Gadiel “Cho” Sánchez Rivera is a

Peruvian Peruvians ( es, peruanos) are the citizens of Peru. There were Andean and coastal ancient civilizations like Caral, which inhabited what is now Peruvian territory for several millennia before the Spanish conquest in the 16th century; Peruvian p ...

adventurer and jungle expert. In August 2010, “Cho” ended the walk along the

Amazon River The Amazon River (, ; es, Río Amazonas, pt, Rio Amazonas) in South America is the largest river by discharge volume of water in the world, and the disputed longest river system in the world in comparison to the Nile. The headwaters of t ...

that fellow adventurer

Ed Stafford Edward James Stafford (born 26 December 1975) is an English explorer and survivalist. He holds the '' Guinness World Record'' for being the first human ever to walk the length of the Amazon River. Stafford now hosts shows on the Discovery Cha ...

had started. In 2013 he achieved the world first kayak tour of Lake Titicaca.

Biography

Gadiel was born in 1978 in

Pucallpa Pucallpa (, qu, puka allpa, lit=red dirt; Shipibo language, Shipibo: ''May Ushin'') is a city in eastern Peru located on the banks of the Ucayali River, a major tributary of the Amazon River. It is the capital of the Ucayali region, the Corone ...

, Peru. He grew up in a rural settlement near the town of Satipo. He finished high school but his family could not afford to send him to university. Instead, he went to work on his father's farm. He wanted to expand his family's agriculture business, but times were tough economically. For that reason, he went to work for the Tala de Madera company of Satipo. Part of his job there included traveling to places where only indigenous people had been before. It was during his four years there that he realized how much he liked adventure. Gadiel was grateful for the opportunity to come to know the jungle, but that did not pay the bills. In 2004, he was offered a job with an industrial logging outfit that used skidders to chop down the forests. He took that job, but he quit after experiencing many things that were unpleasant not only for him, but for the natural environment which he had come to admire so much. Later, in 2008, Gadiel met the English explorer

, who initially hired him as a guide. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Stafford took him as his assistant for the end of the journey. Gadiel was known in the media by his nickname Cho. He walked with Stafford for exactly two years.

Expeditions

* 2008–2010 –

Walking the Amazon Walking the Amazon was an expedition conceived and successfully completed by British explorer Ed Stafford. It was the first time anyone had journeyed the entire length of the Amazon River from source to sea on foot and was recognised as an official ...

with Ed Stafford. Jungle guide and team member. A two-part documentary of the same name aired on Discovery Channel. * 2013 – TitiKayak expedition with

Louis-Philippe Loncke Louis-Philippe Loncke is a Belgian explorer, adventurer and motivational speaker. In 2008, he achieved the world first crossing on foot of the length of the Simpson desert, which was a North to South traverse passing through its geographical cen ...

. World first circumnavigation by kayak of lake

Titicaca Lake Titicaca (; es, Lago Titicaca ; qu, Titiqaqa Qucha) is a large freshwater lake in the Andes mountains on the border of Bolivia and Peru. It is often called the highest navigable lake in the world. By volume of water and by surface area, i ...

. Creation of the first geotagged photographic inventory of the lake: they took GPS coordinates of the location of the limit between the water and the ground and alongside photographs of the background. They also took underwater photos on the Northern Bolivian coast to locate the living habitat of the giant frog ''

Telmatobius culeus ''Telmatobius culeus'', commonly known as the Titicaca water frog, is a medium-large to very large and endangered species of frog in the family Telmatobiidae. It is entirely aquatic and only found in the Lake Titicaca basin, including rivers th ...

''. A talk was given by his expedition partner at TEDxFlanders. * 2015 – Solo Amazon. Gadiel is hired as consultant and guide by Polish adventurer Marcin Gienieczko to traverse the dangerous jungle areas controlled by the drug lords. * 2016 – He joined partly

Laura Bingham Laura Bingham (aka Laura Stafford) (born 1993), is an English explorer and adventurer best known for leading the world first descent of the Essequibo River in Guyana, South America. She appeared on the cover of British Airways ''High Life'' magazin ...

on her biking trip from Ecuador to Argentina.

References

External links

* of Gadiel 'Cho' Sánchez Rivera {{DEFAULTSORT:Sanchez Rivera, Gadiel 1978 births Living people Peruvian explorers People from Pucallpa