The 500 year old legend said there was an ancient city hidden the Honduran rain forest and those who went there fell ill and died. Author Preston joined an scientific expedition in 2012 to find this city and explore it. Using latest technology such as Lidar that permitted the exploring of the jungle canopy from the air they discovered the exact location of the ancient buildings and planned an on foot exploration.

The trip would prove dangerous because of snakes, including the deadly fer-de-lance, multiple diseases carried by insects including leishmaniasis and wild animals such as the jaguar. Most of the participants would become affected with tropical diseases, some who will probably suffer from them for the rest of their lives.

An exciting and challenging true story that challenges the reader to ask, "Could I do such a trip?" ( )

This book isn’t exactly FILLED with exciting adventures of survival in the rainforests of the Honduras like I had expected, but it is very interesting and rich with information on this new discovery in 2015, of Ciudad Blanca, the “White City” of Mosquitia in the Honduras. The author is a very fluid and vivid writer. He begins with bringing you up to speed on the 500 years previous attempts to locate this Lost City of the Monkey Gods, and the lies and fraud from ones that claimed they had found it.

He then goes into a little bit of politics in Hondura, also well-written and easily understandable, giving a better understanding of the Honduran climate over-all, with the devastation of Hurricane Mitch in 1998 that set the country back a half century with chaos and a collapse of the economy. Murder rates, looting,and lawlessness filled the land.

Between 1990 and 2010, Hondurans, under no regulations, clear-cut 37 percent of its rainforest just for grazing cattle on. It would be about 8 years before they reached Mosquitia, and all the hidden cities buried underneath the jungle, yet to be discovered, archived, and researched. Once discovered, the looters would be out there, stealing and destroying any chance of learning anything about their native ancestors or their country. So, the team of archaeologist had to move, and move quickly to secure the site, which is a huge portion of the rainforest that would take years and years of careful archaeological digs and studies to learn more of the people who up and vanished without a trace. How awesome if they were to find more DNA samples over the years to add to the collection!

He then gives you four page-turning chapters, describing their experiences in the jungle while discovering the area for the first time. And from there, he brings you back to the U.S. only to learn that the world of archaeology is just as political and cut-throat as any other field, and, to find that several of the team, including himself, have contracted a deadly form of parasite, Leishmania braziliensis, from sand flies living in the rainforest.

The authors take on the history of the ancient Indians of Honduras, and how disease, with smallpox being the worst, most likely spread through trading and slave trading from coast to coast, and inland, was very interesting…”half the population of Honduras died from disease in the years from 1530-1532.” (e-Book, p. 228, 67%) and all of “the Indians of the main Caribbean islands (Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico) had become extinct: almost six million dead by 1543” (e-Book, p. 227, 67%) . You will learn so much the fascinating truth of Columbus’s so-called discovery of the New World. It is understandably very frustrating for the natives of Honduras to hear that history only began when Columbus made the discovery of this New World.

EYE-CATCHER: A true and thought-provoking quote from the team’s photographer, Mark Plotkin: “Conservation is a spiritual practice.” (e-Book, p. 175, 52%). You either cherish, protect, and love this earth that God has given to us, or you go and squander all the resources you can, not giving a diddly-squat about anything.

To see this story visually, there is a 45 minute DVD movie produced by National Geographic, released in 2015, called "Legend of the Monkey God", which can be purchased on Amazon and coincides with this book. Will be looking into this soon. ( )

This book is the true story of Douglas Preston's participation in an expedition to Honduras to search for the rumored "White City," a long-sought ruin hidden in an incredibly dangerous jungle. The real characters who came together to complete this expedition, the real peril waiting in the jungle, the real discoveries the team makes, and the real mystery in the aftermath of their journey is absolutely exhilarating. Fans of adventure, survival, and ancient history will not be able to put this book down. One of the books I think of most often in the years since I have read it.

Excellent. Lots of details on some subjects that I appreciated, but a couple got too much in the weeds for me. ( )

nonfiction , memoir (2017) - being involved in the technology-assisted search for potential archaeologically-significant sites and being helicoptered into the very dangerous rainforests of Honduras, plus notes on the aftermath, along with details about a leishmaniasis parasitic infection subsequently picked up by the author and several of the crew.

drags a bit in parts, and could use some selective editing/abridgment of 80-100 pages or so, but an interesting enough diversion, more like a memoir of experiences surrounding the writer's involvement in the expedition rather than a compelling, action-filled narrative about the expedition.

See also: David Grann's The Lost City of Z (2009), about an ill-fated explorer's attempt to find a different ancient city in the Brazilian rainforest. ( )