A British explorer has discovered the source of an uncharted Amazon river, after being stalked by jaguars and ravaged by army ants.
The area has only ever been mapped by satellites, leading to solely inaccurate coordinates due to the jungle tree cover.
The daring 33-year-old, Ash Dykes, beamed with joy after finding the start of the Coppename River in Suriname with fellow adventurers Jacob Hudson, Dick Lock and Matt Wallace
They also named two undocumented waterfalls—Dykes Falls and Wallace Falls—after the team members who first spotted them in the largely unexplored jungle.
Speaking for the first time about their achievement, Ash said it felt “crazy” to find the elusive source of the river. “We were all screaming and getting excited.”
“We’ve mapped the coordinates and took a screenshot for any mapping associations who want that.”
Originally from Wales, but now living in London, he hired a helicopter on August 29th to drop them into the center of the ex-Dutch colony, which is 93% forested.
He and his team then spent the next six days fighting their way upstream in kayaks, carrying over 100 pounds of supplies—while being bitten by ticks and vicious army ants.
“It is crazy to think that we are going to some places that the forest hasn’t ever seen a human footprint before. And it’s not surprising… It is brutal in the jungle.”
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The group came across a terrifying Goliath tarantula, the world’s largest spider, along with snakes and caiman alligators. But Ash said the most chilling moment was when they awoke to find fresh jaguar excrement just yards from where they had been sleeping in their tarp-covered hammocks.
“We couldn’t see it, but who knows how long it was potentially following our tracks to camp. We also had army ants just take over our camp completely.
“They were all over our hammocks and our tarp, and they made four grown men stand at the side of the river bank, waiting for them to pass. And, Jacob got hit by them.”
The team survived on 500 to 600 calories a day, consuming ration packs and wolf fish they caught in the river—even though they trekked up to 16 hours at a time through jungle and fast-flowing river rapids.
But the team were thrilled to name two waterfalls that they discovered as they ventured towards the source of the Coppename River.
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“We were pretty cut open and bruised for the majority of the first two days, and that’s when we came across an undiscovered waterfall,” said Ash.
“It’s a big 15-meter (45-foot) falls that stopped us in our tracks. It’s not on any GPS, and hasn’t been mapped. We discovered a smaller falls right near the source, which I named ‘Dykes Falls’, and that one is even more remote—about 100 meters from the source of the Coppename River.”
Ash has recorded coordinates of their finds in Suriname’s dense interior, which has barely been explored since Victorian missions failed due to disease and injury in the 1800s.
“We’ll probably go a month without seeing any human activity. It’s crazy remote here.”
“I didn’t expect to experience something like this in the 21st century. We’re being thrown back in time.”
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Ash will now travel from the source of the Coppename River to its mouth, in an epic journey which could take another 40 days.
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