THE daughter of a ‘real-life Indiana Jones’ is getting ready to follow in her father’s footsteps to protect South America’s ‘Caves of Gold’.

Eileen Hall is part of a 12-strong team who will venture to Ecuador’s Cueva de los Tayos next month.

Her dad Stan mounted the first major expedition to the caves, in the Andes Mountains in the east of the country, alongside astronaut Neil Armstrong in 1976.

Eileen, 31, will return to the country where she was born as part of a team including Mercury-nominated artist, producer and collaborator Jon Hopkins and neuroscientist Mendel Kaelen, as well as photographers, architects and filmmakers.

Eileen said: “After a 10-year solo adventure into the depths of the Legend of Tayos and my father’s work, it is a real honour to be joined in this quest to protect the caves by such an inspiring group of fellow explorers with a collective knowledge and talent beyond anything I could have imagined was possible.

“I am excited to be part of the efforts to continue what my father and Neil Armstrong started back in the 1970s and have renewed hope in the efforts of protecting these precious, beautiful and fragile environments from devastating destruction.”

The trip, which costs about $50,000, is an eight-day creative expedition and will result in experiences, observations and documentation transformed into an exhibition in 2020. It is hoped the exhibition will shine a light on a drive to make Cueva de los Tayos’ unique and endangered ecosystem a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Eileen, who was born in the country’s capital Quito, moved to Dunbar in 1997, with mum Janeth working in Cherrytrees Nursery.

A small display of Ecuadorian items has been created in BeGreen Dunbar’s shop window on High Street as part of the donation campaign to fund the trip.

The former Dunbar Primary School and Dunbar Grammar School pupil, who co-founded The Open Close Collective – a group of artists, architects, musicians, scientists and makers – has visited the caves twice before.

She described visiting the caves, nicknamed the ‘Caves of Gold’ and made up of a vast network of chambers, underground waterfalls and passages stretching over five kilometres, as “quite magical, quite amazing”.

Just one of the caverns is large enough to hold a 20-storey building lying on its side.

There are also stories that the caves could contain treasure.

To support the expedition, go to gofundme.com/tayos