Biden Explores the Amazon: The Jungle That Tested Roosevelt

Teddy Roosevelt almost lost his life in a bid to conquer the Amazon rainforest when it took him on a canoe expedition in the year 1914.

Biden Explores the Amazon

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For the first time in history, a sitting president of the US, Joe Biden, is scheduled to travel to the Amazon on Sunday having made a trip that even took a toll on history’s earlier presidents like Teddy Roosevelt after leaving the presidency. The visit comes at the tail end of Biden’s last trip to South America before Donald Trump takes over in two months time.

At 81 years old and still fit, Biden will arrive in Manaus, the largest city in the Amazon basin, on his way to Rio de Janeiro, where he will participate in a two-day G20 summit.

The amazon jungle proved to be an unfortunate visit for Roosevelt, the 26th US president. He nearly lost his life in it during a canoe trip to that region in 1914, four years after he ended his 1901-1909 presidency.

A Republican with a love for adventure, Roosevelt joined forces with a Brazilian adventurer Candido Rondon, who took on the task of exploring and mapping the River of Doubt, an Amazonian tributary located in the uninhabited central western region of Brazil.

The river was 760 kilometers (470 miles) and proved to be an even greater challenge. Several christened members of Roosevelt’s expedition were either killed or incapacitated. The ex-president, aged 55 at the time, developed malaria, coupled with a leg infection, which grounded him in the last strenuous leg of the journey.

"T. R. (Teddy Roosevelt) was out of his mind toward the end; Rondon gave him up for dead several times," his great-grandson Tweed Roosevelt said in remarks noted by The New York Times in 1992.

Before the trip his friends at the American Museum of Natural History warned him about the dangers. He, however, told them he had already lived a full life and was ready to take the risk. "I have had my full share, and if it is necessary for me to leave my bones in South America, I am quite ready to do so," he said, according to the Smithsonian Magazine.

As a consolation for the disaster that was clearly supposed to come, the Roosevelt-Rondon expedition encountered some Brazilian rubber tappers in the jungle, who assisted them enough for them to reach cargo boats, hence, back to civilization.

Although he and Rondon were victorious in gaining much recognition for exploring the River of Doubt, due to the hardships faced, it was noted that Roosevelt was never the same health wise after the expedition. The former president, however, passed away in 1919, in his house, from a blood clot in his lungs aged 60. The river he traveled was renamed the Roosevelt River in memory of the president.