CHAPTER 33

We pushed on.

The trek through the mountains and into the rain forest took my breath away.

Literally.

The higher we climbed, the harder it was to breathe. The atmosphere kept getting thinner and thinner. I might’ve been getting thinner, too. If water makes up 60 percent of your body weight, I think I’d sweated out 30 percent of mine.

And then there were the llamas. We had to keep stopping so they could cross the washed-out roads we were traversing.

While we waited for the furry herd to clear the road, I remembered something Mom had told us: according to legends, Paititi was built by the Inca hero Inkarri, who had slipped away from the Spanish conquistadors with more than twenty thousand llamas loaded down with gold and silver!

Watching all those shaggy llama butts slowly making their way over the steep mountains, I realized we were probably headed in the right direction.

We might even be on the exact same route that Inkarri and his llamas took.

We were going to find the Lost City of Gold!