How did the Amazon River get its name? Was there really a tribe of Amazon warriors – giant, half-naked 'grand mistresses' who fought with far greater strength than the average man and killed all their male children – in South America? Why is the first man to have navigated the entire length of the Amazon River, the Spanish conquistador Francisco de Orellana, not as famous as other European explorers such as Captain Cook or Christopher Columbus?

Australian journalist, walker and hiker Adam Courtenay answers all these questions and more in this gripping account of the first ever exploration of the Amazon, and the only ever sighting of the grand mistresses. As Courtenay describes, Francisco de Orellana's voyage flew in the face of conventional tropical anthropology, which states that jungles cannot sustain fixed, orderly societies, only hunter–gatherers; and recent excavations of the soil are proving Orellana's observations to be correct, placing a fascinating whole new perspective on Amazon history.