Mark Adams has spent his career editing adventure and travel magazines, polishing hair-raising tales about the exploits of famous explorers. So his plan to investigate the allegations against Bingham by retracing the explorer's perilous path to Machu Picchu isn't completely far-fetched, even if it does require him to sleep in a tent for the first time. Along the way he finds a still-undiscovered country populated with brilliant and eccentric characters, as well as an answer to the question that has nagged scientists for generations: just what was Machu Picchu?