By AFP - Agence France Presse
Biden to visit the Amazon, the jungle that almost ended Roosevelt
Joe Biden will on Sunday be the first sitting US president to visit the Amazon - the vast rainforest that almost killed his predecessor, Teddy Roosevelt, after he left office.
The trip is part of Biden's last visit to South America before handing over the keys to the White House to Donald Trump, who will become the 47th president of the United States in two months.
Biden, 81, will land in the Amazon's largest city, Manaus, on his way to Rio de Janeiro, where a two-day G20 summit will be held.
The Amazon jungle was not a happy destination for the 26th US president, Roosevelt.
He had a near-death experience in the Amazon jungle when he went on a canoe expedition in 1914, four years into his 1901-1909 term.
Roosevelt, a Republican known for his adventurous spirit, had teamed up with a Brazilian explorer, Cândido Rondon, to map the River of Doubt, a tributary in Brazil's wild central-west, in the Amazon.
The river, 760 kilometers (470 miles) long, proved to be a formidable foe. Several members of Roosevelt's expedition died and the former president, aged 55 at the time, contracted malaria and a leg infection, which incapacitated him on the arduous final stretch.
“T. R. (Teddy Roosevelt) was beside himself at the end; Rondon gave him up for dead several times,” said his great-grandson Tweed Roosevelt in remarks recorded by The New York Times in 1992.
Roosevelt himself, when warned of the dangers by friends from the American Museum of Natural History before embarking on his journey, told them that he had already lived a full life and was ready for the risk.
“I've had my full share, and if it's necessary for me to leave my bones in South America, I'm ready to do it,” he said, according to Smithsonian Magazine.
In the end, the Roosevelt-Rondon expedition was saved from disaster when it encountered Brazilian rubber tappers in the jungle, who helped them enough so that they could reach the cargo boats and, from there, return to the safety of the outside world.
Roosevelt never fully recovered his health after his ordeal, although he and Rondon were acclaimed for mapping the River of Doubt. The former president died at home in 1919, aged 60, from a blood clot in his lungs.
In his honor, the river he navigated was renamed the Roosevelt River.
raa/rmb/bjt
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