The Boiling River

Alex

When he was twelve years old, Andres Ruzo was told a strange story by his grandfather: Spanish conquistadors that went deep into the Amazonian rainforest in search of gold found a river so hot that it boiled from below.

Years later, as a graduate student in geophysics, Ruzo wondered if the legend of the Amazonian boiling river could be true.

But when he approached his senior colleagues, Ruzo's idea was dismissed as crazy - the Amazon was hundred of miles away from any active volcano. There couldn't be such a thing ... or could there?

Rizo himself couldn't quite believe that a boiling river in the Amazonian rainforest could exist ... until he saw it himself:

The river turned out to be no legend at all, but the sacred geothermal healing site of Mayantuyacu, nestled deep in the Peruvian rainforest and protected by a powerful shaman.
Up to 82 feet (25 meters) wide and 20 feet (six meters) deep, the river surges for nearly 4 miles at temperatures hot enough to brew tea or cook any animals unfortunate enough to fall in. And yes, a small portion of it is so hot that it actually boils. There are documented hot springs in the Amazon, but nothing nearly as large as this river.

Read the rest over at Gizmodo | The Boiling River website

Photo: @theboilingriver


Comments (0)

This gives perspective on the easy availability of food in developed nations.
That hunter earned his food and respected the animal he killed.
Gabriel, It really must be hard work bringing back such a large animal. I don't know how they would do it.
As far as it being more cruel, I agree that the animal experienced more fear because of the duration of the chase, but it is more heartless to shoot a creature for pleasure.
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I don't see how to romanticize that. Fighting for survival is understandable, but not developing a more cost-beneficial hunting method over the years isn't.

I loathe hunting, but if you have to do it to feed youself etc be practical and grant the animal a swift death. Dying of exhaustion sounds awful and it's also a waste of time and energy resources for the hunter.
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I'm sorry, the guy only has a 5 foot spear to hunt with, how else is he going to get his food? He respected his kill and did what he had to do to survive. I find it more disgusting seeing men put corn down at the bottom of a tree, sit there until something walks up then dispatch it with a large rifle. American hunters would not last in an area like this because they are too lazy.
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Doesn't it kinda defeat the purpose.. at least for the guy that has to run it down. Wouldn't running 8hrs after the thing burn up more calories than his share of the meat he'd get o_O
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You burn about 700 calories per hour running 6 mi/hr. Im guessing you would get at least about 80 lbs. of meat off of that animal. Just for comparison a 16 oz. steak has about 1200 calories.

You would come out way ahead even if that animal only has about 800 calories per pound.
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..."he respected his kill"

Do you guys get this stuff from watching "Pocahontas" or what? Before the La-Z-Boy was invented, nobody spouted this philosophical claptrap about what you ate and how you got it.

Chow down!
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There was an article a few days ago speculating that the reason we have relatively short toes is that "persistence hunting" was our primary technique of hunting in our evolutionary past. Interesting that the practice still exists!
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Yes, this is how humans hunted for about 2 million years up until the late paleolithic period. Yes, we are animals that evolved to run. The only animals who can match us are dogs and horses (our best friends!), and we can still beat them over several days.

"You don't stop running because you get old and die, you get old and die because you stop running."
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