Expedition leader Lucy Shepherd, 29, took 50 days to forge a new path through the Amazon jungle. Photo / Lucy Shepherd, Eliza Brown Instagram
Expedition leader Lucy Shepherd, 29, took 50 days to forge a new path through the Amazon jungle. Photo / Lucy Shepherd, Eliza Brown Instagram
It took Lucy Shepherd 50 days to cut her way through 400km of unmapped Amazon rainforest. The 29-year-old explorer from Suffolk, England forged a new path through what has been called one of the 'last remaining unexplored wildernesses'.
She said that the route through Guyana's Kanuku mountains was "dangerous but unbelievably rewarding."
Crossing from East to West, Shepherd and her team of four local men forged a new route through the jungle for the Scientific Exploration Society.
17 of the 50 days were spent in pitch black darkness, due to the dense jungle canopy.
Without any maps of the region the team had to forage for food with a bow and arrow. They were the first to traverse the previously unexplored region of the Amazon Rainforest
However she refuses the assertion that her team "conquered" the jungle.
"Every living thing has a defence mechanism in the jungle, so don't try to fight it," she told National Geographic UK. "You need to be able to go with the flow."
The young British adventurer was due to complete the journey with boyfriend and adventure photographer Tim Taylor. The duo had completed previous expeditions together, however Shepherd decided against the arrangement when picking her team.
Accompanied by four indigenous Amerindian guides, she was reliant on the knowledge and experience of her team. However, until now, the traverse had never been completed by Guyanese or foreign explorers.
With only partial map coverage using charts from 1970s, some of the journey was truly in uncharted territory. Parts of the route were navigated blind, due to the fact that even mapping satellites had never been able to penetrate the dense jungle.
In the darkness the team encountered puma lions and wild boar.
While they often could not be seen "you could smell them," said the explorer.
Working their way west the team were the first to traverse the 400km jungle route. Photo / Lucy Shepherd, Instagram
However travelling as a group, they were less at risk from larger animals but constantly vigilant for poisonous snakes and insects.
"My snake gaiters protected me from a deadly bite from a labaria pit viper," she told the Daily Mail. Her team were subjected to stings from jungle wasps and bad skin infections.
"We were so far from rescue and moments like this were chilling and I'm so thankful we got through."
