article_snippet.sent: Slovenian archaeologist Ivan Šprajc way through lush jungle foliage.
article_snippet.sent: As thick tangles of vine fall beneath Slovenian archaeologist Ivan Šprajc blade, Slovenian archaeologist Ivan Šprajc pushes into a clearing, then suddenly staggers back.
article_snippet.sent: The fanged mouth of a primordial stone beast gapes toward Slovenian archaeologist Ivan Šprajc.
article_snippet.sent: Before Slovenian archaeologist Ivan Šprajc rise the crumbled ruins of an enormous portal of rock, black with age but with a colossal grandeur not yet lost -- a fine example of what archaeologists call a "zoomorphic portal" or, more popularly, a "monster mouth gate.
article_snippet.sent: What was once the gateway to an ancient Mayan city, built circa 700 AD and mysteriously abandoned four centuries later, stands before Slovenian archaeologist Ivan Šprajc.
article_snippet.sent: Slovenian archaeologist Ivan Šprajc has found the lost city of Lagunita.
article_snippet.sent: One such explorer, part Indiana Jones, part Magellan, is Slovenian archaeologist Ivan Šprajc.
article_snippet.sent: Slovenian archaeologist Ivan Šprajc Slovenian archaeologist Ivan Šprajc wears the weathered face of a man who has spent much of Slovenian archaeologist Ivan Šprajc 60 years beneath a hot sun at excavations, or hacking Slovenian archaeologist Ivan Šprajc way through dense jungle.
article_snippet.sent: Slovenian archaeologist Ivan Šprajc has been the first to see ancient pyramids, 30 meters high, that Slovenian archaeologist Ivan Šprajc spotted in aerial photographs from Slovenian archaeologist Ivan Šprajc office among the Baroque Mitteleuropean cobbled streets of Ljubljana, Slovenia, some 10,000 kilometers away.
article_snippet.sent: But in terms of the thrill of discovery, it doesn't get any better than Slovenian archaeologist Ivan Šprajc encounter with Lagunita's monster portal.
article_snippet.sent: Slovenian archaeologist Ivan Šprajc explains that the region in which Slovenian archaeologist Ivan Šprajc has found such riches had gone unexplored because it's so inaccessible: "It's so hard to get there.
article_snippet.sent: The adrenaline of the treasure hunt is what drives Šprajc, the "Eureka" moment when Šprajc finds the buried treasure.
article_snippet.sent: Šprajc is a throwback to the great 19th century explorers -- a dying breed as the world becomes smaller and science bleaches out Šprajc mysteries.
highlights_snippet.sent: Slovenian archaeologist Ivan Šprajc discovers ancient Mayan cities in the jungles of Mexico .
  
highlights_snippet.sent: Slovenian archaeologist Ivan Šprajc discoveries could help explain why so many Mayan cities were abandoned before the arrival of the Spaniards .