Archive for September, 2007
Mission 1: Complete
28 Sep 1:49 pm by Nathan Welch Category: The Expedition
Yeeha!! The first leg is now done & dusted. We arrived in Pilpinto today, just after lunchtime. We 
are all a little worse for wear & tired - but still in one piece & spirits are high. The adventure has continued since our last post with lots of quirky twists & turns & just plain hard yakka!
We will fill you in on some of the specifics on the hike leg in a little while. At present we have a finite amount of internet time. But rest assured, the stories will be worth the wait…. The team is safe & sound & will be on the whitewater this Saturday….bring it on!
Apologies
25 Sep 12:03 am by Mark Kalch Category: Miscellaneous, The Expedition
Howzit all! Just a quick post while we have the means to do so. I want to apologise to our main man, David McDonald for not giving him thanks sooner. David is a freelance web designer who put together our most excellent expedition website. David had to put up with weeks, possibly months of questions and fixes and changes to the site design from Nathan and myself before we gave him some peace and quiet. His ideas and know-how made our site what it is. An unbelievably interactive web experience for both the user and us. We can go into the back-end of the site and add things, take them away, add photos and of course exactly as I am doing now, add posts, from wherever we are on the expedition. Cheers David.
Also an apology to friends and sponsors of the expedition who were waiting with excitement the arrival of the team´s best looking member (no, not Scotty, we will see him in a couple of days!), Miss Holly Tett. Hol´s important work commitments have left her unable to join the expedition as yet. Obviously Hol is disappointed, however she will join us as soon as she can on the river.
Awe.
An Adventurous Tale
24 Sep 1:55 am by Nathan Welch Category: The Expedition
There´s been some very
challenging tales to share from the last week or so. Currently we are in Yauri. Phil & Mark are in pretty good shape but Nath has a bad back problem that has hampered things a little. As Marko would say the last week has been “The Nathan Welch Show!” (& not for the best reasons!)
Nath has really struggled with Altitude Sickness & you will see further down that a back problem has defintely created a challenging mix for the team to overcome.
The team reached the Source of the Amazon (Mt Mismi) on Wednesday the 19th. What a huge mission it was. We all suffered Altitude Sickness at around 5000m & to put it politely it was “bloody cold”. Thanks to First Ascent for their superb mountain clothing - we gave them a real workout on the side of the mountain & they delivered big time!
Nevado Mismi
18 Sep 2:23 am by Mark Kalch Category: The Expedition, Thoughts
Well the team is in Chivay. We will set out today for Coporaque and tomorrow morning at the break of dawn we begin our long awaited ascent of Nevado Mismi and the ultimate source of the Amazon River.
Yesterday we went for an aclimatisation trek, ascending a mountain behind Chivay. We began at 3500m and stopped for a break at 4000m. This was a real test and a necessary one. Both Phil and Nathan felt the effects of altitude quite heavily. I was lucky not to feel any ill-effects (apart from being knackered!). Nath felt nauseous and had a headache the entire time. Phil also battled altitude sickness or the beginnings of Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS). From 4000m Nath and I continued on. I stopped at 4350m. Nath, ever determined, went to over 4500m. Mismi is 5600m. So being here at altitude for a few days has been brilliant. It will be extremely hard going on Mismi, but hey, if it was easy everyone would be doing it!
My brother sent through an awesome qoute from the hard-out explorer Sir Richard F. Burton. I think it sums up quite well what we are all about.
“Of the gladest moments in human life, methinks is the departure upon a distant journey to unknown lands. Shaking off with one mighty effort the fetters of habit, the leaden weight of Routine, the cloak of many Cares and the Slavery of Home, man feels once more happy. The blood flows with the fast circulation of childhood….afresh dawns the morn of life…”
Ready, set…go!
16 Sep 1:25 am by Mark Kalch Category: Miscellaneous, The Expedition, Thoughts
Well its here…the beginning of our journey source 
to sea. I cannot truthfully call it the beginning of the expedition because how can you define that? Was it when we landed in Lima? We have been through so much over the last 2 weeks that it could easily be the start. Was it when we started really putting in the endless days of route planning, sponsorship proposals, web design? Why not? I can say that in 2 days we will have heavy packs on our backs and we will be trekking towards the summit of Nevado Mismi and the ultimate source of the Amazon River!
We arrived in Arequipa yesterday after a 14 hour bus ride from Lima. The day before we spent the entire day from 10am to 10pm attempting to extract our long delayed gear from Peruvian customs. Nathan and Petronio did all the hard work, talking and being frustrated as expected. In the end we had our gear and in a relatively speedy fashion. Again, Petronio came to the fore!
Subscribe to our RSS feed