Turn Right at Machu Picchu: Rediscovering the Lost City One Step at a Time - Adams, MarkSummary: Traces the author's recreation of Hiram Bingham III's discovery of the ancient citadel, Machu Picchu, in the Andes Mountains of Peru, describing his struggles with rudimentary survival tools and his experiences at the sides of local guides.
Booklist Reviews
This year is the centenary of Hiram Bingham's finding of Machu Picchu, which the Indiana Jones prototype touted as the final Andean redoubt of the Inca. After an editorial career spent sending travel writers to remote corners of the earth, Adams decided to assign himself the adventure of retracing Bingham's steps. Wryly recounting his learning curve of roughing it and getting along with his guide, crusty Australian John Leivers, Adams brings an amusing mixture of credulity and skepticism to his multistrand accounting of Machu Picchu––its contemporary look as a crowded tourist attraction; Bingham's theories about the terraced, mountaintop citadel; and subsequent ideas about the ruins fervently advanced by amateur and credentialed archaeologists alike. Weighing Bingham's accounts to figure out exactly what he had achieved (if not exactly "discovering" Machu Picchu, Bingham sensationally publicized it), Adams fronts the history with entertaining descriptions of his badinage with Leivers about Bingham-associated sites. Retaining its mysterious aura, Machu Picchu will no doubt prove as alluring to modern readers as it did to Bingham. A well-embroidered portrayal.
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