I’m an explorer, get me into there
Ever since the days of Hernán Cortés, tales have been told about the ruins of a forgotten civilisation buried deep in the Honduran rainforest, in a region called Mosquitia. Over the centuries, its siren song has lured adventurers and conmen, yet the legendary city has remained lost.
Douglas Preston knows a good story when he hears one and when the 60-yearold writer learns that film producer Steve Elkins is mounting an expedition to find the lost city – whose inhabitants were said to worship a simian god – he vows to join them. It’s a daunting prospect. Mosquitia’s perils include disease, cut-throat ‘narcotraffickers’ and a snake whose fangs can squirt venom over 6ft.
But Elkins and his team have a secret weapon: a technology previously used by Nasa that shoots billions of laser beams into the jungle, searching for topographical abnormalities that indicate archaeological remains.
Dazzling and fearsome in equal measure the jungle is a dripping ‘primeval Eden’ and when Preston is woken by nature’s call, he finds the entire forest floor carpeted with glistening cockroaches.
Instead of finding a lost city, they find lost cities. Discovery turns out to be the easy part, however. How will they safeguard against looting? What impact will the resulting tourism have on the region’s ecology?
Then there’s the grim souvenir that half the group, Preston included, unwittingly takes home with them – a parasitic disease carried by the sand fly. Incurable and sometimes fatal, it causes everything from sores to ulcers that devour the nose and lips. Could it hold a clue to the lost cities’ abandonment, Preston asks. He ends his adventure on a haunting note, wondering if their discovery had diminished the cities, stripping them of their secrets.
The Lost City Of The Monkey God Douglas Preston Head of Zeus €20.99 ★★★★★