Amaro Pargo - Spain's Pirate King: TV's Expedition Unknown

Amaro Pargo was the nickname for Amaro Rodriguez Felipe y Tejera Machado, also known as Spain's Pirate King. He was born in 1678 and had an amazing life. He was arguably the most famous and successful privateer for Spain with an active career stretching from approximately 1712 to 1729. However, he was also an extremely successful businessman, received the status of nobility, and had a very close relationship with the church. Three of his sisters were nuns and he had a very close friendship with the nun Mary de Jesus who has been granted sainthood and is declared an incorruptible by the Roman Catholic Church. An Incorruptible is someone whose body does not decay even though they died hundreds of years ago. Amaro donated a lot of money to the church and also paid for a gold and glass casket for Saint Mary de Jesus. Amaro is buried in a church, the church of Santo Domingo on Tenerife, and the cover for his tomb has his family crest along with a skull and crossbones image. He was also immortalized as a character in the game Assassin’s Creed. When he died he left cryptic clues to the location of his vast treasure which to this day has still not been found.

For this episode of Expedition Unknown: Spain's Pirate King, I was flown out to Spain and then from there to the island of Tenerife, which was Amaro Pargo’s home. I met with Josh during filming at the ruins of Amaro Pargo’s estate which unfortunately has been destroyed due to time and people seeking his treasure. Now his estate is just ruins. When I met Josh at the ruins of Amaro’s estate it was great to see him again. Josh is a big guy, I think he is about six feet, four inches tall so even though I am six feet tall, I always seem to be looking up at him. However, I remember thinking to myself that somehow due to the uneven ground, I was actually on a little bit higher ground, so for once I was actually looking at him eye to eye (LoL). Also, gaining entrance into the sea caves was very dangerous – really. Nothing was staged. Those were real waves sucking all the water out of the tunnels leading into the sea caves and exposing these huge boulders and the incredible wall of sea when the waves were coming back into the caves which could have easily have slammed us against a boulder. I did not want to face plant on one of those boulders and find myself spitting out my teeth so I just focused on swimming as hard and as fast as I could to get through the tunnels and into the sea caves. Additionally, one of the days when we were not filming and I had some free time I was very lucky because it was the same day at the Monastery de Santa Catalina, when once a year they bring out Saint Mary de Jesus for public viewing and prayers. So on my day off from filming and treasure hunting, I made a pilgrimage to the Monastery de Santa Catalina and viewed the Saint Mary de Jesus who even though she has been dead for several hundreds of years is intact and not just bones.

Amaro’s treasure is still out there waiting to be found, if I don’t find it first, I wish you the best of luck and hope you may be lucky enough to find it. In his will Amaro Pargo wrote that he has a box which he kept in his cabin and this large chest contained silver, gold, jewelry, pearls, precious stones Chinese porcelain, etc. The itemized list of all the treasure is listed in a book wrapped in parchment and marked with the letter “D”. Some believed this chest was on the grounds of his estate in one of his rooms or a “cabin” on the grounds. Others, believe that the treasure is hidden in the “Cave de San Mateo” in Punta del Hidalgo, northeast on the island of Tenerife which he used to hide some of his loot.