This is an excellent story of the discovery of an ancient ruined city that birthed the legend of the fabled White City, also called the City of the Monkey God. It's a book about the author's real life participation in an archeological excavation into the Honduran jungle using lidar (light detection radar) technology to map ancient ruins through extremely dense tree canopy. It's real life Indiana Jones stuff and it was both informative and exciting. I learned a lot about archeology and diseases, which are discussed at length in the last chapters. Expedition members, including the author, contracted Leish, a virus that infects white blood cells. I found this portion of the book most interesting. My only personal complaint, and please note that it is indeed strictly personal, is that the author warns of possible future outbreaks of third-world diseases in first-world countries and the fragility of human civilization by saying that global warming has "opened the door" for them. I would have liked to hear other theories as to how these diseases could spread, perhaps from a scientific angle in support of those of us who aren't on the climate change train (yup, I'm one of those people).