Yucatan Adventure

In 1950, Leonard Clark and Hal Hennesey undertook a journey through Yucatan, Campeche and Quintana Roo. By their own admission they were under-equipped and underfinanced. They were heading into an unforgiving environment which was to test them to their limits.

I had selected this book based on Leonard Clark's The Rivers Ran East, which was action packed and really didn't stop from page 1 to the end, and although there was some noticeable exaggeration involved there, I really enjoyed it. In Yucatan Adventure there was no noticeable exaggeration, and while the adventure was still there, it was much more uniform in its delivery.

The lack of excitement in the presentation (and lack of embellishment) doesn't take away from the incredible journey, the hardships and the risks, which is all there is the text. It took me a long time to get through this book (of just 250 pages), but that was a combination of the pace of the book, but also external factors like being busy with work and too tired to take in the detail quickly.

Clark and Hennesey journey into the deep of Yucatan, Campeche and Quintana Roo Territory, their main goal to seek out Maya ruins. These are almost all literally ruins, although they come across some remarkably intact sections. The first third of the book take in travel from Merida to Chichen Itza - and is responsible for the slow start to the book. This was a fairly well known and explored place, so there was little discovery and excitement around this.

On returning to Merida they strike into the jungle, travelling by foot and with minimal equipment and supplies. The have a series of guides with pack animals to remove the burden from the men, but progress is quite slow. They encounter ruin after ruin, but as they are not expert archaeologists, and have little in the way of equipment (although they do have a pick and shovel at the start of the journey, these are abandoned fairly early on) they really only measure and describe the ruins rather than make any discoveries.

They engage in some light speculation about the uses of places and how many people may have lived in a ruin, but they also admit they are not expert. There are a few photos through the book, of reasonable quality and of a variation of themes. There are maps on the inside cover of ok quality for an overview, but all the action takes place in a very small area of the map, and is largely illegible.

The last 50 pages of the book are a desperate attempt for the men to balance exploration with survival. They regularly are without water for days then come across water almost by accident, inevitably saving their lives. Each time they do find water or food they decide to press on for another day, rather than begin their return journey, thus making it harder and harder to survive. I hate to think what they looked like when they finally made it back to civilization, but they referred to the people as looking at them , trying to figure out what they were, not believing them to be alive!

I found it hard to rate this book. What Clark and Hennesey did physically was little short of incredible, but it is hard to align their discoveries with meaning - there was some speculation but little analysis, and no excavation. Their survival and ability to push themselves physically was, above all else, disturbing and they pushed their guides almost as hard at themselves, through threats and cajoling, often leaving them with no choice but to continue. Perhaps they framed a way for other explorers and archeologists to follow and research the many ruins they found, and perhaps that was achievement enough to satisfy them.

I settled on 4 stars.