|
|
 |
|
|
|
Balsas
The show is on. Blashford-Snell contacts balsa-shipbuilder Maximo Catari at Huatajata, Lake Titicaca, to build a few expedition sailing boats made of reed.It is the start of the first chapter of the Kota Mama expedition.
|
|
|
|
In
1998 the British explorer sailed with the three reed
boats from Lake Titicaca over the river Desaguadero
to Lake Poopo. Why that direction? No one can tell for
sure and the expedition was a great loss of money and
effort. There was hardly any water in the rivers and
the Bolivian army dragged the reed boats from one place
to another. Anyway, Blashford-Snell continues by building
a 13 and a 7-meter balsa. With these boats he wishes
to sail from the Bolivian place Puerto Suarez over the
rivers Paraguay and Parana to Buenos Aires, Argentina.
This to prove that the New World in Lake Titicaca transported
goods to the Atlantic Ocean. So far so good. To be honest,
a piece of cake. Going with the flow, that's all. The
current of the Paraguay River was good for 75 kilometers
a day and the Parana for 100. What is next?
|
 |
Blashford-Snell:
"We prepare two other expeditions. One from
Cochabamba, Bolivia over the rivers Mamore (Bolivia)
and Madeira and Amazon to Belem (Brazil) and another
from Uruguay (Montevideo) around South Africa
to the Red Sea and the place where the Garden
of Eden should have been: the Eufrat and the Tigris." |
|
 Next |
Beating
Heyerdahl |
It looks like Blashford-Snell wish to beat the famous RA ll expedition of Dr. Thor Heyerdahl. Heyerdahl was obsessed to prove how North African culture was exported by reed boats into Mexico and South America, while the British explorer wishes to prove the opposite.
"Heyerdahl wrote history with his 1947 Kon Tiki expedition, the 1969 and 1970 Ra l and ll expeditions and the 1979 Tigris Expedition. All incredible journeys. But in my opinion he had not to sail in 1969 and 1970 with his RA-l en RA-ll from Safi (Maroc) to Barbados in the Caribbean, but vice versa."
Nevertheless Thor Heyerdahl proved that a balsa could be seaworthy. The Kota Mama lV that in 2002 will cross the Atlantic Ocean will be a copy of the RA-ll. |
 |
|
|
