CHAPTER 13

It has been observed to squirt venom over six feet from its fangs.

Our expedition to explore the valley of T1 assembled in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras, on Valentine’s Day, 2015. Tegucigalpa lies in the southern highlands of Honduras. It is a dense city of crooked little neighborhoods and slums clinging to steep hills, tin roofs glittering in the sun, surrounded by dramatic volcanic mountains. A smell of cooking fires hangs in the air, combined with diesel fumes and dust. Toncontín International Airport is infamous for its steep and tricky approach and its undersized runway, which pilots say make it one of the most difficult commercial aviation landings in the world.

In covering the expedition for National Geographic, I was partnering with the well-known photographer Dave Yoder. Yoder was a broad-shouldered, red-faced, gruff perfectionist who had come straight to Honduras from an assignment photographing Pope Francis in the Vatican. “I’ve never been so totally dislocated in my life,” he said on arriving in the jungle. On that assignment he had taken a candid picture of Pope Francis standing alone in the Sistine Chapel, which he shared with us on his iPad, expressing his hope it might become the magazine’s cover. It was an evocative and visually stunning photograph, and it did indeed make the cover of National Geographic’s August 2015 issue. He was bringing into the jungle three Canon cameras, two computers, and a suitcase of hard drives. Unlike many other photographers I’d worked with, he refused to set up a shot, ask someone to pose, or arrange a redo; he was a purist. As he worked, he never said a word; he remained a silent, scowling figure hovering in the background (or foreground, or in your face), his camera clicking almost continuously. In the rare times he did not have a camera, he became notorious for his dry, ironic quips. Over the course of the expedition he would take tens of thousands of photographs.

The team gathered at the Marriott Hotel in Tegucigalpa. Late in the afternoon, we convened with Honduran officials and military officers to discuss the expedition’s logistics. In the intervening years, Bruce Heinicke had died; long gone were the days of bribes, under-the-table deals, and implied threats of violence. The expedition had hired a team of less colorful but equally effective coordinators to make sure everything went as planned.

Chris Fisher had prepared huge lidar maps of both T1 and T3. These maps were a far cry from those first grayscale images we had seen on Sartori’s computer. The data had been carefully massaged and tweaked, realistic color had been added, and the images were now printed on paper charts in unprecedented detail. Electronic versions were set up to match an online “data dictionary” that would allow Chris to immediately mark and record on the electronic maps any feature he found in the jungle.

Steve Elkins unrolled the maps on the conference table, one showing T1, and the other T3. T1 was the primary objective, but Elkins hoped a quick ground survey of T3 might also be possible.

The first step was getting into T1 by helicopter. This was not a simple matter. The expedition had brought down a small Airbus AStar helicopter, and the Honduran Air Force also agreed to furnish a Bell 412SP helicopter and the soldiers who would accompany it. We needed to identify potential helicopter landing zones in T1 and figure out how to clear them of trees and other vegetation.

The Honduran military contingent was commanded by Lt. Col. Willy Joe Oseguera Rodas, a quiet, low-keyed man in casual military fatigues. He was a well-known figure in recent Honduran history—the military officer to personally handcuff deposed president Zelaya during the 2009 coup.

Oseguera opened the discussion by explaining that the air force had closely examined the terrain and felt that the only safe landing zone for their Bell 412 was twenty kilometers away—outside the valley. Elkins disagreed. Twenty kilometers in the Mosquitia mountains might as well be a thousand miles; an overland journey of that length would take a week or more, even for seasoned jungle troops.

“This,” Elkins said, gesturing at the huge map, “is the T1 valley. There’s only one way in—through this gap. Where the two rivers split, there’s an area of no trees. This would be an easy area to land, but it would require the clearing of two to three meters of brush.” He pointed to an area a few miles to the north, just below the city. “And there’s another possible landing place next to the ruins. But the trees might be too close together.”

The military men wanted to know exactly how tight these two landing zones were.

Elkins brought out his laptop and booted up the three-dimensional point cloud of the landing zone, which, remarkably, can be rotated and sectioned in any way. Chris and Juan Carlos had already prepared for him digital cross sections of several potential landing zones, which showed the trees, the height of the brush, and the ground level, exactly as if the landscape had been sliced vertically with a knife. Steve had also hired a plane for Juan Carlos to fly over the potential landing zones late in the fall of 2014, to see if there were any noticeable terrain changes and to take good, visible-light photographs and video. All this preparation paid off. It appeared that the river junction LZ might be just large enough for the Bell, and that a smaller LZ might possibly be cleared on the bank of the stream below the ruins, broad enough to insert the AStar.

All this remained theoretical until it could be confirmed in a visual reconnaissance overflight of the valley, planned for February 16, in two days’ time.

Lt. Col. Oseguera explained that once we had scouted out our location, the Honduran military would deploy sixteen soldiers in the valley, who would camp next to our base camp and provide security. These were Special Forces TESON soldiers, many of whom were indigenous Pech, Tawahka, Garifuna, and Miskito people from eastern Honduras. “The soldiers are self-sufficient,” Oseguera said. “They camp on their own. They are very old-school and live like Indians.” The soldiers, he said, would be providing security against possible narcotraffickers, criminals, or others who might be hiding in the forest, although that seemed unlikely, given the remoteness of the valley. They would, more importantly, be taking part in a military exercise called Operación Bosque, “Operation Forest,” to train them on how to protect the rainforest and its archaeological treasures.

Here was yet another way in which the exploration of the valley of T1 meshed with the goals of the newly elected president. Hernández had expressed concern about deforestation, the looting of Honduras’s archaeological treasures, and the acute need for Honduras to lower its crime rate, reduce drug smuggling, and—above all—increase tourism as a way to lift the economy. To combat crime, he called the army into the streets. Some Hondurans were outraged that the military was deployed in a civilian capacity, but the program was popular in neighborhoods plagued by gangs and crime. Operation Forest would do for the rainforest what Hernández’s policy was doing in the streets: Soldiers trained to live self-sufficiently in the rainforest for rotations of duty would become a quasi-permanent deterrent to illegal loggers, archaeological looters, and narcotraffickers, who count on the jungle’s isolation to conduct their business.

As he reviewed our plans for the expedition, however, Oseguera felt obliged to register a serious objection to our logistics. He noted we were bringing only seven doses of snake antivenin: two for coral snake bites and five for crotalid (viper) bites. He did not believe these would be sufficient; at least twenty doses would be the minimum. (A single bite, depending on the size of the snake and the amount of poison it injects, usually requires multiple doses for treatment.) In the military’s experience, poisonous snakes were everywhere and difficult to avoid in the heavy foliage. Especially problematic were the smaller ones that rested in low branches and, when disturbed, fell down on the unwary traveler.

Elkins balked: It had been almost impossible to get those seven doses to begin with, due in part to an antivenin shortage. They had cost thousands of dollars, and there was no way to obtain more on short notice. The discussion ended there, but as I glanced around I noted a number of people looking uneasy, me among them.

That evening the core group of us—Steve Elkins, Dave Yoder, Chris Fisher, and myself—met with James Nealon, US ambassador to Honduras, and his wife, Kristin, in the heavily fortified embassy and residence perched on a hill overlooking the twinkling lights of the city. Nealon was gripped by the story of the lost city and fascinated to hear about what we might find, and he gave us a detailed and insightful briefing on Honduras, which, he noted pointedly, was off the record. The phrase “cognitive dissonance” came up several times. We promised to report back on our discoveries when we emerged from the jungle in two weeks.

The following morning, our convoy left Tegucigalpa in vans, headed toward Catacamas, a four-and-a-half-hour drive. The expedition’s AStar helicopter followed the convoy from above. Honduran soldiers in military vehicles before and behind the convoy provided security, a routine precaution against banditry and kidnapping, especially necessary because we were hauling a bowser of aviation fuel, highly coveted by drug smugglers. The convoy was in constant communication with us and the other soldiers by two-way radios.

It was a long, dusty drive over mountain roads, through a succession of impoverished villages with dilapidated houses, heaps of trash, open sewers, and sad-faced, droopy-eared dogs slinking about. We did pass through one strikingly different and pretty village, the neat houses painted in cheerful colors of turquoise, pink, yellow, and blue, adobe walls draped with purple bougainvillea, and flower boxes in the windows. Those streets were clean and well swept. But as we entered the town, the soldiers warned by radio that under no circumstances were we to stop, as this was a town run by a powerful drug cartel. We were assured that the narcos were engaged in their own business and wouldn’t bother us as long as we didn’t bother them. We drove on.

Eventually we reached the town of Catacamas, the expedition’s base of operations. It, too, was an attractive city of whitewashed houses with red-tiled roofs, population 45,000, nestled against the mountains, overlooking a rich, broad plain dotted with beef cattle and fine-looking horses, watered by the Río Guayape.

Ranching is a proud and venerable tradition in Catacamas, but in recent years it had been eclipsed by the business of drug smuggling. The city had been taken over by narco lords, who came to be known as the Catacamas cartel. The Catacamas cartel was in competition with another cartel in the nearby city of Juticalpa, and the road between the two cities—which we had been driving over—had become a battle zone, plagued with robberies, murders, and carjackings, often committed by criminals posing as Honduran law enforcement. In 2011, it was the scene of one of the worst drug massacres in Honduras, in which a gunman opened fire on a minibus of civilians, killing eight women and children. In 2015, by the time we arrived, the drug smuggling had subsided somewhat, but the town was still dangerous. While there, I learned from a local businessman that the cost of a contract murder in Catacamas was twenty-five dollars. However, we were assured that we were in no danger because of our guard of elite Honduran soldiers.

The Hotel Papa Beto was the finest in town, a whitewashed fortress located in the old city center, with a luxurious swimming pool and an enclosed courtyard with shady, arched portals. The building was surrounded by twenty-foot concrete walls topped by broken glass and concertina wire. As we checked in and got our keys, our escort soldiers with M16s and Israeli Galil automatic weapons stood guard in the lobby. The expedition had taken over the entire hotel, and we spread out our gear poolside in organized piles, ready to be packed and flown into the jungle.

We would spend two nights in the hotel before jumping into the unknown, flying into the valley and establishing a base camp. Snake antivenin shortages aside, Elkins and his team had planned everything to the last detail, a remarkably thorough job, even though we had only a vague idea of the actual conditions we might encounter in the valley of T1 in terms of snakes, insects, diseases, weather, and the difficulty of travel. Only two people on the expedition had actually seen the valley of T1 up close: Juan Carlos and myself. (Tom Weinberg did a brief flyover of T1 in 1998 on a mercy mission with the US military, on their way to deliver supplies to stranded villagers after Hurricane Mitch. Although the storm had derailed their plans, Steve hoped Tom might spot something in the mysterious valley he was convinced held a lost city. So Tom persuaded the pilot to alter his flight plan to get a quick look-see en route, but there was nothing but dense tree cover.) No one had been in there on the ground in perhaps hundreds of years. There was nobody to ask, no guidebooks to consult, no maps beyond the lidar images, and no way of visualizing what we would find in the ruined city. It was both unnerving and exciting to know we would be the first.

Elkins and Benenson had hired three British ex–Special Air Services officers to handle the logistics of making camp and navigating through the jungle. Their leader was Andrew Wood. Woody had served in many roles in the SAS, including senior instructor in jungle warfare, explosives and demolition expert, and advanced-trauma combat medic; he spoke Arabic, Serbo-Croat, and German. He was a skilled tracker, sniper, and free fall parachutist. After leaving the military, Woody had founded a company called TAFFS, Television and Film Facilitation Services. The company specialized in bringing film and television crews into the world’s most dangerous environments, keeping them alive so they could shoot their projects, and then getting them out safely. TAFFS handled the logistics for the extreme survival shows of Bear Grylls, and the company’s numerous television credits include Escape from Hell, Man vs. Wild, Extreme Worlds, and Naked and Marooned. Woody, himself a trained survivalist of the highest rank, had been asked many times to star in his own show, but he had always refused.

Woody brought along two partners from TAFFS, Iain MacDonald Matheson (“Spud”) and Steven James Sullivan (“Sully”). Despite their self-deprecating British manner, both were also ex-SAS and tough as nails. The three had very different personalities and each played a role: Woody the manager; Spud the friendly and laid-back doer; Sully the drill sergeant whose part was to intimidate, dragoon, and scare the shit out of everyone.

As we gathered for that first briefing, we had a chance to look around the room and meet our fellow expeditioners for the first time all in one place. A few of us had been involved in the original lidar aerial survey: Tom Weinberg, Steve Elkins, Juan Carlos, and Mark Adams, the crew’s sound mixer. Most were new: They included Anna Cohen and Oscar Neil Cruz, archaeologists; Alicia González, anthropologist; Dave Yoder; Julie Trampush, production manager; Maritza Carbajal, local fixer; Sparky Greene, producer; Lucian Read, director of photography; and Josh Feezer, camera operator. Bill Benenson and several other members would arrive later, once camp was established.

Woody proceeded to give us the deadpan, hair-curling lecture about snakes and disease that opened this book. Then it was Sully’s turn to speak. Sully, who had spent thirty-three years in the SAS, focused his narrow eyes on all of us with skepticism and disapproval. He finally lasered in on an important expedition member whom he accused of dozing off during the meeting and whose attitude he had judged lackadaisical. “You’ve got to tune in mentally right away now,” he said in a grim Scottish brogue. The poor man looked like a deer in the headlights. “Maybe you just think we’re talking for our health up here. Maybe you think you already know all about it. And so when you’re out there, you’re going to get into trouble—and then what? You’re going to be hurt or dead, that’s what. And who’s bluidy responsible? We’re bluidy responsible. So it isn’t going to happen on our watch.” His squinty gaze swept us all. “Not on our watch.”

The whole room fell into a heavy silence as we all strived to appear to be paying the utmost attention. After a long, uncomfortable moment, Sully went over the plans for the next day. Two helicopters, the expedition’s AStar and the Honduran military’s Bell 412, would fly into the valley to scout out possible landing zones. When landing areas had been chosen, the AStar chopper would drop Woody, Sully, and Spud in with machetes and chainsaws to clear the LZ. If the brush was thick and high, Sully said, the first few crews in might have to abseil (rappel down) from the hovering chopper. Steve had chosen a group of five people, including me, who would be in the first group to land in the forest, and Sully now had to train us how to do it safely.

We followed Sully to the outside patio of the hotel, where he had arranged a duffel bag of gear. He showed us how to put on a climbing harness, how to edge out on the pontoon of a hovering chopper, abseil down a rope using a mechanical slowing device called a descender, unclip, signal, and move away. I had had some experience rappelling down cliffs and frozen waterfalls, but that was always with the security of a vertical face to put my feet on as I descended. Roping down from a hovering chopper in free space seemed less secure, and if you didn’t properly release yourself once on the ground, the chopper might take off with you still attached. We each practiced the maneuver multiple times until we had nailed it to Sully’s exacting standards.

The small AStar that would go in first could only carry three passengers, or two with gear. The final question was who exactly, out of our lucky five, would get a coveted spot on the very first flight. Elkins had already adjudicated some angry disputes among members of the team as to who would be included. Chris argued successfully that he had to be on the first flight in, because he needed to make sure the LZ was not itself an archaeological site that would be damaged by helicopter landings. Dave Yoder demanded to be on that first flight, so that he could capture the moment when boots first hit the ground; one of his fundamental principles as a photographer was never to shoot a reenactment. Steve assigned the third seat to Lucian Read, the DP (director of photography) of the film crew, so he could record the moment on film.

I would fly in on the second trip with Juan Carlos and a load of essential gear. The five of us and Woody’s team would make a primitive camp that night. The rest of the expedition, including Steve, would fly into the valley in the succeeding days. Excited as he was to be fulfilling a lifelong dream, Steve had sacrificed his own early place in the helicopter for us, because he felt it was important to get the filmmakers, the writer, and the scientists into the valley first. He would fly in the following day.

The Honduran military, with their larger helicopter, would have to find a landing zone farther downriver; the soldiers would then have to hike up the river to establish a camp behind ours.

So for that first day and night, we would be on our own.