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The Amazon from Its Source to the Estuary
Running the entire length of the Amazon, called El Rio Mar or the River Sea, in a kayak belongs among five of the most important explorations in recent years and, next to the ascent of Mt. Everest and the landing on the Moon, is one of 20 greatest achievements in the 20th century. The only person to have done that is a Polish kayaker named Piotr Chmieliński, a member of the 1986 international expedition from the sources to the mouth of the Amazon.
The struggle along the 6,600 km of the Amazon took half a year - three million paddle strokes (50 per minute, 36 thousand per day). One by one, expedition members pulled out and only Piotr Chmieliński and Joe Kane reached the mouth of the river (Kane did not start at the source). The remaining support crew included Zbigniew Bzdak and Kate Durrant.
The kayakers conquered steep drops and rocky riverbed, huge water siphons, whirls, currents, holes, stoppers, keepers; they navigated the second deepest canyon in the world - the Black Canyon, as well as the deadly Acobamba Abyss. In the so called Red Zone, on the lower Apurimac, they were fired upon by the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) guerillas. After over two months of traveling, the river became broader, fed by numerous tributaries, with towns and settlements spotting its banks... It meandered along numerous beds and streams. In Iquitos, Chmieliński and Kane switched to sea kayaks. Past Manaos, the Amazon swallowed the black waters of Rio Negro and brown ones of the Solimoes. It gradually turned from a river into a sea. After paddling across the overflowing lower Amazon and the Marajo Bay, the two friends, joined by a common goal, finally reached the Atlantic Ocean.
Piotr Chmieliński
Member of the Canoandes '79 expedition, the only man to have passed the deepest canyon in the world, the Colca Canyon, in a kayak. Co-founder of the Solidarity Assistance Committee in Lima. In 1982, he settled in Casper, Wyoming (USA). In 1985, he reached the frozen Apacheta stream, regarded as the source of the Amazon. He manages HP Environmental Company, specializing in environmental protection, which worked during the cleanup in New York after the World Trade Center attacks. Member of the exclusive Explorers Club in New York.
Zbigniew Bzdak
Member of the Canoandes '79 kayaking expedition. Settled in the state of Wyoming. He cooperates with the National Geographic Magazine, Outside, Americas, The New Yorker and American Way magazines; author of photographs published in numerous books.
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