For Steve Elkins and all the creative courageous people who lived this adventure Acknowledgments The author would like to thank the following people for sharing their enthusiasm and expertise Dr. Juan C. Fernandez Diaz the National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping University of Houston Houston Texas Steve Elkins Lost City Project and Expedition Leader Partner UTL Productions Los Angeles California Dr. Christopher T. Fisher Colorado State University and National Geographic Explorer Fort Collins Colorado Travis W. King Mammal Spatial Ecology and Conservation Lab Washington State University Pullman Washington Dr. Trond Larsen Director Rapid Assessment Program at Conservation International Washington DC Dr. John Polisar Coordinator of Wildlife Conservation Society Jaguar Program and Smithsonian Mason School of Conservation Fairfax Virginia Manfredo A. Turcios Casco Instituto de Conservación Forestal Tegucigalpa Honduras and Tom Weinberg President Media Burn Video Archive Chicago Illinois A special thank you to Skip Jeffery for his loving support during the creative process
CONTENTS The Big Mystery The Long Search 4 b Seeing through the Trees 10 Only Way to Know Exciting Discovery 16 Dig Deeper 20 Send in the RAP Team 22 The Search Party 26 More Exciting Discoveries 30 A Close Encounter 34 Dangerous Recovery Mission 40 Wild Secrets Revealed 44 A Note from Sandra Markle 50 Glossary 51 Source Notes 52 Index 53
The Big Mystery Why in the world would anyone go to a place where the land is so rugged it's nearly impossible to travel the wildlife is likely to kill you and if you survive you have a good chance of getting a terrible disease But what if going there means you have a chance to unearth an amazing treasure And to have the thrill of discovering something no one else could find For a very long time both of those reasons compelled people to risk their lives searching Honduras's La Mosquitia rain forest The goal was to find the ruins of the legendary Lost City Native peoples called Ciudad Blanca White City in Spanish What's known of this Lost City comes from the stories passed down through generations by the Honduran Pech and Tawahka peoples They spoke of a city that was struck by catastrophe and everyone living there fled The stories of the Lost City intertwine with tales from the 1500s about Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés's failed search for a Central American city full of gold So the Lost City was imagined to be full of treasure These stories warned that anyone who finds the Lost City and takes anything away will soon have something terrible happen to them But even that threat can't overcome the double lure of possibly finding treasure and being the one to find the famed Lost City in La Mosquitia Steve Elkins left and an expedition team that included Douglas Preston center Honduran soldiers and a number of others went into La Mosquitia in search of the legendary Lost City in 2015
Introduction to La Mosquitia La Mosquitia is the largest tropical wilderness in Central America Covering 20,000 square miles 51,800 sq km along the easternmost part of Honduras and extending into Nicaragua it's far from any cities and spreads across incredibly challenging terrain This includes lush swamps fast flowing rivers roaring waterfalls rugged mountains deep ravines grassy savannas and forests so dense sunlight barely penetrates As if all of this doesn't make the area challenging enough La Mosquitia receives on average 10 feet 3 m of rainfall a year Besides fueling intense plant growth this rain causes flooding and landslides It also turns dirt into mud so fluid that anyone stepping in it sinks deep And La Mosquitia is infested with venomous snakes including the most dangerous venomous snake in Central America the fer de lance Bites from the rain forest's sand flies are also likely to inject parasites causing leishmaniasis leesh muh NEYE uh sis -a disease that can cause sores on the skin or damage to internal organs GUATEMALA In fact it is La Mosquitia's extreme wildness and dangers rather than laws or barriers that have kept it largely uninhabited and unexplored EL SALVADOR HONDURAS La Mosquitia watershed PACIFIC OCEAN Tegucigalpa Mosquitia Patrimonial Heritage Preserve NICARAGUA Miles 20 40 60 40 80 Kilometers La Mosquitia was named for the Miskito people native to the area Caribbean Sea PACIFIC O ATLANTIC OCEAN C OCEAN North America HONDURAS ATLANT Caribbean Sea South America OCEAN
