ghinsberg set off in search of adventure after completing his military service, and joined the other young vagabonds - or mochileros - who wandered the byways and backwaters of South America. The symbol of their freedom, as Ghinsberg explains, was the backpack, or mochila. "Every nomad knows the feeling," writes Ghinsberg. "The idea is to carry everything on your back, forget your troubles, let tomorrow take care of itself."

Ghinsberg's journey into the rainforest, as we learn, was the idea of an Austrian expatriate named Karl, a colorful but faintly sinister character who attached himself to Yossi and his friends in La Paz, and offered to serve as their guide on what he promised would be a particularly memorable trip by raft down the Tuichi River. Karl was right, as we learn in "Back From Tuichi," but for the wrong reasons.

As it turns out, Karl is the central figure in the mystery that unfolds in Ghinsberg's book. Was Karl a geologist, as he sometimes claimed to be? A gold and uranium prospector? Or an international fugitive with a price on his head? Did he really have an uncle who was a Nazi war criminal in hiding on a distant ranch? And exactly why did Karl tantalize Ghinsberg and his friends with half-truths and outright lies about what they would find in the rainforest?

Ghinsberg's account of the expedition is as enchanting to us as Karl's stories must have been to Yossi and his traveling companions, an American named Kevin and a Swiss named Marcus. He shows himself to be a gifted storyteller as he describes the treacherous rapids of the Tuichi River, the snake-infested thickets of the rainforest, the forbidding cliffs that lay between the young adventurers and the village where they intended to catch a bush flight back to La Paz.

Almost immediately, the expedition goes wrong in subtle ways. Karl's lies begin to reveal themselves; the young men fall out with each other; the rainforest exacts a far harsher price than they had expected to pay. In its darkest passages, "Back From Tuichi" is a Conradian tale of men at odds with themselves and each other in the very heart of darkness.

"You're a man of action," Ghinsberg tells himself in a phrase that becomes his mantra during his long, lonely ordeal in the rain forest. "Don't cry. Don't break now."

"The sun shone over me," he writes of a sublime moment of respite during the lonely jungle trek. "Every now and then I put another ripe tamarind in my mouth and greedily sucked the sweet flesh from the pits. Wild beauty surrounded me . . . alone in the heart of the wilderness along with whoever was watching over me."

I will not reveal exactly how Ghinsberg's ordeal turned out, but the end of his sojourn in the rainforest is not the end of the adventure - or of the mystery. We learn Kevin's fate, but Ghinsberg leaves us only with an intriguing bit of speculation about what became of Karl and Marcus - an explanation that only deepens the ominous shadows behind Ghinsberg's story of survival.

"What I'm doing here in South America is looking for the extraordinary," Ghinsberg wrote his brother before his journey. "Mystical religious ceremonies, pagan rites. . . . unusual people, places that have their special atmosphere, new friends, all those things."

As we discover in "Back From Tuichi," Ghinsberg found all of the exotic experiences in the rainforest of South America. But, at the end of his remarkable book, we understand that he happened upon something even more extraordinary - and he found it in himself.

The Voice of the Amazon

Presenting a speaker who puts Survivor to shame

MAY 01, 2001 -- It was December 1981, and while most of us were still musing over the fairy-tale nuptials of Charles and Di, or aerobicizing to Olivia's Physical (it was the top-selling song of the year), Yossi Ghinsberg was struggling to survive, and beat a path out of the Brazilian rain forest.

The then 21-year-old Israeli emerged after losing his way (and almost his life)—festering sores on his feet and live worms embedded in his flesh—and now, two decades later, is telling his tale around the country.

"Yossi has a truly incredible and inspiring story to share," says Jane Atkinson at Dallas-based International Speakers Bureau.

That story began as an exciting adventure when Ghinsberg and three fellow backpackers set out to test their skills in the jungles of the Amazon. They yearned for a taste of the untamed wilderness—they hoped to tackle wild animals, raft down raging rivers, and discover an isolated tribe of Indians. They got it all—minus the Indians. And then the real adventure began.

Before he knew what was happening, Ghinsberg found himself completely alone in the dense forest. As two of the four headed back to civilization (they've yet to surface), Ghinsberg went careening down a rushing waterfall on a rickety balsa raft, separating him from his companion. That man was rescued by hunters shortly after the mishap.

With little more than the torn clothes on his back and a measly stash of rice and beans, Ghinsberg fought to keep himself alive, and find a way out. "I almost died of loneliness," he recalls. He was also nearly eaten alive by hungry termites, swallowed up by a pool of mud, and turned to dinner by a jaguar.

After 20 solitary days in the thick of the rain forest, Ghinsberg was rescued by the companion he'd thought had suffered a fate worse than his. "Being close to death made me see how sacred life is," says Ghinsberg. "Some people hear my story and walk away with renewed resolve to survive in the jungle of the business world. Others learn to live every day like it's their last."

Either way, it makes Richard Hatch look pampered.

Sixteen years ago, a young Israeli named Yossi Ghinsberg flipped his handmade raft on Bolivia's Tuichi River, a tributary of the Amazon, and found himself lost in the jungle for three agonizing weeks. A lot of people are very glad he did.

Tico Tudela--a once impoverished Bolivian hunter who now wears a thick gold watch and drives a Land Cruiser--is glad Yossi Ghinsberg got lost.

A new merchant class of hoteliers and restaurateurs in the dusty frontier town of Rurrenabaque is glad.

The 500 people of San Jose--a tiny rain forest village that recently secured a $1.25 million grant and opened a world-class ecotourism lodge--are glad.

And finally, thousands of adventure travelers who have embarked on some truly eye-popping tours of Bolivia's Amazon basin are glad Yossi Ghinsberg got lost.

I'm a member of that latter group. If it weren't for Yossi Ghinsberg's near-death misadventure in 1982, I wouldn't be sitting where I am now--in the bow of a 30-foot dugout canoe, chugging upstream along the most spectacular