And if you’ve already been, Take a Right at Machu Picchu will transport you straight back to those soul-soaring heights. If you haven’t been to Machu Picchu and environs, this book will inspire you to drop everything and go. And while he doesn’t exactly solve the mystery of Machu Picchu, he does cast further light on the different theories surrounding the ruins and adds to the evidence supporting the notion that Machu Picchu was an important part of a complex network of intricately aligned Inca sites. His plucky, good-humored embrace of the challenges this quest entails is delightful, as he and his companion scale precipitous peaks, slash through the jungle, and endure torrential downpours, all in the effort to uncover what Bingham saw and try to make sense of it all.Īdams’s knowledge of Bingham’s explorations and writings and of Inca history and culture is impressive, as is his ability to bring to life the varied coca-chewing characters, sacred stones and peaks, and llama- and orchid-rich landscapes he encounters in his own wanderings. Despite this lack of preparedness, he engages a Peru-savvy Australian wilderness addict as his guide and sets out to follow Bingham’s trail along the Capac Nan, or Inca highway, through Choquequirao, Vitcos, Espíritu Pampa, and Machu Picchu.
A longtime editor of adventure travel magazines, Adams is intimately familiar with the literary landscape of the wild-and, it turns out, charmingly unfamiliar with its real-world counterpart (the last time he’d slept in a tent, he confesses, was in 1978, and that was in his backyard). Those steps, electrifyingly introduced to the world in a special April 1913 issue of National Geographic magazine devoted entirely to Bingham’s account and 250 photographs, spotlit and saved a global archaeological treasure and laid the foundations for what has become Peru’s third largest industry, tourism.Īdams proves an engaging and enlightening guide to Bingham and to Peru.
Adams does a masterful job interweaving descriptions of Bingham’s life, ambitions, and expeditions-two of which were partly underwritten by the National Geographic Society-with a riveting account of his own adventures retracing Bingham’s storied, and sometimes slippery, steps. With the centennial of Hiram Bingham III’s finding of Machu Picchu on July 24, we decided to train the Trip Lit binoculars this month on Mark Adams’s rollicking new historical-homage-cum-adventure-saga, Turn Right at Machu Picchu. Book of the Month: Turn Right at Machu Picchu, by Mark Adams
0 kommentar(er)
