The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon Chapter 21 Summary

How It All Goes Down

The Last Eyewitness

  • Grann is trucking it with Paulo and trying to get his GPS to work.
  • When they reach a plateau, Paulo drags Grann up a steep slope to show him something.
  • Grann wants to know what, and Paulo responds, "You Americans are always impatient" (21.13).
  • OMG we have to turn the page to even figure out what it is.
  • Paulo shows Grann a "dazzlingly large tower" (21.17) in the distance.
  • It's not a stone city; it's an optical illusion.
  • Paulo explains that many people who see this optical illusion think it is the ruins of a lost city.
  • Paulo suspects they will discover that Z is a similar mirage.
  • Farther down the road, Grann and Paulo make another pit stop.
  • Grann wants to find a large manor on a cattle farm where Fawcett allegedly stayed.
  • In just a few decades, the manor has disintegrated to just a few bricks.
  • Grann wonders how anything can survive in the jungle. How did George of the Jungle do it?
  • Back in the truck, Paulo speculates that Fawcett starved to death. "Very slowly and very painfully" (21.47).
  • Grann and Paulo come up with a few other gruesome scenarios, such as that Fawcett and company were devoured by worms or poisoned by lethal frogs before they fell asleep.
  • In two days, Grann and Paulo reach Bakairi Post, a large village.
  • The villagers welcome the guys, but they wonder why these white folks are trying so hard to find other white folks who got lost in the jungle years ago. Add "exploring the Amazon" to Stuff White People Like.