Amazonia

The first known navigation of the Amazon by an alien "explorer" was the work of Spanish conquistador Francisco de Orellana, sometime in 1541. A lieutenant of General Pizarro, the conqueror of the Inca empire, Orellana was ordered to navigate the source of the Coca river, in Eastern Ecuador. As the river continued to empty into tributaries and the men ventured further and further from supplies and the safety of the known, a mutiny threatened the expedition. Orellana forced his men onward with a tenuous prospect of finding "El Dorado" and the untold riches of fabled gold cities. Towards the end of the expedition Orellana's dwindling party was ambushed by a group of native warriors, who the men mistakenly believed to be female giants. The story of the ambush found its way back to the court of Charles I, and the name "Amazon" was bestowed upon the epic river. The Amazons were a semi-mythical race of women warriors who Herodotus described as being from the land of the Scythians and Sarmatians (near modern day Ukraine). Supposedly their name is derived from proto Indo-Iranian "ha-mazan" meaning roughly "warrior". As for Orellana, his story served as the main inspiration for Herzog's "Agguire", and his men's chance delirious encounter with what they believed to be oversize female warriors has bestowed a name upon the earth's longest river.