The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon Chapter 10

The Green Hell

• This chapter begins with Fawcett asking, "Are you game?" (10.1).
• For what? Wrestling an anaconda? Fishing for piranha? Chewing a piece of gum?
• No, Fawcett is recruiting a new second-in-command, Frank Fisher, for his second Amazonian expedition, this one to track the course of the Rio Verde, which in Spanish means "Green Rio."
• This expedition is even rougher than the last.
• It's muddy, the men's shoes disintegrate, and their eyes are invaded by bees known as "eye lickers" (10.13). This is worse than anything in Eli Roth's Green Inferno movie.
• Even though they are in a lush jungle, dudes can't find edible food.
• All the plants are pointy and poisonous and any animals that die are almost instantly stripped of flesh by insects.
• For almost a month, the men travel with next to no food.
• Fawcett fears mutiny.
• Hey, at least everyone is too skinny to turn to cannibalism.
• When all hope is almost lost, Fawcett spies a deer in the jungle. He shoots it with his rifle, and the men finally have fresh meat to eat.
• Half Fawcett's men die, but the rest escape the journal into Bolivia.