In 1742 at the age of 13, Isabel, daughter of the governer of the Guayaquil province of Peru, was married to the than 5 year house guest, Jean Godin des Odanais who was in Peru with the rest of his crew to make sure the earth wasnt flat. On learning that his father death in 1739 he and Isabel decided to set sail back to France to see what his inheritance was. He and his young (19) wife decided to travel down the Amazon to reach the Atlantic. You can imagine the danger, poisonus frogs and snakes, deadly fish, hostile indigenouis people, mosquitos, ALL the other insects, the fact its just huge and unmapped at this point! He decided the safest thing was he go ahead and make sure it was safe for her to travel after him. Once he got to the other end and applied for permission to go back up the Amazon to bring his wife, the authorities, clearly thinking he was crazy or a spy, denied him. He and Isabel sat at opposite sides of the Amazonfor 20 YEARS! They did exchange letters and after the death of her remaining child( I can’t imagine, how many could she have she was only 19 when they seperated!) She set off with 10 people, including her brother, young nephew and 3 maids, to join her husband. After 2 years of prepping she left in 1769 with 31 Indian porters, ladden with her home goods. Unfortunately smallpox had arrived ahead of them and the key town where they had planned to purchase canoes was uninhabited, with survivors taking any boats with them. Isabel somehow found two men in the jungle to make a canoe for them, and although she had to leave much behind she made room for her jewelry, silver plates, bowls and taffeta and velvet dresses. One disaster after another befell the party. Their supplies were lost adter a raft hit a submurged trubk, splitting it. An Indian guide drowned, after which the rest of the guides ran away. They had to abandoned the canoes with no guides and take to the jungle. They wandered the forest in fits of desperation, starvation, thirst and despair. Isabel awoke one day to find the rest of her companions dead already decomposing in the heat. She cut the shoes off her own brothers feet to replace the pair she had lost, and wandered till reacued by some Indians who fed and clothed her. In gratitude she gave them her last possesuon a golden necklace. She was able to continue down river till she came Loreto, where her father met her. Together they continued farther downriver to Oyapock where she was reunited after 20 years apart from her husband. Three years later they set sail for France where she lived out the rest of her life.
Isabel Grandmaison Y Bruno Godin • Peruvian Voyager • 1729-1792