INTO THE AMAZON THE VILLAS-BÔAS BROTHERS’ EXTRAORDINARY EXPEDITION
“The Villas-Bôas brothers dodged arrows and experienced multiple brushes with death”
In the mid-20th century – decades after the planet’s polar extremes had been traversed, and Europeans had ventured across North America and Australia – much of inland Brazil remained utterly unexplored. The major rivers had been travelled, but between them lay an enormous enigmatic region, populated by people who were completely cut off from everyone else on Earth.
In 1943, as World War II raged, Brazil’s dictator-president Getúlio Vargas decreed he’d unlock the mystery. The grand exploratory project – named ‘March to the West’ – was spearheaded by the Expedição Roncador-Xingu.
Tasked with opening up lines of communication through central Brazil and the Amazon, the party went on to pioneer an almost 1,200-mile route that took them from the Goiás–Mato Grosso border, across the ‘River of Death’, through the unknown hinterland inhabited by the fearsome Xavante people, and over the Sierra do Roncador mountain range to the Xingu River.
The group was led by three young brothers, whose thirst for adventure had been awakened by a newspaper article announcing the expedition. Orlando, Cláudio and Leonardo Villas-Bôas dodged arrows and experienced multiple brushes with death during their quest, but they
