Sport Berkey

I bought the Sport Berkey to use in northern Guatemala, where I spent five days trekking through the jungle exploring the ancient Maya site of El Mirador. The outfitter provided all the potable water for our trip, but I wanted a filter in case there were any contamination issues. All our supplies were loaded on mules while we hiked. We had to carry our own water during the day, replenished with refills the mule train left along the trail. I needed more capacity than the 22 oz. Sport Berkey had, so I screwed the cap and filter on a 48 oz. Nalgene Cantene, which worked perfectly. I could easily drink from the Sport Berkey/Nalgene combination using the cap straw without removing my water bottle from my daypack. This was a great solution, and my drinking water tasted excellent during the entire trip. Before we left camp on the fourth day, our cook scrounged us some extra jugs of water from some guards at the archaeology site. We refilled our bottles using this water. Unknown to us, the jugs had previously been used for gasoline before being refilled with water! I hiked all morning, drinking regularly from my Sport Berkey. The water tasted fine, just like it had for the previous three days. When I arrived at our lunch stop, some of the group said they weren’t able to drink their water due to the foul taste and smell from the old gasoline. When I took the cap off my Sport Berkey, it had a very strong gasoline odor. We refilled with clean water, but our bottles were already tainted from the gasoline-flavored water. Even though the inside of my bottle smelled of gasoline, I was able to continue using my Sport Berkey the last two days of the trip with no taste or stomach issues. Filtered through the Sport Berkey, my drinking water continued to taste as clean and fresh as when I started the trip. The Sport Berkey is small, portable, and makes an excellent filter system for travel and daily use. The nice folks at www.jamesfilter.com give great customer service.