Having waited out the end of the wet season, the expedition begins in earnest on 20 April, with the party trekking across the hot cerrado. They first visit São Paulo for anti-venom supplies, before going west, into the enormous country’s interior towards the Paraguay River, skirting along the Brazil-Bolivia border and arriving in Corumbá a week later. Travelling by train, the Fawcetts and Rimmell leave Rio on 11 February. After a brief NYC stop they continue together (minus Lynch) to Rio de Janeiro. Raleigh Rimmell is in America already, as is Fawcett’s business partner, Lynch, who is busy boozing through the expedition kitty. Percy and Jack Fawcett leave from Liverpool on 3 December, bound for New York aboard the Aquitania. Many tribes that had tasted contact with the so-called civilised world were profoundly opposed to repeating the experience – having suffered slavery, torture, murder, rape, abuse and exploitation at the hands of the rubber barons who controlled the ‘black gold’ trade – and often met white intruders with lethal violence. She remained convinced her husband and son were alive for many years after their disappearance.įawcett believed other Amazonian citadel seekers were looking in the wrong places – too close to major rivers – and instead planned to explore inland between the Xingu and Tapajós tributaries, where he was convinced Z lay. Percy’s wife remained a staunch defender of his expeditions (and later his reputation), despite various forced moves around England and the US and extended periods on the brink of destitution. He almost bailed from the expedition before it started, after falling madly in love with a girl aboard the boat taking them from New York to Rio. Son of a doctor in the sleepy seaside town of Seaton, Devon, Rimmell was more flamboyant and emotional than his best friend Jack. He’d just turned 22 when they disappeared. The eldest son of Fawcett and his long-suffering wife Nina, Jack was cut from the same cloth as his father, taking a very serious approach to the business of discovery, forgoing meat and alcohol and maintaining good physical fitness. A recipient of the RGS Founders Medal, Fawcett is often called Colonel, but his correct rank was actually Lieutenant Colonel. Fawcett was a polarising character, either revered or reviled by those who followed him into hell, both in the Amazon and in Flanders.
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