Walking the Amazon: 860 Days. The Impossible Task. The Incredible Journey by Stafford Ed

Author:Stafford, Ed [Stafford, Ed]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780753547502
Publisher: Ebury Publishing
Published: 2011-06-08T22:00:00+00:00

Writing that reminds me of what an amazing time we were to have ahead of us. The waters still had six months to go before they were at their highest in Brazil and high ground seemed to be running out fast. Every day I questioned whether this expedition was possible.

Diary entry from 26 January 2009:

If the water was ANY higher this section would be unwalkable. Sometimes only our heads are out of the water and often we have to backtrack and choose different routes because the water is too deep. Now it is fun – I wonder whether I will still think so in a year’s time.

We woke up on 27 January and although it had rained in the night the water level was the same. I dropped out of my hammock into six inches of water, naked except for a pair of jungle boots. I found my wet T-shirt, my wet trousers and my wet socks all still dirty as we had not washed as usual the night before, and cursed myself for not having been more composed.

The island of solid ground was a haven for animals and every crevice of my rucksack was inhabited by spiders, bugs, beetles, millipedes and ants. We broke camp and immediately the waters became deep again and the vegetation dense. We prepared ourselves for hours of hacking through matted thicket up to our chins in brown sludge when we caught a glimpse of a bright light ahead. Sun was streaming into the forest and we opened up on to an oxbow lake. The lake was inhabited by every spiky plant imaginable and so we inflated the rafts and gingerly worked our way across, cutting through the prickly vegetation. The lake was deep but on the other side it went straight into the forest and we had to stay in the boats, crawling under branches and over giant lily pads with armoured thorn-covered rims.

The precarious navigating was like playing that game where you have to pass a wire hoop along a wire course without touching it and setting off a buzzer. At any moment I was expecting to burst the rafts and plunge us into brown, sludgy, caiman-inhabited water.

Eventually the vegetation opened up and we spilled into the river that we’d been aiming for, the Atuncocha. We’d been walking for a day and a half from Siete de Julio to reach this canyon and to make the three kilometres felt like a real success. Our eyes revelled in their ability to focus on things far away and the space around us on the water felt reviving. We whooped like Americans and paddled across the canyon to the long-awaited high ground denoted by the lonely contour line.

Santa Rosa de Atuncaña lies at the mouth of the Atuncocha on the banks of the Amazon’s main channel. On arrival we were welcomed and invited to stay in a house on the tallest stilts I had seen so far – perhaps five metres off the ground. Everyone came to and from the house in their dugout canoes.

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