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An Indigenous rescue team has set out to find an Austrian hiker who went missing en route to the mountain range of Cerro Leon in Paraguay after checking into a National Park on May 2.
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A troupe of 15 Indigenous people from the Ayoreo community offered assistance and accumulated knowledge of the territory on Monday, and has now launched a three-day search to find explorer and blogger Wilhelm Wabnegg.
"If on Thursday there is nothing, no trace, no evidence, we will give up," Helmuth Adrian, the team's spokesman, said.
The engineer turned explorer began his South American tour last July in Montevideo, Uruguay and had planned to end it in Corumba, Brazil this July.
With mountain harnesses and tools, Wabnegg charted his journey from Argentina to Bolivia and Peru, from Ecuador's Andean slopes to Chile's deserts, for his wife back at home, along with other Austrian travelers.
The 62-year-old adventurer drove his Mercedes-Benz truck into the National Park of the Defensores del Chaco on April 29 with plans to conquer the Cerro Leon, just 50 km from the park's entrance, Ranger Johana Rodas said.
Two days later, he vanished. A rescue team from the Volunteer Fire Department of Paraguay (CBVP), Special Police Operations Forces (FOPE), the Philadelphia Commission, national park rangers, soldiers, nature guides and search dogs have so far failed to find any trace.
Wabnegg's vehicle, some bottles of water and a few blood stains – the origin of which has not been identified – are all that remain. Police believe he may have strayed from the path or even been devoured by jaguars.
Defensores del Chaco is one of Paraguay's oldest national parks, spanning roughly one million kilometers and encompassing Ayoreo territory.
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