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In a first, UK soldier walks entire Amazon length in 2yrs
REUTERS, Aug 10, 2010, 01.13am IST

MARUDA BEACH (BRAZIL): A former British army captain became on Monday the first known person to walk from the origin of the Amazon river to its mouth, after withstanding "50,000" mosquito bites, scorpion attacks and skin disease in his nearly 2-1/2 year odyssey.

Ed Stafford, 34, from England, took 859 days to walk the length of the world's second-longest river, starting at the peak of Mount Mismi in Peru in April 2008. He arrived at an Atlantic Ocean beach about 150km northeast of the Brazilian city of Belem on Monday, despite collapsing from exhaustion with only 85km of the 9,650 km journey to go.

Hours before completing the trek, Stafford's body broke out in a rash and he passed out, he wrote on his blog at www.walkingtheamazon.com Stafford has aimed to use the walk to raise awareness about the threats to the Amazon rain forest and its people, using a portable satellite video to blog about his trek.

He had planned to complete the walk in about a year, but the journey was prolonged by floods that forced him to walk a roundabout route that was 3,200km longer than the 6,400-km length of the Amazon, exceeded only by Africa's Nile as the world's longest river. reuters
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/uk/In-a-first-UK-soldier-walks-entire-Amazon-length-in-2yrs/articleshow/6284530.cms