Valverde's Gold: In Search of the Last Great Inca Treasure

By Mark Honigsbaum

Book Overview

When Mark Honigsbaum discovers an ancient Spanish treasure guide buried in his research notebooks, he cannot help but be drawn into the legend of Valverde, a conquistador with a treasure trail that has proven fatal for the past 400 years. Undeterred by the cursed history of the gold, Honigsbaum embarks on an epic journey into the last uncharted range in the Andes--the Llanganati Mountains of eastern Ecuador. Valverde's Gold is the story of how the lure of gold intoxicates even the most level-headed of historians, and of how men--and women--are seized with the desire to claim treasure from one of the most inhospitable landscapes in the world. Honigsbaum battles through mountains, jungles, and conflicting stories, and, as he draws closer to the hidden cache, illuminates the allure of lost gold and the hold it has on our imagination.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 031242518X
• ISBN13: 9780312425180
• Release Date: October 2005
• Publisher: Picador USA
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 0.96 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.6" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Thoroughly researched and mostly entertaining....

First and foremost, this book is more of a literary and investigative adventure. It's not until the last chapter that the author actually details his own physical search for the fabled treasure in Ecuador of the Incan King Atahualpa. A treasure that by all accounts over the last 500 years may be the most valuable land cache of gold and other precious objects on earth. It provides interesting and entertaining background on the other treasure hunters and explorers who went before him on the search. This leads the reader through labrynthine twists of misinformation, questionable documents/maps and several "characters" the author encounters who come across as gold-crazed swashbucklers. The book is definitely well-researched, but I expected something more along the lines of an Indiana Jones type of real-life adventure and came away with something more along the lines of a day spent in a musty-smelling library....