Travel in Southern Africa

A modern-day explorer named Ed Stafford needs your help to complete his latest mission: a walk from the source of the Amazon River in the Andes to the mouth of the river in Brazil.

Stafford began the project on April 2, 2008 with a walking partner named Ed Collyer, but after three months, Collyer called it quits and headed back to England. Apparently the two didn't get along very well. Stafford is looking for another partner to complete the journey, and maybe that partner is you. Yes, gentle reader, if you're the adventurous sort, you don't mind poisonous snakes falling onto you from trees, and you can get along with a guy who may or may not be a jungle jerk, apply at Ed's website now for an opportunity to make history. After all, it's a feat that has never before been accomplished, and that many experts have said is impossible. But if you and Ed pull it off, you'll wind up in the record books and have helped indigenous people along the river's banks by studying their lifestyles and habits and preserving their traditions for prosperity. Sound good? Well, before you lace up your hiking boots and slather on the bug spray, read a little bit about what it's like to walk with Stafford in Saturday's Guardian travel section. I could handle the bugs, snakes, murky water, and general discomfort. But being accused of being a pelicara, literally, a "baby-eating monster that also steals the body fat of adults, sucks out their eyes and takes their organs," and looks just like a regular white guy? That would hurt my feelings.