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5th August 2010 - The End in Sight

Cho and I are writing this from the riverside port of Arapari looking out over the river that we need to cross to reach Belem tomorrow. With 3 more days to go until we reach the Atlantic we are both beginning to feel the sense of incredible achievement growing inside us.

Not that the last week of road-walking has been easy. Today's bimble saw us start walking at 7am and not finish til 10pm. Our feet are covered in Duct tape to stop the sores from getting worse.

Up again at 4am to paddle the ten kilometres to Belem so this blog will be nice and short.

Thanks to everyone who has followed the blog and taken an interest in the journey. Its been a fantastic experience for Cho and me too and you can continue following our progress in the weeks after the expedition on Twitter: @JungleCho and @amazonwalkers.

Off for some very needed sleep.

Ed :-)
 

Ed's Walking the Amazon expedition is due to finish at dawn on 9th August 2010.
For fantastic photos and videos of the expedition, visit www.walkingtheamazon.com and to keep up with Ed and his news post-expedition, visit www.edstafford.org

15th July 2010 - An Unpleasant Afternoon

Sunday was one of the worst days in two and a half years.

Ed has a botfly removed from his head

We wanted to reach the River Jacunda - 11km from Saturday night's camp with the dead cow in the stream. We started off well with a logging track going roughly in our direction. Then, as often happens, the path started to veer away from our course so we took a bearing for the river and plunged head first into the undergrowth.

At first it was tangled and slow. Like working your way through a giant barbed wire obstacle. Then the ground sank away and we were cutting through swamp.

Our humour failed us both at this point - something to do with being near the finish has made us weak. Cho hates going back so when I suggested it and finding a route around the swamp he firmly said he wasn't going back. I grumpily agreed.

But I was dumb to do so. After another hour of swamp we still had over 4km to go and we were completely surrounded by swamp.

We started snapping at the other - looking at one another to cast the blame. This is very poor expedition behaviour but we'd lost perspective and just wanted to vent. "Great decision Cho - thanks." I childishly provoked him as he tried to free his leg from the sucking mud. Both of us were really not happy and had lost our usual ability to lift ourselves and see the positives. He just glared back at me.

Our bad moods made the going worse - hour after hour of miserable work at a painfully slow pace. About a kilometre from the river the swamp got deeper and we were swimming between clumps of gnarled trees. The jungle became so thick that we had to take off our packs, hang them in trees above the water, and cut a path ahead with our machetes. At 6pm the already fading light was cut out by a storm cloud - thunder and lightning announced an almighty tropical storm. The rain bit into us us and we had to get out our head torches to continue.

However, our bad moods evaporated. This had become serious and we were both sensible enough to realise we were in a nasty situation and needed to work together. But for me the frustration was replaced by a real and chilling fear of spending the night shivering in a clump of reeds - rain cutting into bodies through our thin grimy clothes. We had to get out - slight panic was rising in my chest.

Camping was impossible. There were no trees big enough to tie hammocks to, and no hard ground. With small fire-ants biting constantly and horse flies adding to our joy we tried to keep our head torches out of the rain under our cap peaks and kept moving forward.

As it became really dark the jungle gave way to reeds and we knew we didn't have far to go. It was 7pm by the time we inflated the rafts and with enormous relief were spat out onto the inflamed river. We had to scream at each other in the dark to be heard above the noise of the rain and wind slamming into the river.

With no idea whether there would be people living close by, I marked our exit point to return to in the morning. A dim twinkle of light about a kilometre upriver gave us new energy and we paddled desperately towards it.

The occupants of the houses on stilts were scared of us at first and a man told me to keep paddling. Arriving after dark is a bad idea as communities shut themselves away from the dark and think badly of people who travel at night. I persisted and slightly begged and he gave way and let us climb up into his dry warm house. Shivering we thanked him over and over and he told us Spain had won the world cup. Normality had returned - we washed, put on dry clothes, and drank coffee.

Its times like this that I doubt I'll ever be able to truly convey how elated I was to puton a pair of dry shorts and have a sweet coffee on my hands. I could have almost cried with relief and happiness. Cho and I never need to apologise to each other - we've become so close that we understand these testing times strain our behaviour and if its mentioned at all we just laugh at ourselves for letting things get to us.

Completely content, we slung our hammocks and slept like heavy logs swinging above the water.

Join us on 5th August for the next installment and send in your questions for Ed to answer at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it !

1st July 2010 - Football Crazy Brazilian towns...

Limiting ourselves to two days' break in the isolated jungle town of Portel was my aim this week. We needed to buy food and mend our kit - but I wanted to be back in the trees quickly. I needn't have worried - Cho and I sat restlessly in a cafe eating lunch today (day two of the rest) saying that we don't need anymore time here. We want to walk.

Portel hasn't much to offer the average traveler anyway: greasy fast food stalls, loud Brazilian football fans and painfully slow Internet connection. So with world-cup frenzied Brazil fading in our ears we quietly slip back into the forest. We should be tired - we are normally mentally and physically shattered after a two-week leg - but we feel fresh, fit and eager. So we're happy to push on.

We now only have 40 days until we arrive at the mouth of the Amazon River! We've been walking for well over two years now and thoughts of our different homes are always on our minds. Cho will go back to Peru for a month to see his family and then he'll be back on the plane for his next adventure - sunny England!

Join us on 15th July for the next installment and don't forget to check out our new Question of the Week video - and send in your questions to us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it !