Into the Amazon

Years before this trip, John Harrison had been on a jungle expedition in which one of his companions lost their life. This time he went back, and his wife Heather went with him. Their destination was the Tumucumaque Hills, a range along Brazil's northern edge that remains among the few places on the planet no one has fully mapped. In 1950 a young French explorer vanished deep in that wilderness, and his diary became the spark for the Harrisons' journey. Travelling by canoe up some of the most isolated tributaries of the Amazon, they had no film crew, no sponsors, and almost no hope of rescue should matters go badly.

The river country proved dangerous in many ways. Malaria, venomous snakes, jaguars, piranhas, aggressive wild pigs and insects that burrow into flesh all threatened them, and at times they found themselves lost. They also had to cut a steep route over the mountains by hand. The book follows the couple through this punishing terrain and tracks how they tried to hold on to their mental stability and their marriage in one of the harshest environments on earth.

This is a candid, unvarnished account of travel and survival, suited to readers who enjoy first-hand expedition narratives about remote South America.