📸 Photo

Six years after coming back from Tuichi, I was contacted by an Israeli magazine with an offer to write several articles about South America. This was my first opportunity to return to Rurrenabaque. I found that it had changed. The town was bigger, busier. Settlers from the altiplano had flocked there by the thousands. Convoys of trucks, arriving empty, left creaking under loads of mahogany. Saloons had materialised and with them loud music and the stench of urine.

Tico seemed happy to see me and delighted to take me up the Tuichi in his motorboat. The river was as magnificent and wild as before. We set out for San José, still the only settlement on the river, and continued to Progreso, where I had been rescued. It was a less emotional journey than I had expected. In fact, I was surprised how much I enjoyed myself. There was no animosity between me and the rainforest. On the contrary, I felt a strong attraction and was determined to make the jungle a part of my life.

Back in Rurrenabaque I was introduced to an old Hungarian, a refugee from World War II, and though he was drunk when we met, I found what he told beyond compelling. He began by claiming to know Karl well. He hadn’t seen him for some time, but just a few months earlier in Cochabamba a Swiss priest had mentioned that Karl had visited not long before.

Excited, I flew to Cochabamba and found the priest, Father Erich, at a mission just outside town.