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At the beginning of my last week in Peru I was struck by feelings of lethargy. Before illness made my last detour south to the secret library of Lampa unfeasible, I was lacking entirely in motivation. Whilst in the obscenely touristic town of Paracas, four hours south of Lima, waiting for the bus that would take me back to the capital I managed to convince myself not to bother, an appalling trait of mine. It never takes much to talk myself out of something, especially if it involves getting out of bed early and this was no different.
I tried in vain to cancel my early morning flight and the 23-hour bus journey back from Juliaca to Lima. I could neither cancel nor get a refund for either and I had become extremely frustrated. This was made worse by the fact that earlier that morning I locked my laptop and passport inside my locker. First, the teeth of the key snapped inside the lock when I inserted it and then, when I tried to jiggle it out, the entire mechanism crumbled onto the floor by my feet. Half tempted to snap the door or flying kick the padlock, I decided against vandalism and went back downstairs.
The old man on reception looked at me like I was a fool when I explained my predicament, yet he immediately pulled a hacksaw out from beneath the desk. This was a backpacker’s haunt and I was not the first, nor the last person to do this. Before freeing my valuables I spotted a book left behind by someone in the room: ‘The Lost City of Z’ by David Grann.
The film of the same name, starring Charlie Hunnam had caught my attention late last year and I watched it two nights in a row on Netflix. A grand quest into the unknown is for me the most inspiring kind of tale because it always feels applicable to my own motives. The book also arrived into my world at the right time. With plenty of hours to kill I sat down and began reading. I read half of it before it was time to catch the bus and after the first two chapters I had already unsent all the emails trying to cancel my journey to Juliaca. Sometimes inspiration arrives at the perfect time and it was the kick I needed to spur me on towards my final week in Peru.
If you haven’t heard of the book or the man it follows, Percy Fawcett, I highly recommend looking into him. There are countless books about the man, the first of which was written by his eldest son Brian, entitled Expedition Fawcett. For almost one hundred years, authors and explorers alike have ventured to Brazil to try and discover what happened to Fawcett, who disappeared in the jungle in 1925. Beginning in 1906, he was tasked with mapping sections of the Amazon between Bolivia and Brazil became obsessed with the discovery of a lost city and an ancient civilisation deep in the jungle. He undertook many expeditions over an eighteen year period interrupted by the First World War and his battle within Britain for credibility, funding and followers was tumultuous. People called him a fool and a lunatic yet many found his fearless quest inspiring – that resolute belief in a theory leading him further into the most untouched parts of the Amazon.
The mission I previously lacked motivation for wasn’t exactly a treacherous jungle expedition. I am not quite an explorer in the same regard; I haven’t ventured deep into the jungle (nor do I wish to, the deep Amazon sounds like constant torture where every tiny insect wants to bury into your skin and lay its eggs inside your head) but my fascination with the lost years of Trevithick is becoming a Fawcett-esque obsession with something I’m not sure I’ll ever know the true extent of. How many times will I return to South America in search of missing information? How many detours will I make? How many untrodden paths will I get lost down? I have returned from Peru well and truly obsessed, if I wasn’t before, I just hope it doesn’t turn into a deadly obsession.
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JOEL GRIFFETT 
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