Words by thomaspeschak | Today is Amazon Day, and I’m taking this opportunity to share a story with you from the westernmost edge of the Amazon River Basin. I’m currently spending 396 days in the field to photograph the wonders of our planet’s most iconic river and show why it needs to be protected. I began my explorations high up in the Andes, a range running along the spine of South America that is home to important source regions of the Amazon River and its many tributaries. The mountain of Nevado Mismi sits on the continental divide and is considered the most distant source—from the Amazon’s mouth—of uninterrupted flow. Snow and ice that melt on the 18,363-foot-high (5,600 meters) peak run down the eastern side of the mountain before disappearing into a network of cracks and fissures on the rocky plateau below the summit. The water reemerges about a thousand feet below, at the base of a cliff, where a series of caves bedecked in icicles and a gushing spring propel the nascent river...