Saturday, July 1, 2000 | 8:58 a.m.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
RENO, Nev. - The mountains are high, the jungle dense, the mud deep and the mosquitoes thick.
"It's miserable," said Gene Savoy, the Reno-based explorer who has spent most of his life hunting and finding the ruins of ancient South American Indian empires in the rain forests of Peru.
Savoy, 73, might have completed his last jungle adventure.
He returned in June from an 18-day expedition in the region where he discovered the extensive stone remains of what is believed to be Cajamarquilla. The city, according to legend, is one of seven in the Peruvian Andes that belonged to the Chachapoyas, a tribe of warriors conquered by the Incas in the 15th century.
Savoy's latest find comes nine months after his discovery in the jungle of what could be Conturmarca, another of the seven cities.
"I've been looking for these cities for 35 years," said Savoy, who might stop hunting to write about his find. "I've learned you have to quit when you're ahead."
If he does, Savoy will leave a legacy in the jungles of Peru, where he's been credited with discovering more than 40 ancient sites and gained renown as an explorer of some of the world's most remote places.
He started exploring after his business failed and his first marriage ended in divorce.
"I went down there in 1957," said Savoy, who was called a real-life Indiana Jones by People magazine in 1985. "We opened up a whole new area of archaeology."
Savoy is not an archaeologist, something he readily admits. He discovers a site, then moves on.
But Savoy, who calls himself a historian, believes his latest finds add to the proof of a theory adopted when he started jungle exploration in 1964 - that ancient civilizations existed in Peru's interior, away from the western coast.
"Nobody thought there were jungle cultures," Savoy said. "A Peruvian archaeologist said the farther east you go, you'll find older cultures. Nobody believed it."
A former journalist who grew up in the Pacific Northwest, Savoy also believes that pre-Columbian Peru had contact with civilizations in Asia and the Middle East.
He hoped to prove it with a seven-year voyage around the world in a replica of an ancient sailing vessel. But Savoy's 73-foot mahogany catamaran sank in the South Pacific in 1998 after sailing 6,000 miles from Peru to Hawaii.
He and his six-man crew were rescued unhurt. Since then, Savoy has had more exploration success on land.
"We are still trying to get a ship built," he said. "If it works, then it works and we'll do it."
Projects are financed with sponsorships, donations, book sales and lectures. They're organized through the Andean Explorers Foundation & Ocean Sailing Club in Reno, where Savoy has lived for almost 30 years. He is also the leader of a religious group, the International Community of Christ.
He estimates it will take 20 years for archeologists to study, document and verify his most recent discovery in Peru.
"We think these ruins are probably Cajamarquilla," Savoy said.
"Archaeology is a hard science. History is a little more beautiful. We don't knock archaeology. We work as a team."
He said he will return to the jungle in the fall with a camera crew to film the discovery site. The 25-square mile site includes a network of stone roads, at least 36 burial towers and 60 or 70 buildings.
Peruvian archaeologist Miguel Cornejo, part of Savoy's expedition of 47 men and 50 pack animals, called the ruins "a completely new discovery that constitutes a major contribution to Peruvian archaeology and the world."
Another archaeologist in the group, Alberto Bueno, said Savoy might have found Cajamarquilla, a location mentioned by early Spanish explorers. Bueno said the roads, the structures - many decorated with carved stone faces - indicate a large community.
"This find is kind of a feather in my cap," said Savoy, whose discoveries include Vilcabamba, the last refuge of the Incas.
"I got confirmation from the archeologists. They said, 'We want to believe it. We just can't (yet).' It's a wonderful culmination of 40 years work."
Savoy doesn't stumble into lost cities by wandering across Peru. An expedition is the final stage of a long process that starts with researching old documents, such as the records kept by Spanish explorers, and listening to the legends and folklore of the region's residents.
"There are 3 million square miles of jungle, for God's sake," Savoy said. "You have to know where to start."
Savoy isn't the first explorer to venture into the region of the Chachapoyas. He used the journeys of others to help his own.
"Anyone who does this kind of work has to build on the work of predecessors," he said.
"Little by little, you keep building. You culminate the work. People had been in the Chachapoyas in 1948. They didn't know about the ruins. I built on the historical record, as little as it is."
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