After 859 days, thousands of kilometers and “50,000 mosquito bites,” Ed Stafford intends to be the first man known to have walked the entire length of the Amazon River by the time the waves of the Atlantic Ocean were to lap his feet in northern Brazil yesterday.
While he says he is “no eco-warrior,” Stafford told reporters near the end of his journey that he hoped his feat would raise awareness of destruction to the Amazon rain forest — but that at its heart, it was simply a grand expedition of endurance.
“The crux of it is, if this wasn’t a selfish, boy’s-own adventure, I don’t think it would have worked,” the 34-year-old former British army captain said as he sat under the Brazilian sun near the jungle city of Belem. “I am simply doing it because no one has done it before.”
There are at least six known expeditions along the course of the Amazon River, from its source high in the Peruvian Andes across Colombia and into Brazil before its waters are dumped into the ocean 6,760km away. However, those used boats to advance their travel.
Stafford and a British friend began the walk on April 2, 2008, on the southern coast of Peru. Within three months, his pal left.
Stafford carried on, walking bits of the route with hundreds of locals he met along the way. Eventually, Peruvian forestry worker Gadiel “Cho” Sanchez Rivera, 31, decided to make the journey with Stafford to the Atlantic.
Stafford said his journey — which has cost some US$100,000 and is paid for by sponsoring companies and donations — has deepened his understanding of the Amazon, its role in protecting the globe against climate change and the complex forces that are leading to its destruction.
He said he has seen vast swaths of demolished jungle.
“It’s the people in power who are benefiting from the extraction of the natural resources here,” Stafford said. “That’s why there are corrupt politicians and laws that aren’t enforced and loads of unconstrained deforestation still going on.”
Despite the devastation, Stafford said he hopes things will change for the better.
“I think the average Brazilian is a lot more environmentally conscious than the people in power. I’m optimistic, I’m not pessimistic,” he said.
He has lived off piranha fish he caught, rice and beans and store-bought munitions found in local communities along the river.
To relax at night, Stafford said he has downloaded podcasts via an Internet satellite phone by British comedian Ricky Gervais and episodes of the TV show The Office.
Stafford and Rivera have encountered every conceivable danger, from 5.5m caimans, enormous anaconda snakes, illness, food shortages and the threat of drowning.
After they were welcomed in one Indian community in September 2008, the leaders offered to radio ahead to the next village for permission for Stafford and Rivera to walk through their territory.
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