The Man Who Swam the Amazon

The Man Who Swam the Amazon

by Martin Strel and Matthew Mohlke

Summersdale, HK$128

Most adventure books take a double-barrelled Oxbridge character or ex-army officer into some form of manly, twentysomething pursuit. Martin Strel is a little different: this middle-aged bloke with a middle-age spread likes to swim the world's most dangerous rivers. For fun.

Last year the giant Slovenian (above) spent 66 days trying to swim down the Amazon and, as you find out in this entertaining but matter-of-fact account, he nearly died doing so. In a simple but readable tale, his co-adventurer Matthew Mohlke recounts the amazing endurance and tenacity of the beer-swallowing, sausage-guzzling Slovene.

As Mohlke writes early on: 'Is Martin Strel crazy? Does he have a death wish? When I signed on as a kayaker to help Martin Strel navigate down the Amazon River, I gave him about a 50 per cent chance of survival. Myself, I gave a 90 per cent chance. One thing was certain though. Martin Strel would either swim the entire Amazon River, or die trying.'

That sense of cast-iron determination is what oozes through the pages of The Man Who Swam the Amazon. Whatever nature throws at him - exhaustion, delirium, piranhas - Strel seems an almost superhuman machine able to overcome it. As the team supporting him tries to keep up, through whirlpools, piranhas and pirates, Strel soldiers on through obstacle after obstacle, covering staggering distances: he seems to average more than 100km a day, doing (mostly) front crawl.