Walking the Amazon: 860 Days. One Step at a Time.

by Ed Stafford

Overview

From the star of Discovery Channel's Naked and Marooned comes a a riveting, adventurous account of one man’s history-making journey along the entire length of the Amazon—and through the most bio-diverse habitat on Earth.  Fans of Turn Right at Machu Piccu and readers of Jon Krakauer and Bill Bryson and will revel in Ed Stafford's extraordinary prose and lush descriptions. 

In April 2008, Ed Stafford set off to become the first man ever to walk the entire length of the Amazon. He started on the Pacific coast of Peru, crossed the Andes Mountain range to find the official source of the river. His journey lead on through parts of Colombia and right across Brazil; all while outwitting dangerous animals, machete wielding indigenous people as well as negotiating injuries, weather and his own fears and doubts. Yet, Stafford was undeterred. On his grueling 860-day, 4,000-plus mile journey, Stafford witnessed the devastation of deforestation firsthand, the pressure on tribes due to loss of habitats as well as nature in its true-raw form. Jaw-dropping from start to finish, Walking the Amazon is the unforgettable and gripping story of an unprecedented adventure.

Walking the Amazon is also available as a Spanish edition entitled Caminado El Amazonas.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780452298262
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	08/28/2012
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	522,605
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.80(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Ed Stafford is the current European Adventurer of the Year; he was also finalist for the National Geographic Adventurer of the Year in 2010, and he is a Guinness World Record holder for his feat (feet?!). Ed Started running worldwide expeditions after retiring from the British army as a captain in 2002. When not leading trips, he worked alongside the United Nations in Afghanistan assisting with the running of their first-ever presidential elections. Prior to this journey, Ed was in production with the BBC on its conversation series Lost Land of the Jaguar. In August 2010, he became the first man to walk the length of the Amazon River, accompanied by forestry worker Gadiel “Cho” Sanchez Rivera, for all but four months of the twenty-eight-month journey. Ed is planning future projects and he travels the world speaking about his adventures. To follow Ed, visit his website: edstafford.org.

Table of Contents

5711 Pa

The Red Zo

4 The Red Zone 7712 5 The Ashanink

9212 6 Gadiel 'Cho' Sanc

10611 Part 3 The Dark March to Colom

7 'Look after your gringo or we'll cut his he

12712 8 Depres

14312 9 Recover

16112 10

Part 4 Brazil12 11 Enterin

19912 12 Starvation 21712 13 'Cuando hay - ha

23612 14 Dedication 257

15 'He doesn't talk much, the gringo' 27012

The Sprint Fini

29201 Epilogue 30901

31101 Acknowledgements 315

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Vicariously joining this 860-day trek through extremely inhospitable terrain—made all the more challenging by hostile tribes, lethal animals, food scarcities, and extreme weather—has made for an exhilarating adventure."
-National Geographic

Editorial Reviews

In 2010, Stafford, a retired British army captain and worldwide expedition leader, became the first person to walk the entire length of the Amazon River. Accompanied for the majority of the trip by a Peruvian forestry worker nicknamed "Cho," Stafford trekked across mountains, through jungles, and always downriver. 4,000 miles and 860-days after he set out, the intrepid traveler raced into the waves of the Atlantic Ocean. Here, Stafford recounts numerous details of his trip-from the nerve-wracking preparations to the extensive list of equipment and technical paraphernalia necessary for the expedition-as well as thrilling anecdotes from the trail. En route, Stafford and Cho navigated flood waters, stumbled upon Incan mummies in remote cemeteries, dealt with hostile natives, and endured the miserable "manta blanca (white coat)... of swarms of sand flies and mosquitoes." In addition to the countless traumas and triumphs of the physically demanding journey, Stafford holds forth on grander issues whose impact he witnessed firsthand, including drug-trafficking and deforestation and their effects on tribal communities. Fans of Jon Krakauer will revel in Stafford's environmentally-minded adventure. Photos.
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Publishers Weekly

"One of the boldest modern-day adventures ever taken."—Bear Gryllis, host of Discovery Channel's Man Vs. Wild

“[Walking the Amazon] stands elbow-to-elbow with adventure classics from Thesiger to Krakauer.”—Mark Adams, author of Turn Right at Machu Picchu

"All generations need hero's; it's lovely to have a real one for a change."—The Times (London)

“Totally, completely and utterly mad.”—Michael Palin, author and actor

"Vicariously joining this 860-day trek through extremely inhospitable terrain—made all the more challenging by hostile tribes, lethal animals, food scarcities, and extreme weather—has made for an exhilarating adventure."—National Geographic

From the Publisher

A memoir of an astonishing trip walking "nine million-odd steps" for more than two years along the Amazon River's course from Peruvian headwaters to Brazilian mouth. In this book about becoming the first person to perambulate the Amazon's entire length, Stafford chronicles the countless obstacles he faced, including canoes of armed indigenous peoples, dehydration, sickness, lack of sleep (his insomnia caused "the hopeless despair of seeing the sun rise when I had still not managed to stop my brain racing") and overwhelming swarms of insects. In addition to the stories of his impressive adventures, the author explores his friendship with the longest lasting of his many walking companions, Gadiel "Cho" Sanchez Rivera. Along the way, Stafford wonders if trying to break a record is "selfish," and he acknowledges that those with lofty goals occasionally occupy an "insular bubble of blinkered determination." Not this author, however; faraway events and nightly reading impacted him as much as immediate concerns of hunger. Stafford's writing is lyrical and mostly engaging, and he offers numerous anecdotes about how to survive in the wild. On the verge of starvation, he and Cho found a tortoise, and the author's recounting of its preparation is as engrossing as the meat was nourishing. Though boredom threatened Stafford's appreciation of the unfamiliar, he was always able to recapture the joy of discovery. For him, "everything is relative and, when you've been walking for 639 days, a ten-day leg through unknown jungle that no one in the village could remember being walked in living history seemed nothing." A gripping celebration of physical and mental endurance.

Kirkus Reviews