Friday, July 08, 2005

The story so far

The birth of Team Amazonia (written by Laura)
I was busy at work ignoring customers, flicking through the pages of Marie Claire when I saw a competition – Win your dream holiday worth 10,000 Euros – by Salomon
. Being a mad competition-enterer, I immediately saw the benefit of making the effort for this particular competition, which involved writing a submission of ‘Where would I go, What would I do, Who would I take’. Being the fickle person that I am, I usually lose interest in anything that involves much effort, but for some reason, I was determined to enter this competition. I was not happy to simply enter the competition – I was determined to win it and set about making that a reality, working on weekends and after work on my submission.

I actually sat down and thought about where WOULD I go if I had the trip of a lifetime – if I someone else’s money to spend, where would my dream destination be? Moreover, if I wanted to win this competition, what destination would best reflect on Salomon? It needed to be somewhere remote, non-touristy and rugged – that is what I thought Salomon would like to see and where they would like to see their branding. My mind went straight to the Amazon (and all those jungle boys I could meet)!


I quickly filled out the entry form and sent the hyperlink to every single person on the globe who had an email address to encourage them to vote for me. Three weeks later, I got a call from Salomon
– I had WON! Immediately, I attempted to ring my up-for-anything mates - Catherine, Jac and Dave – who were all annoyingly away from their desks and refused to pick up the phone. Who next to contact?!?!?! This kind of news couldn’t be contained and I am not the secretive type! Forty five minutes later, practically the entire anitpodean community in the UK (plus friends around the world with an email address) knew that I had won! I finally got in touch with Dave, Cath and Jac and shared the exciting news with them – I told them to pack their bags as they were coming to the Amazon with me! I had assembled my team – Team Amazon was born! The rest of the afternoon was spent corresponding with Team Amazon and assuring them that indeed I had won and indeed we would be meeting a Shaman and the local Amazonian tribes!!






The Amazonians


Never before has such a fearless crew been assembled for such an awesome adventure...
(L to R: Dave, Laura, Jac and Catherine)