“Jungleland”: In search of a lost city

Mon, 31 Dec 2012 02:00:00 +0000

The true story Christopher S. Stewart has to tell in "Jungleland" resembles nothing so much as the set-up for one of H. Rider Haggard's old pulp adventure novels. It's got a fabled lost city somewhere in the midst of a trackless rainforest, intrepid explorers, stoic guides, assorted dangerous animals and sinister bad guys, and a dash of espionage. Even the local tribesmen get in on the act, issuing forth vague warnings about "forbidden" zones, the voices of the dead, evil spirits and monkey gods.

Stewart, a journalist specializing in war and organized crime, first heard about Ciudad Blanco -- the White City, a magnificent ruin rumored to be buried deep in the jungles of the Mosquitia region of Honduras -- while reporting on the booming Honduran drug trade in 2008. An American ex-soldier who had been involved in training the Nicaraguan contras told him about the legend while describing Mosquitia as the "shittiest, buggiest shithole jungle in the world." Stewart was soon obsessed, and in a few months, he was on a plane for Central America.

America’s unwinnable war games

Thu, 25 Oct 2012 14:03:00 +0000

They looked like a gang of geriatric giants. Clad in smart casual attire -- dress shirts, sweaters, and jeans -- and incongruous blue hospital booties, they strode around “the world,” stopping to stroke their chins and ponder this or that potential crisis. Among them was General Martin Dempsey, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a button-down shirt and jeans, without a medal or a ribbon in sight, his arms crossed, his gaze fixed. He had one foot planted firmly in Russia, the other partly in Kazakhstan, and yet the general hadn’t left the friendly confines of Virginia.

Salon.com > Honduras

“Jungleland”: In search of a lost city

America’s unwinnable war games