“Really?” Andy said, swallowing. Bullet ants got their name from their bite, which was supposedly as painful as getting shot with a bullet. “How long did you last?”

“Maybe half an hour,” Darnell said with a scoff. “I’m lying there, about to fall asleep, and then I feel this bite on my hand. Felt like someone hit it with a hammer.”

“Oh, man.” Andy mentally put the five hundred dollars back in his bank account.

“At first I thought it must have been a snake. But then I flipped on the lantern and see that I’m covered in inch-long black ants.” He shook his head. “Got bit to hell before I got them all off me.”

“Do they still hurt?”

“Shit yeah, they still hurt. I can barely walk.” He nodded in the direction of the ruins and said, “I’m not sure how I’m going to make it up to the site.”

“If it doesn’t stop raining soon, I don’t think any of us will be making it up to the site.”

And none of them would.

The rains continued endlessly, raising the river to a level that Holland decided was too dangerous to cross. Of course, Farah argued that they could attach their carabiners to the ropes, but Holland held firm. It wasn’t just the river. There would also be sinkholes, much like the one Bernita fell into on the previous day. Holland had seen one too many people injured—lots of torn ACLs and lots of broken wrists—while attempting to travel through the muck.

Thankful not to be trampling through the wet jungle, Andy assisted Holland and Rix in digging several trenches around the tents. The trenches helped funnel water away from the areas where the expedition congregated, though for the most part, it was still a muddy mess.

Andy spent lunch with Nathan Buxton, answering questions about Andy’s background and his tenure as an assistant professor. They touched briefly on the mistakes Buxton had made concerning the Incas in his book The Cusco Paradox. Buxton took the criticism humbly, and Andy liked him even more after the interview.

Currently, Andy was preparing for another interview, though this time it would be on camera. Libby had spent the entire day running interviews with Roth, Cala, Bernita, and Farah, and now it was his turn.

“You ready?” Libby was sitting in a nylon chair next to the video camera. There was a notebook open on her lap and a blue pen tucked behind her right ear. Rain dripped from the lip of the tent behind her.

Andy nodded.

“As I mentioned yesterday, I’d like to give the viewers some background on the collapse of the Incas and then your thoughts on Paititi. Maybe we start when the Spanish capture Atahualpa in 1532.”

“Someone did their homework.”

Libby flashed a sly grin and said, “I may have skimmed the Inca Wikipedia page.”