Part memoir, part feminist manifesto, this narrative shows what incredible feats we are capable of and will encourage people, especially women, across all backgrounds and ages to find the courage and strength to live the life they’ve imagined. This 148-day journey began on Darcy Gaechter’s thirty-fifth birthday. She sold her successful outdoor adventure business, upsetting her partner and boyfriend of twelve years and getting them both fired in the process. The emotional waters that would fester and erupt on the ensuing journey were often more challenging to navigate than the mighty river itself. With blistering lips and irradiated fingernails, Darcy would tackle raging Class Five whitewater for twenty-five days straight, barely surviving a dynamite-filled canyon being prepared for a new hydroelectric plant. She and her two companions would encounter illegal loggers, narco-traffickers, murderous Shining Path rebels, and ruthless poachers in the black-market trade in endangered species. They would plead for mercy at the hands of the murderous Ashaninka people who were convinced that they had come to steal their children’s organs. In a desperate attempt meant to give her some pretense of control, Darcy even cut off all her hair before entering Peru’s notoriously dangerous “Red Zone” in hopes of passing for a boy and being seen as less of a target. At once a heart-pounding adventure and a celebration of pushing personal limits, Amazon Woman speaks to all of us feeling trapped by our desk-bound, online society. This a story of finding the courage and strength to challenge nature, cultures, social norms, and oneself.

Darcy Gaechter is the first and only woman to kayak the entire length of the Amazon River. For the past fifteen years, she has been considered one of the world’s best female kayakers, leading expeditions in the continental United States, Alaska, Ecuador, Colorado, Idaho, Bhutan, Nepal, and Kenya. A speaker with the Aspen Center for Environmental Studies and the Colorado Whitewater Association, she currently resides in Colorado.