Running the Amazon: Thoughts

Joe Kane’s Running the Amazon was an incredible journey trapped inside a mediocre book. That probably sounds harsher than I mean it to be, but I think a journey by river across the entire South American continent deserves better than average travel memoirs writing. Though not nearly as bad as Eric Hansen’s Stranger in the Forest, I feel like the author spent too much time focusing on petty things, like arguments between expedition members, and (like Hansen) never failed to mention anything even remotely indecent that occurred during his seven month journey. He also spent a surprising amount of time sleeping in hotels. It’s a shame, because I feel like Kane had a lot more potential than that with this book. He started out just like Hansen, as a “non-adventurer” whose main purpose in traveling abroad was to try and write a bestseller. However, over time, I noticed a slight change in Kane. As the expedition team grew smaller and smaller, he stepped up to the plate and managed to grow beyond this narrow focus, and in the end, he truly achieved something remarkable.

The journey began high in the Peruvian Andes, not more than 200 miles from the Pacific Ocean. From the top of the continental divide, Kane and three of his companions traveled over 4,000 miles from frozen glaciers, through whitewater canyons, and down the entire length of the Amazon to the Atlantic Ocean.

The most exciting part of the book was the section of the river they traveled called the Acobamba Abyss. This section of the river was high in the mountains and canyon walls were so tall and narrow that in places they appeared to connect at the top. The river was riddled with class VI whitewater rapids with little or no way around. (A class VI rapid is one that poses extreme threat to life with little chance of rescue.) The team would portage around the class VI rapids that they could, but many of them were unavoidable because of the steep canyon walls. It is remarkable that they didn’t have more accidents, especially since all but one of the team took a swim in the whitewater. This part of the book was exciting and easy to get lost in, unlike later in the book when they seemed to go from one river-town bar to another.

Though I didn’t love the book, I do want to give credit where credit is due. Joe Kane and his companion Piotr Chmielinski traveled the entire length of the world’s longest river entirely under their own power. They were the first, and as far as I know the only, ones to accomplish this incredible feat. They battled freezing temperatures, whitewater, and altitude sickness in the high Andes, and in the Amazon basin they faced scorching heat, wild animals, disease, narco-traffickers, and exhaustion. Nonetheless, they endured… and they didn’t stop paddling until the water beneath them became salty. And for that I have to tip my hat to them.

  

My rating: 5 out of 10