Posted on 12/29/2006 8:54:39 AM PST by kiriath_jearim
Diplomats and civil servants were distinctly jittery about an all-girl team of British adventurers heading for the Atrato swamps of South America.
Carolyn Oxton, 20, a slim, dark, champion horsewoman planned to lead nine spirited young women in search of the Raspadura canal in Colombia.
It was believed to have been dug by the natives under the direction of a Spanish monk in the 18th century, linking two rivers that flowed to the Atlantic and the Pacific.
The girls would wear fatigues, travel in rubber dinghies and sling hammocks between trees above the mosquito-ridden swamp. But each would pack a dress and a make-up bag to look their best when they emerged.
They were supported by the explorer Lt Col John Blashford-Snell, who had taken Carolyn on his expedition – sponsored by the Daily Telegraph - to the Darien Gap swamps that separate Colombia and Panama.
Lt Col Liley, defence attaché in Bogota, was horrified at Carolyn's demands that the Colombians provide a military escort and a gunboat.
They refused, and withdrew their support for the mission. Liley warned that the swamps were a guerrilla hide-out and the girls would be kidnap targets.
He told the Foreign Office: 'What concerns me is that Miss Oxton, who is an exceptionally determined young woman, may go ahead without permission. If she were to do so and come to harm this would seriously damage the various other expeditions which are now in train.'
London advised him to tell Miss Oxton that she could expect no help from the embassy if she got into difficulties. Foreign Office minister Ted Rowlands was dissuaded from associating himself with the expedition.
Four Wrens were ordered to drop out, at which Miss Oxton announced that 'the Ministry of Defence think it is too hazardous for service girls.'
The girls emerged unscathed from the wetlands in April 1977, but the mythical canal eluded them.
Celibrate Diversity.
All cultures are the same.
We are no more civilized than anyone else.
So, head on out!
The next episode of "Seconds From Disaster?"
This thread is worthless without pictures.
Good wisdom is oft learned through bad experience.
You may not be far from the truth. During the search for those three climbers on Mt. Hood, two young women from Wisconsin were lost while climbing in China. CHINA? What were they thinking? The chicoms had no information on their whereabouts. I still don't know what the outcome was for them.
Bodies found, investigation pending... One was a male, I believe..
"I still don't know what the outcome was for them"
It was a woman and a man. They have found one of the bodies.
The only news I heard was a short radio blurb about two weeks ago. Very sad. Apparently, she enjoyed climbing unclimbed/unnamed mountains and China has a bunch of them.
Except that you do not learn anything from the worst experiences because you are dead. Others may.
The bandits in the region are likely to see this all-girl team as a "recreational" opportunity.
"The bandits in the region are likely to see this all-girl team as a "recreational" opportunity"
No-one here has seemed to notice that these girls made this hike in 1977,per the last sentence of the article.
I was going to point that out myself. Very confusing, to me at least.
Girl power in action.I admire their gumption,but i think the decision to go into a dangerous area is lacking in common sense.
Look towards the bottom of this page:
http://www.thecatdragdinn.org/ajo99c.htm
The story says Carolyn Oxton was 32 in 1977. This story appears to be some kind of historical reprint.
I saw that, too. If it's not a typo, just how old are these 'girls,' anyway?
Every year at this time, the Public Records Office releases papers which were classified for a certain period at the time, so yesterday various government papers were released from 1976 which had been held for a thirty year period, of which this was one of them.
This isn't at all obvious from the online article linked. Most of the broadsheet papers however had double page spreads on various stories from the papers released, so in the print version of the Telegraph it would be a lot more obvious that all of the sub stories were related to the archive papers, hence the fact that they don't really make it clear in the article.
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