Francisco de Orellana, a conquistador from Trujillo who fought alongside the Pizarros in Peru and governed Guayaquil, gave up a comfortable life in 1541 to join Gonzalo Pizarro's expedition east over the Andes in search of the Land of Cinnamon. The march was a catastrophe: of roughly 220 Spaniards and 4,000 conscripted indigenous porters, most died or deserted before reaching the jungle. Starving men melted horseshoes into nails to build a brigantine, and Orellana was sent downriver with about 50 men to find food and return. The current made return impossible.

What followed was the first European navigation of the entire Amazon, reaching the Atlantic in August 1542. The episode examines how Orellana used friar Gaspar de Carvajal's chronicle to frame his separation from Pizarro as a mutiny forced upon him, how a June 1542 battle with women f ...