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Forty Days in the Jungle: behind the survival and rescue of four children lost in the Amazon
An extraordinary, gripping survival story that also reveals the struggles for social justice of the Indigenous people of Colombia and the Amazon.
In June 2023, four children — Lesly, Soleiny, Tien, and Crispin — were found alive in the Colombian Amazon, forty days after the aircraft they were travelling in had crashed and killed the three adults on board (the pilot, the co-pilot, and the children’s mother). The eldest child, thirteen-year-old Lesly, took the decision to leave her dying mother, gather her siblings — aged 9, 5, and 11 months — and head into the jungle. She kept herself and her siblings alive for 40 days and nights, finally emerging when heavily armed soldiers closed in, yelling her name above the sound of barking dogs.
Forty Days in the Jungle follows the compelling characters involved in the crash and what followed: Maria Fatima Valencia, the children’s grandmother, who had taught Lesly how to survive in the jungle; General Pedro Sánchez who led the rescue team; the shady figure of Manuel Ranoque, the father of the two youngest children; and even the Colombian president, Gustavo Petro.
But there is much more to this than an extraordinary survival story. Interwoven chapters address key questions about Colombian and Latin American history, society, and political economy — the answers to which shed light on the socio-political state of much of the world today. Colombia’s problems mirror, in many ways, the rising Global South in its twenty-first-century struggles against colonial histories and a globalised world.
In June 2023, four children — Lesly, Soleiny, Tien, and Crispin — were found alive in the Colombian Amazon, forty days after the aircraft they were travelling in had crashed and killed the three adults on board (the pilot, the co-pilot, and the children’s mother). The eldest child, thirteen-year-old Lesly, took the decision to leave her dying mother, gather her siblings — aged 9, 5, and 11 months — and head into the jungle. She kept herself and her siblings alive for 40 days and nights, finally emerging when heavily armed soldiers closed in, yelling her name above the sound of barking dogs.
Forty Days in the Jungle follows the compelling characters involved in the crash and what followed: Maria Fatima Valencia, the children’s grandmother, who had taught Lesly how to survive in the jungle; General Pedro Sánchez who led the rescue team; the shady figure of Manuel Ranoque, the father of the two youngest children; and even the Colombian president, Gustavo Petro.
But there is much more to this than an extraordinary survival story. Interwoven chapters address key questions about Colombian and Latin American history, society, and political economy — the answers to which shed light on the socio-political state of much of the world today. Colombia’s problems mirror, in many ways, the rising Global South in its twenty-first-century struggles against colonial histories and a globalised world.
- GenresNonfiction
288 pages, Paperback
Published October 29, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
August 5, 2025
How could this have happened? Four children, victims of a plane crash in the Columbian jungle survived such a long time. Adults familiar with the jungle tread fearfully and respectfully. The tree canopy is so thick that almost no sunshine reaches the ground. Carnivorous creatures and dangerous plants abound not to mention armed guerillas who have somehow found a way to subsist there.
The answer to the mystery hangs on Columbia's indigenous culture. The Uitoto people live on the outskirts of the monte, wild jungle that surrounds settlements. Children are taught to recognize certain plants as food and to avoid all others. That knowledge helped to save their young lives.
The story involves tribal leaders imbibing yage, the juice from a hallucinogenic vine, to add vision to the search. It is an ancient practice. Unfortunately much of the traditional culture in Columbia is threatened. Their way of life is under severe pressure as the land is developed. Selling carbon credits to Exxon is a corporate scheme that brings in some cash but does not slow destruction of community and its sustaining forest.
The answer to the mystery hangs on Columbia's indigenous culture. The Uitoto people live on the outskirts of the monte, wild jungle that surrounds settlements. Children are taught to recognize certain plants as food and to avoid all others. That knowledge helped to save their young lives.
The story involves tribal leaders imbibing yage, the juice from a hallucinogenic vine, to add vision to the search. It is an ancient practice. Unfortunately much of the traditional culture in Columbia is threatened. Their way of life is under severe pressure as the land is developed. Selling carbon credits to Exxon is a corporate scheme that brings in some cash but does not slow destruction of community and its sustaining forest.
July 4, 2025
Book Review: Forty Days in the Jungle: Behind the Extraordinary Survival and Rescue of Four Children Lost in the Amazon by Mat Youkee
Rating: 4.8/5
Mat Youkee’s Forty Days in the Jungle is a breathtaking fusion of survival narrative and sociopolitical excavation—a book that left me equally awestruck by human resilience and haunted by systemic injustice. The story of Lesly, Soleiny, Tien, and Crispin’s 40-day ordeal in the Amazon after a plane crash could have been rendered as sensationalist drama, but Youkee elevates it into something far richer: a meditation on Indigenous knowledge, Colombia’s fractured soul, and the brutal paradoxes of globalization.
What gripped me most was Youkee’s dual vision—his ability to toggle between heart-pounding immediacy (the children’s harrowing trek through snake-filled rivers and jaguar territory) and razor-sharp context (the guerrilla violence, domestic abuse, and institutional neglect that framed their lives). His prose thrums with journalistic precision yet never loses its humanity, particularly in passages about 13-year-old Lesly’s agonizing choice to leave her dying mother. I found myself holding my breath during the rescue sequences, then pausing to absorb Youkee’s incisive asides about how Indigenous survival skills—like recognizing edible fruits or avoiding poison frogs—are both ancient wisdom and modern lifelines in a world that marginalizes their keepers.
The book’s structural ambition is both its strength and slight weakness. While the interwoven chapters on Colombian history (e.g., the legacy of FARC, the extractive industries ravaging the Amazon) provide essential scaffolding, they occasionally disrupt the narrative momentum. A tighter integration of these threads—perhaps through more character-driven anecdotes—might have amplified their emotional impact. That said, Youkee’s reporting is impeccable, especially his nuanced portrayal of Manuel Ranoque, the children’s controversial father, which avoids easy villainization.
By the epilogue, I felt not just moved but activated—the mark of truly great nonfiction. Youkee doesn’t let us revel in the miracle without confronting why such miracles are necessary: a world where Indigenous children must literally fight for survival against man-made and natural forces alike.
Thank you to Ingram Publisher Services and Edelweiss for the advance copy. This is reportage at its most vital: a story that expands from a single tragedy into a mirror for our planet’s most urgent crises. For readers of the book: 438 Days or The Lost City of Z, Forty Days in the Jungle will resonate long after the final page—and likely send you down a rabbit hole about the Amazon’s unheralded guardians.
Rating: 4.8/5
Mat Youkee’s Forty Days in the Jungle is a breathtaking fusion of survival narrative and sociopolitical excavation—a book that left me equally awestruck by human resilience and haunted by systemic injustice. The story of Lesly, Soleiny, Tien, and Crispin’s 40-day ordeal in the Amazon after a plane crash could have been rendered as sensationalist drama, but Youkee elevates it into something far richer: a meditation on Indigenous knowledge, Colombia’s fractured soul, and the brutal paradoxes of globalization.
What gripped me most was Youkee’s dual vision—his ability to toggle between heart-pounding immediacy (the children’s harrowing trek through snake-filled rivers and jaguar territory) and razor-sharp context (the guerrilla violence, domestic abuse, and institutional neglect that framed their lives). His prose thrums with journalistic precision yet never loses its humanity, particularly in passages about 13-year-old Lesly’s agonizing choice to leave her dying mother. I found myself holding my breath during the rescue sequences, then pausing to absorb Youkee’s incisive asides about how Indigenous survival skills—like recognizing edible fruits or avoiding poison frogs—are both ancient wisdom and modern lifelines in a world that marginalizes their keepers.
The book’s structural ambition is both its strength and slight weakness. While the interwoven chapters on Colombian history (e.g., the legacy of FARC, the extractive industries ravaging the Amazon) provide essential scaffolding, they occasionally disrupt the narrative momentum. A tighter integration of these threads—perhaps through more character-driven anecdotes—might have amplified their emotional impact. That said, Youkee’s reporting is impeccable, especially his nuanced portrayal of Manuel Ranoque, the children’s controversial father, which avoids easy villainization.
By the epilogue, I felt not just moved but activated—the mark of truly great nonfiction. Youkee doesn’t let us revel in the miracle without confronting why such miracles are necessary: a world where Indigenous children must literally fight for survival against man-made and natural forces alike.
Thank you to Ingram Publisher Services and Edelweiss for the advance copy. This is reportage at its most vital: a story that expands from a single tragedy into a mirror for our planet’s most urgent crises. For readers of the book: 438 Days or The Lost City of Z, Forty Days in the Jungle will resonate long after the final page—and likely send you down a rabbit hole about the Amazon’s unheralded guardians.
June 26, 2025
Remember the story of the indigenous huitoto children who survived 40 days in the Amazon jungle after the Cessna they were flying in crashed? It dominated the headlines for a significant period of time in 2023. The author of this in-depth look at what took place and how the rescue came about, Mat Youkee, was one of the foreign correspondents on hand to report the story. Youkee has lived and reported from Colombia for a significant number of years and so it was a relief to read something of this nature written by someone with a "boots-on-the-ground" understanding of the complexities in this country. In addition to this, Youkee plunges the reader into deeper investigations of the jungle and her mysteries, the exploitation of the past and how this affects the present.
May 24, 2025
Mlle Alice, pouvez-vous nous raconter votre rencontre avec Quarante Jours dans la Jungle ?
"C'est un fait divers qui m'a beaucoup marquée alors quand j'ai vu qu'un livre avait été écrit sur le sujet, je n'ai pas pu m'empêcher d'être curieuse, d'autant plus qu'il était édité chez Marchialy dont j'ai aimé toutes les publications que j'ai pu découvrir à ce jour."
Dites-nous en un peu plus sur son histoire...
"Un petit avion s'écrase dans la jungle colombienne et les trois adultes à son bord meurent sur le coup. Tout indique en revanche que les quatre enfants, donc un bébé, ont survécu. Commencent alors quarante jours de recherches intenses et éprouvantes au milieu de nul part..."
Mais que s'est-il exactement passé entre vous ?
"L'enquête retrace toute l'histoire de ces enfants et de leurs parents, le contexte de l'accident, et ce qui s'est passé en amont. Bien que les recherches restent le point culminant du récit, tout est interessant et j'ai été happée dès les premières pages. J'y découvre un nouvel univers, un pays, une culture et c'est passionnant. Quant à la suite... On ne peut pas s'empêcher d'espérer à tout instant, même en sachant que ce n'est que le début, de pester contre chaque décision prise, chaque obstacle qui mènera cette famille à monter dans cet avion, pourtant conscient qu'on ne peut rien y changer et puis on attend, on tourne les pages et on attend. Et cette histoire nous réserve bien des surprises. Face aux évènements qui se sont déroulés dans cette jungle, on est obligés d'admettre qu'on ne sait pas tout, qu'on ne maîtrise pas tout, que certaines choses sont bien plus grandes que nous et tout n'a pas à être élucidé. Et sur chacun de ces points, j'ai plus qu'apprécié l'honnêteté de l'auteur qui a toujours fait la part des choses entre ce qui était vérifiable et ce qui ne l'était pas."
Et comment cela s'est-il fini ?
"La fin est vraiment douce amère et le destin de ces enfants est loin d'être tout rose. Je me doutais de certaines choses que le ton de l'auteur laissait transparaître depuis un certain temps mais je suis triste de découvrir qu'ils ne sont toujours pas rentrés chez eux, plus d'un an et demi après la catastrophe."
http://booksaremywonderland.hautetfor...
"C'est un fait divers qui m'a beaucoup marquée alors quand j'ai vu qu'un livre avait été écrit sur le sujet, je n'ai pas pu m'empêcher d'être curieuse, d'autant plus qu'il était édité chez Marchialy dont j'ai aimé toutes les publications que j'ai pu découvrir à ce jour."
Dites-nous en un peu plus sur son histoire...
"Un petit avion s'écrase dans la jungle colombienne et les trois adultes à son bord meurent sur le coup. Tout indique en revanche que les quatre enfants, donc un bébé, ont survécu. Commencent alors quarante jours de recherches intenses et éprouvantes au milieu de nul part..."
Mais que s'est-il exactement passé entre vous ?
"L'enquête retrace toute l'histoire de ces enfants et de leurs parents, le contexte de l'accident, et ce qui s'est passé en amont. Bien que les recherches restent le point culminant du récit, tout est interessant et j'ai été happée dès les premières pages. J'y découvre un nouvel univers, un pays, une culture et c'est passionnant. Quant à la suite... On ne peut pas s'empêcher d'espérer à tout instant, même en sachant que ce n'est que le début, de pester contre chaque décision prise, chaque obstacle qui mènera cette famille à monter dans cet avion, pourtant conscient qu'on ne peut rien y changer et puis on attend, on tourne les pages et on attend. Et cette histoire nous réserve bien des surprises. Face aux évènements qui se sont déroulés dans cette jungle, on est obligés d'admettre qu'on ne sait pas tout, qu'on ne maîtrise pas tout, que certaines choses sont bien plus grandes que nous et tout n'a pas à être élucidé. Et sur chacun de ces points, j'ai plus qu'apprécié l'honnêteté de l'auteur qui a toujours fait la part des choses entre ce qui était vérifiable et ce qui ne l'était pas."
Et comment cela s'est-il fini ?
"La fin est vraiment douce amère et le destin de ces enfants est loin d'être tout rose. Je me doutais de certaines choses que le ton de l'auteur laissait transparaître depuis un certain temps mais je suis triste de découvrir qu'ils ne sont toujours pas rentrés chez eux, plus d'un an et demi après la catastrophe."
http://booksaremywonderland.hautetfor...
May 28, 2025
Összességében a vártnál többet adott: az ember kezébe veszi és arra számít, hogy megismeri négy gyerek kalandos, regényes fordulatokkal teli menekülését. Költői leírások helyett kapunk egy torokszorító ismertetőt arról, mi zajlik napjainkban is Kolumbiában, egy családi történet tükrében. Az indiánok ősi kultúrája és az Amazonas őserdő sötét mélysége mellett illúzióromboló, halál komoly információk áradata: gerillacsapatok, drogkereskedés, alkoholizmus, szexuális erőszak, emberrablás, gyilkosságok teszik hol ébresztő hol fojtó olvasmánnyá a dokumentumregény-szerű írást.
Az ahogyan a modern technológia diktálta eljárásokat egy adott ponton az ősi hiedelmek fölülírták, számomra bámulatos volt. Ugyanakkor elborzasztott annak a felismerése, hogy ez is ijesztően kihalófélben van.
Hiányérzetem eleinte a száraz stílusával kapcsolatban volt, amit időközben megértettem és megköszöntem; ez a realitás, ami hozzásegít majd több dél-amerikai szépirodalmi mű korhű értelmezéséhez.
Ilyen egy igazi, elhivatott újságíró, ilyen kockázatot vállal.
Az ahogyan a modern technológia diktálta eljárásokat egy adott ponton az ősi hiedelmek fölülírták, számomra bámulatos volt. Ugyanakkor elborzasztott annak a felismerése, hogy ez is ijesztően kihalófélben van.
Hiányérzetem eleinte a száraz stílusával kapcsolatban volt, amit időközben megértettem és megköszöntem; ez a realitás, ami hozzásegít majd több dél-amerikai szépirodalmi mű korhű értelmezéséhez.
Ilyen egy igazi, elhivatott újságíró, ilyen kockázatot vállal.
July 11, 2025
Fascinating, sad and gripping account of 4 Colombian children who survived a plane crash in the Amazon jungle. The (true) story blends the story of the children’s survival with back stories about key people involved in their lives and the rescue. The cast of characters is wild - the children, their parents, the pilots, villagers, guerrillas, elite soldiers, indigenous trackers and more. I feel like a learned a little about life in the jungle and Colombia and now want to learn more
September 20, 2025
I followed this story obsessively while the children were missing so was very pleased to find a book. The book is well written and tells the story and the background (including the political and environmental situation) thoroughly. The story is so much sadder than I knew, and I hope that the custody has been sorted out. For those interested, there have been scientific papers on how the children survived.
May 24, 2025
More than just what happened after the plane crashed....this book looks beyond the experiences of the children and the searchers to the difficult status of indigenous populations and the long term impact on the children themselves. I learnt a lot about Columbian culture from this book.
July 10, 2025
The author talk not just about the kids rescue, but many problems around Colombia, inside the forest with the Militia and farque. We can go a lot into a world that sometimes we can't imagine that exist, just through this book.
Read
July 18, 2025These 3 young children (an infant, a toddler, and an adolescent basically) trying to survive by themselves in the unforgiving Amazon rainforest, with no equipment, through rain, heat, cold, bugs, mosquitos, snakes, jaguars, and for forty (40) days! Human perseverance!
Want to read
October 5, 2025I haven't been in much of reading mood lately so, by the time I actually picked this up and started reading, it was due back at work as I'd exhausted all my renewals on it. It does sound interesting so it'll stay on my to read list and hopefully I'll get back to it sometime soon.....
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews