Running the Amazon (Adventure Library) - Hardcover

Kane, Joe

3.96

1,912 ratings by Goodreads

9781885283023: Running the Amazon (Adventure Library)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1885283024 ISBN 13: 9781885283023

Publisher: Adventure Library, 1995

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In 1986 a party of 12 explorers attempted to travel the full length of the Amazon. Joe Kane's original role was as a writer and observer but he ended up as one of the only two members of the original group to complete the entire journey, the only expedition ever to travel the entire 4200 mile Amazon river from its source high in the Andes to its union with the Atlantic Ocean. The expedition took them, by foot, raft and kayak, through one of the world's deepest canyons, through deadly whitewater rapids and into one of the last sections of virgin rain forest in the Western hemisphere, home to outlaw guerillas, primitive Indian nomads and cocaine traffickers. The resulting chronicle is an adventure story of a journey fraught with dangers but ultimately achieving its goal.

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Review:

In 1985 a team of hand-picked adventurers, including writer Joe Kane, embarked on a journey that would take them to the remote headwaters of the Amazon Basin. But that was just the beginning of the trip. Their goal: to navigate the world's longest river from source to mouth, a feat never before recorded.

After reaching (via a goat trail) a glacial trickle above 17,000 feet--debatably the farthest source of the Amazon--the team descends to a point where kayaks can be deployed. From there the trip entails kayaking through one of the nastiest white-water canyons on the planet, a stretch of water that has previously claimed the lives or quickly halted the plans of all who attempted to conquer it; navigating an unmapped gorge known affectionately as the Abyss; sneaking through the "Red Zone," an area closed to foreigners and occupied by the notorious Shining Path rebels; and, finally, paddling to the Atlantic by sea kayak through 3,000 miles of hot jungle.

Hired initially to chronicle the project from dry land, Kane quickly assumes a more integral role as a much-needed paddler, and as such he is able to provide vivid, first-hand descriptions of the treacherous water encountered. But in many ways the water is the least imposing obstacle to success. Along the way the team is beset by financial difficulties, a crisis of leadership, attacks from armed rebels, and the defection of team members. Kane's account of this six-month ordeal is much more than a travelogue of athletic endeavor--it's a fascinating portrait of the planning, politics, and personal struggles involved in mounting a modern-day expedition through a vast expanse of largely uncharted territory.

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9 1.5-hour cassettes

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