Written by John Ridgway and published by Hodder and Stoughton in 1972 (OUT OF PRINT)

John Ridgway’s adventure with John Cowie, Sean McDermott and Anna Asheshov: a race with time in the High Andes, through the Jungle and on what is probably the the last of the world’s great river navigations – 4,000 miles down the Amazon to the Atlantic.

July 1970 ‘Already I had a pretty good idea the expedition would be on. There was the familiar feeling of elation connected with any act of positive living, and the usual sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach – once again I would know fear in anticipation and feel the calm out on the edge of life where one mistake means death.’

The first time I ever discussed the idea of canoeing down the Amazon was in 1966 with Chay Blyth. We talked of the idea for several hours. In the short term, however, the immensity of rowing across the Atlantic pushed all other plans aside.

Two year later I was fifty days alone in a thirty-foot yacht, the first of nine men to set out in a race to be the first person to sail non-stop round the world singlehanded. Although my attempt failed as the result of a collision, I managed to think out a working plan for my future life before the journey ended. At thirty years old, I felt I should spend six months of the year at our remote croft home on the north-west coast of Scotland where the mountains sweep own to the empty Atlantic. We would build a School of Adventure where people could experience the same direct confrontation with the real world, which I find so stimulating and satisfying. During the six months of winter each year I planned to make a ‘journey’, either mentally or physically. I hoped this life would broaden my experience of life and help me to enjoy myself at the same time. I hoped that if I followed the plan I would be able to make a contribution to society and yet avoid becoming stale and set in any particular way of life.

Postscript 2003 by John Ridgway. This was me breaking away from the sea. There is so much more to do than watching bubbles go by and wishing my life away.

We had run our Adventure School for only one season. I was struggling to make decisions alone, to put my own stamp on things. From this point of view the Amazon trip was certainly a valuable leadership experience: there’s no steel, without fire…

I could never forget the exotic sweep of that journey. Long days on foot with the clonking of bells clanging on the necks of our baggage mules in the mountain mists; the vibrant colours of the butterflies in the rain forest; rafting through gorges on the brown river and the raft wreck in the rapids….

If we hadn’t met Elvin Berg (22) in the Peruvian jungle, Marie Christine and I would never have come to adopt his daughter Isso, sixteen years later, and our lives would have been so much the poorer for that.

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