Impossible Adventure

Written by a Frenchman, who undertook a quite remarkable expedition along with three compatriots from Venezuela to Brazil over the Sierra Parima over the period 1949-50. They were in fact the first westerners to travel this route, and were warned off by everyone they discussed it with (westerners and Indians alike) who described the savage tribes of Indians, and gave them no chance of surviving.

Their expedition was named the Orinoco-Amazon Expedition, and was two years from departure to return to France. Accompanying the author was his school friend, Luis Saenz a Colombian who had lived his whole life in France, and longed to return to investigate his homeland. Joining them were Pierre Gaisseau and Jean Fitcher - the former having explored before in the Congo, the later a youngster at only twenty years old.

The narrative is broken in to four parts, and they confuse a little, as they move about, forward and backtracking over the two year period - although the actual travel is more like 14 months. The 4 parts are titled with dates, and the maps are of small scale and relatively hard to read.

They spend time with various Indian tribes, they live with them, sharing their way of life (even more so as time progresses and their clothes begin disintegrating, where they adopt the Indian guayuco, or loin cloth), learning their language as much as possible and otherwise communicating in Spanish. One of their main focuses is to record music, and also to play some music to see how the Indians are effected. Mozart seems to have he best effect. Sadly they make a lot of effort with the sound recordings all of which are subsequently lost in a series of canoe capsizes (along with the lions share of their photographs and collected artifacts.

They travel is largely by canoe, initially by small outboard motor and gasoline they provide, but when this runs out fairly early then by manpower they progress. Also muddy track, dark jungle tracks or steep mountain trails, many of these while carrying the canoes! The purchase or hire of the canoes, the guide services and paddlers and the portering of their gear was all negotiated with the tribe they had been staying with. Trade good were what you would expect of the time - fabric, machetes, scissors, matches, tobacco, and on one occasion a rifle, although the condition it was in would likely do more harm to the operator than the prey, given it had been dumped out of the canoe several times.

At over 400 pages, this one took me a while to get through, but I found it an interesting and enjoyable read. The many Indians they befriended and who assisted them in their travels, and welcomed them into their villages were varied and interesting and well described. There are quite a number of photographs, but the quality varies - and for reasons mentioned above they don't cover the entire voyage. There are also several maps, but as mentioned they are small in scale and not particularly clear.

4 stars.