Pangaea advances well along the northern coast of South America whilst on her route to Brasil. Mike and his crew are currently sailing past Guyana and in another 700 NM will reach the town of Macapa, at the mouth of the mighty Amazon River.
So much is awaiting us to be discovered in the Amazon. All we must do is open our eyes and look to see.
Mike Horn and his crew prepare Pangaea for her onwards journey towards Brasil. In just a few days they will reach Macapa, at the mouth of the Amazon River.
Arrived in Trinidad early this morning. This is the last stop before we sail into the Amazon. It's going to be a trip of a lifetime but this time I will not be alone – I'm with 10 Young Explorers.
After a short stop-over in Antiqua, Pangaea and her crew move south once again. In just a few weeks Pangaea will head into the Amazon River, ready to meet the 10 young explorers who just completed the SElection Camp in Switzerland.
We spent our last night celebrating together with raclette (this Swiss cheese dish that is sooo good!), music and our headlamp strobe lights. After a couple hours sleep we were up nice and early, sad that it was our last day together but also with butterflies in our stomachs, nervously waiting for the selected to be announced.
We packed our bags which were bulging by the time we finished squeezing in all the Mike Horn gear, Swiss chocolates and souvenirs that we bought. After a quick breakfast we were called to the couch and we had a quick prize giving for the winners of the video competition, we were given certificates for surviving the camp and then the moment came…
There was silence as Martin took a coffee break and kept us hanging and then the names came. Ten of us are going to join Mike Horn in the Amazon next month!! It was hard to know that only a few of us would be going as everyone deserved to take part. We have all grown so close, been through so much together and it has been sad to farewell this new family. As the first group departed many of us were in tears and we will miss each other and the team here very much. For those selected it is super exciting to know that in 24 days we will be reunited again for an adventure of a lifetime.
Thank you to the Mike Horn Team for all your hard work, late nights, laughs and this incredible opportunity. We are very grateful, very happy and have had the time of our lives this past 10 days. Thanks again!
The second to last day of the camp has been the cherry on top of the cake if you ask us. The day started with interviews about our experiences. This was somewhat scary but entertaining at the same time. This was followed by an awesome lunch prepared by Leni and Annika, our amazing camp chefs! A big thanks to them! After lunch we discussed project ideas and our favorite experiences from the raid with old young explorers and The Team.
We had a very interesting presentation from a representative of Wenger, the original Swiss Army knife company. We heard the story of the founding of the company and how each knife is made to an exacting standard for its purpose. Wenger has 4 major partners in sport, one of them being Mike Horn. It was awesome to hear how Wenger has supported Mike for so long and to learn about the knife that Mike helped to design with the Wenger team.
We were each given a small Wenger Mike Horn Pangaea knife and heard that we would be given a larger version of the knife if we were selected to go to the Amazon with Mike Horn in April. However, these knifes would not be for us young explorers.
They would be to give to a person of our choice in the Amazon region who we believe would benefit from the use of the Wenger Mike Horn Pangaea knife in their daily lives. We had a delicious traditional Swiss dinner of Raclette along with a glass of beautiful white wine.
We had a great celebration of the camp with Luke, our camp uncle, and all the old young explorers and our new best friends, the candidates attending the Amazon Selection Camp. Fingers crossed for the final selection tomorrow morning. This has been the experience of a lifetime!
What I love about the amazon Is the diversity. Everything people dislike and are afraid of becomes part of your life. Life should be about making the unlike liked.
Today we woke up in the warmest ‘snow cave’ ever. Only to realize we had a raid to complete !
We began the morning nice and early with a quick breakfast. At seven we all rushed to get ahead in the raid. We were all really motivated to complete the raid and of course to win.
Team Efforts started with a lead, we got to the camp early the previous night and were well rested as well as thoroughly relieved to have slept inside. We were the first and only team to get to the first checkpoint of the day. We got there by ‘skiing’ down the mountain on our snowshoes.
After a few spectacularly funny falls we finally reached road. Soon we reached our second checkpoint and took up the challenge of dragging a tyre up a mountain. (Of course after a few feeble attempts at rigging the other teams tyre) The men on our team worked like machines to get the tyre there impressing everyone all the way up to the next point. The best part of today was definitively sliding back down the mountain on snow covered slopes. There were a few close encounters with ‘cliffs’ and a lucky escape from a concussion. We worked great as a team and had fun the whole way singing and chanting our name. That is exactly how we ended our raid, as a group and with a whole lot of spirit.(and we won !)
Team BEAST went in the wrong direction as soon as we reached the river. We all agree that were never seen anything so spectacular ! We spent about an hour walking on the frozen river and saw a few dangerous holes in the ice. After our amazing ice-river experience we realized we were off course and found our way up the mountain to the road, and our next checkpoint. We walked for about 30 minutes before Luke told us to go to the checkpoint missing the previous one.
We had a great time singing and chatting, Reghard leading us in our songs all the way. Checkpoint number ten (where we picked up our tyres) we found to be very cold although we warmed up soon hiking up the mountain. We carried the tyre two at a time and the rest carrying their backpacks. Luckily everything that goes up must come down ! It was a great feeling racing and sliding down the mountain on our bums. We were really happy to see the end line as we ran the final slope, this was an experience we will never forget.