Anacondas, Millipedes Terrify Writer Hunting Explorer in Amazon
April 30 (Bloomberg) — After British explorer Percy Fawcett disappeared in the Amazon jungle in 1925, a number of copycat “Fawcett freaks” also vanished while searching for him.
David Grann survived to write “The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon.” It’s a gripping story that has already been optioned by Brad Pitt’s production company.
The strapping Fawcett had a fierce desire to dive into uncharted territory. Intoxicated with tales of El Dorado and envious of Hiram Bingham’s discovery of Machu Picchu, Fawcett was convinced he would find in the Amazon a sophisticated, ancient, hidden civilization, which he called “Z.”
Fawcett ventured deep into the state of Mato Grosso, on foot and by boat, to terra incognita near the Xingu River. He had a talent for befriending Indians, whom he didn’t consider savages and whose jungle survival tactics he absorbed. Sometimes Indians acted as guides along the way.
While he never returned from the 1925 expedition, his fearlessness inspired Conan Doyle’s “The Lost World.” Grann was hooked when he came upon a reference to Fawcett while doing research on another project, and became determined to trace the Briton’s last journey.
Pudgy, bespectacled and balding, the 42-year-old Grann, who writes for the New Yorker, looks as if he’d be more at home in a library than swinging a machete in a rainforest.
“I’m the least likely explorer,” he admitted recently in his small, untidy office in the Conde Nast building on Manhattan’s Times Square. “Indiana Jones” adventures are among the many books spilling off his shelves.
Kissing Bug
“The thing about Fawcett is that his life took the form of these adventure stories he read as a boy,” Grann said. “In the course of the research, I read quest and adventure novels, and wanted the book to mimic some of that form.”
Grann didn’t realize at first that he would be mimicking Fawcett himself, negotiating anacondas and cyanide-squirting millipedes, not to mention the kissing bug whose lip-bite can have fatal consequences 20 years later. The impulse took hold of him when he tracked down Fawcett’s granddaughter in Wales.
“She led me to the back room where there was a box full of disintegrating books, Fawcett’s secret diaries and logbooks,” Grann said of this unpublished trove. “They had all these clues, including where exactly he went in the jungle, because he always told rivals misleading information. He didn’t want them to beat him to his discovery.” With so much information about Fawcett’s plans, Grann decided he was going to do something “foolish” and took leave of his wife and young child to find Z.
Panic Sets In
Unlike Fawcett, Grann had access to immunity shots and a satellite phone. Deforestation also made part of the trip a breeze. Nonetheless, he became separated from his guide for several hours — more than enough time for panic to set in.
“I tried to find him and got lost, and had no food or water,” said Grann. “It gave me similar insight into what Fawcett experienced.”
When they were reunited, his guide led him to a village where he met the archaeologist who shared his obsession with Fawcett: Michael Heckenberger.
“He has been working for the past decade in the area where Fawcett thought he would find Z,” said Grann, “and has found evidence of 20 pre-Columbian settlements in the very same region. These settlements had roads and causeways built in right angles, bridges, and populations between 2,500 and 5,000 people, making them about the size of many medieval cities. So it’s much more than a fable.”
Manipulations of Earthscape
This has triggered an archaeological revolution in the Amazon and Heckenberger’s findings are opening a new chapter of human history. These ruins are not made of stone, like those of the Incas; rather they are sophisticated yet perishable manipulations of earthscape. Fawcett’s remains, though, were never found, though he is believed to have vanished in this area.
After spending five weeks in the Brazilian wilderness in 2005, Grann returned relatively unscathed. “I got parasites and got a little sick, but lost a few pounds and was happy about that,” he said.