Do you love survival stories? Alone on the Ice? Alive? 438 Days? Then this one is for you. This is the ultimate survival story. Holly FitzGerald and her husband, Fitz, set off on their honeymoon, which doubles as an adventure of a lifetime, backpacking around the world. Five months into their trip, everything goes horribly wrong. To begin with, their plane crashes in a penal colony in the Peruvian jungle in the thick of the Amazon Basin filled with the very worst criminals. And that's not even the survival situation this book revolves around! Building a raft and taking it down the wild South American river to their destination seems like a good idea at the time (well, to them anyway) but their plans quickly go awry. From being shot at, to their raft drifting off-course, they just can't catch a break. Do you stay put in the place you know you have shelter, or do you make a break for it? You can't stop turning the pages because you so desperately want to find out how (and if!) they both out of this mess. Such a great book!

Holly Fitzgerald's Ruthless River: Love and Survival by Raft on the Amazon's Relentless Madre de Dio is not your usual travelogue, but rather a gut wrenching account of two adventurous young travelers pushed to, and beyond, their limits as they work together, fighting for survival in a treacherous wilderness.

Ruthless River is a story of a couple's survival in the South American jungle after naively believing they could placidly float down the river to the next location. They might have been that lucky too, if a storm hadn't veered them off the main river. What followed was survival due to sheer grit, tenacity, and a miraculous discovery. It's a great read, if not nerve wracking.

It’s hard to tell how much dramatic license has been taken in this well-done nail-biting trip-in-hell that’s incredibly a true story - a newly-wed couple have the astoundingly dumb idea to go ‘sailing’ in the Amazon to move from point A to B, when they have zero experience of rafts, place, river, weather and survival - but know that the water may have piranhas, caimans, snakes and alligators. They also bundle too little food, thinking they’ll just ‘catch a fish’ out there!

Also well-done is the pace and frequent ‘breathers’ / flashbacks that form a macabre good-old-days to the horrifying reality of being lost and hopeless. Especially in the case of Holly, who was born with a silver spoon and had the best of the best in everything.

The pics are at the back of the book. I am surprised that the couple did not click any pics in the 26 days they were in Lago Santa Maria (channel off the actual Madre De Dios.)

Irritants:
a) The entire behavior of Holly (and Fitz) after being rescued purely by chance: e.g. on being rescued by the locals (‘Indians’) who allow them to bring valuables on their small canoe, Holly cribs about the Indians tearing the ‘Pink Palace’ and ‘Balsa’ rafts to shreds looking for ‘nails, oil can, floor boards’ (they are poor people for God’s sake); they are also suspicious of the Indians (if they wanted to kill you, they would have done it next to your beloved rafts); they reward one of the Indians with ‘10 rings made of straw’ (!) - only to take their white hen and 3 eggs which amounted to a week’s wage for the poor fellows; sleeping in the very cozy humane back-to-civilization sitting room in Barraca Santo Domingo, Holly cribs about the floor and mosquitoes; Holly and Fitz think his Irish luck and monkey on his family’s coat of arms was the monkey who came to their rescue; they decide to continue their ‘journey’ in Riberalta despite the fact that any other sensible person would have taken a few days rest and replenishment after a 26-day starvation (or slug-snail, baby frog diet); they fall near a hospital, have difficulty walking towards it but have enough strength to chat up the nuns.

b) What happened to Roque, Silverio and Gregoria?

c) I did not like the way Holly mentions her ‘New Fairfield’ neighbors - she and Fitz rented a cottage near the place and she instantly calls the ‘mostly German’ residents as ‘xenophobic’ apart from recounting how she went to invite them ‘personally’ to her party and not only did no one open the door, none of them came to her party either. Her ‘inebriated’ husband calls them ‘Nazis’.

d) I did not believe the saved teaspoon of sugar, nor the bee arrival and stings, nor the conversations between the couple.

But then again, they have been married 47 years. If you can get hitched to someone after two months, anything’s possible.

The writing of this book was great! Definitely a page-turner. I can't believe it's a true story!

Ruthless River: Love and Survival by Raft on the Amazon's Relentless Madre de Dios by Holly Conklin Fitzgerald
This was quite a harrowing adventure that this couple took after their wedding. Holly and Fritz were going to travel the world for a year and while in Peru and just 5 months into their travels, they take a small plane from one jungle town in Peru to another in Bolivia both of which run along the Madre de Dios river in the Amazon. Their plane crash landed a short while later , luckily no one was hurt, but the only place nearby was a penal colony in the Peruvian jungle, where they would stay for a few nights before deciding what to do. It turned out either they needed to wait a couple of months for transportation, or they were told that they could take a raft, and with the rapid currents arrive at their destination, soon. So thinking it would be easy, they made a few adjustments to a raft they were given, and thinking they could get food from natives along the way took off. The first few days seemed easy enough but then a storm hit throwing them off course, and here is where the nail biting 27 days stranded, with no food starts.
This story will make it hard for you to stop reading, as you want to see if they make it out of this predicament.
It was also interesting to see how they held it together during this time, how it affected both their mental and physical state.
A very engrossing read, and a journey worth taking.
Thank you NetGalley and Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Forget Survivor, forget Naked and Afraid, this is a real story of survival so bizarre it’s almost hard to believe that it happened. Holly and her husband Fitz put off their honeymoon until they had been married almost two years in order to take the ultimate vacation – a trip around the world. Granted, they aren’t staying in luxury hotels, they’re roughing it, but still, a trip around the world is something most of use only dream about. Holly and her husband may now wish the trip had only been in their dreams too, because they got sucked into a nightmare. A plan crash strands them in Peru, inside a penal colony in the middle of the jungle. Hacking their way out they next attempt to travel a wild South American river on a small homemade raft that is no match for the savagery of the waterway. They have no food, no potable water, no way to communicate with the outside world, just a hope that someone is looking for them, coupled with a fierce desire to survive. This amazing story has big screen written all over it. If you prefer your reality, well, real, this book will have you reading into the night