Jungle Quest: A Search for the Last of the Mayas

In the 50's (it doesn't specify exactly when, but the book was first published in 1959), Herbert Rittlinger and his wife Aveckle, and three friends determine that heading into the Mexican wilderness in search of the remnants of the Lacandones - a Mayan tribe who live remotely and have had minimal contact with western peoples.

Kliesing and Paulchen were both vegetarians, and astrologers. Timber (a nickname only) is a young German who went to Canada and became a lumberjack. They made a strange bunch of explorers, and they quite different approach to food and the necessities of survival made for some testing times.

By chance, in Comitan (a city near the Guatemalan border) they met an American, and fell into discussion about their goal - the Santa Domingo Trail to the Jatate river, with the goal of tracking down the Lacandon Indians, and travelling up a branch-river to its source - the Lacandon Lake. So this chance encounter with a foreigner who lives like a hermit in Lacandon country gives their plans viability, and his assistance at the very beginning (not to mention soon again, and finally at the end of their expedition) sets them on a course of hardship and adventure they can only imagine.

There is a lot to this book, far too much to plot the outline. The above is a summary of the first 10 pages. It really is an impressive journey, and it is miraculous that they all emerged alive and (mostly) well.

Written in German, and translated, it is unclear to me (of course) whether the quirks in the writing are the translation, or consistent with the original, but they are harmless- there is repetition of phrases in adjacent sentences (perhaps to drive home the point). There are also some minor contradictions in how the author feels about members of the group when they act badly or do something selfish or to the disadvantage of the expedition. I suspect this is more about him writing about his internal conflict when this happens, rather than being a pure translation glitch.

Nevertheless, well worth the read, and worth seeking out.

4 stars.