Lost In Shangri-La

 

 

 

Imagine this...you are reading a book late at night inside a cabin at a state park in Georgia, which sits very near the edge of a mountain gorge.  As you are reading the book, you realize that the description of what you are reading is so very near to what is just outside your door that it makes you raise your eyebrows a bit at the similarities of the settings.  This is what happened to me in April when I was at Cloudland Canyon State Park...

The book is "Lost In Shangri-La" by Mitchell Zuckoff.  It is the true story of an airplane crash in the side of a hidden mountain valley in New Guinea in 1945 and there were only three survivors, two men and one woman.  The plane ride was to have been a "treat" for those who were stationed in Hollandia, Indonesia during the war.   The survivors had to hack their way through thick trees and underbrush and rushing mountain rivers only to be confronted by the natives of New Guinea, who had never seen any white people before, but the natives did have a legend that one day, white people would come from the sky...

The account of how they interacted with the native Dani Tribe, how they were finally located, how paratroopers dropped supplies to them and the miraculous way of how they were finally rescued is something that you should read for yourself!