‘Lost in the Amazon’: the jungle took care of the Colombian children | Television

The story went around the world, because it had everything to hook anyone: four children (13, 9 and 4 years old, an 11-month-old baby), survived for 40 days lost in the depths of the Guaviare Amazon jungle, in Colombia, after the small plane accident in which his mother, the pilot and a family friend died. When …

The story went around the world, because it had everything to hook anyone: four children (13, 9 and 4 years old, an 11-month-old baby), survived for 40 days lost in the depths of the Guaviare Amazon jungle, in Colombia, after the small plane accident in which his mother, the pilot and a family friend died. When the wreckage of the airplane and only three bodies appeared, 15 days after its disappearance, humanity held its breath. But we had to wait 25 more days, with its media circus and with the authorities overwhelmed, until the end that we can call happy: after an unprecedented mobilization of the military and the indigenous neighbors of the region, the boys were found with signs of malnutrition and minor injuries. Safe and sound.

Lost in the Amazons is an urgent documentary about this adventure, directed by Cristina Nieto and Jaime Escallón-Buraglia and released by Movistar+ just one year after the rescue. The first thing that strikes you about the film is that it manages to plunge you into that thick jungle. Which is overwhelmingly beautiful, but in which you feel helpless, vulnerable. It is a threatening jungle, you think from your sofa, but they explain the indigenous vision of the place well: on the contrary, it is a mother. The jungle protected the children, different voices from these towns say, but for a time it hid them.

The documentary does not answer the big question: how they survived there for so long. The children’s story, the one that Lesly, the older sister, the great heroine of this story, could tell, has not yet been written. Since the family was indigenous, we understand that they knew the jungle (not that jungle) much better than any urbanite; who otherwise would have died in a few days, if not hours. But they will not explain to you here, nor has anyone explained, their survival strategies. So the footage focuses on the arduous rescue work in a very large area, where there is so much vegetation and so thick that sunlight does not reach certain corners, and where the nearest town is about 200 kilometers away. It seemed miraculous to find them and, when they feared it would be impossible, objects appeared that the boys had been leaving in their wake: a bottle, a carefully folded diaper, a hair ribbon. They retrace their steps: they understand that they should have been close to them.

We are told the story by soldiers and volunteers who participated in the rescue, relatives of the children and journalists who followed the case. The close cooperation between the indigenous people and the military adds epic to the story. There were reasons for mistrust between the two in an area, between Caquetá and Guaviare, that for decades had been controlled by the FARC guerrilla. For some locals, it was the first time they had seen a uniformed member of the state forces. The military relied on its tracking tactics and technology to guide them in the search; The natives at the same time made offerings to Mother Nature to return their children and took advantage of the knowledge accumulated by generations living with the jungle. One after another got into the mud, and among the bugs and insects, again and again. We also see them pray together. The aim here is to explain the worldview and spirituality of these native peoples, who do not worship anyone in heaven but rather feel one with their exuberant natural environment, although an hour was not enough for that, so we settled for a few strokes.

It is an emotional story, full of heroes and no villains. While waiting for Lesly to be able and willing to tell everything, we are left with a dazzling protagonist: the jungle itself. That in this case, yes, she was a mother.

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