Steps to a Fortune

This is a bit of a boys adventure story, set in Peru and Bolivia, dating from the 1960s.

It show how much things have changed over the fifty odd years since, that they could just poke around in some records, decide they fancied searching for Inca treasure, and head off to do so.

They were undoubtedly fairly clever, and had some good theories, but their overall strategic planning was probably compromised by their eagerness, and lack of patience - had their explorations taken place at more appropriate times of year, the weather and the risk of complete isolation would have allowed them some more time in any of the three places they had targeted, perhaps giving them more chance of an outcome.

Their plan, on leaving the UK, was to undertake a search for three Andean treasures, of differing natures:
“The first of these was no less than the world's largest and most famous treasure, or a part thereof. The lost gold of the Incas is estimated to be worth several hundred million pounds, and has been the dream of treasure-hunters since the sixteenth century. Most of these men have sought it in the north of the old Inca empire, in Ecuador, but we believed that a part of this fantastic wealth had been cached farther south, in a certain locality of the Bolivian Andes. One.
Secondly, we should dig in a Jesuit ruin which lay in dense jungle to the east of the mountains. Eighteen million pounds worth gold was said to rest there. Lastly, we should travel to the southern high desert of Bolivia, where the Spaniards had found veins of silver in staggering abundance. In one of three such places, we felt, luck could surely lend a hand.”

As noted above, weather forced them to move on from each investigation earlier than planned, and while they found enough to warrant further investigation at each location, they never found anything ground breaking.

They did cross paths with Gene Savoy, the explorer credited with the discovery of Vilcabamba, recognised by some as the lost city of the Incas. Savoy had just made the announcement of the discovery, and these cheeky guys strolled into the empty site, cut a bunch of tracks, dug some holes and announced that this was, in fact, the lowland residence of Inca Tupac, the son of Manco the Inca Emperor. (Their deduction came from an excavated pit which showed a significant layer of charcoal, confirming, in their minds that the village was burned to the ground, which marched the history of Tupac, but not the history of the lost city - their reasoning - nobody discovered the lost city, so who would torch it?) They actually met Savoy on the trail, and shared their views with him - Savoy disagreed, of course.

The writing was good, their explanations and reasoning clearly set out, and the adventure was well described with pace and interest. A great book, sadly seems fairly scarce.

They discuss a return trip for further investigation the following year, but I can only find reference to an earlier book, no follow up to this one.

4 stars.