3 August 2011

Dundee student hopes to strike gold on Amazonian adventure

A psychology student from the University of Dundee is to embark on an expedition to try to locate a legendary Incan city of gold later this month.

It was adventure-hungry Ken Gawne, originally from Northern Ireland, who came up with the plan to undertake the journey to the Amazon jungle along with four other explorers. There, they will hunt for Paititi, the city where - according to legend - the Incas hid their treasures from Spanish conquistadors.

Twenty-eight-year-old Ken, who is about to begin the third year of his psychology degree, has embarked on several expeditions already, including one to China as well as crossing the Sahara desert in Western Africa. Ken is also a keen filmmaker, and made the feature film ‘Treasure of the Templars’, a tribute to Indiana Jones during these expeditions.

Now he hopes to make a documentary of the adventure in South America as he and his team mates hope to succeed where other expedition parties have failed. They will head to Peru and spend three weeks hunting for the lost city amongst the country’s jungles.

Ken said the plan started to form during a discussion with his Norfolk-based team mate Ian Gardiner, who will act as expedition leader.

'Basically Ian said one of the things he would like to do before he was 30 was to go to the jungle to find the lost city,' he said. 'I asked him if he was serious about it and took it from there.

'I became really interested really quickly because it is a very exciting idea and a once-in-a-lifetime chance.'

Also on the expedition are writer Ken Halfpenny and cameraman Lewis Knight, both of whom are based in Dundee. The team also hopes to be joined by German archaeologist Jens Notroff.

They will take a satellite phone with them on their expedition, and plan to update their website and facebook and twitter pages live from the jungle.

'We have spoken to a previous explorer Gregory Deyermenjian, who has been looking for the city for 20 years and he has been fantastic,' continued Ken.

'He has found about 15 different settlements so we will be looking in an area where previous things have been discovered. When you are in the jungle it is very dense and as far as you can see is what has been explored so I think we have as much chance of finding something as anybody.'

More information about the project can be found at www.TheSecretOfTheIncas.com.

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Grant Hill
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University of Dundee
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