Full disclosure, I struggled to read this one. I kept picking it up and putting it down, though the subject matter is something I typically enjoy. Searching for lost civilisations in the jungle? Yes, please? A potential curse involved? Even better! But no, Preston managed to make it more boring than it needed to be, or perhaps I was expecting something other than the book that I read. Whatever the reason, this one didn’t resonate with me which was a shame because I have read a different Preston book and enjoyed it. On a positive note, I did learn a lot about lidar and have had several in depth conversations about the technology since then.
Apparently Preston inserts himself into a privately funded expedition in order to locate the legendary Ciudad Blanco which everyone believed to be Honduras. Though the origins of the White City story are debatable, there have been several expeditions looking for the site or proof that such a wealthy and advanced civilization existed in Central America. Preston focuses the beginning of his book on those initial exploratory efforts perhaps in order to differentiate between the later archeological expedition sets out on. Funded by Steve Elkins (a character) Preston and a group plan on researching in an area called La Mosquitia, an impenetrable and dangerous jungle. On Netflix there is a show that my children love (much to my chagrin). It is called 72 Dangerous Animals of Latin America, and it is gross. Well, a lot of what Preston writes about as they enter the jungle and even in his preparation for the journey could be taken from this psuedo documentary. Kissing bugs, the fer-de-lance, bullet ants… yes, all these are featured in the book and in the show. There is only so much that I can read about it before it loses its emotional impact, and yes, while a believe Preston is just outlining the things that happened (or could potentially happen) it got old fast.
Preston spends a fair amount of time introducing his co travelers from guides to military personnel that are in charge of keeping the group safe because yeah, Honduras has a high murder rate and drug trafficking through the jungle, so the expedition was no joke, aside from the natural dangers which weren’t insignificant. He writes in depth about using lidar, a not new now, technology that helps see shapes under the forrest canopy and has been used to identify lost canal systems, roads, and cities in various countries. Parts of the book that I found very interesting were the way the plane would have to maneuver in order to get the shots that were needed and how that information was then transferred to be read and analyzed in the United States. It is amazing the technology that we have now and the ability to get information almost instantaneously. 15 years ago, the project could not have been realized in the same way, but due to the advances, the team was able to not only discover a “city” they were able to know where to best excavate. Preston then details the cautious and careful methods that anthropologists and archeologists used to preserve the site as well as they could
The problems in this book were many mostly that there wasn’t a real story. I feel like Preston was stretching to make it an entire stand alone book. A National Geographic article? A lengthy blog post? I also did not love how Preston inserts himself into a story that isn’t actually a memoir, or isn’t supposed to be. As a journalist he should have been more observational, less me me me. Perhaps I wasn’t the right audience. I could see my father really enjoying his book and I would recommend it to someone interested in Latin American history or archeology.
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