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House of the Tiger King : A Jungle Obsession
In 1572, the Spanish Conquistadors stormed the Inca stronghold of Vilcabamba in Peru, searching for great golden treasure, only to find the city deserted, burned, and already stripped of its wealth. A legend says that the Incas had retreated deep into the jungle, where they built another magnificent city in an inaccessible quarter of the cloud-forest. And for more than four centuries explorers and adventurers, archaeologists and warrior-priests, have searched for the gold and riches of the Incas, and this lost city of Paititi, known by the local Machiguenga tribe as 'The House of the Tiger King'. After the lost city obsession had gnawed away at Tahir Shah for almost a decade, he could stand it no more. He put together an expedition and set out into Peru's Madre de Dios jungle, the densest cloud forest on Earth. He teams up with a Pancho, a Machiguenga warrior who asserts that in his youth he came upon a massive series of stone ruins deep in the jungle. Pancho's ambition was to leave the jungle and visit a 'live' bustling city so the two men make a if Pancho takes Shah to Paititi, then he will take Pancho to the Peruvian capital. Here is the tale of Shah's remarkable adventure to find the greatest lost city of the Americas, and the treasure of the Incas. Along the way he considers others who have spent decades in pursuit of lost cities, and asks why anyone would find it necessary to mount such a quest at all.
- GenresTravelNonfiction
219 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2004
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
May 2, 2025
I enjoy Tahir Shah's book, and this one is no exception. In a return to Peru (he previously wrote the Trail of Feathers about his last journey here), Shah becomes obsessed with Paititi - the Incan stronghold in the Cloud Forest. It was here that the Inca supposedly fled after abandoning Vilcabamba to the Spanish Conquistadors in 1572, taking with them their hoard of gold. Paititi, of course remains undiscovered despite the attention of many previous explorers. There are many versions of the Lost City myth, or el Dorado tale - and searches in Brazil and Bolivia, as well as Peru have been the cause of many fatalities and disappearances, such as the high profile Percy Fawcett.
And now in this book Shah makes two expeditions, accompanied by a Swiss father and son film crew who want to make a movie of Shah discovering Paititi, a Belgian film student who is obsessed with and films the Swiss, a wealthy Russian businessman who is bank-rolling the Swiss (and by extension some of the expedition) and a Vietnam Vet who lives locally and is addicted to hallucinogens (Richard from the Trail of Feathers). Of course they are also accompanied by local men in the guise of guides and porters. Then there is of course - Pancho - a Machiguenga warrior who claims that as a young man found magnificent ruins in the jungle, and who despite the treats of his tribe, agrees to take Shah to the ruins.
Shah's book is fast paced and interesting. He catalogues the trials and difficulties they face, their progress and the state of the relationships along the way. There is some light background history - enough to make sense of the story, but this is not a book to look to for an in -depth history. There is some modern history alluded to, but not in much depth - with the oil companies attempting to control access to the area - and suspicions of preparation for mining / drilling in the rainforest.
4 stars. Worth seeking out for a fast paced, quick read about an expedition you would rather not be on!
And now in this book Shah makes two expeditions, accompanied by a Swiss father and son film crew who want to make a movie of Shah discovering Paititi, a Belgian film student who is obsessed with and films the Swiss, a wealthy Russian businessman who is bank-rolling the Swiss (and by extension some of the expedition) and a Vietnam Vet who lives locally and is addicted to hallucinogens (Richard from the Trail of Feathers). Of course they are also accompanied by local men in the guise of guides and porters. Then there is of course - Pancho - a Machiguenga warrior who claims that as a young man found magnificent ruins in the jungle, and who despite the treats of his tribe, agrees to take Shah to the ruins.
Shah's book is fast paced and interesting. He catalogues the trials and difficulties they face, their progress and the state of the relationships along the way. There is some light background history - enough to make sense of the story, but this is not a book to look to for an in -depth history. There is some modern history alluded to, but not in much depth - with the oil companies attempting to control access to the area - and suspicions of preparation for mining / drilling in the rainforest.
4 stars. Worth seeking out for a fast paced, quick read about an expedition you would rather not be on!
June 3, 2013
‘A journey is a fragment of Hell.’ This Arab proverb is quoted at the start of ‘The House of the Tiger King,’ the book where Tahir Shah tells of his obsession to find Paititi, the city built by the Incas in Amazon cloud forest.
With him on the plane to Lima are a father-and-son film crew weighed down with equipment, a Bulgarian film student who is filming the film crew, and a Ukranian banker. They fly to Iquitos to persuade a Vietnam vet to join the expedition. The latter agrees, provided he can bring his personal shaman; and the shaman insists on first going to Nazka to find a mummy to bring with them. It soon becomes clear that their intended protector and his shaman spend most of their time stoned on hallucinogenic drugs.
A bus ride from Cusco takes them to the Madre de Dios forest, where they meet Hector who advises and accompanies them. Hector is a Seventh Day Adventist, but also a dreamer prepared, if necessary, to lay down his Bible and rely on older beliefs. The journey through Hell has started. Acting as porters are Machiguenga tribesmen, strong and capable of enduring indescribable hardship, but terrified of the Paititi ruins and of El Tigre, the ghostly predator which haunts the jungle. Progress is painfully slow, mostly on foot through water. Skin is lost from between toes, bees feast on sweat, and the men become host to guinea worms, chigger flies and the virus that causes dengue fever. Impassable rapids block the first attempt, and Tahir is forced to admit what Hector has been telling him: the time is not right.
The second attempt is even more hellish than the first. Ferocious storms add to the expedition’s misery and Tahir finds himself the object of the porters’ hatred. Journeys can bring out the best, or the worst, in people, he reflects, and this one has brought out the worst in him.
As you read this beautifully written book, you begin to feel that it is more than a single team’s search for a lost city. You will gain insight into Tahir Shah’s work, but you also begin to realise that what this extraordinary writer is retelling is no less than the journey of Man, when he seeks his own glory above all else.
With him on the plane to Lima are a father-and-son film crew weighed down with equipment, a Bulgarian film student who is filming the film crew, and a Ukranian banker. They fly to Iquitos to persuade a Vietnam vet to join the expedition. The latter agrees, provided he can bring his personal shaman; and the shaman insists on first going to Nazka to find a mummy to bring with them. It soon becomes clear that their intended protector and his shaman spend most of their time stoned on hallucinogenic drugs.
A bus ride from Cusco takes them to the Madre de Dios forest, where they meet Hector who advises and accompanies them. Hector is a Seventh Day Adventist, but also a dreamer prepared, if necessary, to lay down his Bible and rely on older beliefs. The journey through Hell has started. Acting as porters are Machiguenga tribesmen, strong and capable of enduring indescribable hardship, but terrified of the Paititi ruins and of El Tigre, the ghostly predator which haunts the jungle. Progress is painfully slow, mostly on foot through water. Skin is lost from between toes, bees feast on sweat, and the men become host to guinea worms, chigger flies and the virus that causes dengue fever. Impassable rapids block the first attempt, and Tahir is forced to admit what Hector has been telling him: the time is not right.
The second attempt is even more hellish than the first. Ferocious storms add to the expedition’s misery and Tahir finds himself the object of the porters’ hatred. Journeys can bring out the best, or the worst, in people, he reflects, and this one has brought out the worst in him.
As you read this beautifully written book, you begin to feel that it is more than a single team’s search for a lost city. You will gain insight into Tahir Shah’s work, but you also begin to realise that what this extraordinary writer is retelling is no less than the journey of Man, when he seeks his own glory above all else.
January 5, 2019
A sordid and most excellent tale.
This is a book I read very quickly . Just like Tahir's other books . I found this tale gripping and very entertaining. It is a fascinating look at exploration which is a rare thing in the 21 century. A great book.
This is a book I read very quickly . Just like Tahir's other books . I found this tale gripping and very entertaining. It is a fascinating look at exploration which is a rare thing in the 21 century. A great book.
February 6, 2022
Jungle ballerinas, who have become a chain saw gang, felling the environment that gives them life as fast as they can.
House of the Tiger King. If you like Victorian explorers or `The Worst Journey In the World by Apsley Cherry-Garrard,' you might like the House of The Tiger King. A journey couched in pain, rain like knives, dengue fever, inedible food, raw feet, aching muscles and other people's loads. AND beset by the hostility any real exploration is likely to generate. See Apsley Cherry-Garrard: the best of friends often did not speak to each other for twenty-four hours for fear of saying what they should not. What else is in this book? Lots... whatever is the smallest mathematical measure, or glow worm in the dark. So many entry points that it is difficult, to be coherent. How about? `Don't confess anything they said,' (the Swedes said) `it will blow our cover.' Jungle ballerinas, who have become a chain saw gang, felling the environment that gives them life as fast as they can. Shamans who have diluted their knowledge with clap trap and are yet withal charismatic. Guides who know the way but are not going to do all the work for one. Some things, have to be done for oneself. Dreams of having things handed on a plate, just that, dreams. The frightening Richard (frightened me anyway) see Evelyn Waugh in `Brideshead Revisited'...`I never built anything, and I forfeited the right to watch my son grow up. I'm homeless childless middle aged loveless Hooper.' Alcohol and drugs complete the damage. The river is the serpent, fighting for its life and the life of others. Knocked back again and again by the propensities of man, his greed especially, human being, a polite title. Tahir Shah, would appear to have helpers, his old explorers for one.
And huge `more easily seen' enemies, embodied in that government/oil excavating official.
Those pot noodles, what are they? Placebos...??? Just pot noodles, when you are cold and hungry and despairing? A suggestion that anything is magic, according to what we know and don't know. Or everything IS magic. This is an old explorer's route. Lucky even to get to read about it.
House of the Tiger King. If you like Victorian explorers or `The Worst Journey In the World by Apsley Cherry-Garrard,' you might like the House of The Tiger King. A journey couched in pain, rain like knives, dengue fever, inedible food, raw feet, aching muscles and other people's loads. AND beset by the hostility any real exploration is likely to generate. See Apsley Cherry-Garrard: the best of friends often did not speak to each other for twenty-four hours for fear of saying what they should not. What else is in this book? Lots... whatever is the smallest mathematical measure, or glow worm in the dark. So many entry points that it is difficult, to be coherent. How about? `Don't confess anything they said,' (the Swedes said) `it will blow our cover.' Jungle ballerinas, who have become a chain saw gang, felling the environment that gives them life as fast as they can. Shamans who have diluted their knowledge with clap trap and are yet withal charismatic. Guides who know the way but are not going to do all the work for one. Some things, have to be done for oneself. Dreams of having things handed on a plate, just that, dreams. The frightening Richard (frightened me anyway) see Evelyn Waugh in `Brideshead Revisited'...`I never built anything, and I forfeited the right to watch my son grow up. I'm homeless childless middle aged loveless Hooper.' Alcohol and drugs complete the damage. The river is the serpent, fighting for its life and the life of others. Knocked back again and again by the propensities of man, his greed especially, human being, a polite title. Tahir Shah, would appear to have helpers, his old explorers for one.
And huge `more easily seen' enemies, embodied in that government/oil excavating official.
Those pot noodles, what are they? Placebos...??? Just pot noodles, when you are cold and hungry and despairing? A suggestion that anything is magic, according to what we know and don't know. Or everything IS magic. This is an old explorer's route. Lucky even to get to read about it.
April 22, 2018
Of the travel adventure books I most enjoy are those where the journey not the destination are the focus of the book. In the House of the Tiger King, Tahir Shah is looking for Patiti - the lost city of the Incas. His journey is a rough jungle stew of "fear-and-loathing-in-Las-Vegas" drug crazed lunatics, incomprehensible tribal shaman, a gaggle of Christian missionary indoctrinated jungle tribesmen, crazy drunks, corrupt politician henchmen, and an odd Swedish film crew all pulsing together in a tumultuous cauldron of fun. The author does a great job of describing, seemingly incomprehensible events - like avoiding an vengeful tiger cloud spirit - with calm aplomb and a matter of fact quality that it is poignant and often hilarious.
The stew is good, heartily recommended.
The stew is good, heartily recommended.
March 10, 2019
I am not a traveller. I am more interested in the destination than the journey, so it was a total whim when I picked up Tahir Shah’s House Of The Tiger King- The quest for a lost Inca city. I didn’t want to buy a book that I would have to finish watching a TV serial. On the other hand, the closest I could get to travelling was if I read about it, proved simply by the fact that there are people I know better who are fictional than the ones sitting next to me. Still I had a nagging feeling that it was never a good idea to buy a book and be forced to read it (I always read my books, cover to cover.) In defence of the book the title did say, a hunt for a lost city. It had hit a chord with my childhood obsession with mystery hunting, but the pictures inside showed faces of haggard and tired men. Not encouraging me in any way to read about them but only to open the last page and check if they really found the city. Thankfully that’s when my friend came to me, looked at the book in my hand and said, ‘What a shabby cover, don’t tell me you are buying it.’ And that was it, I walked to the billing counter and bought it.
I don’t think I ever thanked my friend for that but I surely thanked Tahir Shah in my head for going on a search for that city. His travels are nothing short of hell on the move but he makes it so droll that you can’t help but wish to be there with him. It’s his way of looking at things, that makes even a morose situation chuckle worthy. Travelling for him is a seriously hilarious business. He is so obsessed with the destination he is almost comically and wittingly going through every adversity on the way. And that at the end of the book is what matters, that is all to it, and I loved it.
The next time when I went to a book exhibition and stumbled upon a spine that read Tahir Shah- In Search of King Solomon’s Mines, my hand went for it like a reptilian tongue. I was beyond the first chapter even before I left for home, I don’t think I have ever bought a book quicker than that.
Tahir Shah’s expeditions may start from a shady treasure map that he buys from a dubious shopkeeper or just the lure of cheaper flight tickets to countries which have had recent terrorist bombings or civil unrest. His obsession for the quest in no way slackens and his state of mind amazingly remains the same even if he ends up in jail or gets bitten by a rabid dog, because his sense of adventure and sense of humour are one and the same thing.
If I ever end up becoming a mystery hunter, Tahir Shah will definitely be one of the reasons to blame.
www.fizzyrant.com
I don’t think I ever thanked my friend for that but I surely thanked Tahir Shah in my head for going on a search for that city. His travels are nothing short of hell on the move but he makes it so droll that you can’t help but wish to be there with him. It’s his way of looking at things, that makes even a morose situation chuckle worthy. Travelling for him is a seriously hilarious business. He is so obsessed with the destination he is almost comically and wittingly going through every adversity on the way. And that at the end of the book is what matters, that is all to it, and I loved it.
The next time when I went to a book exhibition and stumbled upon a spine that read Tahir Shah- In Search of King Solomon’s Mines, my hand went for it like a reptilian tongue. I was beyond the first chapter even before I left for home, I don’t think I have ever bought a book quicker than that.
Tahir Shah’s expeditions may start from a shady treasure map that he buys from a dubious shopkeeper or just the lure of cheaper flight tickets to countries which have had recent terrorist bombings or civil unrest. His obsession for the quest in no way slackens and his state of mind amazingly remains the same even if he ends up in jail or gets bitten by a rabid dog, because his sense of adventure and sense of humour are one and the same thing.
If I ever end up becoming a mystery hunter, Tahir Shah will definitely be one of the reasons to blame.
www.fizzyrant.com
June 21, 2011
In this memoir, Tahir Shah searches for the lost Incan city of Paititi through the jungles of Peru. It reads like the world's worst trip as the author trudges through the jungle accompanied by two Swedish filmmakers, their Bulgarian groupie, a rich Russian banker and a mutinous band of hired porters. The quest seems doomed from the start as their guide implodes due to a combination of PTSD and copious hallucinogen abuse. Shah persists beyond all reason as calamities follow him with every step. Fascinating and entertaining to be sure but left me with a strong desire never ever to traverse the Amazon basin on foot.
May 23, 2011
I love adventure tales and this one is a corker. It's as if Tahir Shah purposely chose the nuttiest, most unstable, dangerous elements for his journey, yet somehow lived to tell about it. Shah is one of my favorite authors because of his amazing ability to tell a story with humor, grace, and restraint. This book is not currently in print & I ended up with a library edition that was removed from circulation. Well worth the effort to locate a copy.
January 6, 2014
Tales of lost cities and Inca gold have swayed many a sensible imagination and Tahir Shar writes brilliantly about how his own was stirred into action. Full of his usual humourous take on life, entertaining musings and characters which are are so full they almost burst from the page, this is a real treat for anyone looking to take a step into a new world (even if via their armchair.) This is great fun and a very entertaining read.
November 6, 2007
How everyone would like to journey into the darkest jungle of South America... with ex US army aide, and locals who are duped into thinking that pot noodles have aphrodisiac properties, using a dighy bought from the equivalent of Friday Ad. Exploring on a low budget for the mythical city in El Madre de Dios...
August 30, 2019
Cutting one star for not finding it :)
January 26, 2020
Another great story from Tahir. I’m waiting for more.
March 7, 2016
A verz readable and entertaining account of the author's attempts to discover the location of Paititi (El Dorado) in the depths of the Madre de Dios jungle in Peru. The physical aspects of jungle trekking, the discomfort, the pain, the raw, wet feet with no skin between the toes, the worms in the thighs, are expertly drawn to induce a kind of repulsive shiver in me and make me question the sanity of anyone who would subject himself to such terrain. Admiration, however, was harder to find. Shah's motives are suspect, moving from fame and fortune to private glory without a huge amount of interest in the cultural background that surrounds him. The natives are portrayed as one-dimensional and primitive (admittedly we are dealing with indigenous tribes with very little contact to the outside world) and the gulf between his immense intellect and ambition and Pancho's childlike desire to see the "city" only to feel the call of the wild and return immediately to the jungle, seem a bit cold and colonial. Certainly Shah's seeming nostalgia for the cruel, slave-driving explorers of the past makes his treatment of his porters border on the sadistic and seems almost romantically (in the explorers eyes) reminiscent of the glory days of European exploration. 4
August 13, 2011
This is breathtaking true tale of leadership in the midst of jungle. Tahir not only is able to lead his motley expedition through the wilderness, he’s also able to tell a great tale.
I loved the book. It really excited my imagination.
I loved the book. It really excited my imagination.
September 20, 2012
I chose this because I'd read Trail of Feathers: In Search of the Birdmen of Peru by the same author. He brings us back to Peru this time in search of the lost city of Paititi, although this time it's not as an enjoyable of a journey for them or us, well for me it wasn't at least.
July 8, 2012
Shah maintains that anyone can be an explorer - and shows us the way! Fantastic and inspiring read!
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews