6. John's Return to The Amazon

John Simpson's World Podcast

On his way through the Amazon, seven days from even the tiniest village, John ends up getting shipwrecked, circled by a hungry jaguar, harpooning monkeys for dinner, dicing with piranhas, sipping hallucinogenic drugs from a cauldron and encountering a six foot goldfish wearing a hat and sunglasses (this was, unsurprisingly, as a direct result of imbibing what was in the cauldron). John’s stories of the Amazon are legendary and he’s managed to persuade the BBC, who are apparently reluctant to let him die on their watch, to let him return to the Amazon very soon. Yikes.

On this episode we cover:

What John was doing in the Amazon in the first place

In 1992 being very close to getting some kind of international agreements to stop global warming

Because of the US that ceased to exist

Travelling through the farthest reaches of the westernmost amazon

7 days traveling down the Envira river

Harpooning a monkey for dinner

Eating monkeys, snakes and caimans

What monkey tastes like

Hard to eat something like looks like a roasted baby (!)

Being ‘burned to buggery’

A sinking boat

Things that bite and chew and electrocute

Shipwrecked in the middle of nowhere

Being circled by a hungry jaguar

Being 7 days travel from the nearest tiny settlement

Being the first white man seen by the tribe

Swapping mirrors and beads with the Ashaninka

John necking hallucinogenic drugs from a cauldron

A taste ‘worse than bat urine’

Making friends with a six foot goldfish in a hat

Is John really returning to the Amazon to bring back the really good drugs…?

Going back - is everyone going to be in Manchester United shirts

The forest is now under real threat

Struggling to get the BBC to agree to his return

The BBC worrying he’ll ‘hand in his lunch pail’ (aka die) on the way

The BBC being worried that if John dies the Daily Mail will have a field day

Growing a beard especially for the trip

The problem of seaweed in Mexico and parts of the Caribbean

John will still be going on a small boa, up the same river and facing the same dangers

John being up for absolutely anything

Is there anything John wouldn’t do…?

(note he wouldn’t kill anyone but he does have a story about how he once came close to it in Afghanistan)