4. British adventurer becomes first to walk to Amazon

 At 8.52 yesterday morning a former infantry captain stepped down a beach in Brazil, leapt into the Atlantic and emerged looking wildly elated to hug everyone in sight. He looked like one of the legion of backpackers who tramp through Brazil each year, but Ed Stafford, 34, secured his place in the pantheon of great British adventurers. He had become the first man to walk the entire length of the Amazon from its source to the Atlantic, a journey of 4,000 miles that took 859 days. He promptly informed the 5,000 people who had followed him on Twitter: "Job done. I always knew it was possible."

 

Few have travelled the length of the river, in part because it was only towards the end of the last century that its source was agreed to lie at the top of its tributary, the Apurimac, which rises from Mount Mismi in Peru. The forest is almost impenetrable in parts, much of it floods regularly and the route would take Mr Stafford, from Leicestershire, through the territory of guerrilla soldiers, drug traffickers and tribes who apparently feared that he had come to steal their babies.

 

However, Mr Stafford, who left the Army in 2002 after a tour of Afghanistan and has since earned a living organising treks in South America, was looking for "something that hadn't been done." In spring 2008 he struck out from a beach on the Pacific coast hoping to complete the walk in a year, raising money for charity. After a row over an MP3 player with his original companion Luke Collyer, Mr Stafford advertised for a new walking partner in Britain ("must have GSOH, no fear of snakes or gun-toting guerrillas"), but eventually a Peruvian forestry worker, who had been serving as a temporary guide, agreed to accompany him for the rest of the journey. Gadiel Cho Sanchez Rivera, from a remote Peruvian village, proved to be a tough, resourceful companion, but he had his first encounter with an escalator when the pair emerged from the jungle to pick up supplies.

 

Passing a village in northeast Peru, where several tribesmen had gone missing, Mr Stafford was arrested for murder and released only after hours of interrogation and a small bribe. Once, mounting a sand island in a flooded stretch of jungle, the adventurers turned to see three canoes carrying men armed with bows and arrows, machetes and guns. Some locals suspected he was an oil prospector. Then there were pit vipers, electric eels, anacondas and scorpions, nasty skin diseases, mosquitoes, Cayman crocodiles and piranhas — the latter proving an essential part of his diet. He also ate armadillo, spider monkey, kinkachu, tortoise and ocelot, the latter making him very ill.

 

Mr Stafford carried a Macbook computer and a satellite phone that enabled him to post regular blog and video updates and to download episodes of The Office to watch in the evenings in the jungle. They navigated using Google Earth and GPS, although at times they had to fall back on imprecise and erroneous maps of the region. On his blog Mr Stafford sought to raise awareness of issues such as climate change and deforestation. However, his main purpose was adventure. "The crux of it is, if this wasn't a selfish Boy's Own adventure, I don't think it would have worked," he said recently. Back in Leicestershire his mother considered selling her house to support them, but donations kept them going. The explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes said that the journey was "in the top league of expeditions past and present." Now Mr Stafford is planning his next one, and looking for sponsors.