“The quest for a lost city erodes your body, damaging you beyond all reason. But it is your mind that bears the heaviest toll. Listen to the doubters, the worriers and the weak, and the vaguest hope of success evaporates.” — Tahir Shah Copy Share Image
“As the head of an expedition, you can't pussyfoot around being polite to everyone. You have to show your teeth once in a while;… — Tahir Shah Copy Share Image
“The last thing we wanted was for the Machiguenga to be sad again. Sadness appeared to bring out their violence.” — Tahir Shah Copy Share Image
If hot food is they key to maintaining an expedition's stamina, then low grade gut-rot alcohol is the key to sustaining its sense of… — Tahir Shah Copy Share Image
“Normally I would have been the first to go in search of cannibal monks, particularly as I had heard of a similar tradition at… — Tahir Shah Copy Share Image
“Inscribed on it was a verse from the Quatrains of Omar Khayyam, the eleventh-century Persian mystic. Reading the words aloud I prepared for a… — Tahir Shah Copy Share Image
“Moroccan traffic isn't like normal traffic. It's armed combat, a war of wills, in which only the very bravest have a chance to survive.” — Tahir Shah Copy Share Image
“Prideep pointed to the flames of paraffin lamps as they came alive in the distance and cackled in awe at the experience. (…) I… — Tahir Shah Copy Share Image
“The very fact that a Frenchman was prepared, after tow minutes of conversation, to be so friendly towards anyone, especially one who had come… — Tahir Shah Copy Share Image
The taste for glory can make ordinary men behave in extraordinary ways. — Tahir Shah Copy Share Image
“As anyone who's ever taken an Ethiopian bus knows, there is an unwritten rule that the windows must remain firmly closed.” — Tahir Shah Copy Share Image
“In some warped way, having an embalmed body with us made perfect sense.” — Tahir Shah Copy Share Image
“Back at the guest house I tried to acclimatise. A travel-worn adventurer had once told me that leaning with one's head dangling over the… — Tahir Shah Copy Share Image
