In 1933 Eric Pixton left Buenos Aires aboard the Lybo, a kayak made of canvas with his rows, a couple of sails and 150 kilograms of equipment. His goal was sailing the Uruguay river upstream about 1200 kilometers, through the boundaries of Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil to the Iguazu Falls. Pixton's trip became a book published in 1936 by Argentinian publisher Peuser and then fell into oblivion. Almost a century later, Mariano Herrera (Buenos Aires, 1970) followed Pixton's river trails with his camera. Instead of just reenacting a forgotten expedition, The shadow of a river reflects on time and memory while portraying life on the shores that end in the Paraná delta, South America's second largest river. Soon Pixton's traces become the building blocks of Herrera's own visual narrative. Old memorabilia about the original adventure is intertwined with recent portraits and written stories about the delta inhabitants. The passing of time is ever present in Pixton's worn pictures, yellowed pages and crumpled handwritten notes. The book alternates color with black and white, newspaper clips, old archives and typewritten paper sheets that acquire the same tonality as the river.