Ever since I was on my mission and had the chance to meet some Brazilians, I have thought it woul be neat to see the Amazon river. I read an article tonight that made me think about how simple my ideas are as compared to others.
This is a story about a man who swam through great rivers like the Mississippi, the Danube (the 2nd longest river in Eurpoe) and the Yangtze (the longest river in Asia, third longest in the world). He also was the first person to swim from Africa to Europe (in 29 hours, 36 minutes). Completely insane. Insane but awesome.
Well, last year he swam the entire length of the Amazon river. All 3,274 miles of it. Incredible.
(Sidebar: I was at a pool in California a couple years ago and saw a lady swimming laps for about 45 minutes and thought to myself that it looked relaxing and like something I would enjoy doing. I came home, got a membership to a club with a pool and hit the lap lane. No problem right?
It was the hardest sport I have ever tried. Hardest by far! I went down the lane and back and thought I was going to puke. I tried it again and was in so much pain I had to stop.
I kept practicing though and after a couple months I got to where I could swim about 5 lengths of the pool before puking my guts out. I gained a new respect for swimmers.)
So anyways, he not only had to deal with the physical part of the swim, but imagine having to deal with the other junk – the snakes, spiders, piranha’s, aligator, larvae, bull shark, candirú (a very dangerous fish which lodges up human orifices with a razor-like spike and then sucks your blood) and oh yeah, Pirates.
No thank you.
But he did it, and lived to tell about it.
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