After finally finding his first building that advertises up to 5 Wishes, and getting his Wisdom to 27 instead of 26, and checking himself to see if he's being stupid in any obvious way he can now see...
...it does, finally, occur to him to pay a native for directions to places where up to five Wish-conversions can be bought.
Some thoughts are just way more counterintuitive to some people than others.
He won't make the same mistake again, not even once over the rest of his life. It's just, he's lived his whole life with global positioning satellites and network searches and cars that automatically go places...
Well, it's promising for his having overlooked over possibilities, maybe.