‘I survived snakes, piranhas and a flesh-eating parasite on my Amazon trek'

When a dream trip into the heart of the rainforest became a nightmare, adventurer Pip Stewart was left fighting for her life

- KRISTEN JONES

Writer Pip, 36, lives in East Wittering with her partner Charlie, 38, a life coach, and their 18-month-old daughter, Willow.

Sitting with the doctor at London’s Hospital for Tropical Diseases, I braced myself for bad news. Then the doctor gave me his chilling verdict: “The flesh-eating disease you picked up from the Amazon will spread to your face, nose and mouth unless you have an aggressive form of chemotherapy.” I blinked in disbelief. It was 2018 and I’d just returned from the trip of a lifetime. I should have been looking through my holiday snaps, not sitting there thinking about a life-threatening illness.

Adventure had been in my blood from childhood. My family moved every three years with my dad’s work in the Forces and I got such a buzz from all the new experiences. I was 28 when, in 2013, I cycled from Malaysia to my home in London, covering 10,000 miles and 26 countries in a year. Three years later I embarked on a 3,000-mile cycle, boat and plane journey in Brazil and Peru, documenting deforestation and its devastating effect on indigenous people.

But it was in 2017 when I was working as adventure editor for Red Bull that I got a call from my friend, Laura Begum, and signed up to do the most extreme trip of my life – kayaking from the source of the Essequibo River in Guyana to the Atlantic Ocean.

“It will be like an animal version of Disneyland on speed,” she promised. How could I resist?