Walking the Amazon

[el-amigo]

Have you ever heard about the British explorer and adventurer Ed Stafford and his Amazon long walk? :thumbs_up: I followed his trekking trough the Amazon Rainforest and watched the documentary about it. I just imagine how many side trips were the logistics and resupplying... How many work was this expedition...? They lived off the land for months in the middle of the Brazilian Amazon. What is your opinion about this guy and his trekking?

I wish I could walk the Amazon one day...

[el-amigo]

Nobody? I put here the link of the expedition blog: http://walkingtheamazon.com

[pete lynch]

I'd rather walk across anywhere but there. Too many bugs and weird diseases!
I'm a cold-weather type anyway. :)

[Rick]

I think a 2 year project requires nearly unlimited funding, a significant support staff and a tremendous amount of luck. He's obviously tough as nails for being able to complete it but not something I'd care to do.

[el-amigo]

I think a 2 year project requires nearly unlimited funding, a significant support staff and a tremendous amount of luck.

^ That's why I started to follow this project. It should have been a huge amount of work.
For example: How to organize the resupplying of the equipment in that area? Rucksacks, clothes and medicines? What about the regular health checks? I know he made this expedition in short legs but there were longer ones like the remote part of Brazil. Unbelievable!

[BornthatWay]

I think it would be neat but no way would I go there. The snakes are way too BIG for me.

[Wildthang]

I lived in Venezuela and took some trips to the edge of the Amazon jungle. That would definately be a different kind of survival that most people would not have the skills to manage. Even the bugs want to eat you, not to mention all the other critters that reside there. You have to build your bed on stilts to keep the bugs from eating you alive. Your feet get jungle rot, and there are parasites in the water that you dont even want to know about.
The snakes dont worry me as much as a lot of the other things. If you slept without a musquitto net, you would most likely OD on musquitto bites! I saw centipededes that were 10 inches long and very poisenous. Where I lived, a guy went to bed one night and left his pajamas on the floor, and when he woke up, he put his pajamas on and one of those centipededes was in the crotch of his pajamas. Then this thing wrapped around his family tree and started biting him. We had to fly him to Caracas and he was there for a long time, and it darn near killed him!

[pete lynch]

.... Where I lived, a guy went to bed one night and left his pajamas on the floor, and when he woke up, he put his pajamas on and one of those centipededes was in the crotch of his pajamas. The this wrapped around his family tree and started biting him. We had to fly him to Caracas and he was there for a long time, and it darn near killed him!

And there's another reason I wouldn't go there. Yikes!!!

[el-amigo]

So as I understand what Ed achieved is unique and perhaps nobody will try it again.

[matt47]

I have taken a few trips to the Ecuadorian Amazon and it's not a place I would want to live. Full of crazy diseases and some of the hardest bush to "walk" through due to the immense undergrowth...much of the water is full of bacteria as well...

[Hubert]

I watched Staffords Amazon walk TV documentary but couldn't take it seriously, just like i can't take other similar shows seriously.
For example Grylls shows are faked to a large degree (luxury hotel for the night just out of camera shot and stuff like that), and even David Attenborough lied through his teeth recently, trying to pass off the birth of polar bear cubs in a zoo as taking place in the wild.
In other words i wouldn't trust anything on TV..

[Seniorman]

I would suggest that Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, and their merry band of men in the Corps of Discovery, had a much more difficult and dangerous "trek." :thumbup1:

S.M.

[Hubert]

I would suggest that Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, and their merry band of men in the Corps of Discovery, had a much more difficult and dangerous "trek." :thumbup1:

Yeah, early explorers were a breed apart and we probably won't see their like again,they were completely cut off for months and years at a time without radio, phone, vehicles and medicine.
For example check some of David Livingstones diary extracts as he was clobbered by one African disease after another-

7th August 1871 -"ill and almost every step in pain"
11th August-"Rested half a day as I am still ill"
13th August- "I am suffering greatly"
16th August- "To Luama river. Very ill with bowels"
19th-20th August- "Rest from weakness"
29th August- "ill all night, and remain"
30th August- "Ditto, ditto"
23rd September- "I felt as if dying on my feet..almost every step was in pain..violent diarrhoea"
8th October- "The dust of the march caused ophthalmia...ill"

VID CLIP: STANLEY FINDS LIVINGSTONE- http://youtu.be/ngggl6Afc3E

PS- Perhaps the key to understanding Livingstones resolve and motivation is that he was also fighting to end slavery-
"It is impossible to overstate the evils of slavery"- David Livingstone

[Rick]

No, they had radios and vehicles. They just went without the phone and medicine for a long time. The radios weren't much to write home about and they had to write home because they were without phones. Well, everyone but Sergeant Floyd. That rascal snuck an iPhone on the expedition and would call home at regular intervals until they rest of the group found out about it. They put the amscray to that in a hurry. They buried him in Sioux City, Iowa and told everyone he died of appendicitis. Just one more conspiracy you have to watch out for.

[el-amigo]

It's interesting to read your opinion about Stafford's expedition.
As far as I understand well from the documentary, he could use satellite phone in the jungle, but he used it after the legs.

I'm just also curious about the medicine consumption during this 2+ years trip... crazy diseases, infections and insect repellents... Crazy!

[Northern Horseman]

Twenty years ago this summer, I went on my dream canoe trip from Great falls Montana to the gulf of Mexico, do to meeting so many wonderful and friendly Americans I only made it to Saint Lois.
Part of my research was to read the book about the canoe trip of Don and Dana Starkell (http://www.amazon.com/Paddle-Amazon-Ultimate-000-Mile-Adventure/dp/0771082568)

Here's the blurb from Amazon books

It was crazy. It was unthinkable. It was the adventure of a lifetime.

When Don and Dana Starkell left Winnipeg in a tiny three-seater canoe, they had no idea of the dangers that lay ahead. Two years and 12,180 miles later, father and son had each paddled nearly twenty million strokes, slept on beaches, in jungles and fields, dined on tapir, shark, and heaps of roasted ants.

They encountered piranhas, wild pigs, and hungry alligators. They were arrested, shot at, taken for spies and drug smugglers, and set upon by pirates. They had lived through terrifying hurricanes, food poisoning, and near starvation. And at the same time they had set a record for a thrilling, unforgettable voyage of discovery and old-fashioned adventure.

[hunter63]

Well I guess, that since it's already been "Done", not much point in doing it again....Right?
"Oh yeah,....coool, but it's been done......."

[Rick]

Yeah. I was getting ready to dive to the bottom of the Mariana Trench then I read that James Cameron is already there. What the....? I guess I'll just wait for the movie.