Slovenian marathon swimmer, Martin Strel, became on 6th April 2007 the first person to swim the entire length of the Amazon - nearly 5,400km (3,375 miles) from Peru to Brazil. Below are extracts from his weekly diary.

FRIDAY, 16 FEBRUARY

I wear a wet suit that covers my body completely. I also need to protect my head, so I use different types of caps because otherwise I would get burnt within a few days and I would not be able to continue.

I make sure I always urinate in the wet suit. I put it on in the morning and take it off when it's dark. When I finish swimming, I just clean the wet suit when I am done.

FRIDAY, 23 FEBRUARY

My team has made me a handy mask. It sits on my face while I swim on my back. The sun has been terribly strong in the last few weeks. I expected more rain.

The mask is made of cloth. It works okay. It gets a little heavy when it's wet and it's a little hard to swim with it, so I only use it for one or two hours a day when the sun is strongest.

I also do a kind of meditation at the end of the day. I try to feel my body and my muscles when I am in my bed. I learned that from some psychologists. It's like a mental massage, it helps me relax and forget the pain.

FRIDAY, 2 MARCH

I am still swimming with pink dolphins, they are great creatures. I've seen hundreds in the upper part of the river.

I almost touched one because they come very close to me when I'm swimming. They are very friendly.

I've been told they get bigger and bigger the further I swim in the lower part of the Amazon.

FRIDAY, 16 MARCH

Regarding the health of my team, two of them are still in hospital with serious fever and cramps.

They drank some water from the tap, which they were not supposed to do, but they were thirsty and forgot. It should take them about a week to recover and they'll be back with us.

The sounds of the Amazon at night are wonderful. The jungle, the birds and the animals are truly amazing.

FRIDAY, 23 MARCH

I also taught myself a different style of swimming. I float along and swim very smoothly like a log. I try to swim like a dolphin or a beaver, moving with the waves, which means I don't suffer so much wind and wave pressure.

I have cramps every day, all over my body. I usually don't take medicine for them. I try to control them in my head. When I have a cramp I usually stop for a little bit, stretch my muscles and extend them - the same procedure that every athlete uses - because if it hurts too much you can't continue.

Mosquitoes are not such a big problem. Some locals advised us to apply lemon juice to keep them away. Anyway, we have other more dangerous bugs here to deal with. So far we have also managed to avoid them.

FRIDAY, 30 MARCH

When we reached the city of Santarem a few days ago people warned us of the risk of bandits. They warned us not to continue without arms, and even told us we risked being killed.

So now we have these three armed guards constantly scanning what's going on, especially at night.

FRIDAY, 30 MARCH (CONTINUED)

Many of you are still very interested in how we cope with the piranhas. There are thousands of them. Often you find them closer to the shore.

So if you are bleeding or you have an open wound they will catch you right away.

So I never swim close to the banks. I stay in the middle and I put some gasoline and cream on my wetsuit to stop the piranhas from smelling my body.

My team also can throw blood or meat on the other side of the boat to distract them.

Jacares [small species of crocodile] are also very dangerous. You see them all over the place, especially when you stop the boat at night and you flash the lights in the water, you can see their eyes. So far no jacares have tried to attack me.

SIMPLY THE BEST - THAT'S THE SEA CADETS !

SUNDAY, 8 APRIL

I feel like a kid when dreams come true. I am very happy. I think I haven't quite got into my head what I have achieved. My swim is done, 5268km in 66 days.

I think the Amazon took me, allowed me to be part of it, the river accepted me, protected me and allowed me to swim it, and now I am at the end and I am still alive. I've been talking with the Amazon river for 66 days now. The animals have been swimming with me for weeks, I think Nature allowed me to do this."

People still ask me, why I did this. I am a regular man, a regular common guy who just has higher goals than usual. I want to show everybody around the world that if you set a goal that is a little bit unusual or higher, you have to try to achieve it. If you keep working and don't quit right away, you will come to the end. This could be whatever. I chose to swim the Amazon.

I also want to promote a message of clean rivers, clean water and friendship, because these rivers and water have to stay clean, otherwise the world will collapse. The Amazon river is still very clean, local people use it as a natural resource and I think the Amazon should stay clean forever.

I have seen some deforestation, but it is not going to be good if we keep expanding the limit. I want to pass this message to everybody: "Do not look only for business and for money when you come closer to nature." One of my missions is to protect the rainforest.

Physically, I have sores and pains in my whole body. I still have problems with my head, it feels like a bomb about to explode, I do not have a temperature but if feels like there is a big pressure - like fire in my head - I need to cool down a little bit. Pain has been part of my daily progress for the last couple of weeks. But I do not complain about it - it has just been part of my life.

My arms and legs feel as if I am carrying a big iron bar, they feel very heavy. I have problems eating, to move a spoon or fork, or to drink, I have problems to dress.

I want to do another big swim but I still do not know where.

I would tell people: "Do not have fears in front of something that you do not know if you can pass, just set it up in a right and proper way, never give up and some day your dreams will come true."