After the Boston Phoenix interviewed me about the trip and printed a write up of the adventure I was asked to attend a photo shoot for STUFF magazine out of boston. It’s hard to say no to a night of free cocktails. Here is the photo they chose as well as my answers to interview questions about what makes me sexy.

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The Boston Phoenix ran a column on page 6 this week briefly highlighting my trip. So far this is my first print article after many attempts at contacting various publications. There are a few statements that are off (for instance I biked east to west) but all in all its cool to see the story as a tangible entity in my hands. If you’re in the Boston area find a red Phoenix box and check it out.

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This is a rough elevation profile from Puerto Maldonado, in South East Peru in the Amazon basin, to Nasca which is located on the coastal desert. The profile shows the rise into the Andes, the numerous ups and downs as I crossed hundreds of miles through the range, and the descent back to sea level around the city of Nasca.

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Speilberg and the Coen Brothers haven’t come knocking quite yet but while on the trip I shot quite a bit of video and still photography that I wasn’t able to upload onto the website due to the impossibly slow connections. Now that I am back I’d like to use that choppy on-the-bike-video and remaining still photos to hopefully make a short film… with some help.

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Greenopia made a list of  ”10 Green Guys We Love” and Doug made the list amongst the likes of Jack Johnson, Adrian Grenier and uh, me. Check it out…

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Many people ask me what I am taking on the trip. This wasn’t easy to answer in a few sentances so I put together an inventory including some pics of the major categories of equipment I am bringing: clothes, electronics, mechanical parts/tools, and first aid supplies. Of course these are the basics and odds and ends are plugged in everywhere!

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I read about Martin Strel about a year ago and was inspired by his story. He just finished a world record marathon swim down the length of the Amazon, 3,327 miles!

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This is my first experience with satellite phones but so far its been pretty easy. I bought a used Qualcomm GSP 1600 (pretty cheap on ol’ ebay) and went through GlobalStar for the service.

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I won’t be brining much in the way of clothes (considering the heat index will be above 100F nearly everyday) but I was able to get my hands on the Sierra Designs Microlight rain jacket and pants. The weight and packability of these two items is key.

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I fell in love with this watch the moment I saw it. My friend came back from a trip to Europe with this thing on his wrist (it is quite large!) and the tech geek in me was enamored. I also love the audacity of the enormous face… you can see this thing a mile away! That aside, the Suunto Core is a gem in terms of altitude, barometric pressure, depth, and direction information.

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This tactical flashlight made by SureFire should stand up to conditions I’ll face in the jungle. I wanted a rechargeable flashlight that would be bright enough to illuminate all the bumps in the night I’ll hear while laying in my hammock. The LumaMax L7 can purportedly cause temporary blindness if shined directly into the eyes! I haven’t tested this feature on myself yet.

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I have been experimenting with the new Hennessy Hammock Hyperlite in preparating for the trip. I have little experience with hammock tents (other than an old army surlpus 20$ P.O.S. that quickly flipped and ripped) and I’m trying to get the knack of the thing. So far it seems like it should work perfect in the Amazon.

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I plan on using this portable/foldable solar panel while on the trek to recharge some of the electronic gadgets. The Brunton Solaris delivers 12V (under pretty low light from my testing) and should work great so close to the equator!

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I found this video while searching Google Maps along the Transamazonica Highway. This was recorded outside the city of Santarem. Truly a sight to behold!

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As the leave date closes in rather rapidly I have been collecting all the necessary gear for the trip. The panniers I have chosen were supplied by Axiom Performance Gear and are appropriately named the Monsoons.

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THE noise is not yet loud enough to disturb the sloths munching on the leaves of the cecropia trees, or the river terns that wing lazily over the Amazon’s mighty waters, or the secretive Indian tribes that live deep within the jungle. But along the tributaries of the world’s largest river the sound is plainly discernible, like a low rumble of thunder in the distance. It is the dull, grinding roar of bulldozers cutting naked red strips through the vast Amazon rain forest.

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I have finally acquired the bike I will be riding this fall. It is a steel frame hardtail 2007 Jamis Dragon. I will be outfitting it with racks and panniers to accommodate all of my gear. I look forward to putting this bike through the paces in the weeks leading up to my departure.

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Daniel Beltra, a Spanish photographer, is traveling the world to capture the world’s three major rainforest regions. We have some of his amazing shots from the first leg of the trip… the Amazon! From cattle men in the deforested Mato Grasso region of Brazil to smiling native Indian children pointing down the barrel of his lens Daniel captures a compelling array of images from this important part of our planet.

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In the depths of the Amazon rainforest, the poorest people in the world have taken on the richest people in the world to defend a part of the ecosystem none of us can live without. They had nothing but wooden spears and moral force to defeat the oil companies – and, for today, they have won.

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The leather we use everyday from our shoes to our hangbags and wallets may very well trace back to cattle raised on deforested Amazon ranches.

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Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies has approved a measure that would speed up paving roads across the country, including paving a road that environmentalists have long-fought, BR-319. Environmental groups across the nation have warned of widespread deforestation if the measure passes the Senate and is signed by the president.
Read the rest of this article here.

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Someone should contact Neil Young and tell him to stop making albums about electric cars and start writing songs about the Amazon. While I write this in jest, the boringness of someone pulling your ear about the devastation of deforestation should still be as important as talking about topics such as the duel between San Francisco and Portland for electric car supremacy.

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Forty percent or more of the Amazon rainforest will be “decimated” by the middle of the next century even if we cut all CO2 emissions by 2050, said the UK Met Office. The finding was presented this past month in Copenhagen, which is preparing to host the UN Climate Change Conference in December.

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The damage will be so severe that it will cause irreversible changes to the world’s weather patterns, which is expected to bring more storms, floods and heat waves to Britain. Up to 40 per cent of the rainforest will be lost if temperature rises are restricted to 2C, which most climatologists regard as the least that can be expected by 2050.

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The television show, which premieres on September 17th, took over the neighboring, inhabited island in militant style by hiring the local police to prevent residents from accessing a public beach. As it turned out, according to local witnesses, MTV had cleared a small patch of rainforest to build a tiki-hut structure near the beach, developed an access road through the forest, and installed generators and lighting on the beach.

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The largest rainforest in the world is being chopped down almost entirely for a single purpose: beef. That’s right, one of the biggest, most beautifully diverse ecosystems on the planet is being traded in—for hamburgers. According to a report from Mongabay, a full 80 percent of the land cleared by Amazon deforestation from 1996-2006 has been used to create cattle pastures.

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