Ed Stafford is the first man in history to walk the length of the Amazon river.
His expedition is, rightly, feted and lauded at the moment.
So I was really valtvalacyc.com grateful when he agreed to speak at the London Night of Adventure.
Get a glimpse into this epic achievement through this short talk:
7 minutes can never do this justice. What a stupid format for an incredible journey!
May be the first person to walk it but someone did swim it! (With a support boat.) I guess some of you also heard of Martin Strel as well http://www.amazonswim.com
Maybe they could both go back and have a race :)
Maybe Al could join in and make it a kind of triathlon.
I wrote about Martin Strel here – https://alastairhumphreys.com/2010/04/swimming-amazon/
Also bear in mind Mark Kalch paddling the river – https://alastairhumphreys.com/2009/03/the-gladdest-moments-in-human-life/
And it’s getting positively crowded out there!
Mike Horn also swam the Amazon river from source to sea solo. He hunted all the food as he went along and slept on the riverbanks or in the water floating on his hydrospeed. Took him roughy 6 months. There is a NG documentary out there somewhere about this expedition. Saw it a few years back and its a great watch! Arktos, and Latitude Zero are also worth a watch. He has done some incredible expeditions.
If you think that’s bad how about a 3 year run round the world in just 400 seconds!?
https://alastairhumphreys.com/2011/05/running-world-400-seconds/
A few weeks ago I went for a walk in a very thick wood about a mile long just to see what it was like. After battling through the twigs and trees with about a hundred scratches for about 20 minutes I finally came out the other side. Except strangely I didn’t and actually came out at a point about twenty metres from where I entered. So I better not try and copy this guy’s trip. It might not go well.
Come on Al, I bet no-one has ever been lunatic enough to cycle the entire length of the amazon. You’ve already got one of those folding bikes and it can’t be that hard to carry in 40 degree heat and high humidity through thick rainforest so that’s your next trip sorted.
[…] for the sake of them. I love journeys that are at the truly epic end of the scale, like stuff like walking the length of the Amazon. I love those sorts of things, but he did that trip not to be the world record, he did it because […]