This week on Props with Pop, Becs & Pops are wrapping up their deep dive into Ruthless River by Holly FitzGerald. Picking up on on February 23rd, 1973, Holly and Fitz are five days stranded in a flooded Amazon forest, trapped in a dead end logjam, their Pink Palace barely holding together. 

Planes have passed overhead without turning back. Escape attempts have looped them in circles. By the time this episode begins, survival is no longer about reaching Riberalta, Bolivia. It is about making it through one more day.

In this episode, we cover:

• Repeated swim and paddle attempts through the submerged Amazon forest that brings them right back to where they started
• Rationing sugar by teaspoons and stretching coffee into pure morale
• Eating frogs, snails, berries, and eventually baby birds in a devastating moral crossroads
• Fitz losing his wedding ring in the river and breaking down
• Severe physical deterioration as they grow skeletal, dizzy, and dangerously weak
• Storms and swarms of bees battering their fragile Pink Palace
• The moment two Indigenous turtle hunters finally discover them on Day 26

After their rescue and recovery, they made the remarkable decision to continue their yearlong honeymoon, traveling across Europe, Asia, and Africa before eventually returning home to build their life and family. What an incredible story. 

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