Can a boiling river exist? There is a boiling river, that kills everything that falls into it! The Peruvian Amazon is home to a boiling river hidden in a dense jungle. The boiling river is known as the Shanay Timpishka by the indigenous people of the deep Amazonian forest.
An ancient pilgrimage area called Mayantuyacu lies near the mysterious river with boiling waters in Peru’s Puerto Inca province. Over 4 miles of this stream flow through the jungle and maintains a temperature that in some areas can reach 95°F. It has a depth of about 6 meters and a width of 25 meters.
A few minutes are all it takes for any form of life, including humans, to be killed by this very high degree of heat. A young Peruvian with a passion for geology went in search of the boiling river in 2011 and discovered that it is more than just a popular legend.
His grandfather’s stories and a map provided by a colleague in the Peruvian government helped him find the boiling river, proving that the river that kills truly exists. National Geographic’s Young Explorer led the search for Ruzo, which led to the discovery of a tortuous underground geothermal network capable of resurfacing boiling water many miles away.
In different parts of the boiling river, Ruzon collected samples of water and found that the average temperature was 187 degrees Fahrenheit. A dead animal was also found floating in the water, possibly accidentally slipping and drowning. There was also too much heat on the riverbank because of the mud. In less than a second, you would suffer third-degree burns if you fell in the water. Consequently, the water is heated based on the geothermal gradient. After that, fault-fed hot springs feed it to the surface of the Earth, which heats up the river.
The most shocking aspect of this discovery is that there are no volcanoes nearby, but hot springs resulting from lava, like in Iceland and Yosemite. Shanay-Timpishka is 450 miles away from the boiling river in Mayantuyacu, so there is a lot of mystery surrounding it. There has been no deforestation or exploitation of natural resources in this area for decades, but it is now threatened by wild deforestation and the exploitation of its resources.
Andrés Ruzo’s book “The Boiling River: Adventure and Discovery in the Amazon” describes the river and the fragility of the entire ecosystem, which is currently under the scrutiny of those who would like to use it as a source of energy. The boilingriver.org website provides all the information you need to visit this amazing natural beauty in complete safety. Additionally, the river is heated by hot and cold waters given birth by a giant serpent spirit named Yacumama. Any one of these explanations could be true, and the reader is free to make their own conclusions.
As a result of deforestation, the Shanay-Timpishka are at risk. According to National Geographic, most of the deforestation in the area is carried out by the local native population. Up to ninety-nine percent of all deforestation around the Boiling River is caused by the sale of larger and more expensive trees, followed by clear-cutting.
