Biden will be first sitting US president to visit Amazon, the forest that nearly killed Roosevelt

Joe Biden on Sunday will be the first sitting US president to visit the Amazon – the vast tropical rainforest that nearly killed a predecessor, Teddy Roosevelt, after he left office.

The trip is part of Biden’s final swing through South America before he hands the keys of the White House to Donald Trump, who becomes the United States’ 47th president in two months.

Biden, 81, will touch down in the biggest city in the Amazon, Manaus, on his way to Rio de Janeiro, where a two-day G20 summit is to be held.

The Amazon jungle was not a fortunate destination for the 26th US president, Roosevelt.

He had a near-death experience in it when he went on a canoe expedition there in 1914, four years after his 1901-1909 stint in office.

Roosevelt, a Republican known for his adventurous spirit, had teamed up with a Brazilian explorer, Candido Rondon, to chart the Rio da Duvida (the River of Doubt), a tributary in the wild center-west of Brazil, in the Amazon.

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