321: Dying for the Lost City of Z. Xingu National Park.

Summary

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National Park After Dark - Episode 321: Dying for the Lost City of Z. Xingu National Park

Release Date: September 1, 2025
Hosts: Danielle & Cassie
Main Theme: Exploring the gripping mystery of British explorer Percy Fawcett’s disappearance in 1925 while searching for the legendary "Lost City of Z" in the Amazon's Xingu National Park—examining the layers of adventure, obsession, colonialism, and the enduring dangers (and myths) of exploration.

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Cassie recounts the epic tale of Percy Fawcett, a renowned British explorer who vanished alongside his son Jack and friend Raleigh Rimmel while searching for a fabled civilization deep in Brazil's Amazon rainforest—now Xingu National Park. The hosts explore Fawcett’s background, motivations, the logistics and dangers of Amazon expeditions, the legacy of his vanished party, and the modern implications for how we view history, indigenous lands, and the romance of "unexplored" places.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Stage: Obsession and the Amazon’s Dangers

• Cassie opens with how exploration’s allure can twist into fatal obsession. Fawcett’s story is seen as both adventure and cautionary tale.
  • “Sometimes the very obsession that fuels a journey is the thing that dooms it.” (00:46, Cassie)
• The Amazon, particularly the Xingu, is depicted as "one of the most biologically diverse and physically demanding environments on the planet." (33:36)

2. Percy Fawcett: Life & Legend

• Born in 1867 in England and raised in an atmosphere steeped in adventure and science ("adventure and discipline were in his DNA" [04:23]).
• Military and surveyor training provided both the discipline and bravado that shaped his approach to exploration.
• Developed a unique respect for indigenous peoples compared to peers—preferred gifts and diplomacy over force.
  • "While many European explorers... relied on heavy firearms... Fawcett preferred to travel light and maintained warm relations with the locals." (15:32)
• His romantic letters home are published by his son; his wife Nina is depicted as supportive, yet her sacrifices are explored.

3. The Beginnings of the Lost City of Z

• Fawcett becomes obsessed after reading “Manuscript 512,” a colonial-era document about a stone city in the jungle (25:00).
• Reframed popular (and flawed) European assumptions that the Amazon couldn’t have supported major civilizations due to poor soil (26:30).

4. Fawcett’s Explorations & Approach

• Descriptions of jungle hardships: disease, insects, starvation, and the psychological toll (33:36).
• His unique leadership style—diplomatic, yet autocratic and sometimes arrogant.
  • Anecdote of Fawcett shooting a snake’s head off to assert leadership:
    "Once, when a fellow officer questioned his judgment... Fawcett ended the argument by... calmly [shooting] the head off a nearby viper." (35:19)
• Wary relationship with both indigenous communities and his own men—hostility and illness were endemic challenges.

5. The Final Expedition (1925)

• Joined by his devoted son Jack (21) and Raleigh Rimmel, both “inexperienced but loyal” (39:10).
• Chose a minimal team for secrecy and control, partially out of frustration with past party dynamics.
• Last known location: “Dead Horse Camp” in Xingu National Park—a critical Amazonian corridor for biodiversity and indigenous cultures.
• Final letter to his wife:
  • "You need have no fear of any failure. We will be all right." (47:12, Fawcett’s letter)

6. Disappearance & Aftermath

• Last seen by the Kalapalo people, who later reported the trio was treated well and sent onward.
  • "The men were treated with food and shelter then sent off again heading east." (48:38)
• Fawcett’s standing instruction: send no rescue for a year. Months ticked by, then years.
  • "If I don't talk to you in like 4 days, send help." (51:39, Danielle)
• Media frenzy and adventurer mania—over a hundred people are believed to have died searching for Fawcett (56:32).
  • Headline Excerpt: “Explorer Swallowed by Jungle. Lost City Claims three More Lives. Did Fawcett become King of the Indians?” (56:01)

7. Theories, Searches, and the Spread of Legend

• Dozens of rescue missions, many tragic or fruitless.
• Oral histories from Kalapalo suggest Fawcett and his party were killed—possibly for violating sacred territory or through cultural misunderstanding.
  • "The trio offended a neighboring group... and were killed shortly after leaving the Kalapalo village. The killings, they said, were not acts of violence, but a response to perceived disrespect and threat." (59:18)
• Skepticism around oral histories is critiqued as dismissive of indigenous knowledge and experience.
  • "That’s so dismissive... you’re speaking to a culture that has almost exclusively survived off of oral histories for millennia. I’m gonna take their word for it.” (68:36, Cassie)
• New archaeology (satellite LIDAR, discoveries of earthen cities) supports Fawcett’s once-dismissed theory: large civilizations did exist in the Amazon.

8. Re-examining Legacy: Colonial Myths and Indigenous Realities

• Xingu National Park itself is testimony to indigenous land stewardship—its history is not 'lost' but actively managed and defended.
• Reflecting on complicated legacies of “explorers”:
  • “Fawcett’s story raises questions that feel just as urgent today as ever. How do we balance curiosity with respect? At what point does a quest for knowledge become an act of intrusion?” (66:10, Cassie)
• The enduring allure of mystery is acknowledged, but so is the risk of romanticizing exploitation.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On the seduction and peril of exploration:

• “Sometimes the very obsession that fuels a journey is the thing that dooms it.”
  — Cassie, (00:46)

On Fawcett’s downfall:

• “He’s taking two young kids with no experience... and he’s saying, this is great because they’re not going to question my authority.”
  — Cassie, (40:17)

On the impact on family:

• “His wife Nina was his anchor. From the heart of the jungle, Fawcett sent her long handwritten letters, part love note, part expedition log...”
  — Cassie, (27:50)

On dismissing oral histories:

• “That’s so dismissive... you’re speaking to a culture that has almost exclusively survived off of oral histories for millennia. I’m gonna take their word for it.”
  — Cassie, (68:36)

On shifting perceptions:

• “When does exploration become intrusion?”
  — Cassie, (75:48)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:03 – Opening thoughts on the cost of obsession and introduction to Percy Fawcett
• 04:19 – 10:00 – Percy Fawcett’s early life, family, military career
• 13:10 – 16:00 – Amazon expeditions, interactions with indigenous peoples
• 20:21 – 25:00 – Fawcett’s stories fuel legend; finding Manuscript 512 and obsession with Z
• 33:36 – 40:00 – Dangers of exploration style, nickname “Dead Horse Camp”
• 44:32 – 48:38 – Xingu National Park setting, summary of region’s people & environment
• 51:39 – 56:38 – Aftermath of disappearance, rescue attempts, and media circus
• 58:00 – 62:15 – Theories on Fawcett’s fate, modern validations of his theories
• 66:05– 69:32 – Colonialism, indigenous knowledge, modern perspectives on exploration
• 75:48 – Reflection: when does exploration become intrusion?

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Tone & Style

The episode blends suspenseful, evocative storytelling with insightful, often humorous banter between Danielle and Cassie. While they delight in the intrigue and drama of Fawcett’s quest, they’re careful to challenge cheap romanticism and foreground the ongoing significance and rights of Amazonian indigenous peoples. The tone is engaging, curious, and reflective, with touches of irreverent friendship and respect for complex histories.

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Final Takeaways

• Percy Fawcett’s quest remains one of modern exploration’s greatest unsolved mysteries—but is as much about what we seek out as what we leave behind.
• The Xingu and the Amazon continue to be enduring sites of biodiversity and indigenous sovereignty—not empty frontiers awaiting (re)discovery.
• The story prompts listeners “to balance curiosity with respect,” questioning how old adventure tales shape new responsibilities.

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Closing Note:
Cassie and Danielle urge listeners to keep learning, challenge assumptions, and realize that sometimes “the world still holds places that won’t yield all their secrets.” (66:20)

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(For deeper dives, check out David Grann’s The Lost City of Z and the 2016 film adaptation, or Fawcett’s own writings as curated by his son Brian.)

Transcript

[A]

We're used to thinking of great explorations as triumphs. A determined leader, a daring journey, obstacles overcome through courage and skill. The map expands, the story ends in glory. But not every expedition is destined for discovery. Sometimes the dangers are underestimated, the clues are misread. The wilderness is underestimated, and the cost of chasing an idea becomes higher than anyone imagined. And sometimes the that very obsession that fuels a journey is the thing that dooms it. In 1925, the British explorer Percy Fawcett set off in the heart of the Amazon with his 21 year old son Jack and Jack's friend, Raleigh Rimmel. He believed they were on the verge of finding Z, a legendary lost city of stone hidden deep in the rainforest. He'd studied ancient accounts, examined artifacts, and convinced himself the evidence was undeniable. If he was right, it would be the discovery of the century. But just weeks into their journey, all three men disappeared without a trace. No bodies, no gear, nothing. They were just gone. Despite decades of searches and countless theories, the fate of Percy Fawcett remains one of exploration's greatest mysteries. A mystery that has drawn dozens more treasure seekers into the jungle, many of whom also never made it out. Some were killed by disease, starvation or hostile encounters. Others simply vanished. Just like Fawcett. Welcome to National Park After Dark.

[B]

Foreign hello, everyone, and welcome back to National Park After Dark. I'm Danielle. I'm listening today.

[A]

I'm Cassie. I'm telling the story. Welcome.

[B]

Amazing. I'm so excited. I have been waiting for this moment and I don't want to ask too many questions, but there's one that I think you can answer right off the top. Does this have anything to do with a national park or just.

[A]

Okay, this fully has to do with the national park. I'm not even like, loosely tying something together here. This story takes takes place inside of a national park.

[B]

Okay. Per, I. Not that I'd be like, okay, well, we gotta scrap it. Sorry.

[A]

It's like, I don't want to hear it. Throw that.

[B]

Sorry for all the research you've done. No, I'm super stoked. I really love this story. I haven't read the book, but I've watched the movie, which is kind of a role reversal for me. But yeah.

[A]

And the movie is based off of true events too. I mean, of course it's dramatized. It has Charlie Hunnam in it and, you know, it's a dramatized version of it, so it's fully accurate. But it is, it does follow the true story.

[B]

Okay. And it's been quite some time since I've seen it, so I'm so excited. Well, I guess before you get into it, because I know you did say it's pretty lengthy, which is great because the story is like everything I love within the. It's like it's the perfect type of story. It has mystery and adventure and some question marks and just desire to find something new.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

But anyways, I know it's kind of lengthy, but we just wanted to say that next week there will be no new episode. We're taking a break to celebrate Cassie's wedding.

[A]

It's happening. Yes. It's coming up soon. And we were like, you know, it's a little much to have have episodes and putting things out at the same time. So today this is coming out on Labor Day, so I don't know if you're listening on release day and if not, maybe you can save it for next Monday if you're going to be missing us. But then we'll be back to our normal schedule of the after.

[B]

Yeah. Okay. Is that it?

[A]

Yeah, I think so. Let's jump into the story of Percy Fawcett and I'm going to the way that I've formatted this story is I want to tell about Percy Fawcett and his life. So then you have context when we get into his disappearance.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

So going back to the very beginning of Percy Fawcett's life. He was born in 1867 in Torgway, England, which is a seaside town on the south coast of the uk. When you look at his family members, it that adventure and discipline were in his DNA. His father was an amateur scientist with a passion for exploration. He was a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. A place where maps were drawn, expeditions were launched, and reputations were made or broken. Percy's older brother Edward was a mountaineer and Eastern mystic. Dinner table conversations in the Fawcett household was as likely to drift towards far off lands and legends as it was to current affairs back home. In this environment, Percy grew up with a sense that the world was wider and wild elder than the small slice of England that he knew from an early age. Percy absorbed two seemingly opposite influences. An obsessive love of mystery, which he got from his family, and a rigid sense of order which he got from his education. His early schooling was conventional for the time until in his late teens he moved to southeast London to attend the Royal Military Academy in Woolrich, the British Army's elite training ground for artillery forces. There he learned the precision and discipline that would later Serve him well and some would argue, also lead him into dangerous overconfidence. Fawcett graduated from the Royal military academy in 1886 as a second lieutenant in the Royal Artillery. His military career quickly took him abroad. Within a year of graduating, the 19 year old Fawcett was posted to Ceylon, which is modern day Sri Lanka, beginning a long stretch of service overseas. His time in Ceylon was also the beginning of his fascination with tropical landscapes, ancient ruins and the ideas that there were still corners of the earth not fully mapped or understood by Europeans. These early years planted the seed of conviction that would dominate his life. The belief that modern civilization had not yet uncovered all of humanity's greatest stories. After about a decade in Ceylon, Fawcett's military career brought him to Hong Kong and then Morocco. But by the time he was in his late 30s, he was feeling restless. The military's routines felt too constrained. In 1901, he married Nina Agnes Patterson, the daughter of a fellow British officer. She shared his fascination with exploration and would become his lifelong supporter and correspondent. That same year, Fawcett decided to follow in his father's footsteps and joined the Royal Geographical Society's training program in London, where he learned the skills that would eventually make him one of the most sought after surveyors of his day. Two years later, in 1903, Nina gave birth to their first child, J, who would one day join Fawcett in the Amazon. In 1906, they welcomed a second son, Brian, who as an adult would go on to publish Exploration Fawcett Journey to the Lost City of Z, a book that compiled his father's journals and accounts. So there's a lot of, there are a lot of books about Percy Fawcett and there's actually one that was recently published in 2009, which was one that I listened to on Audible and I thought was really interesting. And that was someone who went back and researched this whole story. But his son actually published all of his, all of his writings that he would be away on expeditions and would send them home to his family and be like, hey, I'm here, I'm doing this. And he published all of that. So if people are interested, you can actually read Percy Fawcett's writings, which is cool.

[B]

And in the movie Percy is played by that guy, Sons of Anarchy guy, Charlie Hunnam, right? I've never seen Sons of Anarchy. And I'm not a Charlie Hunnam, like girly.

[A]

I'm not like, I'm not like attached to him as a fan type way. But I mean, I Do like his acting, but I'm not like, oh my God. Drooling. But I do think he's a good actor and I like him. And he is in Sons of Anarchy, which I'm. I guess I'm not shocked you haven't seen because I can't really picture that being your thing.

[B]

But I love. It's definitely your. Oh my God, you're. Loved it. All about the motorcycles. Yeah, that's definitely your type of show.

[A]

I really liked it and I remember watching it in college actually and age myself completely. But in college I remember it was always on. On Tuesday nights and we had a thing where all of our neighbors would get together and we would sit together and we would watch the new episodes every Tuesday.

[B]

We did that with American Horror Story.

[A]

Oh, we did that too. That was on Wednesdays.

[B]

Yeah, it was part. It was like the best because it was like right in the middle of the week. It was right before, you know, thirsty Thursdays and it's kind of like a wholesome thing. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, him. And what's the other guy that people are like so obsessed with? I almost said Tom Holland.

[A]

People are obsessed with.

[B]

I know. I love Tom Holland. He's so cute. What the heck? The guy in Venom. Have you seen them? No. Really? Sometimes I feel. Have you seen those memes where it's like me handing my alien a drink and. And then they like have a sip of it and then they're like. And that's a margarita. It's like sometimes I think of you as my alien because you like. Don't.

[A]

Thank you.

[B]

No, a lot.

[A]

I'm your alien.

[B]

Yeah. Okay.

[A]

I don't know a lot of names.

[B]

Hold on before we go on because it's going to bother the heck out of me. Have you seen the Lost City of Z?

[A]

The movie? Yes, I have.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

But I don't know who you're talking about.

[B]

Tom Hardy.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

I feel like people are very like into him too. And the whole like craze with Charlie Hunnam or what?

[A]

Yeah, he played in. He was one of the brothers that. They were the infamous gangsters. Reggie. Ronnie and Reggie. In. In England.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Ye. One of them.

[B]

No, both of them. Both of them?

[A]

Yeah. Identical twins.

[B]

Right.

[A]

It's like there's two Lindsay Lohans as well.

[B]

Right. In the Parent Trap. She played one of them.

[A]

She played H. She played one of them.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Okay. Anyway, go on. Lost City of Z. Percy.

[A]

Right, right. Back to the story. Nothing tests my decision making skills like the wine aisle. Am I supposed to know what pairs best with takeout pizza and three episodes of Love is Blind Spoiler? I don't. That's why I stopped overthinking it and started letting the pros handle it. This podcast is sponsored by Naked Wines and let me tell you, it's a game changer. Naked Wines is a wine club that connects you directly to the world's best independent winemakers. No middlemen, so you're getting world class wine delivered straight to your door. Last weekend I shared a bottle of delicious Chardonnay with my friends and they loved it and I looked like a great host. How did they do it? They cut out the middleman markup so you're paying up to 60% less than you'd pay in stores. Same amazing wine, way better price. Plus I've been rating my wines after each shipment and it's like they know me now and these aren't some mass produced bottles. Naked Wines backs over 90 independent winemakers worldwide. They've been doing this for over 15 years and it shows. Now is the time to join the Naked Wines community. Head to nakedwines.com click enter voucher and put in our code npad for both the code and password for six bottles of wine for just $39.99 with shipping included. That's $100 off your first six bottles at nakedwines.com npad and use the code and password npad for six bottles of wine for $39.99. Okay, so going back into Brian, his son, who ends up writing this book and publishing his writings. The same year that Brian was born, the skills that Percy Fawcett learned at the Royal Geographical Society were put to the test in South America. The Society dispatched Fawcett to map a remote and disputed stretch of border between Brazil and Bolivia, a landscape that was so inhospitable that previous surveyors had failed the job required more than just technical knowled demanded physical endurance and the ability to navigate both the dense, unforgiving rainforest and the complex mix of people who lived there. At the time, the Amazon basin was a patchwork of indigenous territories, isolating trading posts and rough frontier towns that had sprung up during a period known as the rubber boom, when European fortune seekers came in droves to harvest latex from wild rubber trees.

[B]

Was this. What year was this?

[A]

This was in like the early 19, 1903.

[B]

Yeah, this was the same time I read a lot about this when I was reading the river of Doubt with Theodore Roosevelt's expedition to South America.

[A]

There's a lot of parallels to the river of Doubt. And this, I think just kind of the time frame, but also the location.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And a lot of. I think the same obstacles that were in. That are pretty similar to in the story as well. I also didn't know latex came from trees.

[B]

So you're allergic to trees?

[A]

I am allergic to trees. That's kind of messed up.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Just a lot of people are allergic to latex, though. I wonder if I would be allergic to the tree or I'm just allergic to the form.

[B]

I'm sure it's the form. It's all the chemical processes and.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Making it into.

[A]

I've never touched a wild rubber tree, though, so.

[B]

Well, I would advise against it, probably.

[A]

I'm not anaphylactic allergic, though, so I feel like I could try it and just see. I'm not gonna eat it.

[B]

I just remember. I'll never forget the time that, like, at work, we. There was some sort of celebrate. What was it? We were celebrating you for something.

[A]

So. My birthday.

[B]

I don't know if it was your birthday or maybe something to do with, like, was it my retirement party? I think it was your retirement party. And, like, the whole hospital was full filled with balloons and, like, whatever. And you, like, walked in. You're like, I can't. I physically actually can't be here.

[A]

Like, this is so nice. But I'm literally allergic to this entire room right now.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So I have to go home, like, retirement early.

[B]

Yeah. I'm actually retiring in this moment, for.

[A]

Context, my retirement party was. I was having my kidney transplant and I was going to be out of office. And one of the really nice memories, I guess, from that hospital is that they threw me a rich retirement party because they said, I'm never coming back. I'm retiring. And people thought I was kidding. I was not.

[B]

I don't think you were kidding. I didn't. I thought I was like, this girl is not meant for this life. No, there she goes.

[A]

There she goes. Off to bigger and better things with.

[B]

A new kidney and everything. No. Yeah.

[A]

And it was true. I never went back. Even when I was begged, I held my ground. Only mainly because the pay was awful. Anyway, I'm allergic to latex.

[B]

Anyway. Long story short.

[A]

Long story short, I am allergic to latex and I've never touched a wild rubber tree. So I'll keep you guys all updated if I ever do.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Well, going back into this period where he was sent to this place to map it, Fawcett proved that he was capable of navigating all of it. He covered vast distances by canoe, mule and on foot, taking meticulous measurements and keeping detailed not. He also developed a reputation for his unusually respectful interactions with indigenous communities. While many European explorers of the era relied on heavy firearms and displays of force, Fawcett preferred to travel light and maintained warm relations with the locals, sometimes trading gifts or stories. This approach didn't always guarantee safety, but it did earn him trust in regions where outsiders were often met with hostility. In the borderlands between Brazil, Bolivia and Peru, those quote unquote, locals included a remarkable divers of indigenous nations. Along the rivers live the essay who were skilled canoeists and fishermen whose villages were along the banks of major tributaries. Deeper in the forest were communities like the Chacobo and the Yaminawa, known for their mobility and seasonal movements throughout the rainforest. Each had its own history of contact with outsiders. Some had long standing grievances with explorers, traders or government agents. Others had been traumatized by epidemics and violence brought by previous incursions. To step uninvited into their territory was to take a profound risk, one Fawcett himself had always understood, even if he underestimated it in the end. Percy Fawcett's son grew up idolizing their father's adventures. When he returned from an expedition, he would tell the boys stories of towering waterfalls, rivers the colors of tea, the nights under skies full of more stars than they could imagine. Jack in particular, was captivated by them. Between assignments abroad, Percy encouraged Jack's love of the outdoors, taking him camping in the countryside, teaching him to read a compass and showing him how to pack for a journey. Even at a young age, Jack made it clear he didn't want to just hear those stories. He wanted to be part of them. Between 1906 and 1911, Percy Fawcett returned to South America multiple times, each expedition deepening his fascination with the continent's mysteries. In his journals, alongside meticulous measurements and sketches of riverbanks, Fawcett reported strange, fantastical sightings that made some of his colleagues at the Royal Geographical Society their eyebrows. He wrote of things like a giant anaconda that was 62ft long, a dog like animal with a cat's face, even a strange luminous light hovering above the trees. Aliens. Maybe that's what it remind me of. Like, I don't know.

[B]

Amazon's a crazy wild place.

[A]

Yeah. Who says there's not aliens in the Amazon?

[B]

I think people have said that multiple times.

[A]

I'm saying it right now.

[B]

Okay, yeah, 62ft is crazy.

[A]

That is crazy.

[B]

I don't know what, how do, what do you think is the.

[A]

What else reported? 62ft. How many Titanic ships are 62?

[B]

Okay, I just typed in longest. Okay, longest recorded. All right, do you have a guess?

[A]

The longest recorded one?

[B]

Yeah. Ever found and 45ft. Moly. No.

[A]

Okay, that's my guess.

[B]

In February 2024, scientists discovered a giant anaconda species in the Ecuadorian Amazon that could be the world's largest snake. The largest female measured 6.3 meters or 20.8ft long.

[A]

That's really.

[B]

But then it does say that the locals there had reported seeing anacondas larger.

[A]

Okay, so locals know 62.

[B]

Wait, and then it's wild though. And then it says like right after that, the largest confirmed green anaconda was, was about 27ft long. Either way, 60 something feet is crazy. Out of this world. Who's to say? I'm not trying to, I'm not trying.

[A]

To take meticulous measurements of things though. So maybe he really did know.

[B]

I don't know.

[A]

I don't know. I like to. Even though that sounds really outrageous to me and maybe it totally is and it's fabricated, I like to believe that there are things out there that we just don't know and that seem very far fetched.

[B]

Well, this Google results is also. I don't, I do not know because then another one from six days ago, it says the large. The. The snake was said to have been 33ft long. Okay, see, I don't know. Whatever. It also thinks I'm still in Jefferson County, Colorado, so I can't trust this.

[A]

I'm assuming this anaconda was not in Jefferson County, Colorado.

[B]

Yeah, no, I don't know. Either way, the Amazon is full of secrets. And if it wants to have a 60 something foot long anaconda as one of them, that's fine with me.

[A]

Her hair's so big because it's full of secrets. Secrets. Well, these accounts carried home in letters, articles and lectures at the Royal Geographical Society made their way into London's newspapers. And after dinner conversations, many people dismissed such reports as exaggerations. But Fawcett defended them, arguing that just because something sounded improbable to armchair scientists in London didn't mean it wasn't real.

[B]

Wow, I feel attacked.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You could have warned me you were about to say that.

[A]

I could have, but I think his, I think his, his argument is valid though, to. I mean, I think it just shows kind of both sides of the coin because people are like, that's crazy that we couldn't we couldn't imagine that. And then he's like, I was there. You guys are looking at this from a perspective of someone who has never been here before.

[B]

Well, and not only that, but when you were describing how his son, like, really wanted to be a part of the adventures as, like, his dad was describing them and things like that, especially at that time in London when, I mean, you couldn't be farther away, it, like, it feels like universes away from a place like that. Like, at least now, even if you physically have never been to a location, you can get a good sense and feel of it through various documentaries and a plethora of books. It's like, almost like, not that we know everything because we're far from that, but we have a pretty good understanding.

[A]

We can Google it.

[B]

A good handle on things at least. And we know at the bare minimum to know that, hey, that isn't really that impossible, if you think about it, because look at what we already know exists there. And at that time, it was just this complete blank in. On, like, on a page in a book of, like, question mark, I'm sure. And like, living in London, where it was just like, one of the dirtiest places around and just like, concrete jungle type of thing. And then to hear of this beautiful jungle, like, yeah, it's so cool.

[A]

It is. And I think that's something that we see throughout the story, too, and we'll get into more. Is that this was so outlandish for people that these stories. But it also became these dinner table conversations because it was like, this is what he. This is what he said he saw. Can you believe it? And, yeah, when you're sitting, like you said, in a concrete jungle and you're hearing these magnificent stories that are coming from someone local to you who's saying that they've seen this other world, I think that that really sparked people's imaginations and just curiosity.

[B]

It feels like in a very small, small scale. When we went to Antarctica and came back and people were like, well, how was it? It's like, yeah, I can't even describe to you what it was like. No parallel here. Like, yeah, it's just such a different place that it's hard to even get you to understand what it was like without being there, you know?

[A]

Yeah. My heart has been aching for Antarctica recently. It's been on my mind a lot recently.

[B]

But I like the trip or the place itself.

[A]

The place. And not that the trip wasn't wonderful, because it was, but it. It's specifically the place that's been on my mind a lot recently. But when we came back and people were asking me about it and I remember when we were there just thinking, like, how am I going to tell people of this place? I don't. I don't even know how to begin to describe it without saying, you just have to be here.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And. And I say that with also the. You just have to be here, witness it and see it and care about it. And also at the same time, you don't want a lot of people flocking there because of how untouched it is. That's kind of the special part about it. So I feel really protective. Not, not so much as protective, but lucky, I guess. I feel really lucky to have been able to witness that type of landscape. I don't know if I ever will again. I really hope I do. But it is definitely the best place I've ever visited. Yeah, I loved it so much. But I would like more of my travel to be. Have a little bit more things around for accommodations. But in general, I couldn't survive in Antarctica long on my own. We needed a whole crew of people on a boat to keep me alive. I cannot hack it on my own and that is why I'm up here. But, but anyway, going back into this, this is kind of similar to how I feel about Antarctica. Like you said, it's just this magical, wonderful landscape that he's explaining to people and he explains this stuff. He says armchair scientists are just saying things. They don't know what's real or not. And in an era where the Amazon remained almost entirely unknown to the British public, these stories, whether they were believed or not, fueled a growing legend of Fawcett as this fearless explorer willing to venture where few outsiders had ever gone. Percy Fawcett had become a household name in England. It was during that time, on one of Fawcett's stints in Brazil across a very interesting clue of the Amazon. And this was a document known as manuscript 512 that was stored in the archives of the National Library of Rio de Janeiro. It had been written roughly 150 years earlier in 1753 by an anonymous Portuguese fortune seeking settler who was in search of gold, territory and indigenous people to enslave. Manuscript 512 described a ruined stone city deep in the Amazon, complete with arches, wide streets and a temple adorned with strange symbols. The location was vague, the details something like out of a fairy tale. But from the moment Fawcett read it, he believed that the place being described was real. For context, most scholars in Europe at the time believed the Amazon had always been sparsely populated and that it was actually incapable of sustaining large, complex societies because of the soil. The rainforest may look very lush and green, but most of that life comes from a thin layer of decomposing plant matter on the surface. Once you strip that away, the soil beneath is actually surprisingly very poor in nutrients. But Fawcett disagreed with the notion that this would make it impossible for a city to thrive in the Amazon. He believed that this manuscript that he found might be evidence of a sophisticated pre Columbian civilization, one that had been overlooked by history or deeply forgotten. As the years passed, this idea turned into an obsession for him. In Fawcett's mind, the city described in the manuscript was real. There was no maybe. And he gave it a name. He called it the Lost City of Z. He imagined it as a place of monumental architecture and advanced knowledge, hidden beneath the Amazon's green canopy. If he could find it, he wouldn't just make a great archaeological discovery, he would rewrite the understanding of human history in the Americas. For Percy Fawcett, with this in mind, the jungle was no longer a place to survey. It was a puzzle. And Zee was the missing piece he was looking for. Every expedition he went on from then on, no matter its official purpose was also a personal quest, one that would soon take over his professional work. Through it all, his wife Nina was his anchor. From the heart of the jungle, Fawcett sent her long handwritten letters, part love note, part expedition log, describing the rivers he'd crossed, the food he'd, the people he'd meet. He shared his hopes for Z, his frustrations with setbacks and sometimes the weariness that crept in after weeks of rain and illness. Nina's replies were full of encouragement, news of their sons and reminders that no matter how far he roamed, he had a home to return to. I dream of that as me, but I'm the one sending the letters.

[B]

But you are Percy.

[A]

I'm Percy, yeah. I think she's writing me letters or reading my letters.

[B]

I don't know. I think it's cool to have like, I would dream of that being like flip flop, like it flip flopping like because I, I do like being at home sometimes. Like, I don't know if I could be gone for years at a time. Like at one point in time I was like, I could totally be like a solo backpacker and just like live for years abroad and nay, nay no longer. But of course I, I have the travel bug and I like being out and you know, you and I are gone for months at a time sometimes.

[A]

You know, quite literally.

[B]

But it is nice to have somebody, like, holding down the fort and that you can, like, touch base with whatever, and then you can come home and then they can go off and do their thing, and then it's your time to be home. You know, it's nice having a home base.

[A]

That is one thing. But Percy has that. He kind of has the best of both worlds because he has a family that he loves.

[B]

He has a loving, supporting, loving, supporting partner.

[A]

And he gets to go off and venture around the world, do his thing, and then come back to a home that's being kept and taken care of for him.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because a lot of this. And I was reading this in the book that was later published that I'll get into, not the one by his son, but by a recent journalist, his name. I have it written down here. It's Brian Grann, I think. And we'll get into it further in the story. But he talks a lot about his wife and just how she was really the one holding everything down. She married to have a family and kids and stuff, but then she ended up kind of a single mom.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Raising kids, taking care of the house, making sure that everything was. Was set for when he came home. And also, a lot of times she had to work because Percy's explorations didn't always bring home a lot of money.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So she was really acting out as a single parent while he was off gallivanting around the world. And. But from all that I've read is she was very supportive of it. It was like, this is his dream. I knew this when I married him. So I'm gonna hold down the fort.

[B]

You go, sounds like a perfect partnership they have going on. Maybe a little more money. Who knows?

[A]

If I was holding down the fort entirely on my own, I would want monetary compensation for that.

[B]

Up. I mean, you're not wrong.

[A]

Call me a gold digger Call.

[B]

Call me what you will Call me what you will. Have you seen those things? It's like, I don't know, though, because you are my little alien. But it's like, men be calling women gold diggers. And it's like, ooh, be scared. I'm coming after your $127. Yes.

[A]

It's like, what gold? It's like, men be afraid that women are after their money.

[B]

It's like, what money? Yeah, I would love to know. Yeah. Anyway, anywho, Nina is a real one. That's her name, right? Nina. Yes.

[A]

Nina is not a gold digger. Although if I was in her shoes I would have been this episode of National Park After Dark is brought to you by Wild Grain Grain. Wild Grain is the first bake from frozen subscription box for artisanal breads, seasonal pastries and fresh pastas. And the best part? Everything bakes in 25 minutes or less straight from your freezer. Unlike most store bought stuff, Wild Grain uses a slow fermentation process that's easier on your stomach, richer nutrients and antioxidants, and made with simple ingredients you can actually pronounce. Their boxes are fully customizable and they're always at adding seasonal and limited time treats. Plus they now offer a gluten free and plant based box. I just baked their croissants last weekend and wow, it was delicious. It came out with that perfect crunchy crust and soft inside. They didn't even last more than a day because we as in al devoured all of them. It's so convenient. Perfect for quick dinners, fall get togethers, or honestly, when you just want a warm loaf without the hassle. It's fresh, easy and tastes way better than anything I've grabbed at End the store this fall. Treat yourself and your loved ones to warm breads and seasonal baked goods from Wild Grain. Rumor has it they have apple cider donuts and pumpkin cinnamon biscuits, so get them before these seasonal items sell out. For a limited time, Wild Grain is offering our listeners $30 off the first box plus free croissants in every box when you go to wildgrain.com npad to start your subscription. You heard me. Free croissants in every box and $30 off your first box when you go to wildgrain.com npad that's wildgrain.com npad or you can use promo code npad at checkout. Don't miss their seasonal products. By the early 1910s, Fawcett had become one of the Royal Geographical Society's most reliable men in the field. Field his assignments took him back to South America again and again, not only to chart disputed borders, but also to carry out scientific observations, gather data on the local people, and whenever possible, search for hints of Z. Foss's expeditions were grueling. The Amazon was, and still is, one of the most biologically diverse and physically demanding environments on the planet. Fawcett's journals are full of descriptions of extreme heat and humidity, days passing without any food, and treacherous rivers that had to be crossed again and again as his team followed twisting paths through flooded forests. Insects were a constant torment Mosquitoes, biting flies, and parasitic mites that burrowed underneath the skin, leaving behind itchiness that could last for days. The damp ground would often soak through his clothes at night as he tried to sleep under minimal shelter. While he laid awake at night, he would listen to the distant calls of howler monkeys. And sometimes he would listen to things creep closer and closer at an unnerving sound beneath, like an unnerving underneath a canopy of darkness, just large creatures walking right around his camp. To many, this sounded like a literal nightmare, and yet Fossa seemed to thrive in these conditions. He prided himself on traveling light, often with fewer than half a dozen companions and minimal supplies. As I alluded to earlier, he believed that large, heavily armed expeditions were more likely to provoke conflict with indigenous groups. His preferred kit included canned food, a few medical essentials, lightweight hammocks, a sextant for navigation, and, of course, his journals. He also carried a pistol, but he rarely ever fired it.

[B]

It.

[A]

This approach earned him both admiration and criticism. Admirers saw him as resourceful and respectful, able to move through territory that had defeated other Europeans. Critics accused him of being reckless, taking too few men, too little food, and putting his companions in unnecessary danger. Fawcett brushed off those concerns when encountering indigenous communities, as I described earlier, he would present them with small gifts. Fish hooks, beads or cloth as a sign of his goodwill. In some cases, he was invited to share meals or stay overnight in a village. In others, wary groups disappeared into the forest before he could approach, leaving behind only footprints and the smoke of abandoned cooking fires. But Fawcett's personality wasn't all charm and tact. Some would say he was arrogant. He had little tolerance for people he considered incompetent, and his leadership style could be rigid, to say the least. Once, when a fellow officer in the field questioned his judgment during the expedition, Fawcett ended the argument by ordering the man to stand still while he drew his revolver and calmly shot the head off a nearby viper. The message he was sending was clear in the jungle. Fawcett's word was final. I mean, that's a hell of a. Hell of a way to show it. It's like I could kill you in. In a second.

[B]

Second. Yeah.

[A]

Don't. Don't argue with me.

[B]

Don't mess with me. Yeah.

[A]

World War I interrupted his work in South America. In 1914, Fawcett returned to England and joined the British army, serving on the Western Front and in campaigns across the Middle East. He rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel and was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for his actions under fire. The war hardened him physically and emotionally, but it also deepened his yearning for the Amazon. After seeing the mass killing and mechanized destruction of the Western Front, the jungle, with all its perils and possibilities, felt almost pure by comparison. After the war, Fawcett wasted no time returning to Brazil. His 1920 expedition, undertaken with just one companion, was planned specifically to search for the site he believed might be sea. It ended in failure. After weeks of illness, dwindling supplies and difficult encounters with local groups. Groups, Fawcett withdrew reluctantly, convinced that he had come closer than ever before. By now, Z had become more than a theory for Fawcett. He was completely obsessed with its existence. He compiled maps, cross referenced indigenous oral histories and re examined historical documents. Every new scrap of information seemed to him to point towards the same conclusion. That there was something out there, hidden in the unmapped jungle. His obsession didn't just alienate skeptics. It also inspired a growing circle of believers. But his growing fame came with pressure. Each failed expedition made it harder to secure funding for the next one. And each return to London without a major discovery made his claims about Z easier to dismiss. By the 1920s, Fawcett knew he needed to make one last decisive push. An expedition that would settle the question of Z once and for all. It was a decision that would seal his fate. In the spring of 1925, Percy Fawcett was 57 years old and was in excellent physical condition for his age. He would be on his eighth expedition to South America this time around. But in his mind, this was the one that mattered most. Fawcett had spent the previous winter in England planning what he viewed as mistakes of previous ventures. Too many men, too much gear, too many distractions would not be repeated. The final expedition would be lean, fast and discreet. Fewer people meant they would carry fewer supplies, but also had fewer mouths to feed, fewer opportunities for disagreement, and less chance of alarming or provoking indigenous groups whose lands they would cross. Ultimately, the team he put together consisted of just three men. Fawcett himself, his eldest son Jack, who is 21 years old, and Jack's close friend, Raleigh Rimmel. Jack was tall, athletic and fiercely loyal to his father, much like how Percy had once followed his own father's footsteps by joining the Royal Geographical Society. Jack had been shaped by the idea of carrying on a legacy. But his decision to undertake this journey wasn't just a matter of family loyalty. It was the result of years of dreaming about the Amazon. In particular, he had grown up hearing his father's stories, studying his maps and imagining himself pushing a canoe upriver or hacking through the undergrowth at Percy's side. But this time, the stakes were real. The 1925 expedition would be longer, more remote, and far more dangerous than any adventure Jack had ever attempted. Still, for both father and son, there was an unspoken sense that this was their moment. A chance to share in discovery, to write their names together in history. Nina supported the decision, even as she understood the risks. Sending them off with letters, supplies, and her unwavering faith. Jack's friend, Raleigh Rimmel, was a former artillery officer who had grown up on stories of adventure. Neither of the young men had any experience in the Amazon, but Fawcett saw that as an asset. They would follow his lead without the stubbornness or competing theories of seasoned other explorers. So essentially, he's taking two young kids with. With no experience in the Amazon, and he's saying, this is great because they're not going to question my authority.

[B]

I was just going to say, okay, so the. How did you describe. Not conceited, but arrogant. Arrogant, yeah. Yeah. That feels dangerous. Like, I understand, to. To negate some of the issues that maybe he had before with more people, more minds, more opinions, but, like, this feels like the complete opposite end of the spectrum in a dangerous way.

[A]

Yeah. And he. So when I was listening to one of the books, they detailed. They detailed a story of when he was out in the wilderness on another expedition, and one of his guys got really seriously injured and sick, and he viewed him as this burden, and he basically had him trudging along. He could bear it. He could barely keep up. He had malaria. It was just this awful, awful instance. And he had told his whole crew, it's like, you get sick, you leave. We leave you, and you die. And that was how he. He's like, I'm on a mission here. You are not going to slow me down. And that was what they thought was going to happen. But he. At the very last minute, he was like, you're really. You're going to die out here. We got to get you out. And he actually stopped the mission, but that was kind of a point for him. That was like, I'm so sick of other people. You're slowing me down. You're ruining my expedition. Yeah, I saved your life. I didn't leave you behind. But this is really annoying. It wasn't.

[B]

And, like, I don't want to do this again.

[A]

Yeah, it was very. Not team. Like, not teammate. Not. We're all in this together. It was. This is my mission. And you're either helping me or you're slowing me down.

[B]

Okay. Ruthless, but very.

[A]

And people described him as. That. That was ruthless.

[B]

Okay. Well, I mean, I feel like it has a different feel, at least, because this is his son and for sure his son's friend. Okay. I won't say anything else until, you know, you give me more, but I know there's a lot of unknowns, of course, and that's what makes this story so intriguing. But, yeah, just having that kind of at least going in with, like, okay, well, fewer men, fewer problems. It's like.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Not necessarily, but.

[A]

Yeah. And he had to deal with, like, mutinies before. Not, like, full mutinies, but people would be stealing each other's food, and they'd have to kick people off and leave that. They really did leave some people in the wilderness and were like, you're stealing our food. This is our only survival buy. And they had a lot of. He had a lot of experience with that. So it sounds like by having his son, who's very loyal to him and his friend, he doesn't have to worry about the. The betrayal that can happen there. And also, they've never done this before, so they really have to listen to everything he's gonna say. Funding for this expedition came from a variety of sources. Small grants, personal contributions, and even support from the North American Newspaper alliance, who hoped to publish his updates from the field. Fawcett was careful to keep his true destination vague in public statements, hinting only that they were headed into, quote, unexplored territory in the Brazilian interior. In truth, he had identified a point on his maps that he believed matched the location Described in manuscript 512. In late March, the trio boarded a ship to Rio de Janeiro, then traveled inland by train, riverboats, and horseback. The journey began at the frontier town of Kiawahba, the capital of the Brazilian state of the Mata Grosso. There they spent several weeks assembling supplies. Canned food, powdered milk, cooking gear, a few changes of clothing, mosquito nets, hammocks, fishing lines, a sextant, and compasses. Like on Fawcett's previous excursions, each man carried a firearm, though Fawcett hoped they wouldn't need to use them. From Cuauba, they headed north towards Jing Gu river basin. And this is where we get into the national park.

[B]

Okay, I've been waiting.

[A]

This region is now known as Jingu National Park. This is a place where the rainforest feels endless, an expanse of green that stretches to the horizon in every direction, broken only by the winding silver of rivers and the occasional burst of red or yellow from flowering trees. The air is warm and heavy, rich with a smell of damp earth and vegetation, and alive with sound. The low hum of insects and the calls of howler monkeys. Established as a National park in 1961, Jingu was the first large indigenous territory to be formally recognized by the Brazilian government, a groundbreaking step at the time and still one of the most significant. Today, the park covers more than 10,000 square miles, roughly the size of the state of Maryland. It's home to over a dozen indigenous groups, including the Kikoro, Kaiapo, Kaimura, and Yahualapichi. Each community has its own language and traditions, but they share a deep commitment to preserving the forest that sustains them. Jingu national park is defined by the Xingu river, which flows from the south to the north for more than 1200 miles before joining the Amazon river in northern Brazil. Along the banks of the Xingu, stretches of dense forests give way to open savannah and wetlands filled with bird life like herons, storks, and bright macaws. The river and its many tributaries are a lifeline for the people who live here, providing fish transportation and cultural connections between villages. In the dry season, narrow channels shrink into ribbons of clear water bordered by sandy beaches. In the rainy season, the rivers swell and flood the surrounding forests. Jingou national park is also a place of astonishing biodiversity. Botanists have cataloged hundreds of plant species here, from towering Brazil nut trees to delicate orchids that bloom only for one day. Incredible animals like jaguars, giant river otters, tapirs, and harpy eagles still roam the park, species that have disappeared from many of their former habitats due to deforestation and hunting elsewhere in the Amazon. For scientists, Jingou national park is part of a vital ecological corridor in the southern Amazon, where rainforests meet savanna, creating unique habitats found nowhere else on Earth. Xingu is not untouched. Tragically, in recent decades, deforestation and industrial agriculture have closed in around its borders, fragmenting the forest and polluting its waterways. Satellite images show the stark contrast between the dense green within the park and the patchwork of soy field and cattle and cattle pastures around it. Protecting Jingu means defending it against these pressures, a struggle that indigenous leaders continue to carry forward, often at great personal risk. For outsiders, it can be tempting to see Xingu national park as a remnant of a vanished past, a window into some untouched before time. But for the people who live here today, it is their home. For Percy Fawcett, it. It was part of the wild, mysterious heart of the Amazon. He longed to explore and possibly the site of the lost city of the Z. When he, Jack and Raleigh set off from Kiaba towards Xingu river basin in the spring of 1925, the wet season had only just ended, so the landscape was flooded with water and difficult to travel through the muddy trails. They hired a few local laborers to help carry their loads for the first leg of their expedition, but Fawcett planned to dismiss them once they reached a certain point point. From there, it would just be the three of them. In letters sent back to England, Fawcett sounded upbeat. He described the rainforest as lush and green and noted that their health was good despite the heat and insects. He also hinted that they had already encountered, quote, interesting archaeological signs. Though whether that was true or simply meant to keep his sponsors engaged is unclear because he didn't go into any details. By late May 1925, about two months into the expedition, they reached a place Fawcett called called Dead Horse Camp, named for an earlier expedition during which some of his pack animals had died there. On May 29, he sent a letter from there to his wife Nina. In it, he assured her that they were well and that they had provisions for the journey ahead. He said, you need have no fear of any failure. We will be all right. Little did he know that would be the last letter he ever sent from Dead Horse Camp. Their trail ran deep into the interior of the Amazon rainforest. Local accounts suggest they intended to make contact with the Kalapolo people. The Kalapolo people later told anthropologists investigating the faucet disappearance that they had indeed hosted three outsiders matching his party's description. The men were treated with food and shelter then sent off again heading east. This episode is brought to you by iqbar, our exclusive snack and hydration sponsor. IQ Bar is the better for you. Plant protein based snack made with brain boosting nutrients to refuel, nourish and satisfy hunger without the sugar crash. When I'm out hiking or hitting the trails, I always need snacks and hydration that actually keep me going. IQ Bar has been a game changer. Their ultimate sampler pack is perfect because you get all three nine IQ bars, eight IQ mix, zero sugar hydration sticks and four IQ Joe instant coffee sticks. Everything is gluten free, dairy free, soy free free and packed with clean ingredients like magnesium, lion's mane and adaptogens to keep my energy steady even on long days outside. 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When weeks passed without news from them, there was little alarm at first in the Amazon, communication delays were normal. And Fawcett has specifically instructed that no rescue attempts be made made for at least a year if he failed to return on schedule. But weeks turned into months, which turned into years.

[B]

A lot a year.

[A]

If I don't talk to you in like 4 days, send help. SOS.

[B]

I know we didn't talk for like a day this weekend. When's the last time we talked? It's Monday morning and we texted when I was like, struggling with my couch. What day was that? Friday. That's Friday.

[A]

Is that really the last time we texted in?

[B]

No. Okay, wait, we texted Saturday. No, wait, no, we didn't text. I'm like, it's been a.

[A]

We didn't talk yesterday and we were upset.

[B]

Help.

[A]

It's like, check your location, make sure you're okay.

[B]

I know, I know. Yeah. No, a year. And of course, yeah, everything you just outlined. Communication is spotty. It's actually very impressive that you can either even get communication in the form of letters in and out of the Amazon. I'm. I'm actually floored by that.

[A]

Yeah, me too.

[B]

At that time in history. But the Postal Service, I'm a huge fan. If I don't think I've talked about that on here. I love the postal system, the Postal Service so much. I actually want to do an episode on like, the Pony Express. That would be really fun because.

[A]

Yeah, this episode. Oh, that's a polar expression.

[B]

Us.

[A]

Still could be a Christmas episode. Lots of people do mail around Christmas.

[B]

Right? And that's what you meant the whole time?

[A]

That's what I was referring to, actually.

[B]

Yeah. What was I saying? I Was just so thrown by that.

[A]

You like the postal service. You love them.

[B]

No, but before that, there was something I was saying either way. Oh, yeah, the year. Yeah. So much can go wrong even in a day, to be like, well, they. Yeah, they have eight and a half more months to send aid, respond, or. Yeah, respond in any sort of way.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. Yikes. Okay.

[A]

So if I was Nina, I would not be cool with that. I'm like, you're sending my son out there for a year without you. I'm not supposed to hear from you for a year until we send a rescue team for you?

[B]

Yeah. I mean, there needs to be some sort of. She's been cool with everything up until this point. I feel like that's a boundary she could have argued for. But maybe who am I to weigh in on other people's relationships? Yeah.

[A]

I'm sure that he was speaking to her a lot more like, this is. So far. If I find it, I'm gonna be out there researching. I imagine if he found it, he wouldn't just be like, okay, found the location, coming back now. He would be there researching and documenting and taking all his meticulous measurements. So maybe he warned her, if I find it, I'm not coming out to tell people. I will be here conducting research, come for me.

[B]

But he would still be in contact. I think it's the contact part.

[A]

I don't think they would be in contact depending on where it was. Because from my understanding when I was researching some of this is that throughout the Amazon, there were these little outposts that you could be at, and there would be people that would come in on mules and horseback, and they could take out your letters and go back into civilization for it and post it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yes. But this lost city of Z is unmapped and theoretically not near any of those places. So if he found it, maybe he was.

[B]

I think he would have found it, made notes of it, like, kind of like, okay, I'm coming. I'll be back for you. Because he only has two. He has his kid and another friend. Like, what are they gonna do? Excavate?

[A]

Unlimited supplies and.

[B]

Yeah, and he needs funding and he needs to the whole thing rationalize the one year. Yeah. I don't know. I guess maybe we can't. Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

I don't know what he's thinking, but obviously, he disappears. It turns months and then turns into years. Rumors flooded in. Some people claimed that the party had been killed by hostile tribes. Others suggested they died of disease or starvation. There were whispers that fawcett had found Z and chosen to stay there, abandoning the outside world. British newspapers ran sensational headlines like Explorer Swallowed by Jungle. Lost City Claims three More Lives. And Did Fawcett become King of the Indians?

[B]

Oh, my God.

[A]

Come on. The mystery of what happened to Fawcett's party was irresistible to the public and to other adventurers. Dozens of expeditions set out to solve it, from professional explorers to fortune seekers hoping to cash in on the publicity. The results were often tragic. Several search parties vanished themselves. Others returned with harrowing stories of disease attacks and treacherous terrain. By some estimates, more than 100 people have died or disappeared while looking for Fawcet.

[B]

Hundred. Wow.

[A]

And those numbers aren't really over. People are still like people are still.

[B]

Of course, it's an enduring mystery. Yeah.

[A]

As time passed, theories multiplied. A British journalist claimed to have proof that the men were killed by an indigenous group that was angered by their intrusion. An American traveler insisted he'd seen Fawcett alive, living as a chief among a remote tribe. Which feels very, very far fetched, me. Still others proposed that the three men had been sacrificed in a ritual or kidnapped into slavery. The truth has never been confirmed and their bodies were never recovered. For Nina Fawcett, the lack of closure was devastating. She refused to believe that her husband and eldest son were dead, clinging to the idea that they had found Z and when would day return. But for Brian Percy's other son, Jack's disappearance alongside his father turned their father son Bon in into part of the legend. Their last letters home spoke less about hardship and more about wonder. About stars blazing above the camp, the green shimmer of the forest canopy, the feeling of pushing deeper into an untouched world. Whatever dangers they faced, father and son faced them together. And in the years that followed, as the mystery deepened, the image of them vanishing into the green heart of the Amazon together became one of the stories story's most enduring and haunting threads. In addition to publishing the book Exploration Faucet, Brian organized at least one search expedition of his own, but found nothing. The lack of hard evidence, no bodies, no confirmed artifacts, made the story a perfect breeding ground for speculation. And every new lead only seemed to deepen the intrigue. The first major search party set out in the late 1920s and early 30s, often with sensational backing from newspapers eager for what we'd call today clickbait headlines. In 1927, a British reporter and ex army officer named Albert de Winton joined an expedition that barely made it out alive, retreating after illness and hostile encounters. In 1930, George Dyot, a Seasoned British explorer led a more organized search. Dyot claimed to have reached the same Calapalo village where Fawcett was last seen, and the villagers allegedly told him that the party had been kill killed by a neighboring group. Daya even recovered a few personal items said to have belonged to Fawcett, though skeptics later questioned whether they had been planted by locals to appease the searchers. Throughout the mid 20th century, expeditions kept coming. Some driven by genuine curiosity, others by the lure of adventure and fame. Many were ill prepared for the realities of the Amazon. They underestimated the months of planning, the logistical challenges of moving through dense forest, the difficulty of navigating in an environment where GPS didn't ex exist and even a compass could be unreliable near iron rich rocks. In the years after World War II, the legend of Z found new life in popular culture. His story was told and retold on the on the radio and in magazines, often with exaggerations that blurred the line between fact and fiction. By the 1950s and 60s, popular paperback books were portraying him as this larger than life explorer who might might still be out there ruling over a hidden kingdom in the jungle. One of the most credible accounts came in 1951 when Orlando Voas, a Brazilian explorer and advocate for indigenous rights, led a government sanctioned expedition into the Upper Jingu. He and his brothers were instrumental in formally establishing Xingu National Park a decade later, and they had deep ties to the communities in the region. On this trip they claimed to have met the Kalapalo elders, who recounted in detail how Fawcett and his companions were killed. Their version of the story is that the trio offended a neighboring indigenous group by violating local protocols, perhaps crossing into forbidden hunting grounds or fishing in a sacred area without permission, and were killed shortly after leaving the Kalapalo village. The killings, they said, were not acts of violence, but a response to perceived disrespect and threatened threat. Even with this testimony, debate raged on. Skeptics pointed out that oral histories can shift over time and that such stories might have adapted to fit what outsiders wanted to hear. Supporters of this theory argued that the account matched the geography, the timing and the realities of cross cultural contact in the region. In the 1980s and 90s, amateur explorers kept searching for Z. Some claim to have found evidence of ancient stone structures deep in the forest, proof, they said, of the existence of zones. Others insisted that Fawcett's theories had been backed by discoveries elsewhere in the Amazon, where archaeological surveys revealed remnants of large pre Columbian settlements once said to be impossible in Rainforest conditions. The most exciting of these discoveries were huge shapes carved into the ground, sprawling road systems and traces of advanced farming, all evidence that large organized societies had once thrived here, capable of supporting town, tens of thousands of people. This new wave of archaeological discovery cast Fawcett's obsession in a different light. He may have been wrong about the exact location or appearance of Z, but the core idea that advanced civilizations once thrived in the Amazon was no longer dismissed as fantasy. The jungle wasn't an untouched wilderness. It had been a cultural landscape shaped and sustained by human hands for millennia. The legend of Fawcett's disappearance reached another generation in 2009 with the publication of the Lost City of Z, A Tale of Deadly Obsession by the American journalist David Grann. And that was the. I think I said Brian Grant earlier, that's the book that I listened to on Audible for this and I think.

[B]

That'S the book the movie adaptation is based off of. I think.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean it's like the whole story.

[B]

But yeah, it's definitely the whole story, but I think that book like gave rise to the original.

[A]

Since I've seen that movie, I didn't actually like rewatch it for this episode. I saw it in theaters when it first came out. And my memory of movies is.

[B]

I mean it came out, it's like.

[A]

A portion of my brain I can't access. I see a movie just gone, it's lost to time. But yeah, seen it.

[B]

It came out in 2016, so almost 10 years ago.

[A]

Yeah. Well, this book is both a biography and a detective like narrative of David Grant's own journey. Retracing parts of Fawcett's route through the Amazon, he interviewed modern day Kalapalo elders, delved into the archives of the Royal Geographical Society and ultimately came to the conclusion that echoed that of many anthropologists. Fawcett likely perished soon after leaving the Kalapalo. The book became a bestseller. And in 2016. Oh, I have it here. And in 2016 it was adapted into a feature film of the same name, introducing Fawcett's story to yet another audience.

[B]

So there we go.

[A]

It is. There it is. I have it right there. Listen up, because I am about to tell you about the comfiest blanket I have ever come across. Let me tell you, fall is my season. I live for cozy vibes. The second the weather cools down, I'm lighting a candle, grabbing a warm drink and curling up on the couch under my lola blanket. I'm 100% a blanket person. And the first time I felt Lola's ultra soft luxury vegan faux fur. I literally gasped. I have the desert dune literally inspired by Joshua Tree national park and it instantly made my space look so much more inviting. The four way stretch makes it feel like it's hugging you back. And unlike other blankets I've owned, it stays flawless. No shedding, no pilling, even after multiple washes. And it makes for the perfect gift. Everyone who touches it falls in love with it immediately, which explains why it has over 10,000 five star reviews and it's called the world's number one blanket. For a limited time, our listeners get a huge 35% off their entire order at lolablankets.com by using code npad at checkout. Just head to Lola blankets.com and use code npad for 35% off. That's code npad at checkout. Just Head to Lola blankets.com and Use Code npad for 35% off. After your purchase they will ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them that we sent you. Wrap yourself in luxury with Lola Blankets. Meanwhile, Xingu national park, the backdrop of Faucet's final day days, has become a landmark in indigenous land rights. Home to more than 6,000 people from 16 distinct ethnic groups, it's a living reminder that the region Fawcett sought to quote, unquote discover was never lost. It has been inhabited, managed and defended for countless generations. For many indigenous people of the Jingu, the Fawcett story is not a romantic mystery, but a cautionary tale. It's a reminder of the dangers of entering someone else's land without understanding or respect or invitation. Dangers that are as real today as they were in 1925. And nearly a century after Percy Fawcett vanished, his name still sparks debates and explorers clubs, online forums and campfire circles. It's easy to reduce his story to a single question. What happened to him? But that's only part of it. The deeper question is why was he there at all? Fawcett's life was shaped by an era when much of the world's quote unquote, un unexplored land had been mapped, claimed and divided by colonial powers. The blank spaces on the globe were disappearing. The Amazon was one of the last and to many in Europe, the most exotic frontiers. In Chasing Z, Fawcett was chasing not just a lost city, but the fading possibility that there were still wonders beyond the reach of Western knowledge. That pursuit demanded bravery, skills and endurance. But it also carried the arrogance of assuming that what was unknown to him or to the Royal Geographical Society was unknown altogether. As I've mentioned a few times, the indigenous peoples of the Jingu had lived there for thousands of years with their own histories, alliances, and sacred places. With this in mind, Fawcett's story raises questions that feel just as urgent today as ever. How do we balance curiosity with respect? At what point does a quest for knowledge become an act of intrusion? And when we romanticize explorers like Fawcett, are we celebrating their courage or overlooking the consequences of their journeys? Like so many stories, Fawcett's endures because it's unfinished. No conclusive evidence has ever emerged to prove exactly where, when, or how he died. But maybe that's the point. Some mysteries aren't meant to be solved. Reminders that the world still holds places that won't yield all of their secrets. And that is my story of Percy Fawcett and. And searching or dying for the lost city of Sea.

[B]

Loved it. Amazing retelling. And I love how it offered a different perspective of the same story that we've heard kind of regurgitated over and over. And I am totally among those who have ate up the, like, mystery and allure and fantasy and, like you said, like, intriguing, that romantic type of view of it and while also overlooking, like, you know, some very probable realities of what else was going on at the same time. And, yeah, I mean, it's so tempting to be like, what do you think happened to him? You know, because I think exactly what.

[A]

The local people told I think to. I think that for us to be like, well, oral histories change. We don't know if you're telling the truth. Truth versus this culture.

[B]

That's so dismissive.

[A]

It's so dismissive. And you're speaking to a culture that has almost exclusively survived off of oral histories for millennia. I'm gonna take their word for it that they met this group of people and they saw. And it sounds like they didn't know. They didn't know they were these explorers because they only realized who they were after they were described. And they're like, yeah, we. We housed three of.

[B]

Yeah, we hosted them.

[A]

We hosted them. They were. We were friendly. All was well, but they offended our neighbors, and they kill. Killed them for it. And it's like, that's it. That's what happened. And I think that's very likely, especially, he went as three people. He didn't go as a group as he normally does. The stakes were. I know that he argued that that would create less conflict, but in my mind, it Creates. It might maybe theoretically you come off as less alarming and threatening, but also you come off as a lot more defenseless.

[B]

Us. Yeah. Easier to overpower and. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think that's super probable. And like, my first thought before we even went into any of that was that when we were talking about the son and his friend and just being so inexperienced and all that, like, if anything was to happen to Percy at all, like if he got killed or injured or rendered unable to move or what, whatever, those other two men would have been screwed.

[A]

Yeah, they'd have no idea how to interact with the locals.

[B]

Or if they had made it further after like that last known location and they had made it quite a bit further. Like, I mean, I'm sure they had some sort of navigational skills and things like that, but you never know. And it's a completely different spot. I don't know. My first thought was like, okay, they were. Would. They probably would have been totally hosed and unable to. Like, I think they would have starved or gotten lost or something if something happened to Percy in particular. And then that kind of opens up like a whole nother door of like, well, what happened to them and whatever. But I think I'm on board with what you're saying as far as this is super probable. It's not far fetched at all. It's happened. And. And just because we don't know for a fact that that is what happened to these three men we have seen through other expeditions and other recounted, like testimonial, Roosevelt included, with Rondon and his, you know, his guide and all of that. Like, that is something that happened a lot.

[A]

Yes, absolutely.

[B]

It was witnessed and we know for a fact that's what happened to certain people. And not because it was like this hostile, like these indigenous groups just lashed out and whatever. It was like they. Exactly what you said. Like they interpreted different things as disrespectful. And there was this barrier, whether it be language or customary or whatever. There was just this mismatch and it was a pretty tense time. And I mean, going back to the whole rubber thing, like they were being invaded by all of these different power colonial powers and their lands and their ways of life were being stripped, they were being slaughtered. Like they weren't exactly the happiest with outsiders. So it's not. It's just not far fetched to be like, oh, that's what happened and that's the end of the story. Like, there's nothing more to it. So I don't Know, like, I'm totally on board with that, and I think that it's kind of. I think people might resist that sometimes because it's not as like. And Jay found it, or they got lost after they.

[A]

He's leading a tribe.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It's like, no, he's not. There is no tribe out there that looked at a white Percy Fawcett and said, you can lead our people who have hundreds and thousands of years of history here.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

No, there's not a single.

[B]

Like, there's not a world in which that would have happened.

[A]

There's not. I mean, maybe there's a story of that happening somewhere. I have never personally heard it.

[B]

It. I've never personally heard of it. I've heard of different groups, you know, integrating others, for sure, but I've never heard of them being like, and here's now your crown, and we are going to bow to you. Like, that is just wild. But, yeah, regardless.

[A]

He was killed. He was killed. I would.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I think personally.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I mean, there is something to be said, I think, that discovering this lost city, I mean, it is. Is. It is portrayed as romantic and it's intriguing. And I'm the same as you where I've, like, found these stories. I'm like, wow, this is so interesting. This. This world away. It feels so different than what I know. But at the same time, he's searching for something that is someone else's history and someone else's home and is hidden in this area. I mean, you look at all of these indigenous communities, and maybe they've all known about this all along, and it's just. Just part of their history that is theirs.

[B]

I mean, it reminds me so much when you were telling. You were telling a part of that story. I'm like, oh, I. I should come back to this. So thank you for reminding me. But when we were at Machu Picchu and we were learning about, like, you know, a lot of people were reading about the history through different books. Was it turn left at Machu Picchu, that book that everyone was reading and just through different. Our different tours and different guides and stuff, talking about. About the rediscovery of Machu Picchu, like, for the local community, they're like, yeah, we've known it's been up there. Like, we know and then. But when we were there and we were out, like, kind of looking out at the vast expanse of, like, all of these forested peaks and just how beautiful and wonderful it was, like, it was kind of like we were at the cusp of like the entry into the Amazon. Like that area kind of marks. You know, you're about to get into the Amazon area and we're kind of like overlooking all of it. And I think one of our guides was saying, you know, like Lidar has shown that there are probably dozens of Machu picchus just out there, you know, like just waiting to be cleared and uncovered for the first time in however many hundreds of years. And it's like. And we know a lot of that not only because of the technology, but because of the people who have been here all along. And it's just. I mean, didn't he learn about this lost at a of Z through that man you.

[A]

That writings from a manuscript from a colonizer who probably heard about who was there to. To steal from the indigenous communities.

[B]

Yeah. So I don't know. I. It's all. It's so very easy to look at it from like this like mystical, magical like. Yeah.

[A]

And there is something like discovery is.

[B]

Cool, but it's really not discovery. It's just.

[A]

It's discovery for you. It's new to you.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But it might be sacred for someone else else. And I mean there is something about being on this world, especially in this day and age where it feels like everything is known. And I think there is something that's really cool about exploration. But kind of going back to my final question is like when it. When does exploration become intrusion.

[B]

Yeah. And that's deep.

[A]

We'll leave you all with that.

[B]

So just think about that for the next two weeks.

[A]

Next time you're into you intruding on.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Sacred lands. But really, I mean there's so many aspects in. In our own personal history that we can attribute to that question as well.

[B]

Yeah. And I just love like re examining stories like this because I think that like it's really cool to have different. To get to like sit down and research and look at this through a different way. Because this is a perfect example of stories that we've done before where growing up and. Or up until literally I sit down and talk to you about it, I had a completely different take on it. And I was like in a different, you know, side of the fence on how I thought about stories like this or how I discuss them in my own life and then through either a conversation or researching it myself, it's like maybe we should like change our tune a little bit. And it's like we never want to come across as like you guys should like really think about how you're thinking about things like this because it's like we don't want to come across as like that because. Because for up until an hour and 10 minutes ago or whatever, I was like the same.

[A]

You know, it's just like it's just always learning and. Yeah. And trying to. Because I agree. And even, even this story that you just heard today, if you're interested, you don't have to take my word for it. Read the books. You know, there's so many resources for you. Just always encouraging people. Form your own opinions, your own critical thinking, find your own research, have discussions with people, read these books. And we're not the end all. Be all of opinions here. This is just the information that we're bringing. But you might find more, you might find different. Different. And that comes with pretty much everything. Just go out and learn. Learning.

[B]

Go out and learn. Yeah, I had my aura photo taken yesterday and I guess part of it, it, I'm going to butcher it because I don't remember part of it. Said that the yellow color that I've never had before. There were. She was like, this is your inquisitive. Like you're always wanting to learn and discuss. Not only learn because there are like knowledge seekers out there, but yours is coming across as not only are you a knowledge seeker, you want to discuss it, you want to dissect it, you want to talk about what you're knowing or what you're learning about. And you also want to hear about what others have to offer. And it's like you're big into communication about it. Not just you don't want to retain it and move on. You want to like dissect it and really parse through it. I'm like, well, yes, I would agree on that one. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway. All right, well thank you everyone for listening and we'll see you in two weeks. We're taking next week off, but like Cassie said before, maybe just save this one. Or if you are interested in if you were ever like, I wonder what Patreon or Apple subscription is about. There's tons of. We have a huge backlog of bonus content to fill your missing. If you're interested. We got a lot. We got a lot going on. So yeah, we will see you in a couple weeks. Until then, enjoy the view, but watch your back. Bye Bye. Thank you for joining us again this week. If you love National Park After Dark and want to hear exclusive bonus stories stories, join us on Patreon or Apple subscriptions. Patreon subscribers have access to our National Park After Dark book Club, live streams, Discord, and much more. If you prefer to watch our episodes, video episodes are now available on YouTube. If you're enjoying the show, please take a moment to rate, review and subscribe on your favorite listening platform. And to follow along with all our adventures, you can find us on Instagram, Facebook, Tick Tock and AKA Parks at National Park After Dark.