The tribe, the Guarayos, invited the men to stay as guests.
After taking cover, they began to sing “Soldiers of the Queen” as Fawcett waved a handkerchief and walked toward the shore to indicate friendship. Much like in the movie, during one trip in 1910, Fawcett’s group was traveling by boat when they were suddenly inundated with a barrage of poisonous spears. During this and future trips, rumors of a lost civilization, which Fawcett heard first from Indians and later read about in conquistadors’ accounts, struck him as increasingly possible. The countries summoned England as an independent arbiter. With the auto industry gaining steam, demand for rubber boomed, and border disputes between Bolivia, Brazil and Peru threatened to erupt in a violent conflagration.
Fact: Fawcett returned to the Amazon many times between his first and last expedition.Īs the movie depicts, Fawcett’s first expedition to the Amazon was a mapmaking mission. In pursuit of rumored treasure there, he had found the ruins of an ancient temple and knew then that he wanted to forge a path like those of Richard Francis Burton and David Livingstone. Whereas the movie presents Fawcett as somewhat reluctant to become an explorer - he says he hoped to rectify his undecorated uniform with some military action - the real Fawcett had been eager to work as an explorer since he was stationed in the British colony of Ceylon, now known as Sri Lanka. Fawcett first visited the institution in 1900 and spent a year training there before his first mission.
Though the RGS did tap Fawcett for a South American voyage, it didn’t happen as unexpectedly as the film suggests.
Mostly fact: The Royal Geographical Society summoned Fawcett out of the blue for a mission to Bolivia in 1906.