The Legend Hunter

In 1533 Francisco Pizarro made his epic march through the deserts and mountains of Peru. He was on his way to the golden city of the Inca, Cuzco. He bypassed empires that had long since been buried in the sands and in the memories of forgotten civilizations. He found his gold, all right, but he passed over much more that has yet to be found. Romain Wilhelmsen, against the advice of the National Geographical Society, set out to track down those legends and riches that the Conquistadors missed. This is part of his story. And, it is a success story.

Starting out with $800 in his pocket, not only did he find gold, but he also encountered the fascinating personalities that aided him in his search: Ernesto Batanero, who had plotted the Pan-Am air routes in the 1930s over Ecuador and Peru, and dreamed of retracing them on the ground in search of pyramids he knew were down there; Miguel Loayza, who was wanted by the governments of the United States, Peru, Ecuador, and the United Kingdom for the genocidal murder of thousands of Indians; Santiago Flynn who gave up a promising motion picture career for the solitude of the Andes Mountains; Hermann Becker who had been the legendary Field Marshal Erin Rommel's personal driver during World War II; Father Trampa, S.J., who pointed the way to a lost army of Spanish Conquistadors in the Sierra Madre Canyons of Mexico; the lovely foreign correspondent, Barbara Holbrook, who exposed a corrupt government and was on the run, one step ahead of the militia; the philosopher who wanted to go sailing on the last commercial windjammer in the world, and ended up on an island of manure. These, and others are here in THE LEGEND HUNTER.