Madre de Dios: Stranded in the Amazon | Delayed Honeymoon | 1
Against The Odds
Audible
4.7 • 7.9K Ratings
🗓️ 6 January 2026
⏱️ 44 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In 1973, American newlyweds Fitz and Holly FitzGerald travel to Peru, hoping to ride a riverboat down the wild Madre de Dios River on their way to Bolivia — and ultimately, the Amazon. But from the start, nothing goes as planned. Watching their dream slip away, the couple makes a fateful decision: they’ll push forward on their own, on a homemade raft, into one of the most remote stretches of jungle on earth.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Against the Odds early and ad-free right now. |
| 0:05.6 | Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. |
| 0:09.9 | A listener note. Against the odds uses dramatizations that are based on true events. |
| 0:15.4 | Some elements including dialogue may be invented, but everything is based on research. |
| 0:28.2 | Thank you. may be invented, but everything is based on research. Holly Fitzgerald cuts a photo of the Amazon River out of a National Geographic magazine. |
| 0:34.6 | It's January 1971. |
| 0:37.2 | She's only a month into marriage, and already she feels restless. |
| 0:41.3 | Her husband, Fitz, works long hours, driving their one working car to his job as a newspaper reporter in Danbury, Connecticut. |
| 0:49.3 | That leaves Holly stranded in their small house out in the country, no TV, no one to talk to, |
| 0:57.1 | just the hum of the fridge and a ticking clock. |
| 1:00.4 | She fills her days mailing out resumes, walking the dog, and pasting clippings of far-off |
| 1:06.5 | places into her scrapbook. She's 25, freshly graduated with a master's in counseling. But lately, |
| 1:14.2 | she feels more like a puppy waiting for her husband to come home. This isn't the life she imagined. |
| 1:20.5 | A year and a half earlier, she'd been Holly Conklin, celebrating her 24th birthday in Boston |
| 1:26.6 | when her friend Jane showed up with a guest, |
| 1:29.7 | Gerald Fitzgerald, who introduced himself simply as Fitzgerald. |
| 1:34.4 | He was tall with an easy smile and curly hair. |
| 1:38.2 | He had just gotten back from Vietnam and was full of stories that had everyone laughing and hanging |
| 1:43.9 | on his every word. |
| 1:45.8 | Holly was instantly drawn in. |
| 1:48.9 | Their first date led to a whirlwind romance. |
| 1:52.3 | She finished grad school. |
... |
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