Journey of the Lost Princess: Adventure and Romance in the Mysterious Land of the Incas

Copyright © 2011 by Roger Huff

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ISBN: 978-1-4502-4305-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4502-4306-3 (ebook)

Printed in the United States of America

iUniverse rev. date: 1/15/2011

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty One

Chapter Twenty Two

Chapter Twenty Three

Chapter Twenty Four

Chapter Twenty Five

Chapter Twenty Six

Chapter Twenty Seven

Chapter Twenty Eight

Epilogue

References

To all the Marlenes of the world.

Preface

Like the principal character in this story, I was a war baby who grew up in a relatively small Midwestern town and moved to the city after graduating from high school. But the Journey of the Lost Princess was actually conceived on the other side of the globe on board a research vessel in the central lagoon of Ulithi Atoll, a group of roughly forty islands in the western Pacific.

Our ship operated independently and was permanently deployed, which meant that we were all alone and spent roughly three hundred days out of the year at sea. It was a time before modern satellite communications systems and except for occasional calls to remote ports, our primary contact with the outside world was via radio using Morse code.

Daily shipboard routine consisted of: working, watch standing, eating, sleeping, watching old movies, and reading; and the most popular reading materials in a ship’s library tend to have a rather short life expectancy. By now, you are probably asking yourself how this relates to a story about adventure in the land of the Incas, so let me explain.

I was fortunate enough to capture a book about past civilizations of the New World. Its chapters about the Nazcas, Mayans, and Aztecs were all quite informative, but I was particularly intrigued by the one on the Incas. And so it was there, in a tropical lagoon surrounded by islands inhabited by natives wearing loincloths, that I decided to learn more about the mysterious people of the Andes.

This decision led to years of research and travel, which revealed a lot more questions than answers. Who were the Incas, and how did they rise from being a relatively obscure tribe to lead one of the richest and most impressive empires in the Americas? Why were they in many ways more culturally advanced than their European counterparts, and what really happened to them?

The achievements of Incan builders have puzzled generations of engineers for more than five centuries, and are often compared to those of the ancient Egyptians. How were such cultures apparently able to overcome the basic laws of physics? Had they learned a secret of the universe and if so, how was this knowledge lost?

Pursuit of answers to such questions revealed yet another fascinating aspect of Incan society that is less often discussed. The principal character in this book sets out to learn more about an ancient bar of gold, but in the process discovers much more about her heritage and of the importance of women in the Incan world.

Several careers have taken me halfway around the world, and have afforded a treasure trove of experiences. Journey of the Lost Princess reflects some of these, as well as many of the people I have met along the way. It describes an adventure of a lifetime, which eventually leads to the famous Lost City of the Incas.

- Roger Huff

Acknowledgments

I want to thank all of my dear friends and neighbors who graciously contributed to the research for this long-term project, which would not have been possible without their help. I would also like to acknowledge and express my sincere appreciation to the very special individuals whose critical reviews and suggestions substantially improved the original manuscript. Thank you!

Growing up as an Army brat and serving over twenty years in the Navy both helped me realize and appreciate the contributions that members of our military services and their families make to protect the freedoms too many of us take for granted. To acknowledge their sacrifices, proceeds earned from sales of Journey of the Lost Princess will be donated to worthy charities that support these true American patriots.

Every reasonable effort has been made to determine that all non-original graphics are in the public domain and released for use. The graphic in Chapter Twenty-Five is used courtesy of Dr. Tim McGuiness and may be found online at http://www.precolumbianwomen.com. Sources for other graphics are acknowledged in the Reference section.

Prologue

It was late July in 1622, and the Spanish Treasure Fleet had not yet departed. The royal galleon Nuestra Señora de Atocha and other ships were still awaiting the arrival of more gold and silver coming by pack train from former Incan mines in Peru before setting sail for their rendezvous in Havana. Pirates and privateers were always concerns, but the Atocha’s captain was also worried about the violent storm systems the Caribbean natives called huracans, after their Storm God.

In late August and well into the season for such storms, the fleet finally reached Havana, the final rendezvous before the longest leg of the voyage back to Spain. As a military escort, the Atocha was well armed with more than twenty bronze cannons, and carried an entire company of soldiers to fend off possible attacks. For this reason, she was also the vessel of choice for many wealthy passengers and carried an extraordinarily large portion of the fleet’s treasure.

The weather was good on the morning of September fourth as the fleet of twenty-eight ships at last weighed anchors and departed Havana, sailing northward in a single file toward the Florida Keys to pick up the current of the Gulf Stream. Taking up her assigned position near the rear of this line was the Atocha, riding low in the water due to her heavy burden. Northeasterly winds arose later that evening, and continued to increase throughout the night.

By dawn the fleet was facing mountainous seas, and most of the passengers were below decks either seasick or praying for their lives. But on the following day the wind shifted, driving most of the vessels near the head of the line past the Dry Tortugas and into the relative safety of the Gulf of Mexico. The Atocha and four other ships near the rear of the column were not nearly as fortunate however, and they bore the full force of the storm.

With their sails in shreds, masts broken, and tillers ripped away, they drifted helplessly toward the reefs. The Atocha was lifted high atop a huge wave, and then violently dashed onto the coral. She sank rapidly, dragged to the ocean floor by the sheer weight of her treasure and armament.

She went down in only fifty-five feet of water, with the top of her mast still protruding above the waves. The following day, a merchant vessel picked up five survivors out of the two hundred and sixty-five souls who had been aboard. Salvage attempts began almost immediately, but the free divers were unable to open the Atocha’s hatches.

Another hurricane ravaged the ship and ripped away her superstructure and upper deck while the salvagers were back in Havana getting the proper equipment to retrieve her treasures, and when they returned the wreck could not be found. Some insist the Conquistadors’ plunder was cursed by the spirits of thousands of indigenous people who died protecting it from their foreign invaders. Losses of ships like the Atocha had major impact upon Spain’s economy and the decline of its dominance in the New World, but subsequent recovery of this same treasure more than three centuries later would lead to even more fascinating stories like this one.

Chapter One

And what was your mother’s maiden name? asked the bank teller, briefly looking up from the application form. Answering this question would have been easy for most people, but not for Marlene.

Excuse me, she replied, momentarily caught off-balance by the question. Would you please repeat that?

Certainly, Miss Whitman. We need to choose a security question to protect your new bank account. What was your mother’s maiden name?

Marlene knew a lot more about her father than she did about her mother. Greg Whitman was an avid sportsman, and something of a hometown hero. He was class president during his senior year in the local high school, and nobody who knew him well was very surprised when he gave up a promising career in semi-professional baseball to enlist in the Marines shortly after the U.S. entered the Korean Conflict.

Greg had met her mother while he was in boot camp. They married after a whirlwind romance, and Marlene was conceived during a weekend pass just before he shipped out. But after a difficult pregnancy, her mother had died as a result of a botched Caesarean section.

When the news of his wife’s death finally reached him, Greg Whitman was devastated. Several weeks afterwards, he was killed while leading an assault on a heavily defended enemy bunker. His fellow Marines later said that it seemed as if he no longer cared about his own life, but his bravery had saved many others.

She was raised by Greg’s sister Geneva, who had named her after the actress Marlene Dietrich. But her aunt seldom spoke of Marlene’s mother, whom she blamed for her brother’s death. As a result, knowledge of her real mother was limited to a few old photos, and hearing Geneva mention that she had a rather unusual name.

I’m sorry, Marlene said to the teller, who was starting to appear somewhat puzzled at her delayed answer. Could we perhaps use a different security question?

Of course, the teller replied. How about the name of the first grade school that you attended?

That would be Saint Mary’s, Marlene answered quickly this time; relieved to get past the rather awkward moment in their discussion.

A light rain started to fall while she walked back to her apartment that afternoon, and Marlene’s eyes got misty as she reflected upon her childhood years. Her classmates were also wartime babies, but she was the only one who had lost both of her parents.

While Marlene was in grade school, she and her aunt Geneva shared a small apartment above a dress shop with another lady whose husband had also died in the war. The adults each had a bedroom, while Marlene slept on a trundle bed in the living room. The three of them got along well, but this arrangement put a real damper on the two women’s social activities.

Geneva was quite slim, with flaming red hair. A devout Catholic, she never missed going to Masses on Sundays and somehow managed to save enough money to allow Marlene to attend Saint Mary’s. Friends and understanding nuns all helped to give her niece as normal a childhood as possible under the circumstances.

They lived in a fairly typical town in America’s heartland. Perched atop river bluffs and well known for tree-canopied streets, beautiful old Victorian homes, and great city parks; it also was the retail center for surrounding farms and small rural communities. But one of their town’s best attributes were the folks who lived there and understood what it meant to be good neighbors.

Greg and Geneva’s parents had once owned a nearby farm, but lost it when crop prices fell during the Great Depression. To support the family her father joined the Navy, her mother worked in the local shoe factory, Greg got a paper route, and Geneva began baby-sitting. Her aunt was no stranger to hard work, and those values would be passed on to Marlene.

She was more adventurous than most of her schoolmates, and especially the girls. Little Marlene spent a lot of time playing cowboys and Indians, catching tadpoles and crawfish, and exploring the nearby woods. She usually wore blue jeans and sweatshirts, and was quite often considerably less spotless than other little girls. Geneva’s young niece liked hanging from the monkey bars more than playing with dolls, and sometimes seemed to be well on her way to either becoming Sheena, Queen of the Jungle or a female Daniel Boone.

One example of this tendency occurred at Marlene’s first communion. While the other girls were absolutely immaculate in their little white dresses, Geneva was mortified when her niece appeared in the church’s doorway looking like a street urchin. But to be fair, it isn’t easy to stay immaculate when you’re playing Capture the Flag in the dirt field out behind the rectory.

In an increasingly desperate attempt to help Marlene discover her feminine side, Geneva scraped together enough money to enroll her eight year old niece in classes at Molino’s Dance Studio. Harriet Molino had once been a member of the famous Rockettes chorus line in New York, but in her late twenties she was in a plane crash on the way back from a performance.

The injuries she suffered had ended her professional dancing career, so Harriet learned to support herself by teaching classes in the little basement dance studio. She had been a classmate of Greg Whitman however, and took a special interest in Marlene. By the end of that year, Miss Molino’s new little protégé was ready for her first recital.

Near the beginning of the program, Marlene and five other little girls all wearing black and yellow striped leotards would do a modern jazz routine to a well-worn recording of Be My Little Baby Bumblebee, and later she would perform a ballet number with Jerry Hunter who had the distinct misfortune of being the only boy enrolled at Molino’s. Except for the time when little Sarah Price somehow managed to wind herself up in one of the side stage curtains, the first routine went fairly well. The six little bee-girls buzzed around in what appeared to be something less than random motion, and their proud parents applauded enthusiastically.

Afterwards, Marlene changed into her tutu and got