The Amazon’s Boiling River Kills Anything That Enters

When Andrés Ruzo was a boy, his grandfather would tell him tales of a mythical city of gold deep in the heart of the Peruvian jungle. Though never believing the stories to be true, the legend of the lost city stuck with him into adulthood. Years later, as a geothermal scientist, Ruzo decided to investigate. To his surprise, he discovered an incredulous river deep in the Amazon, with water hot enough to kill a human. Historically a place of pilgrimage for shamans and sorcerers, the river now faces increasing threats from poachers, loggers and squatters. Now, Ruzo is working hard to protect it.

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Imagine a river,
hot enough to kill you,

said to be the home
of a powerful

Amazonian
water spirit.

That place is real,
and I've been there.

It’s the Shanay-timpishka, the
boiling river of the Amazon.

My name's Andrés Ruzo,
and I'm a geothermal

scientist
and conservationist.

As a boy in Lima,
my grandfather told me

this crazy story
about the search

for the lost
city of gold.

But there was
a detail in that story,

about a river
that boiled.

I certainly
imagined it,

but never really
dwelled on it,

it was just a detail.

It's getting much hotter.

It turns out
this place is real.

So the boiling
river's located

in the heart of the
central Peruvian Amazon.

The hottest temperature
I've measured

was over 210 degrees
Fahrenheit.

To put that into
everyday terms,

the average coffee
is roughly 130 degrees.

It's hard to
physically imagine

that much
hot water.

You stick your hand in,
and you will see

second and third
degree burns

in a matter
of seconds.

I've seen a number
of animals fall

into the boiling river,

everything from
birds to reptiles.

Complex organisms
like us,

we don't do well at
those high temperatures.

We literally start
to cook on the bone.

Feeling that heat
come into you,

breathing in
this thick hot air,

where you can
feel the air

heating you up
inside your nose,

you can feel it
going into your lungs,

you can feel the presence
of your lungs

because of
the heat of the air.

It still gives me
goosebumps.

The true name of
the boiling river

is Shanay-timpishka
and that means,

according to one of
the local shamans,

boiled with
the heat of the sun.

It's spectacular.

This place has
totally redefined

what it means to be
sacred for me.

I think once you've
experienced something

that's truly
moved you,

you love it.

And you can't
let that go.