Local thrill seeker wins Amazon river raft race

October 15, 2013 · 0 Comments

By Jeff Doner
Nobleton’s Greg Harris considers himself a bit of a thrill seeker, but what he recently accomplished ranks near the top of his extreme life experiences.
Harris, 49, just competed and won the longest raft race in the world through a 200-kilometre stretch of the Amazon River in Peru.
“It certainly was one of the toughest and I rank it right up there with climbing some of the high-altitude mountains that I’ve done,” he said. “I found this race was non-stop. It was really exhausting, because the one thing that really happens in this race if you want to be competitive is just never stop, so we would row up to eight hours a day.
“In those eight hours, we would maybe have four 30 second breaks to drink water, no food, just drink water. So you’re continuously rowing.”
Harris said it was that relentless drive that helped them finish with the best time over the three-day race.
“We just never stopped and we were paddling at a pretty fast pace,” he said. “The Amazon moves very slowly, it’s not like our white water rivers here. It’s equivalent to paddling on a lake. It’s a lot of work.”
He competed with a team of four that included his good friend Pablo Grossi, Carlos Marichi and Debbie Chen.
On the first day, the teams were given eight telephone pole sized logs, machetes and rope.
“At that point, we just had to go to town and start carving, chopping and building this raft. We were by far the longest building our raft. We went late into the night under head-lamp,” he said.
But that didn’t hold them back as Harris’s team logged impressive times in each of the three legs of the race to give them a sparkling cumulative time that had them over an hour ahead of the second-place team. The three days added up to approximately 16 hours total and it was the last leg of the race that Harris recalled being the most grueling.
“One of the tougher parts of it was probably the last kilometre or so where the race organizers literally tortured the competitors and made us paddle upstream for that portion,” he said. “That’s difficult after already paddling for roughly 200 kilometres and then having to paddle a kilometre upstream.”
Aside from the extreme physical challenge, the Amazon River offered plenty of dangers and wildlife.
“When you’re going down the Amazon River, the worrisome thing was that the river is full of piranha, anaconda and all these horrible fish called the candiru fish, so the one thing we thought of was just don’t fall in the river,” Harris recalled. “These things all live in the river, they’re not jumping into the raft, so that was the most important part.”
But he was also quick to point out the river’s beauty and some of the amazing things he saw while paddling.
“One of the enjoyable things we noticed when we were rafting was that the river is also a home to these wonderful pink dolphins and at times as we were rafting down the river, they would be jumping in front of you,” he said. “It was pretty cool to be rafting in the middle of the rainforest down the river and see these pink dolphins jumping in front of you in the water. That was a pretty unique experience.”
For winning the race, the team received medals, a trophy and a $5,000 cash prize that the group donated back to a nature reserve in Peru.
“We weren’t in it for the money, we were in it for the challenge and the competition,” he said. “I think they were pretty happy that we made this donation, especially with us being foreigners.”
Harris and Grossi also fully intend to return next year to defend their title.
“It was a really enjoyable experience,” he said. “This is right up there in difficulty and perseverance to get through this thing.”