Rivergods: Exploring the World's Great Wild Rivers

This book traces the adventures of explorers Richard Bangs and Christian Kallen as they raft down rivers in North and South America, Africa, Asia and Australia, selecting rivers with gradients that ensured white water. Along the way they combined physical challenge with anthropological and ecological investigation. Bangs and Kallen encountered hidden African tribes, observed Peruvian ceremonies revering the Inca and discovered for themselves that the Indus is still only partly navigable.

The lure of river-rafting has taken Bangs and Kallen across hundreds of miles of waterways. Here they describe their breathtaking explorations of such rivers as the Omo in Ethiopia, the Zambezi (Zambia), the Coruh (Turkey), the Indus (Pakistan), the Apurimac (Peru), the Colorado (Arizona) and the Tatshenshini (Alaska/Yukon). They relate adventuresfellow travelers lost in the rapids, a crocodile that tried to make a meal of their inflatable raftand memorable events and sightsnatives befriended along the way, the beauty of the mountains towering above them and fleeting glimpses of birds among the dense foliage. Bangs amd Kallen narrate myths and legends and discuss the cultures that have evolved around these rivers. Photos. 30,000 ad/promo; first serial to Islands Magazine; Macmillan Natural Science Book Club main selection. October
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The authors are commercial rafting guides who have tested the most challenging stretches of remote wild rivers around the world. This book brings together their accounts of rafting such exotic waterways as the Apurimac and Bio-Bio of South America, the Zambezi and Omo of Africa, the Indus of Asia, and the Colorado and Tatshenshini of North America. The text is substantial, with historical surveys of each river in addition to accounts of hungry crocodiles, grizzly bears, and tipping over. The photos are striking. They show as much of the people who live along these rivers as they do of brightly colored inflatable rafts. With rafting very much in vogue, this should be popular in public libraries. Harold Otness, Southern Oregon State Coll. Lib., Ashland
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.