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shirezu's review
4.0
The first thing - Ed Stafford is crazy. I want to travel around South America but no way would I do this. Everyone said he'd never make it and he is probably lucky to have survived - floods, infections, hostile people, dangerous wildlife. Not to mention his mental state as he spent such a huge portion of the trip depressed. A monumental adventure and a first in a world where there aren't many great adventure firsts left.
I would love to visit a lot of the places he went but I'll take a plane or a boat thanks.
I would love to visit a lot of the places he went but I'll take a plane or a boat thanks.
pinnacle's review
adventurous
informative
inspiring
fast-paced
3.0
An engaging telling of his journey through the Amazon, Ed Stafford retells his journey through the Amazon exploring what many of us will never have a chance to. It's an exciting and inspirational story, and one that broke records. However the pace sometimes feels a bit off with Stafford rushing through parts of the story to keep it at a digestible size. This unfortunately breaks you out of the rhythm of the story, and it very much is Stafford telling you what happened rather than providing a way of imagining that journey yourself.
renstr's review
5.0
Fantastic book! Great read for anyone that is into extreme travel or adventure tourism!
kingjason's review
5.0
I remember back in 2013 I somehow managed to get control of the TV remote, doesn't happen often, after spending 15min figuring out controls I found this documentary about a bloke trying to walk the whole length of the Amazon. It was insane viewing, I was instantly hooked. On the screen Ed Stafford is great to watch, the real deal, no staying in hotels each night like a certain other survivalist :)
Ed's writing though is a bit rough, it doesn't come naturally to him, the beginning parts are slightly tedious, all about getting the idea and all the planning needed to get started on the walk, if reading this book and you are struggling don't give up because when the walk starts this becomes one of the best travel books ever written, it is really moving at times. The best parts are reading about the bond being built between Ed and his guide Cho... oh and cutting out maggots burrowing in his head.
Blog review is here> https://felcherman.wordpress.com/2018/03/13/walking-the-amazon-860-days-the-impossible-task-the-incredible-journey-by-ed-stafford/
Ed's writing though is a bit rough, it doesn't come naturally to him, the beginning parts are slightly tedious, all about getting the idea and all the planning needed to get started on the walk, if reading this book and you are struggling don't give up because when the walk starts this becomes one of the best travel books ever written, it is really moving at times. The best parts are reading about the bond being built between Ed and his guide Cho... oh and cutting out maggots burrowing in his head.
Blog review is here> https://felcherman.wordpress.com/2018/03/13/walking-the-amazon-860-days-the-impossible-task-the-incredible-journey-by-ed-stafford/
satyridae's review
1.0
The story of Stafford's grueling journey on foot is begging to be told. By someone other than Stafford. He needed a ghost writer. Or a team of iron-stomached editors. Stafford just plain can't write worth a damn.
His journey is a fascinating one- but he rarely pulls his head out of his ass long enough to tell the reader anything about the wildlife, the people he meets, or even the scenery. We spend a lot of time inside his head, which is a dank and dolorous place. Stafford is clinically depressed for much of the trek, and when he's not, he's quarreling and quibbling with his staff. He reminds me curiously of Ayla from [b:The Clan of the Cave Bear|1295|The Clan of the Cave Bear (Earth's Children, #1)|Jean M. Auel|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1324059993s/1295.jpg|1584694]- the star turns are done by Stafford. All the best ideas are his.
There's some what I saw as self-serving justification very early on, when he falls out with his initial partner- and that set the tone for me. I didn't like his authorial voice from page one.
The, um, the photos are interesting. There, I've said something nice.
His journey is a fascinating one- but he rarely pulls his head out of his ass long enough to tell the reader anything about the wildlife, the people he meets, or even the scenery. We spend a lot of time inside his head, which is a dank and dolorous place. Stafford is clinically depressed for much of the trek, and when he's not, he's quarreling and quibbling with his staff. He reminds me curiously of Ayla from [b:The Clan of the Cave Bear|1295|The Clan of the Cave Bear (Earth's Children, #1)|Jean M. Auel|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1324059993s/1295.jpg|1584694]- the star turns are done by Stafford. All the best ideas are his.
There's some what I saw as self-serving justification very early on, when he falls out with his initial partner- and that set the tone for me. I didn't like his authorial voice from page one.
The, um, the photos are interesting. There, I've said something nice.
audreyintheheadphones's review
2.0
300 pages of how not to behave with cultures other than your own, how not to prepare for an expedition (Step 1: who cares about learning the language? AMIRITE?) and how to annoy everyone in the process. Stafford documents his 4K+ mile journey by whining about everything he encounters (jungle! insects! mean native people! Peruvian music! Peruvian drinks! his traveling companion! his native guide! ALL BAD) and whining about the trip as a whole.
This is a mind-boggling account of an expedition leader who didn't. He promised his financial sponsors that the party wouldn't hunt, then they hunted. He likes to brag about how he's surviving on his wits alone, but his native guides do all the witting. His co-expeditioner, Luke, decides to leave after three months, but that's clearly Luke's issue, not Stafford's ("I can't remember the exact exchange but it blew up when I told Luke he was shit at navigating"). Depressed and snappish and can't figure out why? Maybe it's the fact that you admit you're living on diazepam, Captain Life Choice.
All Stafford does is complain about the expedition he's mounted, and make fun of the people he meets:
--"We talked nonsense to old Quechua men to try to confuse them; and marveled at how foul old people's mouths could look after a lifetime of chewing coca and not brushing their few remaining teeth."
--"The Ashaninka lifestyle seemed to me to be both unsustainable and meaningless."
--"In my diary I seem to have referred to the old man as 'Mr. Wanker'"
--"Anyone who doesn't know what Peruvian music is like is very lucky indeed. Never enter Peru without earplugs. For sheer lack of talent and low-quality music, no other country compares. [My native guide] had tried to teach me about the distinct and different types of music from each region but I didn't bother to learn because to me they all fall under the same category. Utter shite."
And that's how Stafford approaches all his interactions with people he meets: he refuses to try learning Spanish or Portuguese and admits that when people take him into their homes for the night he makes no effort to interact but sits in a corner and sulks. This alternates with bemoaning his single state and how frustrated it makes him that people don't immediately like him wherever he goes.
While it's precious hard to screw up a book about trekking alongside the Amazon, Stafford does manage, stopping at too infrequent intervals to describe the jungle or any natural or manmade history of the area. It got that second star for being something of a spectacular trainwreck that just kept on exploding.
As far as that publisher's blurb about the purpose being to raise people's awareness of environmental issues: "I don't want to ever pretend that the charities and rainforest awareness were the reasons why we chose to walk the Amazon." p.22. Interestingly, in the Author's Note, Stafford discloses that since returning to London he's started giving motivational speeches.
And on that bombshell...
This is a mind-boggling account of an expedition leader who didn't. He promised his financial sponsors that the party wouldn't hunt, then they hunted. He likes to brag about how he's surviving on his wits alone, but his native guides do all the witting. His co-expeditioner, Luke, decides to leave after three months, but that's clearly Luke's issue, not Stafford's ("I can't remember the exact exchange but it blew up when I told Luke he was shit at navigating"). Depressed and snappish and can't figure out why? Maybe it's the fact that you admit you're living on diazepam, Captain Life Choice.
All Stafford does is complain about the expedition he's mounted, and make fun of the people he meets:
--"We talked nonsense to old Quechua men to try to confuse them; and marveled at how foul old people's mouths could look after a lifetime of chewing coca and not brushing their few remaining teeth."
--"The Ashaninka lifestyle seemed to me to be both unsustainable and meaningless."
--"In my diary I seem to have referred to the old man as 'Mr. Wanker'"
--"Anyone who doesn't know what Peruvian music is like is very lucky indeed. Never enter Peru without earplugs. For sheer lack of talent and low-quality music, no other country compares. [My native guide] had tried to teach me about the distinct and different types of music from each region but I didn't bother to learn because to me they all fall under the same category. Utter shite."
And that's how Stafford approaches all his interactions with people he meets: he refuses to try learning Spanish or Portuguese and admits that when people take him into their homes for the night he makes no effort to interact but sits in a corner and sulks. This alternates with bemoaning his single state and how frustrated it makes him that people don't immediately like him wherever he goes.
While it's precious hard to screw up a book about trekking alongside the Amazon, Stafford does manage, stopping at too infrequent intervals to describe the jungle or any natural or manmade history of the area. It got that second star for being something of a spectacular trainwreck that just kept on exploding.
As far as that publisher's blurb about the purpose being to raise people's awareness of environmental issues: "I don't want to ever pretend that the charities and rainforest awareness were the reasons why we chose to walk the Amazon." p.22. Interestingly, in the Author's Note, Stafford discloses that since returning to London he's started giving motivational speeches.
And on that bombshell...
halfmanhalfbook's review
5.0
Really good book. Very tough journey walking and wading across the whole of South America in the Amazon jungle
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