Summary
- Joe Kane describes his adventure trekking through the Amazon from its source in the Andes to the Atlantic Ocean
Key Takeaways
- The river – the word hardly does justice to the churning mess enveloping you – the river tumbles you like so much laundry. It punches the air from your lungs. You’re helpless. Swimming is a joke. You know for a fact that you are drowning. For the first time you understand the strength of the insouciant monster that has swallowed you. That is River Lesson Number One. Everyone suffers it. And every time you get the least bit cocky, every time you think you have finally figured out what the river is all about, you suffer it all over again.
- The idea is not to beat the river. The river always wins. It does not care. We try the river because we must try. White water is, how do you say it, like you are bleeding…It gets in your blood. Yes. It is in your blood. it is a thing you are never forgetting.
- And deep down in my stomach, the place where as a child I had believed my soul could be found, burned the knowledge that what I despised in others was that which I feared in myself.
What I got out of it
- An inspiring read about great vision and endurance
