Treasure Quest and the Bat Cave

Well folks, last night (September 28) was maybe the worst of the episodes but only for what it revealed about the great treasure hunt. They penetrated another tunnel, or in this case a cave, filled with toxic chemicals thanks to the vampire bats, and found nothing. They reached the dead end, avoiding the bats by shining their lights down so as not to disturb them. Oh, and they created a huge air vent to blow the toxic gas out using some of the one hundred plastic bags they had brought in. Really? A hundred plastic bags?

All that really proves was that they had access to a great deal of equipment and supplies that, again, suggested, they weren’t traveling into the deep wilderness without a lot of support. If they were trekking into this remote area, I can’t think of a good reason to bring in all those plastic bags because they would have limited weight capabilities on those burros they allegedly used… but, of course, we know that isn’t true. They’re an hour or so from Quime and what, ten hours from La Paz

C. H. Prodgers

by those SUVs that have become more prevalent in the last few episodes. I note here that C. H. Prodgers, who was there a hundred years ago, wrote that the trip to La Paz would take eight to ten days. I bring this up only for perspective.

Did I mention they found a bell? It had a couple of cracks in it and was made of bronze which is not a treasure but was cool. And, they found more of that oxen chain. All that led them, indirectly, to the Bat Cave, which turned out to be a bust.

So, they’re standing there, wondering what to do next because Winter is Coming… I mean, the rainy season is coming, so they don’t have much time. They deploy a drone, which is another bit of technology that requires some kind of external support such as batteries and recharging capabilities. With it they find another area several miles away that has three rivers coming together and with a mesa close by. They decide they must get to that area because that also fits the descriptions of the Roman Document.

After a hike, they walk into the area, climb the hill and look for the egg-shaped rock that is supposed to mark the location of the tunnel of treasure. It was so big it took 500 of the locals to place on top of the hill. Prodgers had written nearly a hundred years ago that, “If you dig down underneath this stone for five yards, you will find the roof of a large cave, which took 500 men two and a half years to hollow out. The roof is seventy yards long, and there are two compartments and a long narrow passage leading from the room on the east side to the main entrance two hundred yards away.”

Prodgers continued his commentary, “The stone was exactly ten feet high above the ground, five feet below, and fourteen feet wide around the middle.”

One of our guys talked about the huge stone and they all begin a search for the rock but don’t find it. Instead they discover a boulder that has smaller rocks scattered around it. They postulate that this might have been the egg-shaped rock that weather had shattered. Prodgers, however, wrote, “I started off the excavation by blowing the big egg-shaped stone to pieces with dynamite.” That certainly would have done a better job of breaking the boulder apart.

You would think that this latest expedition, that has been talking about all its technology would have, at the very least, searched out some of these old records and stories before heading to Bolivia. You would think that they would have known that Prodgers blew up the rock so that it wouldn’t be there. I knew it. I learned about it weeks ago and didn’t even have to visit a library to learn it.

While our guys are looking around, they find a huge void underground using their ground penetrating radar and a couple of other gadgets, and I wonder where all that equipment came from because it sure didn’t look as if they had lugged it into the wild during the latest trek. Their packs were somewhat smaller so that equipment should have been visible. But never mind.

After working their way around the rock and plateau, they find a void, but Prodgers told us where it was. He wrote, nearly a century ago, “The roof of the cave was covered over by earth and grass for eighteen inches or two feet, except at the end where the big stone was, where it was covered rather deeper.”

Our guys determine it is even deeper than that. They’re going to need their excavator and wonder if they can get it up there. (Sure, I know the sentence has some syntax problems but I wanted to get all forms of there in it.) While a couple of them set up base camp, with more stuff that they hadn’t seemed to carry in with them, the others head back to the original and obviously wrong site. They crank up

Josh Gates. Photo copyright by
Kevin Randle

the excavator and one of those ubiquitous SUVs for the drive back… Yeah, they can actually drive to the new location and you have to wonder if they didn’t know that all the time. You wonder if they drove over, climbed out then waded around in the river to make it look good on television because what sort of expedition drives to its new, important location, other than Josh Gates and his pals? Certainly not those guys on Treasure Quest.

They drive the excavator up the hill, position it to dig down and wonder if it has the capability to dig as deep as they need… But, of course it does, and they breakthrough into the cavern. I will point out here the Prodgers had done that a hundred years ago. He described the cavern but he didn’t describe any treasure found in it. Prodgers, by the way, never found the treasure, as I noted in an earlier post, but he seems to have been at this very location a hundred years before our guys arrived.

They do break into the tunnel or cave, and they try to test the air. Prodgers had suggested that it was toxic. One of the men begins a descent into the hole they opened, mentioning that it looks deep. He keeps going but stops responding to them. As they panic, they realize the line is now slack and call for a medic that we’ve never seen but who was obviously there with a cameraman or two.  Before this is resolved, we cut away for commercials. When we come back it is obvious that we’ll have to wait until next week to find out if the man survived and if they have found the treasure. I’ll say “Yes and no.” Yes, he survives and no, they’ll find no treasure.