In 1986 a party of 12 explorers attempted to travel the full length of the Amazon. Joe Kane's original role was as a writer and observer but he ended up as one of the only two members of the original group to complete the entire journey, the only expedition ever to travel the entire 4200 mile Amazon river from its source high in the Andes to its union with the Atlantic Ocean. The expedition took them, by foot, raft and kayak, through one of the world's deepest canyons, through deadly whitewater rapids and into one of the last sections of virgin rain forest in the Western hemisphere, home to outlaw guerillas, primitive Indian nomads and cocaine traffickers. The resulting chronicle is an adventure story of a journey fraught with dangers but ultimately achieving its goal.