Books like Lost Cities & Ancient Mysteries of South America

Imagine how surprised I was to open up this book and read in the first paragraph that the author had left his family's home in Montana! Although I am from Montana and am obsessed with traveling, I am still amazed that a state currently with less than a million people has so many connections to literature and history.Unfortunately as Lost Cities and Ancient Mysteries of South America was written in the mid-80s, much of it's travelogue style is out-dated and a hostel in Peru no-longer costs $2 per night. However, the author has done his research and explains himself as no-expert, quoting well-established history papers, expeditions and fanciful sci-fi writers (admittedly skeptical of the latter).There are many typos which hint at poor editing and fast publishing, and the book encourages me to see what has changed in South American Anthropology and Archaeology since the mid-80s. What struck me in the end was how much of South America has yet to be explored and how no theories are even offered for many remote ruins as there are almost no written records. Also, surprising are the number of people who set out to look for ancient cities never to be heard from again....even in the 1950's and 60's. Then, modern archaeologists looking at modern space images and saying, "Oh you really should have waited, it's right there on my satellite picture."