Manaus:

Joe Biden on Sunday will become the first US president to visit the Amazon, the vast tropical rainforest that nearly killed his predecessor Teddy Roosevelt after he left office. The trip is part of Biden’s final push in South America before handing over the keys to the White House to Donald Trump, who will become the 47th president of the United States in two months.

81-year-old Biden will land in Manaus, the largest city in the Amazon, on his way to Rio de Janeiro, where the two-day G20 summit will be held.

The Amazon forests were not a lucky place for Roosevelt, the 26th US president. He had a near-death experience while on a canoe trip there in 1914, four years into his tenure from 1901 to 1909.

Roosevelt, a Republican known for his adventurous spirit, had teamed up with Brazilian explorer Candido Rondon to map the Rio da Duvida (River of Doubt) in the Amazon in Brazil’s wild midwest.

The 760 kilometers (470 mi) long river proved to be a formidable foe. Several members of Roosevelt’s staff died, and the former president, then 55, contracted malaria and a leg infection that left him immobile during the final ordeal.

“TR (Teddy Roosevelt) was out of his mind towards the end; Rondon left him for dead several times,” great-grandson Tweed Roosevelt was quoted as saying by The New York Times in 1992.

When Roosevelt was warned of the dangers by friends at the American Museum of Natural History before setting out on his journey, he told them that he had already lived a full life and was ready for the risk. “I’ve had my fair share, and if I have to leave my bones in South America, I’m quite willing to do that,” he said, according to Smithsonian Magazine.

In the end, the Roosevelt-Rondon expedition was saved from disaster when they encountered Brazilian rubber waders in the jungle; they helped them enough to get back to their cargo boat and from there to the safety of the outside world.

Roosevelt never fully regained his health, although he was credited for his and Rondon’s mapping of the River of Doubt. The former president died at his home in 1919 at the age of 60 from a blood clot in his lungs. In his honor, the river he traveled to was renamed the Roosevelt River.

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