Joe Kane - Running the Amazon

For all of the rivers 4,200 exotic miles, Running the Amazon is a crisp book, the offering of a narrator who followed his instincts to a fabulously rich strike and then spent the proceeds wisely.

Washington Post Book World

A good adventurer is rarer than a good adventure; an easygoing book about fear and bravado is a very rare thing indeed.

San Francisco Chronicle

The reader will feel the bruises and the exhilaration as they battle the river, Indians, guerrillas, drug dealers and each other Its a wonderful adventure story.

Dallas Morning News

An extraordinary adventure Borne along by well-crafted, muscular prose, we survive close calls with rapids and revolutionaries, encounter strange species (human and otherwise), endure the heat and insects and white waterall without leaving the comfort of the den.

New York Newsday

Kanes eloquence lends his story a you-are-there quality.

Cleveland Plain Dealer

F IRST V INTAGE D EPARTURES E DITION , M AY 1990

Copyright 1989 by Joe Kane

Photographs Copyright 1989 by Zbigniew Bzdak/Canoandes, Inc.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published, in hardcover, by Alfred A. Knopf Inc., in 1989.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Kane, Joe.
Running the Amazon / by Joe Kane.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-307-80990-2
1. Amazon RiverDescription and travel. 2. Kane, JoeJourneys
Amazon River. I. Title.
[F2546.K19 1990] 89-40610
981.1dc20

v3.1

for Elyse

Following :

El Condorito.

At, 15,000 feet on the approach to the source: Franois Odendaal, Tim Biggs, Pastor.

Base camp at the source of the Amazon (17,000 feet).

Zbyszek Bzdak at the source of the Amazon.

Dr. Kate Durrant and the author in San Juan.

Portaging the upper Apurimac: Piotr Chmielinski, Tim Biggs, Franois Odendaal, Jerome Truran.

The last Inca hanging bridge, woven entirely of hammered grass.

Kate Durrant consulting patients near the Hanging Bridge, and Jerome Truran on the upper Apurimac.

Piotr Chmielinski, Jerome Truran, Tim Biggs.

Tim Biggs on the upper Apurimac.

Quechua man and son.

Shakedown run on the Apurimac: Piotr Chmielinski, the author, Sergio Leon, Kate Durrant.

Jerome Truran in the Acobamba Abyss.

Lining the raft through the Acobamba Abyss.

In the Acobamba Abyss (note high-water mark).

Jerome Truran in the Acobamba Abyss.

Tim Biggs executing an Eskimo roll.

Cloud Forest in the Red Zone: Jerome Truran, Tim Biggs, Franois Odendaal.

Piotr Chmielinski, Jerome Truran, Peruvian marine in the Red Zone.

In the Red Zone: Jerome Truran, the author, Kate Durrant.

Ashninka man.

On the lower Tambo: Kate Durrant and Jerome Truran on native raft; Piotr Chmielinski and the author on gringo equivalent.

Piotr Chmielinski, Kate Durrant, and the author with sea kayaks and the Jhuliana in Pucallpa.

Following :

Sea kayak with Christmas tree, Iquitos.

On the River Sea: Piotr Chmielinski and the author near the Brazilian border, two thousand miles from the Atlantic.

Friends in Tabatinga.

Piotr Chmielinski and caboclo fisherman with the authors birthday dinner.

In storms wake on the Solimes.

Piotr Chmielinski (foreground) and the author. Sea kayak with bushmaster.

The author and Piotr Chmielinski in sea kayaks; Kate Durrant aboard the Roberto II.

Downtown Gurup.

The author, Piotr Chmielinski, and caboclo fishermen near Maraj Bay.

Oz: the author and Piotr Chmielinski at the mouth of the Amazon.

All photographs by Zbigniew Bzdak/Canoandes, Inc.

The experiences on which this book is based reflect a shared effort by the members of the Amazon Source to Sea Expedition: Tim Biggs, Zbyszek Bzdak, Piotr Chmielinski, Kate Durrant, Jack Jourgensen, Sergio Leon, Franois Odendaal, Jerome Truran, Fanie Van der Merwe, and Pierre Van Heerden. That they would commit themselves not only to running the Amazon but to being observed and written about by me, a stranger to all of them when I arrived in Peru, bespeaks a profound collective courage, one from which I continue to draw inspiration.

Without the encouragement, guidance, hard work, and friendship of my agent, Joe Spieler, I would have had neither the wherewithal to embark on such a journey nor the confidence to write about it; to him I extend my deepest thanks. My editor, Ashbel Green, patiently guided me out of the disaster area that is a first draft into the Promised Land of a finished book; without him this story would not have been told. Of the many people who also read and commented on the manuscript, I wish especially to thank K. Patrick Conner and Daniel Ben-Horin, who waded through several swampy drafts with keen eyes and unflagging pencils. I am eternally in their debt.

The expedition itself would not have succeeded without the off-the-water supportfinancial, logistical, and emotionalof Bryce Anderson, Patricia Moore, Jim Allison, Jacek and Teresa Bogucki, Kaye Reed and the people of Casper, Wyoming, Canoandes, Inc. and Michael and Selma Kon, Jerzy Majcherczyk, and Andrzej Pietowski of Canoandes Expeditions, Jerzy Dylski and Polonia of New York, Boleslaw Wierzbianski of Nowy Dziennik, New York, John Tichenor, Wilbur E. Garrett and National Geographic Magazine, Mark Bryant and Outside Magazine, and the South American Explorers Club. A special thanks also to Marc Reisner, Jim Keller, Randall Hayes and the Rainforest Action Network, and Manuel Lizarralde.

We were provided with excellent equipment and supplies by Bill Masters of Perception and Aquaterra kayaks, whose vessels we came to know perhaps too intimately; by Sally McCoy and The North Face, whose tents we called home for six months; by Jeanette Smith of Yurika, our main food supplier; and by Jim Stohlquist of Colorado Kayak Supply, who outfitted us with white-water gear.

Of the hundreds of people in South America who helped us along the way, I wish in particular to thank: Luis E. Muga in Lima; Antonio Vellutino and family, the Arana family, Jose Domingo Paz and family, Mauricio de Romana and family, the Hotel Turistas, and the Pizza Nostra restaurant in Arequipa; Edwin Goycochea and Rio Bravo, and Chando Gonzalez and Mayuc Expeditions in Cuzco; Enrique Kike Toledo in Iquitos; Foptur, the Peruvian department of tourism; and Aero Peru.

In Brazil, Ivano F. Cardeiro of Emamtur shielded us from the bewilderment of Manaus, and Maria Severa of Paratur and the staff of the Equatorial Palace Hotel buffered our return to the modern world in Belm. As, in Rio de Janeiro, did Mateusz Feldhuzen, of Nowy Dziennik. Thanks also to ABC-TVs Good Morning America and Pan American Airlines for bringing us home.

During my journey I saw much that I did not at first understand and could not explore as fully as I would have preferred. Many written works later helped to clarify my impressions. In particular, regarding the complex and wholly fascinating culture of the Quechua, I owe a debt to Ronald Wrights