River of Doubt

The sense of adventure in these texts was pretty epic - I can't imagine having to go through such trials as in River of Doubt, it just goes to show how much travel has changed within such a short period of time. That whole hordes of both animals and people died from trekking across Brazil is quite a strange thought, and a fascinating one at the same time. Obviously the deaths were very tragic, but there is something romantic about the kind of adventure they could go through. I thought it was so interesting how Millard has woven in anecdotes about the personalities of Roosevelt and the other explorers, that she picked up from letters home etc.

As Marco said, Rondon seemed to be quite an honorable guy - specially when contrasted with the priest, and his whole story was definitely inspiring. Being a victim of racism himself, he really strove to form peaceful relationships with the natives, instead of just coming in and taking over by force. He did want to bring "civilization" and new ideas and behaviors from the Western world to them - and I'm still deciding whether or not that's an okay thing.