The Boiling River of Mayantuyacu, Peru

Deep in the Amazon rainforest, in Mayantuyacu, Peru, flows a river so hot its water actually boils. The locals call it “Shanay-timpishka” which loosely translates to “boiled with the heat of the sun.” They believe that the hot water is released by a giant serpent called Yacumama, “Mother of the Waters,” who is represented by a large serpent head-shaped boulder at the river’s headwaters. The river is about 25 meters wide and 6 meters deep, but only 6.4 km long. The water temperature ranges between 50 and 90 degree centigrade, with small portions touching 100 degrees, hot enough to cause third-degree burns within seconds. Many unfortunate animals have fallen into the river and got killed. While there are documented hot springs in the Amazon, nothing is as large as Shanay-timpishka. Photo credit: Devlin Gandy Each year, a handful of tourists visit Mayantuyacu to experience the traditional medicinal practices of the Asháninka people. But aside from a few obscure references in petroleum journals from the 1930s, scientific documentation of the river is non-existent. Somehow, this natural wonder has managed to elude widespread notice for over seventy five years. For most Peruvians, the river is only a legend. Geologists dismissed it because they argued that it would take a tremendous amount of geothermal heat to boil even a small section of a river, and the Amazon basin lies 400 miles from the nearest active volcano. Andrés Ruzo, a geothermal scientist at the Southern Methodist University, had no reason to believe the river exists, but the stories intrigued him. Ruzo first heard about the river from his grandfather when he was twelve years old. According to the story he was told, the river was discovered by Spanish conquistadors when they headed deep into the rainforest in search of gold.