Trip to Shanay-timpishka, Amazonia (Oct. 2023)

“The Boiling River regularly reaches 86C – with drastic consequences for the surrounding rainforest.

When you drive towards Peru's Boiling River, along a bumpy, four-hour track through the rainforest, it's only after you transcend a crest in the landscape that you see it ahead of you, says Alyssa Kullberg, a postdoctoral researcher in plant ecology at the Swiss Federal Technology Institute of Lausanne (EPFL). Huge billows of steam rise from a clutch of trees in the wide, saucer-like depression below.

"It was so magical," says Kullberg, remembering the first time she saw it with her own eyes. The Boiling River, also known as the Shanay-timpishka, is part of a tributary in east-central Peru that connects to the mighty Amazon River.”