Ben Fogle on the year he found adventure and himself

In 1992 I found myself. It was the year that set me on my meandering course of life. It was also the year I saw both the very best and worst of humanity.

Fresh out of school, I was just 19 years old and had the world at my fingertips. I bought a one-way ticket to Rio de Janeiro and set off for a year in Latin America.

It was a period of youthful naivety. I didn’t know the language and didn’t have a plan, but Latin America – Brazil in particular – seemed suitably mysterious and promised to be full of opportunity and adventure.

I spent a couple of days parading up and down the two-and-a-half mile Copacabana beach, but my pasty white torso was no match for the lithe and fit Brazilians. So I took a bus to Belém, a city on the banks of the Amazon estuary in northern Brazil. As a child I had spent hours poring over atlases and maps and always dreamt of visiting this mighty river. I spent several days wandering up and down the bustling port until I found a ship laden with biscuits heading upstream to Benjamin Constant in Colombia, more than 3,000 miles away.

As it transpired the journey was long, hot, and very, very boring. Six weeks later we chugged into Iquitos. I wasn’t in the least bit sad to wave goodbye to that insect-riddled boat.