A Slovenian adventurer named Martin Strel swam the length of the Amazon River in Brazil. It took him over nine weeks to travel more than 3,000 miles. Previously he had breast-stroked his way down the entire Yangtze River in China, a distance of almost 2,500 miles. He scoffed at the idea of conquering the River Nile in Egypt, however.
“It’s long, but not challenging enough,” he said. “It is just a small creek.”
That’s the spirit I hope you will summon in yourself during the coming weeks, Scorpio: a determination to take on only the most invigorating tests that require heroic levels of resourcefulness. Skip the lesser trials.
This article appears in Aug 5-11, 2009.