Preface

On 3rd January 2007 I flew to Caracas, Venezuela not knowing when I would come back. All my worldly possessions had been packed up and left in the UK. I wanted to try my hand at travelling, to leave the beaten track, to try new experiences and to challenge myself. Not knowing if I would last 3 months or 3 days I had bought a one-way ticket.

I had nothing else booked except an extreme jungle survival course with Bushmasters in Guyana and a plane ticket to get me there the day before. This jungle survival course would have me learn only the basic skills, how to find water, hunt food, make fire and build shelter. At the end, whether you had mastered the skills or not, you would be left alone, in isolation in the jungle for a number of days and nights. You would have only the clothes on your back and a machete to survive with before you were tracked down and rescued by the local Amerindians.

Naturally, some (not all I might add) friends and family were concerned and intrigued by my only planned activity and wished to hear how it went. To facilitate this I started a daily blog, allowing interested parties to read it and non interested parties to ignore it.

After the jungle survival course my adventures continued somewhat, so I felt obliged to continue the blog. Then I received a deluge of compliments and encouragement. People seemed genuinely interested in what I was doing and what I was writing, so I decided to keep it up. Writing and publishing a detailed daily account of my travels, day in, day out for over 6 months. Now that was a challenge in its self!

For better or for worse this forced me to keep going. Even when I was tired and knackered. I refused to take a day off to simply sit, lounging around a hostel. Instead I felt compelled to keep at it, to keep moving and keep travelling, if only so I'd have an interesting blog entry for that day!

The original blog can be viewed at http://slimerdude.blogspot.com/. I have reproduced it here in its entirety, comments and all. This allowed me to review the content, correct the grammar and spelling, add more photographs, give a printable stylesheet (try a Print Preview), add better menu navigation and generally tart it up some.

Unfortunately I cannot reproduce the anticipation and excitement I know some of you felt when checking for daily updates during my time away but the addition of the final month may alleviate some of the mystery of my final days away.

During your journey through my blog, you may hover over any photograph for a brief description and click it for a larger version.

Finally, a big thank you to all those who supplied encouragement and sarcasm through Blog comments and emails during my time away. They did help and will not be forgotten.

Enjoy,

Posted by Steve Eynon