8am and damn hot, 8am and bloody humid, 8am in the Brazilian rainforest. Tramping through the jungle and trying to keep up the fast pace of the Indian guides, the perspiration stung as it ran into my eyes. My camera pack seemed to weigh a ton and was biting into my shoulders. Then we burst upon it. It was only a small ravine, a twenty-foot drop to a rocky bottom, where, in the wet season the tiny stream would swell into a fast flowing angry river. The streamlet travelled between large sharp rocks and seemed to be willing me to fall.

The bridge across this dangerous gap was a dripping wet tree trunk about 16 inches in diameter and 35 foot long. I had camera gear as well as my overweight body to haul across to the other side, preferably without anything too disastrous happening either to my equipment or myself! I paused and thought, “It could all end in tears before our adventure has really begun.” Adam and I had finally reached the Amazon rain forest and were following the Yawanawa guides along what, to me, seemed a non-existent trail. We brushed aside all sorts of hanging vegetation that criss-crossed in front of us.

I jammed my 'Tilley' hat hard on my head, trying to avoid the sharp Boca (that looks like bamboo but unlike the giant bamboo, has small, sharp, vicious thorns) from piercing any part of my face. The heat and humidity was making the sweat pour out of me like tiny rivers which ran all over my body, soaking me from head to toe. This trip was hard, tough and very different from anything I had imagined whilst planning my journey back in the calm of Kensington. “So isn't this what you so wanted?” I said to myself. “If you don't like it, it's too bloody late. Stop daydreaming: and cross that ravine.” When, finally and thankfully, I reached the other side, I stopped to take a breather – and said to myself, “Are you sure you haven't bitten off more than you can chew?”

Adam Baines and I first met in the Globetrotters Club. He had just cycled around Vietnam and I was not long back from doing the same in New Zealand. He had heard that I was planning a journey to somewhere in the back of beyond of the Amazon Basin and as we both like living on the edge, so we teamed up, thinking “what the hell, let's do it.” Adam was thirty something, fit, and spoke fluent Spanish; I was fifty something, not so fit and spoke fluent Portuguese.

This was not only the story of a tribe's phoenix like renaissance, but was also the tale of two independent travellers' great adventure way down the Rio Gregoria near the borders of Brazil and Peru. 'Yawanawa' – 21^st Century Warriors' was a taste of where we've been, what we have done and what's been done to us, what we enjoyed what we didn't, did it all turned out cool or did it all end up pear shaped? Like the films used to say – it all started back in the summer, when – – –

So Adam and I went off into the depths of the green rainforest and our story of frustrations and successes have been written down and seen in various articles, slide shows, for the Globetrotters Club and others. To this day we are still good friends having survived the 'Urban Jungle' as well as the 'Amazon jungle'.

A lovely lady had introduced me to the GT Club around seventeen years ago and awakened my interest not only in her lovely self but also to adventure travel around the world. We saw where the Amazon met the sea in Marajo in the north and travelled south to those magnificent falls at Foz do Iquacu as well venturing into Africa. A wonderful adventurous person, the type one could only encounter at our club.

I have met and I'm sure I will still meet some wonderful and life long friends in my time at the Globetrotters Club. So thanks to them, some good nights in the pub with Dick and with the members – Good conversation after the 'Slide Talks' have finished – My independent travelling days are not yet over, with the help of all my vitamins, I will continue to roll around this exciting world, either with or without a travelling companion from our great Globetrotters Club.

About the author Tony Annis: Have camera will travel. Over the top but not yet over the hill. Past sixty five and still alive, my get up and go has not entirely got up and gone – like good whisky, I'm still going strong. Travelling through these global villages of ours is great adventure but to me it is the people that make this wonderful world, as well as the exotic places that I love to visit. See you over the next horizon, Tony.