In December of 1914 Garnett and his good friend Albert Collins set out for Peru on a collecting expedition under the auspices of the American Museum of Natural History (NY), and the Field Museum (Chicago). They were led by veteran explorer and naturalist, George Cherrie, on a trip across the continent from Peru to Brazil. They journeyed into the Andes by train from the port of Molendo, Peru, ascending first to the Altiplano and Lake Titicaca with collecting stops to ‘sample’ the local fauna. From there they traveled by boat and train to La Paz and onward to Oruro. Their next destination was Cochabamba, the last city of the Andes before the mountains tumble into the Amazon basin some 200 miles east. From Cochabamba they took a little used mountain path towards a town called Todos Santos, on Rio Alto Chapare. What they expected to be a 10-14 day trip turned grew to a month long slog, with epic rainfall swelling the rivers and collapsing the trails above. On March 20th, some 35 days after their departure from Cochabamba, the group finally arrived at Trinidad – ‘civilization’ at last.
There is a lot of material relating to this expedition. I’ve attached a story Garnett wrote for the AMNH publication recounting the trip, and a listing from the Field Museum of the animals collected. George Kruck has a long, quite lively section in his biography devoted to the expedition (Dark trails: Adventures of a naturalist). I’ve attached a selection of photos taken by Garnett below, but there is a lot more and I hope to add to this story in the future.
