Joey Kelly of the Kelly Family and Rammstein singer Till Lindemann have completed a grueling paddle tour on the Amazon together.
All pictures by Thomas Stachelhaus, National Geographic
A small canoe, a good friend, suitable footwear and a paddle in his hand - that's all the rock star needs to transform back into a man who can take the rigors of nature. Three years ago, an unusual duo with this theorem in their luggage embarked on the greatest adventure that can be had beyond the stadium stages: Till Lindemann, singer with Rammstein, and Joey Kelly, one of the voices of the Kelly Family, ventured out alone on the grim, cold Yukon in Alaska to explore the myth of the river and test their own limits.
An adventure that the two stars in the book "Yukon: My Hated Friend" later described as hard rather than pretty. Nevertheless - when the wilderness called again, the two travel friends discussed at first whether to go to Siberia, China or the Amazon. But that they must go out again, to a place where there is nothing but nature, the challenge of an infinite landscape and the knowledge that between luck and catastrophe there will be sometimes only a leg slap when swimming, that was clear to both musicians.
At the end of the world
"High time / for man and boat / and already / the river / has put its arms around us" rhymes Till Lindemann now in "Amazonas - Journey to the Rio Javari" (Joey Kelly und Till Lindemann: "Amazonas - Reise zum Rio Javari". National Geographic, 240 Seiten, 79 Euro, pictures of Thomas Stachelhaus + Matthias Matthies) an opulently illustrated book in sidewalk slab format. On 240 pages the river journey of the two leisure adventurers to the end of the inhabited world is shown with photos by Kelly's regular photographer Thomas Stachelhaus. The colors are gloomy, the photos are often in black and white and the main characters are looking mostly defiant rather than smiling into the lens.
Well, obviously it's not a vacation either. Admittedly, there are the idyllic pictures of lonely paddling on the wide river, fishing from a boat and collecting wood at an improvised camp site. But how close death is to the boat becomes clear when Lindemann tells how Joey Kelly falled into a lagoon while fishing with bow and arrow, in which a huge caiman swam.
Real fear
"I wanted to swim the 15 meters to shore, but the crocodile was also 15 meters away," Joey Kelly says. On the way, he "was really afraid that my last hour had come, because such an animal can naturally swim faster than I can," says the 47-year-old, who reckons to the last meter that "the caiman would pull me under water."
Escape. Survived. The boat trip of the two pop millionaires is an exploration tour to exotic places far from civilization on the one hand. But on the other hand it is also an expedition into the inner self. Here, in the "free, wild land" (such a chapter title), it no longer matters who can sing how beautifully or whose song is a hit.
The two rock giants Kelly and Lindemann, in shorts, flip-flops and the same two worn out T-shirts, meet on the Amazonas itself as dwarves between overgrown river banks and skeptical natives. Here human tamers from the pop arena are just normal guys, exposed to the rigors of a nature completely uninterested in their travel plans.
It's hot, it's humid, the route is demanding, winding, "you had to paddle all the time, counter-steer and move the boat," as Joey Kelly, who was sitting in the front of the canoe, says.
Sweating for weeks
Not heavy meatl, only heavy sweating. Lindemann, a mountain of a man, found it just as hostile. Only after three weeks did you stop sweating so much, he reports. "Even the sun doesn't bother you as much anymore because you're completely fried."
Focused on the moment, Lindemann says, you don't think about music or inspiration. And maybe that's exactly why you get it. In keeping with Stachelhaus' enchanting photos of landscapes, people and the two protagonists, the book of Lindemann poems includes such poems as the Amazon Ode, which praises the mystical river with "your blood whispers in me / a few drops just / have stolen it from me" as "secret love".
Strange Birds
Joey Kelly looks seriously out of his outdoor vest, Till Lindemann strictly into the distance. Strange birds circle in the sky, thick tree trunks swim by. You can see the depletion while paddling, says Till Lindemann: "Huge logs, garbage, sacks full of plastic, all illegal, but everybody does it". The path is the destination and the stranger the friend.
Lindemann and Kelly let Indians show them how to fish with nets, they smuggle themselves onto a cocaine plantation and they pose with huge snakes. At the end of the epic trip in the footsteps of Alexander von Humboldt, Lindemann and Kelly stand around a campfire on a dark beach in the evening and fry a big, colorful fish. "Again it is silent / everyone can hear it", Lindemann rhymes.
