Three men set out on the adventure of a lifetime when they decided to raft down the Amazon from its source high in the Andes to its mouth on the Atlantic coast of South America. The journey from source to sea had only ever been completed by three people before them, all of them assisted by first-class training, state of the art equipment and six figure budgets. Ben Kozel from Australia, Colin Angus from Canada and Scott Borthwick from South Africa-all in their mid-twenties-were attempting the epic journey with fourteen thousand Australian dollars between them, some second-hand camping gear, a couple of weeks training in white water rafting and large dose of blind optimism.
Six months and 7,000 kilometres later, they arrived at the Atlantic Ocean, having survived some of the planet's most dangerous white water, wild storms, disgusting tropical diseases, several hundred species of venomous insects and reptiles, not to mention being pursued and shot at by guerrillas from Peru's murderous Shining Path rebel movement and mistaken by paramilitary police for drug smugglers.
Three Men in a Raft is both a travel book and an adventure story, laced with humour, danger and vivid description. Like a strange hybrid of Survivor and Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Raft is unlikely, endearing and enthralling.
