Dying for the Lost City of Z: Xingu National Park

In 1925 famed British explorer Percy Fawcett set out on his most ambitious journey yet — to find a legendary city hidden deep in the Amazon. At his side were his 21-year-old son Jack and Jack’s best friend, Raleigh Rimell. All three vanished without a trace. What began as a quest for discovery became one of the most enduring mysteries in the history of exploration. For a full list of our sources, visit http://npadpodcast.com/episodesFor the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials at:Instagram: @‌nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @‌nationalparkafterdarkSupport the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page! Thank you to the week’s partners! Naked Wines: To get 6 bottles of wine for $39.99, head to NakedWines.com/NPAD and use code NPAD for both the code AND PASSWORD. Wildgrain: Go to Wildgrain.com/NPAD and start your subscription to get $30 off the first box, PLUS free Croissants in every box. IQBAR: Text PARK to 64000 to get 20% off all IQBAR products and free shipping. Lola Blankets: Get 35% off your entire order at Lolablankets.com by using code NPAD at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Everyone talks about how challenging it is to raise kids. But what about protecting them? Outlet covers, kitchen cabinet locks, baby gates. Where do you even start? Well, protecting your home and auto is a great place to start. Progressive offers customized coverage options so you can be sure you have the right coverage. They're basically the baby gates of insurance. Get a quote at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and other insurers. Not available in all states.

• 0:29Speaker 01

  Flawless tall boots, chocolatey kicks, retro sneakers, reimagined loafers, and animal prints that drive you wild from heel to toe. The fall trends you're obsessed with at prices you love. All at Designer Shoe Warehouse. Every DSW store is a fall fashion lookbook come to life. So have a little fun with your style. Try something new. Find something that feels unmistakably you. Head to your DSW store or shop DSW.com today. DSW, let us surprise you.

• 1:03Cassandra Yahnian?

  We're used to thinking of great explorations as triumphs. A determined leader, a daring journey. Obstacles overcome through courage and skill. The map expands, the story ends in glory. But not every expedition is destined for discovery. Sometimes, the dangers are underestimated, the clues are misread, the wilderness is underestimated, and the cost of chasing an idea becomes higher than anyone imagined. And sometimes, that very obsession that fuels a journey is the thing that dooms it. In 1925, the British explorer Percy Fawcett set off in the heart of the Amazon with his 21-year-old son Jack and Jack's friend Raleigh Rimmel.

• 1:44Cassandra Yahnian?

  He believed they were on the verge of finding Z, a legendary lost city of stone hidden deep in the rainforest. He'd studied ancient accounts, examined artifacts, and convinced himself the evidence was undeniable. If he was right, it would be the discovery of the century. But just weeks into their journey, all three men disappeared without a trace. No bodies, no gear, nothing. They were just gone. Despite decades of searches and countless theories, the fate of Percy Fawcett remains one of exploration's greatest mysteries. A mystery that has drawn dozens more treasure seekers into the jungle, many of whom also never made it out. Some were killed by

• 2:29Cassandra Yahnian?

  disease, starvation, or hostile encounters. Others simply vanished, just like Fawcett.

• 2:39Cassandra Yahnian?

  Welcome to National Park After Dark.

• 3:02Danielle LaRock?

  Hello, everyone, and welcome back to National Park After Dark. I'm Danielle. I'm listening today.

• 3:07Cassandra Yahnian?

  I'm Cassie. I'm telling the story. Welcome.

• 3:09Danielle LaRock?

  Amazing. I'm so excited. I have been waiting for this moment, and I don't want to ask too many questions, but there's one that I think you can answer it off the top. Does this have anything to do with a national park?

• 3:21Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yes.

• 3:22Danielle LaRock?

  Okay.

• 3:23Cassandra Yahnian?

  This is fully has to do with the national park. I'm not even like loosely tying something together here. This story takes place inside of a national park.

• 3:32Danielle LaRock?

  Okay, I not that I'd be like, okay, well, we got to scrap it. Sorry.

• 3:36Cassandra Yahnian?

  It's like, I don't want to hear it. Throw that research away.

• 3:38Danielle LaRock?

  Sorry for all the research. Exactly. No, I'm super stoked. I really love this story. I haven't read the book, but I've watched the movie, which is kind of a role reversal for me, but.

• 3:50Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah. And the movie is based off of true events, too. I mean, of course, it's dramatized. It has Charlie Hunneman in it. And, you know, it's a dramatized version of it, so it's not fully accurate, but it is, it does follow the true story.

• 4:06Danielle LaRock?

  Okay. And it's been quite some time since I've seen it. So I'm so excited. Well, I guess before you get into it, because I know you did say it's pretty lengthy, which is great, because the story is like everything I love within. The it's like it's the perfect type of story. It has mystery and adventure and some question marks and just desire to find something new.

• 4:30Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yes.

• 4:31Danielle LaRock?

  But anyways, I know it's kind of lengthy, but we just wanted to say that next week there will be no new episode. We're taking a break to celebrate Cassie's wedding.

• 4:41Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yes, it's coming up soon and we were like, you know, it's a little much to have have episodes and putting things out at the same time. So today, this is coming out on Labor Day. So I don't know if you're listening on release day and if not, maybe you can save it for next Monday. If you're gonna be missing us, but then we'll be back to our normal schedule the week after.

• 5:00Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah. Okay. Is that it?

• 5:02Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, I think so. Let's jump into the story of Percy Fawcett. And I'm going to the way that I've formatted this story is I want to tell about Percy Fawcett and his life. So then you have context when we get into his disappearance.

• 5:19Danielle LaRock?

  Okay.

• 5:19Cassandra Yahnian?

  So going back to the very beginning of Percy Fawcett's life. He was born in 1867 in Torgway, England, which is a seaside town on the south coast of the UK. When you look at his family members, it's clear that adventure and discipline were in his DNA. His father was an amateur scientist with a passion for exploration. He was a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, a place where maps were drawn, expeditions were launched, and reputations were made or broken. Percy's older brother, Edward, was a mountaineer and eastern mystic. Dinner table conversations in the Fawcett household was as likely to drift towards far offlands and legends as it was to current affairs back home. In this environment, Percy grew up with a sense that the world was wider and wilder

• 6:04Cassandra Yahnian?

  than the small slice of England that he knew. From an early age, Percy absorbed two seemingly opposite influences, an obsessive love of mystery, which he got from his family, and a rigid sense of order, which he got from his education. His early schooling was conventional for the time, until in his late teens, he moved to southeast London to attend the Royal Military Academy in Woolwich, the British Army's elite training ground for artillery forces. There, he learned the precision and discipline that would later serve him well, and some would argue also lead him into dangerous overconfidence. Fawcett graduated from the Royal Military Academy in 1886 as a second lieutenant in the Royal Artillery. His military career quickly took him abroad.

• 6:48Cassandra Yahnian?

  Within a year of graduating, the nineteen-year-old Fawcett was posted to Ceylon, which is modern-day Sri Lanka, beginning a long stretch of service overseas. His time in Ceylon was also the beginning of his fascination with tropical landscapes, ancient ruins, and the ideas that there were still corners of the earth not fully mapped or understood by Europeans. These early years planted the seed of conviction that would dominate his life, the belief that modern civilization had not yet uncovered all of humanity's greatest stories. After about a decade in Ceylon, Fawcett's military career brought him to Hong Kong and then Morocco. But by the time he was in his late 30s, he was feeling restless. The military's routines felt too constrained.

• 7:29Cassandra Yahnian?

  In 1901, he married Nina Agnes Patterson, the daughter of a fellow British officer. She shared his fascination with exploration and would become his lifelong supporter and correspondent. That same year, Fawcett decided to follow in his father's footsteps and joined the Royal Geographical Society's training program in London, where he learned the skills that would eventually make him one of the most sought-after surveyors of his day. Two years later, in 1903, Nina gave birth to their first child, Jack, who would one day join Fawcett in the Amazon. In 1906, they welcomed a second son, Brian, who, as an adult, would go on to publish Exploration Fawcett: Journey to the Lost City of Z, a book that compiled his father's journals and accounts.

• 8:13Cassandra Yahnian?

  So there's a lot of, um, there are a lot of books about Percy Fawcett. And there's actually one that was recently published in 2009, which was one that I listened to on Audible and I thought was really interesting. And that was someone who went back and researched this whole story. But his son actually published all of his, all of his writings that he would be away on expeditions and would send them home to his family and be like, "Hey, I'm here, I'm doing this." And he published all of that. So if people are interested, you can actually read Percy Fawcett's writings, which is cool.

• 8:47Danielle LaRock?

  And in the movie, Percy is played by that Sense of Anarchy guy.

• 8:53Cassandra Yahnian?

  Charlie Hunnam.

• 8:54Danielle LaRock?

  Right. I've never seen Sense of Anarchy and I'm not a Charlie Hunnam, like... Girlie.

• 8:59Cassandra Yahnian?

  I'm not like, uh, I'm not like attached to him as a fan type way, but I mean, I do like his acting, but I'm not like, oh my God, drooling. But I do think he's a good actor and I like him and he is in Sons of Anarchy, which I'm, I guess I'm not shocked you haven't seen because I can't really picture that being your thing, but I loved.

• 9:18Danielle LaRock?

  It's definitely your, oh my God, you're all about the motorcycles. Yeah.

• 9:23Cassandra Yahnian?

  I.

• 9:23Danielle LaRock?

  That's definitely your type of show.

• 9:25Cassandra Yahnian?

  I really liked it and I remember watching it in college, actually, and aged myself completely. But in college, I remember it was always on a Tuesday nights and we had a thing where all of our neighbors would get together and we would sit together and we would watch the new episodes every Tuesday.

• 9:42Danielle LaRock?

  We did that with, um, American Horror Story.

• 9:44Cassandra Yahnian?

  Oh, we did that too. That was on Wednesdays.

• 9:46Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, it was part, it was like the best because it was like right in the middle of the week. It was right before, you know, thirsty Thursdays and.

• 9:52Cassandra Yahnian?

  Mm hmm. It was kind of like a wholesome thing to do.

• 9:55Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah. Yeah. Um, but yeah, him and what's the other guy that people are like so obsessed with? I almost said Tom Holland.

• 10:04Cassandra Yahnian?

  People are obsessed with Tom.

• 10:06Danielle LaRock?

  I know. I love Tom Holland. He's so cute.

• 10:08Cassandra Yahnian?

  He is cute.

• 10:09Danielle LaRock?

  What the heck? The guy in Venom. Have you seen that?

• 10:14Cassandra Yahnian?

  Nope.

• 10:15Danielle LaRock?

  Really? Sometimes I feel, have you seen those memes where it's like me handing my alien a drink? And, and then they like have a sip of it and then they're like, and that's a margarita. It's like, sometimes I think of you as my alien. Cause you like don't know a lot of.

• 10:37Cassandra Yahnian?

  I'm your alien.

• 10:38Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah. Okay. What the hell is his name? Hold on before we go on because it's going to bother the heck out of me. Have you seen The Lost City of Z? The movie?

• 10:48Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yes, I have.

• 10:49Danielle LaRock?

  Okay.

• 10:49Cassandra Yahnian?

  But I don't know who you're talking about.

• 10:50Danielle LaRock?

  Tom Hardy.

• 10:51Cassandra Yahnian?

  Oh, yeah.

• 10:52Danielle LaRock?

  I feel like people are very like into him too. And the whole like craze with Charlie Hunnam or what?

• 11:00Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, he played in, um, he was one of the brothers that they were the infamous gangsters Reggie, Ronnie and Reggie in, in England.

• 11:10Danielle LaRock?

  Yes.

• 11:11Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, he played one of them.

• 11:12Danielle LaRock?

  No, both of them.

• 11:13Cassandra Yahnian?

  Both of them. Yeah. I don't know the twins. Right.

• 11:17Cassandra Yahnian?

  It's like there's two Lindsay Lohan's as well.

• 11:20Danielle LaRock?

  Right. In The Parent Trap. She played one of them. She played Hallie.

• 11:24Cassandra Yahnian?

  She played one of them, yeah.

• 11:25Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah. Okay, anyway, go on. Fawcett, easy. Percy.

• 11:29Cassandra Yahnian?

  Right, right. Back to the story.

• 12:04Cassandra Yahnian?

  Okay, so going back into Brian, his son, who ends up writing this book and publishing his writings. The same year that Brian was born, the skills that Percy Fawcett learned at the Royal Geographical Society were put to the test in South America. The society dispatched Fawcett to map a remote and disputed stretch of border between Brazil and Bolivia, a landscape that was so inhospitable that previous surveyors had failed. The job required more than just technical knowledge. It demanded physical endurance and the ability to navigate both the dense, unforgiving rainforest and the complex mix of people who lived there. At the time, the Amazon Basin was a patchwork of indigenous territories,

• 12:44Cassandra Yahnian?

  isolating trading posts and rough frontier towns that had sprung up during a period known as the Rubber Boom, when European fortune seekers came in droves to harvest latex from wild rubber trees.

• 12:56Danielle LaRock?

  Was this, what year was this?

• 12:58Cassandra Yahnian?

  This was in...

• 12:59Danielle LaRock?

  Like the early 1900s?

• 13:00Cassandra Yahnian?

  1903.

• 13:01Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, this was the same time. I read a lot about this when I was reading The River of Doubt, with Theodore Roosevelt's expedition to South America.

• 13:10Cassandra Yahnian?

  There's a lot of parallels to The River of Doubt in this. I think just kind of the timeframe, but also the location.

• 13:17Danielle LaRock?

  Right.

• 13:18Cassandra Yahnian?

  And a lot of, I think, the same obstacles that were in that are pretty similar to in this story as well.

• 13:23Danielle LaRock?

  Mm-hmm.

• 13:24Cassandra Yahnian?

  I also didn't know latex came from trees.

• 13:26Danielle LaRock?

  So you're allergic to trees?

• 13:28Cassandra Yahnian?

  I am allergic to trees. That's kind of messed up.

• 13:31Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, just.

• 13:32Cassandra Yahnian?

  A lot of people are allergic to latex, though. I wonder if I would be allergic to the tree, or I'm just allergic to the form.

• 13:40Danielle LaRock?

  I'm sure it's the form. It's all the chemical processes and.

• 13:43Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 13:44Danielle LaRock?

  Making it and.

• 13:45Cassandra Yahnian?

  I've never touched a wild rubber tree, though, so.

• 13:48Danielle LaRock?

  Well, I would advise against it, probably.

• 13:50Cassandra Yahnian?

  I'm not anaphylactic allergic, though, so I feel like I could try it and just see. I'm not gonna eat it.

• 13:55Danielle LaRock?

  I just remember, I'll never forget the time that, like, at work, we, there was some sort of celebrate, what was it? We were celebrating you for something.

• 14:04Cassandra Yahnian?

  So my birthday?

• 14:05Danielle LaRock?

  I don't know if it was your birthday, or maybe something to do with, like, was it your retirement?

• 14:11Cassandra Yahnian?

  Party.

• 14:12Danielle LaRock?

  I think it was your retirement party. And like, the whole hospital was filled with balloons and like, whatever, and you like, walked in, you're like, I can't, I physically actually can't be here.

• 14:24Cassandra Yahnian?

  It's like, this is so nice, but I'm literally allergic to this entire room right now.

• 14:28Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, so I have to go home.

• 14:31Cassandra Yahnian?

  Like, retirement early.

• 14:33Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, I'm actually retiring in this moment.

• 14:37Cassandra Yahnian?

  For context, my retirement party was, I was having my kidney transplant and I was gonna be out of office. And one of the really nice memories, I guess, from that hospital is that they threw me a retirement party, because they said, I'm never coming back, I'm retiring. And people thought I was kidding. Um, I was not.

• 14:55Danielle LaRock?

  I don't think you were kidding. I didn't. I thought, I was like, this girl is not meant for this life.

• 15:02Cassandra Yahnian?

  No.

• 15:03Danielle LaRock?

  There she goes.

• 15:04Cassandra Yahnian?

  There she goes off to bigger and better things.

• 15:07Danielle LaRock?

  With a new kidney and everything.

• 15:09Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, and it was true. I never went back. Yeah, even when I was begged, I held my ground. Only mainly because the pay was awful. Anyway, I'm allergic to latex.

• 15:21Danielle LaRock?

  Anyway, long story short.

• 15:23Cassandra Yahnian?

  Long story short, I am allergic to latex and I've never touched a wild rubber tree, so I'll keep you guys all updated if I ever do. Okay. Well, going back into this period where he was sent to this place to map it, Fawcett proved that he was capable of navigating all of it. He covered vast distances by canoe, mule, and on foot, taking meticulous measurements and keeping detailed notes. He also developed a reputation for his unusually respectful interactions with indigenous communities. While many European explorers of the era relied on heavy firearms and displays of force, Fawcett preferred to travel light and maintained warm relations with the locals, sometimes trading gifts or stories. This approach didn't always guarantee safety,

• 16:07Cassandra Yahnian?

  but it did earn him trust in regions where outsiders were often met with hostility. In the borderlands between Brazil, Bolivia, and Peru, those "locals" included a remarkable diversity of indigenous nations. Along the rivers lived the Saeja, who were skilled canoeists and fishermen, whose villages were along the banks of major tributaries. Deeper in the forests were communities like the Chocobo and the Yaminawa, known for their mobility and seasonal movements throughout the rainforest. Each had its own history of contact with outsiders. Some had longstanding grievances with explorers, traders, or government agents. Others had been traumatized by epidemics and violence brought by previous incursions.

• 16:50Cassandra Yahnian?

  To step uninvited into their territory was to take up profound risk, one Fawcett himself had always understood, even if he underestimated it in the end. Percy Fawcett's son grew up idolizing their father's adventures. When he returned from an expedition, he would tell the boys stories of towering waterfalls, rivers, the colors of tea, the nights under skies full of more stars than they could imagine. Jack in particular was captivated by them. Between assignments abroad, Percy encouraged Jack's love of the outdoors, taking him camping in the English countryside, teaching him to read a compass, and showing him how to pack for a journey. Even at a young age, Jack made it clear he didn't want to just hear those stories, he wanted to be part of them.

• 17:33Cassandra Yahnian?

  1906 and 1911 Percy Fawcett returned to South America multiple times. Each expedition deepening his fascination with the continent's mysteries. In his journals alongside meticulous measurements and sketches of riverbanks, Fawcett reported strange fantastical sightings that made some of his colleagues at the Royal Geographical Society raise their eyebrows. He wrote of things like a giant anaconda that was 62 feet long, a dog-like animal with a cat's face, even a strange luminous light hovering above the trees. Aliens? Maybe? That's what it reminded me of.

• 18:09Danielle LaRock?

  I don't know, the Amazon's a crazy wild place.

• 18:12Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, who says there's not aliens in the Amazon?

• 18:15Danielle LaRock?

  I think people have said that multiple times.

• 18:17Cassandra Yahnian?

  I'm saying it right now.

• 18:18Danielle LaRock?

  Okay, yeah. 62 feet is crazy.

• 18:22Cassandra Yahnian?

  That is crazy.

• 18:24Danielle LaRock?

  I don't know, what, how do, what do you think is the longest recorded?

• 18:27Cassandra Yahnian?

  62 feet?

• 18:29Cassandra Yahnian?

  How many Titanic ships are 62?

• 18:33Danielle LaRock?

  Okay, I just typed in longest, okay, longest recorded, or do you have a guess?

• 18:37Cassandra Yahnian?

  The longest recorded one?

• 18:39Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, ever found.

• 18:40Cassandra Yahnian?

  And 45 feet?

• 18:43Danielle LaRock?

  Holy, no.

• 18:44Cassandra Yahnian?

  Okay, that's my guess.

• 18:46Danielle LaRock?

  In February 2024, scientists discovered a giant anaconda species in the Ecuadorian Amazon that could be the world's largest snake. The largest female measured 6.3 meters or 20.8 feet long.

• 18:58Cassandra Yahnian?

  That's really big.

• 18:58Danielle LaRock?

  But then it does say that the locals there had reported seeing anacondas larger.

• 19:05Cassandra Yahnian?

  Okay.

• 19:05Danielle LaRock?

  So.

• 19:06Cassandra Yahnian?

  Locals know.

• 19:07Danielle LaRock?

  62 feet is wild though. And then it says, like, right after that, the largest confirmed green anaconda was about 27 feet long. Six, either way, 60 something feet is

• 19:19Cassandra Yahnian?

  crazy.

• 19:20Danielle LaRock?

  Out of this world. Who's to say? I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to like-

• 19:24Cassandra Yahnian?

  He did take meticulous measurements of things, though, so maybe he really did know.

• 19:28Danielle LaRock?

  I don't know.

• 19:30Cassandra Yahnian?

  I don't know. I like to, even though that sounds really outrageous to me, and maybe it totally is, and it's fabricated, I like to believe that there are things out there that we just don't know. And that seem very farfetched.

• 19:42Danielle LaRock?

  Well, this Google results is also, I don't, I do not know. Cause then another one from six days ago.

• 19:51Danielle LaRock?

  It's like, it says the large, the, the snake was said to have been thirty-three feet long.

• 19:57Cassandra Yahnian?

  Okay, see?

• 19:58Danielle LaRock?

  I don't know. Whatever. It also thinks I'm still in Jefferson County, Colorado, so I can't trust this.

• 20:06Cassandra Yahnian?

  I'm assuming this anaconda was not in Jefferson County, Colorado.

• 20:10Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, no, I don't know. Either way, the Amazon is full of secrets. And if it wants to have a sixty-something foot long anaconda as one of them, that's fine with me.

• 20:20Cassandra Yahnian?

  Her hair is so big because it's full of secrets. Secrets.

• 20:27Cassandra Yahnian?

  Well, these accounts carried home in letters, articles, and lectures at the Royal Geographical Society, made their way into London's newspapers and after dinner conversations. Many people dismissed such reports as exaggerations, but Fawcett defended them, arguing that just because something sounded improbable to armchair scientists in London didn't mean it wasn't real.

• 20:48Danielle LaRock?

  Wow, I feel attacked.

• 20:49Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 20:50Danielle LaRock?

  You could have warned me you were about to say that.

• 20:52Cassandra Yahnian?

  I could have, but I think his, I think his, his argument is valid, though, to, I mean, I think it just shows kind of both sides of the coin, because people are like, that's crazy that we couldn't, we couldn't imagine that. And then he's like, I was there. You guys are looking at this from a perspective of someone who has never been here before.

• 21:11Danielle LaRock?

  Well, and not only that, but when you were describing how his son like really wanted to be a part of the adventures, as like his dad was describing them and things like that, especially at that time in London, when, I mean, you couldn't be farther away. It like, it feels like a universe is away from a place like that. Like, at least now, even if you physically have never been to a location, you can get a good sense and feel of it through various documentaries and a plethora of books. It's like, almost like. Not that we know everything because we're far from that, but we have a pretty good

• 21:44Cassandra Yahnian?

  We can Google it.

• 21:45Danielle LaRock?

  A good handle on things at least. And we know at the bare minimum to know that, hey, that isn't really that impossible. If you think about it, because look at what we already know exists there.

• 21:57Cassandra Yahnian?

  Mm hmm.

• 21:57Danielle LaRock?

  And at that time, it was just this complete blank in like on a page in a book of like, question mark.

• 22:04Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah. And like living in London where it was just like one of the dirtiest places around and just like concrete jungle type of thing. And then to hear of this beautiful jungle, like, yeah. It's so cool. It is. And I think that's something that we see throughout the story too. And we'll get into more is that this was so outlandish for people that these stories, but it also became these dinner table conversations because it was like, this is what he, this is what he said he saw. Can you believe it? And when you're sitting, like you said, in a concrete jungle and you're hearing these magnificent stories that are coming from someone local to you who's saying that they've seen this other worlds.

• 22:49Cassandra Yahnian?

  Um, I think that that really sparked people's imaginations and just curiosity.

• 22:53Danielle LaRock?

  It feels like in a very small, small scale, when we went to Antarctica and came back and people were like, well, how was it? It's like, I can't even describe to you what it was like because there is no parallel here. It like, it's just such a different place that it's hard to even get you to understand what it was like without being there, you know?

• 23:16Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah. My heart has been aching for Antarctica recently. Um, it's been on my mind a lot recently, but I

• 23:23Danielle LaRock?

  Like the trip or the place itself?

• 23:24Cassandra Yahnian?

  The place. And not that the trip wasn't wonderful because it was, but it it's specifically the place that's been on my mind a lot recently. But when we came back and people were asking me about it, and I remember when we were there just thinking like, how am I going to tell people of this place? I don't, I don't even know how to begin to describe it without saying you just have to be here.

• 23:44Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah.

• 23:44Cassandra Yahnian?

  And, and I say that with also the, you just have to be here, witness it and see it and care about it. And also at the same time, you don't want a lot of people flocking there because of how untouched it is. That's kind of the special part about it. So I feel really, um,

• 24:04Danielle LaRock?

  Protective.

• 24:05Cassandra Yahnian?

  Not prot- uh, not so much as protective, but lucky, I guess. I feel really lucky to have been able to witness Mm-hmm. that type of landscape. I don't know if I ever will again. I really hope I do, but it is definitely the best place I've ever visited. Yeah, I loved it so much. But I would like more of my travel to be, have a little bit more things around for accommodations. But in general, I couldn't survive in Antarctica long on my own. We needed a whole crew of people on a boat to keep me alive. I cannot hack it on my own. And now this way I'm up here, but um, but anyway, going back into this, this is

• 24:46Cassandra Yahnian?

  kind of similar to how I feel about Antarctica. Like you said, it's just this magical, wonderful landscape that he's explaining to people. And he explains this stuff. He says armchair scientists are just saying things. They don't know what's real or not. And in an era where the Amazon remained almost entirely unknown to the British public, these stories, whether they were believed or not, fueled a growing legend of Fawcett as this fearless explorer willing to venture where few outsiders had ever gone. Percy Fawcett had become a household name in England. It was during that time on one of Fawcett's stints in Brazil that he came across a very interesting clue of the Amazon.

• 25:26Cassandra Yahnian?

  And this was a document known as Manuscript 512 that was stored in the archives of the National Library of Rio de Janeiro. It had been written roughly a hundred and fifty years earlier in seventeen fifty-three by an anonymous Portuguese fortune-seeking settler who was in search of gold, territory, and indigenous people to enslave. Manuscript 512 described a ruined stone city deep in the Amazon, complete with arches, wide streets, and a temple adorned with strange symbols. The location was vague, the details something like out of a fairy tale. But from the moment Fawcett read it, he believed that the place being described was real.

• 26:06Cassandra Yahnian?

  For context, most scholars in Europe at the time believed the Amazon had always been sparsely populated and that it was actually incapable of sustaining large, complex societies because of the soil. The rainforest may look very lush and green, but most of that life comes from a thin layer of decomposing plant matter on the surface. Once you strip that away, the soil beneath is actually surprisingly very poor in nutrients. But Fawcett disagreed with the notion that this would make it impossible for a city to thrive in the Amazon. He believed that this manuscript that he found might be evidence of a sophisticated pre-Columbian civilization, one that had been overlooked by history or deeply forgotten.

• 26:50Cassandra Yahnian?

  As the years passed, this idea turned into an obsession for him. In Fawcett's mind, the city described in the manuscript was real. There was no maybe, and he gave it a name. He called it the Lost City of Zee. He imagined it as a place of monumental architecture and advanced knowledge hidden beneath the Amazon's green canopy. If he could find it, he wouldn't just make a great archaeological discovery, he would rewrite the understanding of human history in the Americas. For Percy Fawcett, with this in mind, the jungle was no longer a place to survey. It was a puzzle, and Zee was the missing piece he was looking for. Every expedition he went on from then on,

• 27:32Cassandra Yahnian?

  no matter its official purpose, was also a personal quest, one that would soon take over his professional work. Through it all, his wife Nina was his anchor. From the heart of the jungle, Fawcett sent her long handwritten letters, part love note, part expedition log, describing the rivers he'd crossed, the food he'd foraged, and the people he'd meet. He shared his hopes for Zee, his frustrations with setbacks, and sometimes the weariness that crept in after weeks of rain and illness. Nina's replies were full of encouragement, news of their sons, and reminders that no matter how far he roamed, he had a home to return to. I dream of that as me, but I'm the one sending the letters.

• 28:14Danielle LaRock?

  But you are Percy.

• 28:15Cassandra Yahnian?

  I'm Percy, yeah.

• 28:17Danielle LaRock?

  I think that's just like

• 28:18Cassandra Yahnian?

  writing me letters or reading my letters.

• 28:21Danielle LaRock?

  I don't know. I think it's cool to have like, I would dream of that being like flip flop, like it flip flopping. Like, cause I, I do like being at home sometimes. Like, I don't know if I could be gone for years at a time. Like, at one point in time, I was like, I could totally be like a solo backpacker and just like live for years abroad and nay, nay, no longer. Uh, but of course I have the travel bug and I like being out and you know, you and I are gone for months at a time sometimes, you know?

• 28:54Cassandra Yahnian?

  Quite literally.

• 28:54Danielle LaRock?

  But it is nice to have somebody like holding down the fort and that you can like touch base with whatever and then you can come home and then they can go off and do their thing. And then it's your time to be home, you know?

• 29:06Cassandra Yahnian?

  It's nice having a home base. That is one thing, but Percy has that. He kinda has the best of both worlds because he has a family that he wanted.

• 29:13Danielle LaRock?

  He has a loving, supporting.

• 29:15Cassandra Yahnian?

  Loving, supporting partner. And he gets to go off and venture around the world, do his thing, and then come back to a home that's being kept and taken care of for him.

• 29:26Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah.

• 29:26Cassandra Yahnian?

  Because a lot of this, and I was reading this in, uh, the book that was later published, um, that I'll get into, not the one by his son, um, but by a recent journalist, his name, I have it written down here. It's Brian Grant, I think. And we'll get into it further in the story, but he talks a lot about his wife and just how she was really the one holding everything down. She married to have a family and kids and stuff, but then she ended up kind of a single mom.

• 29:55Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah.

• 29:56Cassandra Yahnian?

  Raising kids, taking care of the house, making sure that everything was, was set for when he came home. And also a lot of times she had to work because Percy's explorations didn't always bring home a lot of money.

• 30:10Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah.

• 30:10Cassandra Yahnian?

  So she was really acting as a single parent while he was off gallivanting, uh, around the world and, but from all that I've read is she was very supportive of it. It was like, this is his dream. I knew this when I married him. So I'm gonna hold down the fort. Go.

• 30:28Danielle LaRock?

  Sounds like the perfect partnership they have going on.

• 30:31Cassandra Yahnian?

  Maybe with a little more money.

• 30:33Danielle LaRock?

  Who knows?

• 30:33Cassandra Yahnian?

  If I was holding down the fort entirely on my own, I would want monetary compensation for that.

• 30:38Danielle LaRock?

  I mean, you're not wrong.

• 30:40Cassandra Yahnian?

  Call me a gold digger.

• 30:41Danielle LaRock?

  Call me what you will.

• 30:43Cassandra Yahnian?

  Call me what you will.

• 30:45Danielle LaRock?

  Have you seen those things? It's like, I don't know though, because you are my little alien, but.

• 30:53Danielle LaRock?

  It's like men be calling women gold diggers and it's like, ooh, be scared. I'm coming after your $127.

• 31:00Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah. It's like, what gold?

• 31:05Cassandra Yahnian?

  It's like, men be afraid that women are after their money. It's like, what money?

• 31:09Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah. I would love to know. Yeah. Anyway. Anywho, Nina is a real one. That's her name, right?

• 31:18Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yes, Nina. Nina is not a gold digger, although if I was in her shoes, I would have been.

• 31:27Danielle LaRock?

  Remember being a kid around the holidays and anytime you would ask for something, your parents would always say, you have to wait until the holiday. Well, with Mint Mobile's holiday deal, there's no waiting involved. Right now, this second, all of their plans are $15 a month. That is such a sweet deal. Mint Mobile took what's wrong with wireless and made it right with premium wireless for 15 bucks a month. All plans come with high speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. You can even bring your current phone and your number. Choose from three, six, or 12 month plans and say goodbye to a monthly bill. It's so easy. Sign up online and get premium wireless service for 15 bucks a month.

• 32:08Danielle LaRock?

  To get your new wireless plan for 15 bucks a month, go to mintmobile.com/NPAD. That's mintmobile.com/NPAD. Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com/NPAD. Limited time offer. Upfront payment of $45 for three month, $90 for six month, or 180 for 12 month plan required. $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. Initial plan term only. Greater than 50 gigabyte may slow when network is busy. Capable device required. Availability, speed, and coverage varies. See mintmobile.com.

• 32:48Cassandra Yahnian?

  By the early 1910s, Fawcett had become one of the Royal Geographical Society's most reliable men in the field. His assignments took him back to South America again and again, not only to chart disputed borders, but also to carry out scientific observations, gather data on the local people, and whenever possible, search for hints of Z. Fawcett's expeditions were grueling. The Amazon was, and still is, one of the most biologically diverse and physically demanding environments on the planet. Fawcett's journals are full of descriptions of extreme heat and humidity, days passing without any food, and treacherous rivers that had to be crossed again and again as his team followed twisting paths through flooded forests.

• 33:31Cassandra Yahnian?

  Insects were a constant torment, mosquitoes, biting flies, and parasitic mites that burrowed underneath the skin, leaving behind itchiness that could last for days. The damp ground would often soak through his clothes at night as he tried to sleep under minimal shelters. While he laid awake at night, he would listen to the distant calls of howler monkeys, and sometimes, he would listen to things creep closer and closer at an unnerving sound beneath, like, an unnerving, underneath the canopy of darkness, just large creatures walking right around his camp. To many, this sounded like a literal nightmare, and yet, Fawcett seemed to thrive in these

• 34:13Cassandra Yahnian?

  conditions. He prided himself on traveling light, often with fewer than half a dozen companions and minimal supplies. As I alluded to earlier, he believed that large, heavily armed expeditions were more likely to provoke conflict with indigenous groups. His preferred kit included canned food, a few medical essentials, lightweight hammocks, a sextant for navigation, and, of course, his journals. He also carried a pistol, but he rarely ever fired it. This approach earned him both admiration and criticism. Admirers saw him as resourceful and respectful, able to move through territory that had defeated other Europeans. Critics accused him of being reckless, taking too-

• 34:56Cassandra Yahnian?

  Few men, too little food, and putting his companions in unnecessary danger. Fawcett brushed off those concerns. When encountering indigenous communities, as I described earlier, he would present them with small gifts, fish hooks, beads, or cloth as a sign of his goodwill. In some cases, he was invited to share meals or stay overnight in a village. In others, where a group disappeared into the forest before he could approach, leaving behind only footprints and the smoke of abandoned cooking fires. But Fawcett's personality wasn't all charm and tact. Some would say he was arrogant. He had little tolerance for people he considered incompetent, and his leadership style could be rigid, to say the least.

• 35:37Cassandra Yahnian?

  Once, when a fellow officer in the field questioned his judgment during the expedition, Fawcett ended the argument by ordering the man to stand still while he drew his revolver and calmly shot the head off a nearby viper. The message he was sending was clear. In the jungle, Fawcett's word was final. I mean, that's a hell of a, hell of a way to show it. It's like, I could kill you in, in a second. Yeah. Don't, don't argue with me.

• 36:04Danielle LaRock?

  Don't mess with me, yeah.

• 36:05Cassandra Yahnian?

  World War I interrupted his work in South America. In 1914, Fawcett returned to England and joined the British Army, serving on the Western Front and in campaigns across the Middle East. He rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for his actions under fire. The war hardened him, physically and emotionally, but it also deepened his yearning for the Amazon. After seeing the mass killing and mechanized destruction of the Western Front, the jungle, with all its perils and possibilities, felt almost pure by comparison. After the war, Fawcett wasted no time returning to Brazil. His 1920 expedition, undertaken with just one companion, was planned specifically to search for the site he believed might be Z.

• 36:49Cassandra Yahnian?

  It ended in failure after weeks of illness, dwindling supplies, and difficult encounters with local groups. Fawcett withdrew reluctantly, convinced that he had come closer than ever before. By now, Z had become more than a theory for Fawcett. He was completely obsessed. With its existence. He compiled maps, cross-reference indigenous oral histories, and reexamined historical documents. Every new scrap of information seemed to him to point towards the same conclusion, that there was something out there hidden in the unmapped jungle. His obsession didn't just alienate skeptics, it also inspired a growing circle of believers. But his growing fame came with pressure.

• 37:31Cassandra Yahnian?

  Each failed expedition made it harder to secure funding for the next one, and each return to London without a major discovery made his claims about Z easier to dismiss. By the 1920s, Fawcett knew he needed to make one last decisive push, an expedition that would settle the question of Z once and for all. It was a decision that would seal his fate. In the spring of 1925, Percy Fawcett was 57 years old and was in excellent physical condition for his age. He would be on his eighth expedition to South America this time around, but in his mind, this was the one that mattered most. Fawcett had spent the previous winter in England planning. What he viewed as mistakes of previous ventures,

• 38:13Cassandra Yahnian?

  too many men, too much gear, too many distractions, would not be repeated. The final expedition would be lean, fast, and discreet. Fewer people meant that you would carry fewer supplies, but also had fewer mouths to feed, fewer opportunities for disagreement, and less chance of alarming or provoking indigenous groups whose lands they would cross. Ultimately, the team he put together consisted of just three men: Fawcett himself, his eldest son Jack, who is 21 years old, and Jack's close friend Raleigh Rimmel. Jack was tall, athletic, and fiercely loyal to his father. Much like how Percy had once followed his own father's footsteps by joining the Royal Geographical Society, Jack had been shaped by the idea of carrying on a legacy.

• 38:57Cassandra Yahnian?

  But his decision to undertake this journey wasn't just a matter of family loyalty, it was the result of years of dreaming about the Amazon in particular. He had grown up hearing his father's stories, studying his maps, and imagining himself pushing a canoe upriver or hacking through the undergrowth at Percy's side. But this time, the Stakes were real. The 1925 expedition would be longer, more remote, and far more dangerous than any adventure Jack had ever attempted. Still, for both father and son, there was an unspoken sense that this was their moment, a chance to share in discovery, to write their names together in history. Nina supported the decision, even as she understood the risks, sending them off with letters, supplies, and her unwavering faith.

• 39:42Cassandra Yahnian?

  Jack's friend Raleigh Rimmel was a former artillery officer who had grown up on stories of adventure. Neither of the young men had any experience in the Amazon, but Fawcett saw that as an asset. They would follow his lead without the stubbornness or competing theories of seasoned other explorers. So essentially, he's taking two young kids with him with no experience in the Amazon, and he's saying, "This is great because they're not going to question my authority."

• 40:12Danielle LaRock?

  I was just gonna say, okay, so the, well, how did he describe? Not conceited, but

• 40:17Cassandra Yahnian?

  Arrogant.

• 40:18Danielle LaRock?

  Arrogant.

• 40:19Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 40:20Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, that feels dangerous. Like, I understand to negate some of the issues that maybe he had before with more people, more minds, more opinions, but like, this feels like the complete opposite end of the spectrum in a dangerous way.

• 40:35Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, and he, so when I was listening to one of the books, they detailed, they detailed a story of when he was out in the wilderness on another expedition, and one of his guys got really seriously injured and sick, and he viewed him as this burden. And he basically had him trudging along. He could bear, he could barely keep up. He had malaria. It was just this awful, awful instance. And he had told his whole crew, it's like, "You get sick, you leave, we leave you and you die." And that was how he, he's like, "I'm on a mission here. You are not going to slow me down." And that was what they thought was going to happen, but he, at the very last minute, he was like,

• 41:20Cassandra Yahnian?

  "You're really, you're gonna die out here. We gotta get you out." And he actually stopped the mission. But that was kind of a point for him that was like, I'm so sick of other people. You're slowing me down. You're ruining my expedition. Yeah, I saved your life. I didn't leave you behind, but this is really annoying. It wasn't a

• 41:38Danielle LaRock?

  And like, I don't want to do this again.

• 41:40Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, it was very not team, like not teammate, not we're all in this together. It was, this is my mission and you're either helping me or you're slowing me down.

• 41:49Danielle LaRock?

  Okay, ruthless, but

• 41:51Cassandra Yahnian?

  Very, and people described him as that was ruthless.

• 41:54Danielle LaRock?

  Okay, well, I mean, I feel like it has a different feel, at least because this is his son.

• 42:01Cassandra Yahnian?

  For sure.

• 42:02Danielle LaRock?

  His son's friend. Okay, I won't say anything else until, you know, you give me more. But I know there's a lot of unknowns, of course.

• 42:09Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 42:10Danielle LaRock?

  And that's what makes this story so intriguing, but uh, yeah, just having that kind of, at least going in with like, okay, well, fewer men, fewer problems. It's like, not necessarily, but

• 42:21Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, and he had to deal with like mutinies before, not like full mutinies, but people would be stealing each other's food. And they'd have to kick people off and leave that. They really did leave some people in the wilderness and were like, you're stealing our food. This is our only survival buy. And they had a lot of, he had a lot of experience with that. So it sounds like by having his son, who's very loyal to him and his friend, he doesn't have to worry about the betrayal that can happen there. And also they've never done this before, so they really have to listen to everything.

• 42:54Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah.

• 42:54Cassandra Yahnian?

  He's gonna say. Funding for this expedition came from a variety of sources. Small grants, personal contributions, and even support from the North American Newspaper Alliance, who hoped to publish his updates from the field. Fawcett was careful to keep his true destination vague in public statements, hinting only that they were headed into, quote, unexplored territory in the Brazilian interior. In truth, he had identified a point on his maps that he believed matched the location described in manuscript five one two. In late March, the trio boarded a ship to Rio de Janeiro, then traveled inland by train, riverboats, and horseback. The journey began at the frontier town of Kiababa,

• 43:38Cassandra Yahnian?

  the capital of the Brazilian state of the Mata Grossa. There, they spent several weeks assembling supplies, canned food, powdered milk, cooking gear, a few changes of clothing, mosquito nets, hammocks, fishing lines, a sextant, and compasses. Like on Fawcett's previous excursions, each man carried a firearm, though Fawcett hoped they wouldn't need to use them. From Kiababa, they headed north towards Xingu River Basin. And this is where we get into the National Park.

• 44:08Danielle LaRock?

  Okay, I've been waiting.

• 44:10Cassandra Yahnian?

  This region is now known as Xingu National Park. This is a place where the rainforest feels endless, an expanse of green that stretches to the horizon in every direction, broken only by the winding silver of rivers and the occasional burst of red or yellow from flowering trees. The air is warm and heavy, rich with the smell of damp earth and vegetation, and alive with sound, the low hum of insects and the calls of howler monkeys. Established as a national park in 1961, Xingu was the first large indigenous territory to be formally recognized by the Brazilian government, a groundbreaking step at the time, and still one of the most significant.

• 44:53Cassandra Yahnian?

  Today, the park covers more than 10,000 square miles, roughly the size of the state of Maryland. It's home to over a dozen indigenous groups, including the Kikuro, Kayapo, Kaymurra, and Yawalapichi. Each community has its own language and traditions, but they share a deep commitment to preserving the forest that sustains them. Xingu National Park is defined by the Xingu River, which flows from the south to the north for more than 1,200 miles before joining the Amazon River in northern Brazil. Along the banks of the Xingu, stretches of dense forests give way to open savanna and wetlands filled with birdlife like herons, storks, and bright macaws.

• 45:37Cassandra Yahnian?

  The river and its many tributaries are a lifeline for the people who live here, providing fish, transportation, and cultural connections between villages. In the dry season, narrow channels shrink into ribbons of clear water bordered by sandy beaches. In the rainy season, the rivers swell and flood the surrounding forest. Xingu National Park is also a place of astonishing biodiversity. Botanists have catalogued hundreds of plant species here, from towering Brazil nut trees to delicate orchids that bloom only for one day. Incredible animals like jaguars, giant river otters, tapirs, and harpy eagles still roam the park. Species that have disappeared from many of their former habitats

• 46:21Cassandra Yahnian?

  due to deforestation and hunting elsewhere in the Amazon. For scientists, Xingu National Park is part of a vital ecological corridor in the southern Amazon, where rainforests meet savanna, creating unique habitats found nowhere else on Earth. Xingu is not untouched. Tragically, in recent decades, deforestation and industrial agriculture have closed in around its borders, fragmenting the forest and polluting its waterways. Satellite images show the stark contrast between the dense green within the park and the patchwork of soy fields and cattle pastures around it. Protecting Xingu means defending it against these pressures,

• 47:03Cassandra Yahnian?

  a struggle that indigenous leaders continue to carry forward, often at great personal risk. For outsiders, it can be tempting to see Xingu National Park as a remnant of a vanished past, a window into some untouched before time. But for the people who live here today, it is their home. For Percy Fawcett, it was part of the wild, mysterious heart of the Amazon he longed to explore, and possibly the site of the lost city of the Zee. When he, Jack, and Raleigh set off from Kiabah towards Xingu River Basin in the spring of 1925, the wet season had only just ended, so the landscape was flooded with water and difficult to travel through the muddy trails. They hired a few local laborers.

• 47:46Cassandra Yahnian?

  To help carry their loads for the first leg of their expedition. But Fawcett planned to dismiss them once they reached a certain point. From there, it would just be the three of them. In letters sent back to England, Fawcett sounded upbeat. He described the rainforest as lush and green, and noted that their health was good despite the heat and insects. He also hinted that they had already encountered, quote, "interesting archaeological signs." Though whether that was true or simply meant to keep his sponsors engaged is unclear because he didn't go into any details. By late May 1925, about two months into the expedition, they reached a place Fawcett called Dead Horse Camp, named for an earlier expedition during which some of his pack animals had died there.

• 48:30Cassandra Yahnian?

  On May 29th, he sent a letter from there to his wife Nina. In it, he assured her that they were well and that they had provisions for the journey ahead. He said, "You need have no fear of any failure. We will be all right." Little did he know, that would be the last letter he ever sent. From Dead Horse Camp, their trail ran deep into the interior of the Amazon rainforest. Local accounts suggest they intended to make contact with the Kalapulö people. The Kalapulö people later told anthropologists investigating the Fawcett disappearance that they had indeed hosted three outsiders matching his party's description. The men were treated with food and shelter, then sent off again, heading east.

• 49:18Cassandra Yahnian?

  That was the last ever confirmed sighting of Percy Fawcett, Jack Fawcett, and Raleigh Rimmel. When weeks passed without news from them, there was little alarm at first. In the Amazon, communication delays were normal. And Fawcett has specifically instructed that no rescue attempts be made for at least a year if he failed to return on schedule. But weeks turned into months, which turned into years.

• 49:42Danielle LaRock?

  Good luck.

• 49:42Cassandra Yahnian?

  A year? If I don't talk to you in like four days, send help SOS.

• 49:48Danielle LaRock?

  I know, we didn't talk for like a day this weekend. When's the last time we talked? It's Monday morning and we texted when I was like struggling with my couch. What date was that? Friday? That's Friday.

• 49:59Cassandra Yahnian?

  Is that really the last time we texted?

• 50:01Danielle LaRock?

  No. Okay, wait, we texted Saturday. Yeah, we, no, we didn't talk yesterday.

• 50:08Danielle LaRock?

  I'm like, it's been a

• 50:09Cassandra Yahnian?

  We didn't talk yesterday and you were

• 50:11Danielle LaRock?

  Send help.

• 50:14Cassandra Yahnian?

  It's like, check your location, make sure you're okay.

• 50:16Danielle LaRock?

  I know, I know. Um, yeah, I know, a year, and of course, yeah, everything you just outlined. Communication is spotty. It's actually very impressive that you can either even get communications in the form of letters in and out of the Amazon. I'm, I'm actually floored by that.

• 50:35Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, me too.

• 50:35Danielle LaRock?

  At that time in history, but uh, the postal service, I'm a huge fan. If, I don't think I've talked about that on here. I love the postal system and the postal service so much. I actually want to do an episode on like the Pony Express.

• 50:50Cassandra Yahnian?

  That would be really fun.

• 50:52Danielle LaRock?

  Uh, because, yeah.

• 50:53Cassandra Yahnian?

  That'd be a Christmas episode. Oh, that's the Polar Express.

• 51:03Cassandra Yahnian?

  Still could be a Christmas episode because lots of people do mail around Christmas.

• 51:10Danielle LaRock?

  Right. And that's what you meant the whole time.

• 51:13Cassandra Yahnian?

  That's what I was referring to, actually.

• 51:16Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah. Um, what was I saying? I was just so thrown by that.

• 51:19Cassandra Yahnian?

  You like the postal service? You love them?

• 51:21Danielle LaRock?

  No, but before that, there was something I was saying. Either way, oh yeah, the year. Yeah. So much can go wrong, even in a day to be like, well, they, they have eight and a half more months to send aid.

• 51:38Cassandra Yahnian?

  Respond.

• 51:39Danielle LaRock?

  Or yeah, respond in any sort of way.

• 51:42Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 51:43Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, yikes. Okay, so.

• 51:44Cassandra Yahnian?

  If I was Nina, I would not be cool with that. I'm like, you're sending my son out there for a year without you. I'm not supposed to hear from you for a year until we send a rescue team for you?

• 51:55Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah. I mean, there needs to be some sort of, she's been cool with everything up until this point. I feel like that's a boundary she could have argued for, but.

• 52:04Cassandra Yahnian?

  Maybe.

• 52:05Danielle LaRock?

  Who am I to weigh in on other people's relationships?

• 52:08Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, I'm sure that he was speaking to her a lot more like, this is so far. If I find it, I'm going to be out there researching. I imagine if he found it, he wouldn't just be like, okay, found the location, coming back now. He would be there. Researching and documenting and taking all his meticulous measurements. So maybe he warned her, if I find it, I'm not coming out to tell people I will be here conducting research. Come for me.

• 52:34Danielle LaRock?

  But he would still be in contact. I think it's the contact part.

• 52:38Cassandra Yahnian?

  I don't think they would be in contact, depending on where it was. Because from my understanding, when I was researching some of this, is that throughout the Amazon, there were these little outposts that you could be at. And there would be people that would come in on mules and horseback and they could take out your letters and go back into civilization for it.

• 52:58Danielle LaRock?

  And post them. Yeah.

• 53:00Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yes, but this lost city of Z is unmapped and theoretically not near any of those places. So if he found it, maybe he was thinking he wouldn't have access.

• 53:12Danielle LaRock?

  Made notes of it, like, kind of like, okay, I'm coming, I'll be back for you. Because he only has two, he has his kid and another friend. Like, what are they gonna do?

• 53:21Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, and limited supplies and.

• 53:23Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, and he needs funding and he needs to do the whole thing.

• 53:25Cassandra Yahnian?

  Just trying to rationalize the one year.

• 53:27Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, I don't know. I guess maybe we can't.

• 53:30Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, yeah, I don't know what he is thinking. Um, but he disappears, it turns months and then turns into years. Rumors flooded in. Some people claimed that the party had been killed by hostile tribes. Others suggested they died of disease or starvation. There were whispers that Fawcett had found Z and chosen to stay there, abandoning the outside world. British newspapers ran sensational headlines like, "Explorer Swallowed by Jungle, Lost City Claims Three More Lives", and "Did Fawcett Become King of the Indians?"

• 54:03Danielle LaRock?

  Oh, my God.

• 54:05Cassandra Yahnian?

  Come on now. The mystery of what happened to Fawcett's party was irresistible to the public and to other adventurers. Dozens of expeditions set out to solve it. From professional explorers to fortune seekers hoping to cash in on the publicity. The results were often tragic. Several search parties vanished themselves. Others returned with herring stories of disease, attacks, and treacherous terrain. By some estimates, more than 100 people have died or disappeared while looking for Fawcett.

• 54:34Danielle LaRock?

  A hundred?

• 54:35Cassandra Yahnian?

  Mm hmm.

• 54:36Danielle LaRock?

  Wow.

• 54:36Cassandra Yahnian?

  And those numbers aren't really over. People are still like, people are still

• 54:40Danielle LaRock?

  Well, of course, it's an enduring mystery.

• 54:42Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah. As time passed, theories multiplied. A British journalist claimed to have proof that the men were killed by an indigenous group that was angered by their intrusion. An American traveler insisted he'd seen Fawcett alive, living as a chief among a remote tribe, which feels very, very far fetched to me. Still, others proposed that the three men had been sacrificed in a ritual or kidnapped into slavery. The truth has never been confirmed, and their bodies were never recovered. For Nina Fawcett, the lack of closure was devastating. She refused to believe that her husband and eldest son were dead, clinging to the idea that they had found Zee and would one day return. But

• 55:23Cassandra Yahnian?

  for Brian, Percy's other son, Jack's disappearance alongside his father turned their father-son bond into part of the legend. Their last letters home spoke less about hardship and more about wonder, about stars blazing above the camp, the green shimmer of the forest canopy, the feeling of pushing deeper into an untouched world. Whatever dangers they faced, father and son faced them together. And in the years that followed, as the mystery deepened, the image of them vanishing into the green heart of the Amazon together became one of the story's most enduring and haunting threads. In addition to publishing the book Exploration Fawcett, Brian organized at least one search expedition of his own, but

• 56:06Cassandra Yahnian?

  found nothing. The lack of hard evidence, no bodies, no confirmed artifacts, made the story a perfect breeding ground for speculation, and every new lead only seemed to deepen the intrigue. The first major search party set out in the late 1920s and early 30s, often with sensational backing from newspapers eager for what we'd call today clickbait headlines. In 1927, a British reporter and ex-army officer named Albert Day Winton joined an expedition that barely made it out alive, retreating after illness and hostile encounters. In 1930, George Dayot, a seasoned British explorer, led a more organized search.

• 56:45Cassandra Yahnian?

  Dayot claimed to have reached the same Kalapalo village where Fawcett was last seen, and the villagers allegedly told him that the party had been killed by a neighboring group. Dayot even recovered a few personal items said to have belonged to Fawcett, though skeptics later questioned whether they had been planted by locals to appease the searchers. Throughout the mid 20th century, expeditions kept coming, some driven by genuine curiosity, others by the lure of adventure and fame. Many were ill-prepared for the realities of the Amazon. They underestimated the months of planning, the logistical challenges of moving through dense forests, the difficulty of navigating in an environment where GPS didn't exist, and even a compass could be unreliable near iron-rich rocks.

• 57:29Cassandra Yahnian?

  In the years after World War II, the legend of Zee found new life in popular culture. His story was told and retold on the radio and in magazines, often with exaggerations that blurred the line between fact and fiction. By the 1950s and 60s, popular paperback books were portraying him as this larger-than-life explorer who might still be out there, ruling over a hidden kingdom in the jungle. One of the most credible accounts came in 1951, when Orlando Viasboas, a Brazilian explorer and advocate for indigenous rights, led a government-sanctioned expedition into the Upper Xingu.

• 58:08Cassandra Yahnian?

  He and his brothers were instrumental in formally establishing Xingu National Park a decade later, and they had deep ties to the communities in the region. On this trip, they claimed to have met the Kalapalo elders, who recounted in detail how Fawcett and his companions were killed. Their version of the story is that the trio offended a neighboring indigenous group by violating local protocols, perhaps crossing into forbidden hunting grounds or fishing in a sacred area without permission, and were killed shortly after leaving the Kalapalo village. The killings, they said, were not acts of violence, but a response to perceived disrespect and threat. Even with this testimony, debate raged on. Skeptics pointed out that oral histories can shift over time,

• 58:53Cassandra Yahnian?

  and that such stories might Have adapted to fit what outsiders wanted to hear. Supporters of this theory argued that the account matched the geography, the timing, and the realities of cross-cultural contact in the region. In the 1980s and 90s, amateur explorers kept searching for Z. Some claimed to have found evidence of ancient stone structures deep in the forest, proof, they said, of the existence of Z. Others insisted that Fawcett's theories had been backed by discoveries elsewhere in the Amazon, where archaeological surveys revealed remnants of large pre-Columbian settlements once said to be impossible in rainforest conditions. The most exciting of these discoveries were huge shapes carved into the ground,

• 59:35Cassandra Yahnian?

  sprawling road systems, and traces of advanced farming, all evidence that large, organized societies had once thrived here, capable of supporting tens of thousands of people. This new wave of archaeological discovery casts Fawcett's obsession in a different light. He may have been wrong about the exact location or appearance of Z, but the core idea that advanced civilizations once thrived in the Amazon was no longer dismissed as fantasy. The jungle wasn't an untouched wilderness. It had been a cultural landscape, shaped and sustained by human hands for millennia. The legend of Fawcett's disappearance reached another generation in 2009

• 1:00:17Cassandra Yahnian?

  with the publication of The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession by the American journalist David Grand. And that was the, I think I said Brian Grant earlier. That's the book that I listened to on Audible for this.

• 1:00:31Danielle LaRock?

  And I think that's the book the movie adaptation is based off of, I think.

• 1:00:37Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's like the whole story, but yeah.

• 1:00:41Danielle LaRock?

  It's definitely the whole story, but I think that book like gave rise to the renewed interest.

• 1:00:47Cassandra Yahnian?

  I've seen that movie. I didn't actually like re-watch it for this episode. I saw it in theaters when it first came out. And my memory of movies is

• 1:00:55Danielle LaRock?

  I mean, it came out.

• 1:00:56Cassandra Yahnian?

  Like a portion of my brain I can't access. I see a movie and then it's just gone. It's lost to time, but.

• 1:01:03Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, it it came out in 2016, so almost 10 years ago.

• 1:01:08Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah. Well, this book is both a biography and a detective-like narrative of David Grand's own journey, retracing parts of Fawcett's route through the Amazon. He interviewed modern-day Callapallo elders, delved into the archives of the Royal Geographical Society, and ultimately came to the conclusion that echoed that of many anthropologists. Fawcett likely perished soon after leaving the Callapallo. The book became a bestseller and in 2006, oh, I have it here. And in 2016, it was adapted into a feature film of the same name, introducing Fawcett's story to yet another audience. So

• 1:01:43Danielle LaRock?

  There we go.

• 1:01:43Cassandra Yahnian?

  It is. There it is. I have it right there.

• 1:01:53Cassandra Yahnian?

  Meanwhile, Jinggu National Park, the backdrop of Fawcett's final days, has become a landmark in indigenous land rights, home to more than 6,000 people from 16 distinct ethnic groups. It's a living reminder that the region Fawcett sought to quote-unquote "discover" was never lost. It has been inhabited, managed, and defended for countless generations. For many indigenous people of the Jinggu, the Fawcett story is not a romantic mystery but a cautionary tale. It's a reminder of the dangers of entering someone else's land without understanding, respect, or invitation. Dangers that are as real today as they were in 1925. And nearly

• 1:02:34Cassandra Yahnian?

  a century after Percy Fawcett vanished, his name still sparks debates in explorers' clubs, online forums, and campfire circles. It's easy to reduce his story to a single question: what happened to him? But that's only part of it. The deeper question is, why was he there at all? Fawcett's life was shaped by an era when much of the world's quote-unquote "unexplored" land had been mapped, claimed, and divided by colonial powers. The blank spaces on the globe were disappearing. The Amazon was one of the last, and to many in Europe, the most exotic frontiers. In Chasing Z, Fawcett was chasing not just a lost city, but the fading possibility that There were still wonders beyond the reach of Western knowledge. That pursuit demanded bravery, skills, and endurance.

• 1:03:19Cassandra Yahnian?

  But it also carried the arrogance of assuming that what was unknown to him or to the Royal Geographical Society was unknown altogether. As I've mentioned a few times, the indigenous peoples of the Jinggu had lived there for thousands of years with their own histories, alliances, and sacred places. With this in mind, Fawcett's story raises questions that feel just as urgent today as ever. How do we balance curiosity with respect? At what point does a quest for knowledge become an act of intrusion? And when we romanticize explorers like Fawcett, are we celebrating their courage or overlooking the consequences of their journeys? Like so many stories, Fawcett's endures because it's unfinished.

• 1:04:02Cassandra Yahnian?

  No conclusive evidence has ever emerged to prove exactly where, when, or how he died. But maybe that's the point. Some mysteries aren't meant to be solved, reminders that the world still holds places that won't yield all of their secrets. And that is my story of Percy Fawcett and searching or dying for the lost city of sea.

• 1:04:23Danielle LaRock?

  Loved it. Amazing retelling, and I love how it offered a different perspective of the same story that we've heard, kind of regurgitated over and over. And I am totally among those who have ate up the like mystery and allure and fantasy. And like you said, like that romantic type of view of it. And while also overlooking like, you know, some very probable realities of what else was going on at the same time. And yeah, I mean, it's so tempting to be like, what do you think happened to him? You know, because I think exactly what the local people told.

• 1:05:04Cassandra Yahnian?

  I think to, I think that for us to be like, well, oral histories change. We don't know if you're telling the truth versus this.

• 1:05:14Danielle LaRock?

  That's so dismissive.

• 1:05:15Cassandra Yahnian?

  It's so dismissive, and you're speaking to a culture that has almost exclusively survived off of oral histories for millennia. I am gonna take their word for it that they met this group of people and they saw and it sounds like they didn't know, they didn't know they were these explorers because they only realized who they were after they were described and they're like, yeah, we, we housed three of

• 1:05:37Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, we hosted them.

• 1:05:38Cassandra Yahnian?

  We hosted them. They were, we were friendly, um, all was well, but they offended our neighbors and they killed them for it. And it's like, that's it. That's what happened. And I think that's very likely.

• 1:05:49Danielle LaRock?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:05:50Cassandra Yahnian?

  Especially, he went as three people. He didn't go as a group as he normally does. The stakes were, I know that he argued that that would create less conflict, but in my mind, it creates, it might maybe theoretically you come off as less alarming and threatening, but also you come off as a lot more defenseless.

• 1:06:11Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, easier to overpower and.

• 1:06:14Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:15Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah. I mean, I think that's super probable. And like my first thought before we even went into any of that was that when we were talking about the son and his friend and just being so inexperienced and all that, like if anything was to happen to Percy at all, like if he got killed or injured or rendered unable to move or what, whatever.

• 1:06:42Cassandra Yahnian?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:06:42Danielle LaRock?

  Those other two men would have been screwed.

• 1:06:45Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, they'd have no idea how to interact with the locals.

• 1:06:49Danielle LaRock?

  Or if they had made it further after like that last known location and they had made it quite a bit further, like, I mean, I'm sure they had some sort of navigational skills and things like that, but you never know. And it's a completely different spot. I don't know. My first thought was like, okay, they would, they probably would have been totally hosed and unable to, like, I think they would have starved or gotten lost or something if something happened to Percy in particular. And then that kind of opens up like a whole nother door of like, well, what happened to them and whatever. But I think I'm on board with what you're saying as far as this is super probable. It's not far fetched at all. It's happened. And just because we don't know for a fact that that is what happened

• 1:07:34Danielle LaRock?

  to these three men, we have seen through other expeditions and other recounted, like testimonial, Roosevelt's included with Rondon and his, you know, his guide and all of that. Like, that is something that happened a lot.

• 1:07:51Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yes, absolutely.

• 1:07:52Danielle LaRock?

  It was witnessed and we know for a fact that's what happened to certain people. And not because it was like this hostile, like these indigenous groups just lashed out and whatever. It was like they, exactly what you said, like they interpreted different things as disrespectful. And there was this barrier, whether it be language or customary or whatever, there was just this mismatch. And it was a pretty tense time. And I mean, going back to the whole rubber thing. Like they were being invaded by all of these different power colonial powers and their lands and their ways of life were being stripped. They were being slaughtered. Like they weren't exactly the happiest with outsiders.

• 1:08:36Danielle LaRock?

  So it's not, it's just not far fetched to be like, oh, that's what happened and that's the end of the story. Like there's nothing more to it. So I don't know. Like I'm totally on board with that. And I think that it's kind of, I think people might resist that sometimes because it's not as like and they found it or they got lost after they like.

• 1:08:56Cassandra Yahnian?

  He's leading a tribe.

• 1:08:58Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:58Cassandra Yahnian?

  And it's like, no, he's not. There is no tribe out there that looked at a white Percy Fawcett and said, you can lead our people who have hundreds and thousands of years of history here.

• 1:09:11Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, no.

• 1:09:12Cassandra Yahnian?

  There's not a single, like, there's not a world in which that would have happened. There's not, I don't, I mean, maybe there's a story of that happening somewhere. Um, I have never personally heard it.

• 1:09:22Danielle LaRock?

  I've never personally heard of it. I've heard of different groups, you know, integrating others for sure. But I've never heard of them being like, and here's now your crown and we are going to bow to you. Like that is just wild, but regardless, I don't know.

• 1:09:39Cassandra Yahnian?

  Killed. He was killed. I would, I think personally.

• 1:09:43Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:44Cassandra Yahnian?

  And I mean, there is something to be said. I think that discovering this lost city, I mean, it is, it is portrayed as romantic and it's intriguing. And I'm the same as you where I've like, found these stories and like, wow, this is so interesting. This, this world away, it feels so different than what I know. But at the same time, he's searching for something that is someone else's history and someone else's home and is hidden in this area. I mean, you look at all of these indigenous communities and maybe they've all known about this all along and it's just part of their history that is theirs.

• 1:10:20Danielle LaRock?

  I mean, it reminds me so much. When you were telling, you were telling a part of that story. I'm like, oh, I should come back to this. So thank you for reminding me. But when we were at Machu Picchu and we were learning about like, you know, a lot of people were reading about the history through different books. Was it Turn Left at Machu Picchu?

• 1:10:36Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:37Danielle LaRock?

  That everyone was reading and just through different, our, our different tours and different guides and stuff, talking about the rediscovery of Machu Picchu. Like for the local communities, they were like, yeah, we've known it's been up there. We know. And then, but when we were there and we were out, like, kind of looking out at the vast expanse of like, all of these forested peaks and just how beautiful and wonderful it was. Like, it was kind of like, we were at the cusp of like, the entry into the Amazon. Like, that area kind of marks, you know, you're about to get into the Amazon area. And we're kind of like overlooking all of it. And I think one of our guides was saying, you know, like, LIDAR has shown that there are probably dozens of Machu Picchu's just out there. You

• 1:11:21Danielle LaRock?

  know, like, just waiting to be cleared and uncovered for the first time in however many hundreds of years. And it's like, and we know a lot of that, not only because of the technology, but because of the people who have been here all along.

• 1:11:34Cassandra Yahnian?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:11:35Danielle LaRock?

  And it's just, I mean, didn't he learn about this lost at A Z through that man, that writings?

• 1:11:42Cassandra Yahnian?

  From a manuscript from a colonizer.

• 1:11:45Danielle LaRock?

  Who probably heard about it.

• 1:11:46Cassandra Yahnian?

  Was there to, to steal from the indigenous communities.

• 1:11:51Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah. So I don't know. I, it's all, it's so very easy to look at it from like, this like mystical, magical, like, yeah.

• 1:12:00Cassandra Yahnian?

  And there is something about it.

• 1:12:01Danielle LaRock?

  Like discovery is cool, but it's really not discovery. It's just.

• 1:12:05Cassandra Yahnian?

  It's discovery for you. It's new to you.

• 1:12:07Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:08Cassandra Yahnian?

  Um, but it might be sacred for someone else. And I mean, there is something about being on this world, especially in this day and age where it feels like everything is known. And I think there is something that's really cool about exploration, but kind of going back to my final question is like, when it, when does exploration become intrusion?

• 1:12:27Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah. And that's deep.

• 1:12:29Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yes. We'll leave you all with that.

• 1:12:32Danielle LaRock?

  Think about that.

• 1:12:33Cassandra Yahnian?

  For the next two weeks.

• 1:12:34Danielle LaRock?

  Next time you're intruding on.

• 1:12:36Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:37Danielle LaRock?

  Sacred lands. But really, I mean, there's so many aspects in, in our own personal history that we can attribute to that question as well. And I just love like reexamining stories like this because I think that like, it's really cool to have different, to get to like, sit down and research and look at this through a different way. Because this is a perfect example of stories that we've done before where growing up and, or up until literally I sit down and talk to you about it. I had a completely different take on it. And I was like, in a different, you know, side of the fence on how I thought about stories like this, or how I discuss them in my own life. And then through either a conversation or researching

• 1:13:19Danielle LaRock?

  it myself, it's like, maybe we should like, change our tune a little bit. And it's like, we never want to come across as like, you guys should like, really think about how you're thinking about things like this, because it's like, we don't want to come across as like that, because for up until an hour and 10 minutes ago.

• 1:13:35Danielle LaRock?

  Or whatever. I was like the same, you know, it's just like.

• 1:13:39Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah. It's just always learning and yeah, and trying to, because I agree. And even, even this story that you just heard today, if you're interested, you don't have to take my word for it. Read the books, you know? There's so many resources for you, just always encouraging people, form your own opinions, your own critical thinking, uh, find your own research, have discussions with people, read these books. And we're not the end all be all of opinions here. This is just the information that we're bringing, but you might find. Or you might find different, different. Um, and that comes with pretty much everything. Just Go out and learn. Learning is

• 1:14:17Danielle LaRock?

  Go out and learn. Yeah, I had my aura photo taken yesterday and um, I guess part of it, I'm gonna butcher it because I don't remember. Part of it said that the yellow color that I've never had uh, before there were, she was like, this is your inquisitive, like you're always wanting to learn and discuss. Not only learn, because there are like knowledge seekers out there, but yours is coming across as not only are you a knowledge seeker, you want to discuss it. You want to dissect it. You want to talk about what you're knowing or what you're learning about. And you also want to hear about what others have to offer. And it's like,

• 1:14:53Cassandra Yahnian?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:14:53Danielle LaRock?

  You're big into communication about it, not just you don't want to retain it and move on. You want to like dissect it and really parse through it. I'm like, well, yes.

• 1:15:03Cassandra Yahnian?

  Take, you hit the nail on the head on that one.

• 1:15:05Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:06Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:08Danielle LaRock?

  So anyway, all right. Well, thank you everyone for listening and uh, we'll see you in two weeks. We're taking next week off, but uh, like Cassie said before, maybe just save this one. Or if you are interested in, if you are ever like, hmm, I wonder what Patreon or Apple subscription is about. There's tons of, we have a huge backlog of bonus content to fill your time if you're interested.

• 1:15:31Cassandra Yahnian?

  We got a lot.

• 1:15:33Danielle LaRock?

  We got a lot going on. Uh, so yeah, we will see you in a couple of weeks. Uh, until then, enjoy the video.

• 1:15:39Cassandra Yahnian?

  We'll watch your back.

• 1:15:40Danielle LaRock?

  Bye.

• 1:15:41Cassandra Yahnian?

  Bye.

• 1:15:42Danielle LaRock?

  Thank you for joining us again this week. If you love National Park After Dark and want to hear exclusive bonus stories, join us on Patreon or Apple subscriptions. Patreon subscribers have access to our National Park After Dark Book Club, live streams, Discord, and much more. If you prefer to watch our episodes, video episodes are now available on YouTube. If you're enjoying the show, please take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe on your favorite listening platform. And to follow along with all our adventures, you can find us on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and X at National Park After Dark.

• 1:16:25Speaker 04

  The mighty dollar. Once upon a time, it had a whole menu named after it. Now, no more. But $1 a day lets you add Progressive Renters Insurance to your auto insurance. Definitely something your younger self would roll their eyes at, but your current adulting self appreciates. Learn more at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and other insurers. Average premium cost based on Progressive Home data from 2025. Product and prices may vary by state.