Current version: December 1997. Additional material may be added in future versions.
 

• THANKS
• GENERAL STATISTICS
• BORDER CROSSINGS
• AVERAGE MONTHLY EXPENSES
• ACCOMODATION COSTS
• THE YEAR'S MOST SPECIAL EXPERIENCES
• ANIMALS SEEN IN THE WILD
• OTHER UNIQUE, MEMORABLE OR NOTORIOUS EXPERIENCES
• OTHER NOTABLE PLACES
• TRANSPORTATION METHODS USED
• A SAMPLING OF THE SUBLIME, THE RIDICULOUS AND THE WIERD
• MOMENTS OF FEAR, APPREHENSION OR INTIMIDATION
• INSTANCES OF CRIME
• THE MAD RACE AGAINST TIME
• FOOD AND HEALTH
• MY CURRENT VIEWPOINT ABOUT TRAVEL AND WHAT MAKES ME TICK

GENERAL STATISTICS:

Trip start date:  September 24, 1995
Trip end date:  September 17, 1996
Start and end location:  St. Paul, Minnesota
Time elapsed:  51 weeks or 360 days
General territory covered:  37 countries of Central and South America, Southern and Eastern Africa, Asia Minor and the Trans-Caucasus regions, Central and Eastern Europe and the Antarctic Peninsula.

Average Time Spent per Country:  Slightly less than 10 days
Range of Time Spent per Country:  As little as 4 hours in Bulgaria (which I previously visited) and as much as 30 days in both Guatemala and Ecuador.

Total on-the-road expenses:  Approximately $15,800,
or around $1317 per month or $43.90 per day
(Note that these daily expenses are about double that of my 1986-1988 world tour.)

Excluding high cost excursions (Antarctica -- $2100 and Galapagos Islands -- $1000), the total expenses (for 20 days fewer) add up to $12,700, or $1145 per month, or $37.35 per day.  My first long journey, which began nearly ten years earlier and lasted two and a half years, averaged $21.45 per day.

Expenses described above are all inclusive except for health insurance, which would have been purchased anyway, and some articles of clothing and camera equipment that I still use.

Approximate Breakdown of expenditures:
Food: 25% Transportation: 30% Accommodation: 20%
All else: 25% (Includes film, processing, postage, money conversion commissions,
visa fees, entrance fees, a Spanish Language course, inoculations and doctors fees,
bribes and thievery, memorabilia, etc.).

Over 2700 slides and photos taken and processed:  Approx.: $1500
304 postcards with postage:  $300
Total postage for all items sent:  $500
Money conversion commission costs:  2% to 5% per exchange, approx. $500
Three week Spanish language course in Guatemala:  $120 tuition for 60 hours, plus $150 for food and housing.

Net thievery costs: $200. A total of about $1100 was stolen in four separate incidents, but $900 of that was compensated by insurance.

BORDER CROSSINGS:
(in order of occurrence -- 37 countries including 9 visited previously, 50 border crossings)

USA	24Sep - 24Sep 1995	Half day in transit
Mexico	24Sep - 25Sep	1 day
Belize	25Sep - 30Sep	6 days
Guatemala	30Sep - 29Oct	30 days
El Salvador	29Sep - 06Nov	7 days
Honduras	06Nov - 12Nov	7 days
Nicaragua	12Nov - 20Nov	8 days
Costa Rica	20Nov - 30Nov	10 days
Panama	30Nov - 05Dec	5 days
Columbia	05Dec - 14Dec	9 days
Ecuador	14Dec - 13Jan 1996	30 days
Peru	13Jan - 25Jan	13 days
Bolivia	25Jan - 17Feb	23 days
Chile	17Feb - 24Feb	7 days
Argentina	24Feb - 26Feb	2 days
Antarctica	26Feb - 08Mar	11 days including 2 1/2 days each way across Drake Passage
Argentina	08Mar - 09Mar	1 day
Chile	09Mar - 15Mar	6 days
Argentina	15Mar - 24Mar	9 days
Uruguay	24Mar - 25Mar	1 day
Argentina	25Mar - 29Mar	4 days
Brazil	29Mar - 29Mar	Half day
Paraguay	29Mar - 02Apr	4 days
Brazil	02Apr - 19Apr	18 days
Argentina	19Apr - 24Apr	5 days
South Africa	25Apr - 30Apr	6 days
Namibia	01May - 15May	15 days
South Africa	16May - 26May	10 days
Swaziland	26May - 30May	4 days
Mozambique	30May - 03Jun	5 days
South Africa	03Jun - 05Jun	2 days
Zimbabwe	06Jun - 08Jun	2 days
Zambia	08Jun - 08Jun	Half day visit to Victoria Falls
Zimbabwe	08Jun - 16Jun	8 days
Mozambique	16Jun - 16Jun	Half day overland transit only
Malawi	16Jun - 27Jun	10 days
Zambia	27Jun - 28Jun	1 day
Tanzania	28Jun - 07Jul	9 days
Kenya	07Jul - 12Jul	5 days
Bulgaria	12Jul - 12Jul	Half day in transit by plane and visiting Sofia, Bulgaria
Turkey	12Jul - 27Jul	15 days
Georgia	28Jul - 30Jul	3 days
Azerbaijan	31Jul - 04Aug	5 days
Ukraine	04Aug - 21Aug	16 days
Slovakia	22Aug - 22Aug	1 day
Czech Republic	23Aug - 27Aug	4 days
Austria	27Aug - 27Aug	3 hours in transit by train
Germany	27Aug - 07Sep	10 days
United Kingdom (England)	07Sep - 11Sep	4 days
Iceland	11Sep - 16Sep	6 days
USA	17Sep - 17Sep	Half day in transit

AVERAGE MONTHLY EXPENSES: (1995-1996 prices, includes 21 air flights)
Central America (10 weeks) $800 per month
South America (4 months) $900 per month
Antarctica (12 days) $2100 total
Africa (10 weeks) $900 per month
Asia Minor (Turkey, Georgia, $1000 per month
Azerbaijan -- 3 weeks)
Europe (6 weeks) $1300 per month

ACCOMODATION COSTS: (1995-1996 prices)
Cheapest overnight accommodations: San Pedro, Guatemala (67 cents)
Most expensive accommodations: Lvov, Ukraine $20 per night
All other nights (excluding tours of Antarctica and Galapagos): $13 or less; more typically, $8 or less.
 

THE YEAR'S MOST SPECIAL EXPERIENCES:

1. The twelve day expedition to the Antarctic Peninsula -- notable for the uniqueness of the destination, the rare pristine scenery, the unusual wildlife, exceptional lectures and presentations by an extraordinary crew, superb food, and spirited companionship. Among the most special times were the following: 1) the time that a minke whale swam repeatedly around our puny raft, and we were uncertain if we'd be lifted out of the water; 2) the moments when tension filled the air as the captain and crew edged carefully through dense pack ice while attempting to avoid the unseen portion of icebergs; 3) when we rafted intimidatingly close to towering glaciers that could collapse into the water and swamp us at any time, 4) when we barbecued on the ship's deck in the frigid air and under a full moon surrounded by spectacular ice capped mountain scenery in Paradise Bay; 5) and when we partied until the wee hours in one couple's honeymoon suite, dizzied both by the alcohol and seasickness.  Aside from the fantastically sculpted ice formations, towering glaciers and mountains, we enjoyed visits to the research bases of several nations (Britain, Chile, Argentina, Russia) and intimate views of multiple species of sea lions, fur seals, penguins, sea birds and, of course, the whales.

2. Eight days of nirvana, boating around the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador -- with perfect weather, fabulous wildlife viewing, and good company from Holland, Italy, San Marino, Germany, Australia and Ecuador.  Most memorable was snorkeling alongside a large sea tortoise, sea lions and penguins, and trying to avoid stepping on the iguanas and lava lizards as they ran between and, in one case, up and down my legs.  We got up close and personal with dozens of unique and entertaining animal species, and the varied landscape and unusual plant species were remarkable as well.

3. Three days in a Landcruiser crossing the very remote, serenely and starkly beautiful Altiplano (high plain -- averaging over 4,000 meters) of southwestern Bolivia with folks from Quebec, England and Malaysia.  Most memorable was riding across the treeless but often brilliantly picturesque landscape following two tracks in the sand without seeing another vehicle for three days.  Among the highlights were the expansive Salar de Uyuni salt flats, a remote geyser basin with swimable hot springs, the herds of llamas and flocks of pink flamingoes, and the golden altiplano flora contrasting sharply with the crisp, complementary blue sky.

4. Visiting the African wildlife of Etosha (Namibia), Kruger (South Africa), Mlilwane (Swaziland) and Serengeti (Tanzania) National Parks. Wildlife viewing was especially good in Etosha, where virtually every major African animal can be found often side-by-side with other species. The interaction between the species is what made Etosha most memorable. A very special moment, for example, was watching a tense standoff between a bull elephant and a rhinosaurus. In the end, the rhinosaurus blinked.  Other amusing moments occurred between warthogs and giraffes, wildebeests and gazelles.

5. Spending a day alone (as the only tourist in the park that day) with a guide in Tanzania's Gombe National Park observing chimpanzees in their native habitat. After a couple hours searching for them through the tropical forests, we found a group of thirteen. These were chimps named by the famous anthropologist, and one of my childhood inspirations, Jane Goodall.  One of several special moments occurred when a group of chimps began screaming, shrieking loudly, waving their arms wildly and running erratically toward us. Momentarily frightened, I stood still as they ran on both sides of us. It turned out that their goal was merely to warmly greet some of their other members of their family who had just appeared behind us.

6. Being given V.I.P. treatment by folks in a small rural Malawian village. I may have been the first foreigner to spend time in this village. Their circular homes, common to Africa, were built of mud and straw, and their lifestyle was subsistence. There was no running water, sanitary facilities or electricity in the village and some of the children had bloated bellies from malnourishment. In spite of their relative poverty, people were extremely hospitable and warm to me. Christopher, my host and the only English speaker, introduced me to the village chief and to other folks in the village, most of whom were related to each other in one way or another. I felt awkward when the women would get on their knees in a gesture of respect to me, but that was the culture, and just one of the things to challenge my comfort zone, a goal that every determined traveler relishes.

7. Living with the Bardales family of San Andres, Guatemala while intensively studying Spanish in their home and at Eco-Escuela, a language school with an emphasis on rainforest ecology. During my three week stay, the family certainly made me feel as a family member, and it was especially a pleasure for me that the four children were all musically inclined. The most memorable moments were playing guitar and singing with them by candlelight during the strangely frequent power outages. It was also interesting to attend church with them since the youngest child (10) played drums and his older brother (12) played organ there while the whole congregation danced, chanted and sang.

8. Enjoying the extraordinary hospitality of folks in the Ukraine. Hosted by my friends, Igor and Alla Kosov, virtually every day of two weeks offered some special experience as they brought me to their relatives and friends, each of whom would gorge me with their warmth, their feasts, and their vodka.

9. Hiking the Inca Trail and viewing Machu Picchu and other ruins in Peru. The scenery is about as spectacular as any in the world, and the Incas built their settlements and trails connecting them using construction techniques that were amazing for their times. The clouds rising up the steep mountain slopes from the rainforest below created a surreal atmosphere.

10. Enjoying the very special and unique scenery of Iceland. Being from Minnesota, I have some affinity for tall blondes and inclement weather, so I felt strangely at home in Iceland. Also, having briefly had geology as a college major, I've long thought of Iceland a geologist's dream. There's plenty of action here -- volcanoes, fault zones, earthquakes, geysers, glaciers, spreading tectonic plates. It's high on my list for a return trip.
 

ANIMALS SEEN IN THE WILD include multiple species of some of the following: manatee, shark, crocodile, cayman, alligator, land and sea tortoise, iguana, lava lizard, Jesus Christ lizard, chameleon, seal, sea lion, whale, dolphin, sloth, llama, alpaca (relative of the llama), capybara (huge rodent), coatis (relative of raccoon), viscachas (relative of the chinchilla), elephant, rhino, hippo, water buffalo, lion, giraffe, warthog, monkey, baboon, chimpanzee, zebra, hyena, jackal, mongoose, wildebeest, hartebeest, impala, gazelle, springbok, gemsbok, romsbok, blesbok, waterbuck, kudu, duiker, antelope, ostrich, rhea (South America's emu-like bird), flamingo, partridge, guinea foul, penguin, heron, swallow, parakeet, finch, tropic bird, mockingbird, swallow-tailed gull, flycatcher, parrot, macaw, toucan, peacock, pelican, vulture, stork, albatross, blue and red-footed boobie, arctic terns, skua, cormorant, petrel and a host of other sea and land birds I cannot remember by name. Two elusive species for which we searched but failed to find are tapirs and leopards. Also seen were a variety of intimidating looking insects and arachnids (spiders).
 

OTHER UNIQUE, MEMORABLE OR NOTORIOUS EXPERIENCES:

-- Coming face-to-face alone with a 500 pound manatee while snorkeling at Caye Cauker, Belize.
-- Snorkeling with sharks, also at Caye Cauker, Belize.
-- Canoeing amongst the iguanas and monkeys in the west Belize jungle.
-- Watching the sunrise from the top of a 200 foot high Mayan pyramid at Tikal, in the Guatemalan rainforest.
-- Playing guitar and singing with my musical Guatemalan host family by candle light during the frequent power outages.
-- Partying with my fellow Spanish students until 3:00 A.M. on the dock of beautiful Lake Peten Itza, Guatemala.
-- Arising at 3:30 A.M. with many of the neighbors in San Andres, Guatemala to loudly awaken an unfortunate birthday girl using firecrackers, noise makers and loud music. This tradition goes on seemingly every three or four nights, whenever someone in the neighborhood has a birthday. The party often carries on until dawn and awakens the entire neighborhood.
-- Riding in an impossibly crowded (standing-room only) bus from Flores to Guatemala City holding my bladder for an incredible 14 hours over stomach-turning bouncy roads, unable to sleep through the night, fearing the reputed possibility of bandits and pausing only for the purpose of repairing a flat tire.
-- Climbing 3,300 feet (1,000 meters) through the ankle-twisting mud (one step forward, half-step back) to the top of the dormant volcano, Mt. San Pedro (9,000 feet), overlooking spectacular Lake Atitlan, Guatemala.
-- Visiting Guatemalan indigenous villages and markets.
-- Meeting a Salvadoran family while riding on a bus, who later warmly welcomed me to stay in their home.
-- After being given a personal tour of the Chiquita Banana operations by the plantation manager, he further invited us to his home for yet more bananas (San Pedro Sula, Honduras).
-- Visiting the homes of several rural Nicaraguan families with a Dutch photojournalist. We also had great photo opportunities in local schools and other special facilities designed for community and economic development.
-- Looking down into a steaming active volcano to view the red-hot lava while trying to avoid inhaling the noxious gases, Mt. Masaya, Nicaragua.
-- Enjoying a day-long hike in Rincon de Viejo National Park, Costa Rica with folks from Holland, Switzerland and Italy. In addition to the beautiful rainforest flora and fauna that the park offers, the geothermal areas were a pleasure to observe and to bathe in.
-- Cruising slowly along the dark, narrow jungle streams of Tortuguero National Park, Costa Rica.
-- Relaxing with my mother and her friend in hot springs at the base of the actively erupting volcano, Mt. Aranal, Costa Rica.
-- Fainting while standing on a very crowded bus in Panama and looking up at the strange faces as I returned to consciousness.
-- Viewing both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans simultaneously from an airplane flying over Panama.
-- Eight perfect days of close-up wildlife viewing in the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador.
-- Visiting Ecuadoran indigenous villages, homes and markets.
-- Sharing a Christmas feast with expatriates from many countries at the warm, cozy Cafecito in Quito.
-- Dancing in the streets of Quito, Ecuador on New Year's Eve with Clara (Australia) and enjoying the bonfires and celebration with thousands of other inebriates.
-- Depriving my brain cells of oxygen by going above 17,000 feet (5,000 meters) on Mt. Cotapaxi, Ecuador.
-- Visiting the 'Floating Islands', constructed by an indigenous tribe entirely from reeds growing in the middle of Lake Titicaca, Peru.
-- Camping, boating and hiking in the Amazon rainforest of Bolivia.
-- Falling 10 feet down a mine shaft in the dark (uncertain of how far I might actually fall) in the Potosi silver mines, Bolivia.
-- Relaxing in natural hot springs in the freezing Altiplano air at 14,000 feet near the remote Bolivian-Chilean border.
-- Consuming copious amounts of Chilean wine with folks from England during Carnival in San Pedro, Chile.
-- Climbing towering sand dunes and exploring caves in the Atacama desert of Chile, the world's driest.
-- Camping and hiking in Chilean Patagonia, Torres Del Paine National Park, among the world's most spectacular mountains.
-- Hiking to the base (14,000 feet) of Mt. Aconcagua, Argentina, the highest point in the Western Hemisphere, around 6,900 meters (23,000+ feet).
-- Being awestruck by the world's most voluminous waterfall, Iguazu, on the border of Argentina and Brazil.
-- Walking through the perverse urban shantytowns of many developing nations. My most notable opportunities on this trip occurred in Asuncion (Paraguay), Soweto (South Africa) and Maputo (Mozambique).
-- Being drugged and robbed in western Brazil (see details, later in this document).
-- Animal viewing and bird watching for three days on the back of a truck, camping for two nights and hiking and sloshing through portions of the world's largest wetland area, the Pantanal, with folks from Israel, France, Morocco and Brazil.
-- Viewing what is probably the world's most spectacular cityscape from the hills overlooking Rio De Janeiro and the equivalent human spectacle at beach level.
-- Seeing the unique plant and animal life on Table Mountain in Capetown, South Africa. There are more unique plant species on this small single mountain than, for example, in all of Great Britain.
-- Hiking down the Fish River Canyon in Namibia, supposedly the second largest in volume after the Grand Canyon.
-- Walking through sand-filled rooms of an abandoned diamond mining ghost town in Namibia.
-- Climbing one of the world's highest sand dunes before sunrise at Soususvlei in Namibia.
-- Camping for three nights among the wild African animals of Kruger National Park with about twenty folks from various parts of the world.
-- Enjoying more excellent wildlife viewing in Swaziland national parks and reserves with folks from Australia and New Zealand, with whom I shared car rental.
-- Talking with street children in Maputo, Mozambique who were abandoned or made parentless from civil war.
-- Dropping my jaw from the enormity and power of the spectacle of Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe and Zambia.
-- Visiting traditional African villages and visiting villager's homes in rural Zimbabwe and Malawi.
-- Sharing in a traditional African wedding celebration with about fifty colorfully dressed Tanzanians on a rather small wooden boat on Lake Tanganyika.
-- Watching the running of the wildebeests and other large hoofed animals in the Serengeti of Tanzania.
-- Visiting the ruins of the ancient Hitites at sites in North Central Turkey and spectacular Samula Monastery in Eastern Turkey.
-- Observing the outwardly noticeable transformation of the former Soviet Republics from central to market economies. With previous trips as a reference, it was possible to see that both rapid advances and digressions were occurring.
-- Visiting friends and acquaintances in the Ukraine, Czech Republic, Germany and England.
-- Making it home, having survived a year-long hectically-paced marathon -- when it wasn't always clear that I would.
 

OTHER NOTABLE PLACES (noted for their geographic or historical significance):

-- Watching ships pass through the locks of the Panama Canal and going myself by road from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean in little more than an hour.
-- Visiting Portabelo, Panama, one of the first places that Columbus actually set foot on the American continent, in 1502.
-- Walking on a line marked in the sidewalk that marks the Earth's Equator in Ecuador. I also stood on a scale that indicated I was over 2 kilograms (5 pounds) lighter at the Equator than I would be at the mid-latitudes.
-- Crossing the Strait of Magellan, famous for that early explorer whose expedition was the first to circumnavigate the world.
-- Watching the Geopositional System (GPS) on our ship report that we were at 66 degrees 34 minutes south latitude, that is, crossing the Antarctic Circle.
-- Viewing Cape Horn, the furthest southern tip of the Americas and the division of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, from our ship in the dreaded Drake Channel.
-- Touring part of the Cape of Good Hope, the famous southern tip of Africa and the division between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.
-- Visiting the spot on the eastern shores of Lake Tanganyika where the two famous European explorers, Stanley and Livingston, coincidentally met -- "Dr. Livingstone, I presume".
-- Crossing the Bosphorus Strait, the division between Europe and Asia (at least what is referred to as Asia Minor), a short ferry ride in Istanbul, Turkey.
-- Visiting the Caspian Sea in Azerbaijan, the world's largest landlocked salt water sea.
-- Standing on a fault in Iceland that divides the European and North American tectonic plates. So, actually, the first European to discover America was not Leif Erikson, but Ingolfer Arnarson, who stood on the North American tectonic plate in 874 A.D.

TRANSPORTATION METHODS USED:
Busses -- 50% of distance traveled
Airplanes -- 20% of distance traveled
Trains -- 10% of distance traveled
Boats -- 10% of distance traveled
Trucks, cars -- 10% of distance traveled

About busses:
Busses, my most common mode of travel during this trip, ranged in comfort from extraordinarily luxurious to "I'm sure I'm going to die before this is over". The most luxurious long-distance busses were in Chile. These would put busses in the U.S. to shame. Seats are placed only three across instead of four, and they recline almost completely with fully adjustable leg rests and wide arm rests equipped with music selections and other amenities one would find in a first-class airline seat. Large hot tasty meals, snacks and refreshments are being served almost constantly by two on-board stewards, plus there are videos, music and magazines for entertainment. Unlike the near-monopoly of Greyhound here in the States, literally dozens of bus companies compete there to provide much better service.

By contrast, a much more typical bus ride for me in most other developing nations was being squished into seats designed for school children with my backpack on my lap, my knees knocking up against the hard metal seat in front of me, small children behind me picking through my hair or screaming in my ear, and folks standing in the aisle holding their live chickens over me (since there's no where else to hold them). Sometimes, in the hot tropics, the windows were stuck shut with no air conditioning or fans and every ounce of oxygen already accounted for in the exhalations of inebriated passengers. Other times the windows would be open and hands would be reaching in shoving tomatoes, heads of lettuce or other products for sale and I'd be obliged to say "no" multiple times to each of a dozen or more merchants at every bus stop. Sometimes, the merchants squeeze their way through the standing passengers while trying to sell everything from religion to rotisserie roasted guinea pig.

Additional transport details:
-- hitchhiked in Nicaragua, Chile, Argentina and Malawi.
-- rode on top of a train box car down the Nariz Del Diablo (Nose of the Devil), a steep area of railroad switchbacks in Ecuador.
-- clang to the outside of an absurdly crowded train for four hours in Peru, acquiring a cold in the process.
-- pushed busses out of the mud on at least seven occasions in Peru and Bolivia.
-- canoed through the jungle in Belize amongst iguanas and exotic birds to a place well known for the study of herbal medicines.
-- boated through the narrow jungle-lined channels and streams of eastern Costa Rica amongst monkeys, caymans (an alligator type creature) and tropical birds.
-- shared a boat with seven others, guide, cook and boatman for eight days in the Galapagos, Islands.
-- rented a Landcruiser with a driver for three days in the remote Altiplano of Bolivia and Chile.
-- sailboated off the coast of Namibia.
-- shared rental cars with other tourists in Namibia and Swaziland.
-- rode a Russian research vessel (converted to a tourist ship) to Antarctica.
-- floated among the Antarctic icebergs on small 10-person Zodiac rafts.
-- rode in the back of crowded pickup trucks in Bolivia, Brazil, Malawi, Zambia and Tanzania (including one that had three flat tires and a broken suspension system in 26 hours of travel, and another that needed water replenished every five to ten minutes).
-- rode on an incredibly crowded ferry for two days across Lake Tanganyika. (A similar overcrowded ferry sank earlier that month killing hundreds of people on nearby Lake Victoria).
 

A SAMPLING OF THE SUBLIME, THE RIDICULOUS, AND THE WEIRD:

-- While snorkeling in Belize, I had a close encounter with a manatee. The manatee and I curiously watched each other for perhaps a full minute from within five meters of each other. He took off as I approached slightly closer, and I swam back to the boat, ecstatic to tell the others what I had seen. Upon returning and telling of the special experience, one of my companions remarked, "You know, you really are very lucky today". The words, it turned out, had a double meaning. He then tossed me my wallet, soaking wet, which he had found intact (with $75, a drivers license and three credit cards) three meters down on the bottom and 30 meters away from the boat. I had forgotten to remove it from my pocket before swimming, a habit for which I've become famous.

-- Several days after having forgotten my hat deep in the woods along a hiking trail in Guatemala and 50 miles away from the spot where I had left it, I met a woman who was wearing it on her head. After I was able to account for where she found it, she returned it to me.

-- In the village where I studied Spanish, a small child, probably no more than 5 years old, pointed at me cheerfully and said to his mother, "Mama, mira el gringo! Mira el gringo!" (Mama, look, it's a gringo! Look at the gringo! ); but almost immediately after seeing a quick frown on his mother's face, he said the politically correct thing "Norteamericano" (North American).

-- While I played guitar and entertained folks at a small cafe in Guatemala, chickens and a large, snorting and ornery pig would occasionally come walking through, typically altering the mood of one of my more touching songs to a mood of hilarity.

-- It's tradition in many small developing-world villages to invite the entire village to a birthday, a wedding, a coming-of-age celebration (when a girl turns 16 -- or sometimes younger) or some other special family event. This can become a big deal when the tradition continues and the small village has grown into a small city of 20,000 people or more. The expense is formidable for a family to openly invite the whole town, but still it's hard to break tradition. Folks may not know the family having the party, but they'll still show up and consume whatever is available. I went along with my host family to several of these events.

-- A fellow Spanish language student I met discovered the rude surprise of a scorpion in his shoe. Luckily, he looked before putting his foot into it. His host mother smashed the little critter with a broom, but it gave the rest of us pause to reflect about putting on our shoes in the morning.

-- A weird religious ritual I witnessed in a small Guatemalan village had several men chanting, swinging pots of burning incense, and pouring everything from Orange Crush to whiskey apparently down the throat of a carved wooden sculpture of a sacred idol depicted in a wide-brimmed hat.

-- A narrow undeveloped foot trail that winds for several kilometers through fields of corn, coffee and bananas at the base of Mt. San Pedro, Guatemala, has scattered along its way (every 100 meters or so) an amazing variety of restaurants -- French, Italian, German, Chinese, even a "Raw Foods All Natural Vegetarian Restaurant" -- each of which lacked electricity and were lit at night by candles. It was hard to find my way back to the village without a flashlight though. Luckily, it was a moonlit night.

-- Needy children tugging at one's sleeves is a daily occurrence throughout the developing world, and in order to function at all unfortunately requires developing some degree of a shell. Offering sympathy sometimes creates hazards. Two children in Honduras, for example, fought bitterly over the remaining scraps I offered them from my plate in a restaurant. One really punched the other quite hard in the face and he ran off screaming.

-- Not only do the streets have no names in many parts of Central and South America, but directions to people's homes are given relative to landmarks rather than in terms of north, south, east, west, etc. Managua, Nicaragua, almost totally lacking street names, is notoriously difficult for orienting oneself. Directions and house numbers are given relative to Lake Managua or perhaps in relation to a church, a movie theater, or even a sturdy old tree. Problems especially arise when these things are noted in travel guides years after the landmarks are no longer there.

-- In Panama, many city and long distance busses are also works of art -- painted front, rear and sides with images of famous musicians, actors, religious figures, landscapes, or whatever -- avant- garde or psychedelically. The only other place I've ever seen this (out of over 80 countries) was in Pakistan, where images are a little tamer but the colors are every bit as bright. I have this image of ambassadors from Panama and Pakistan seated next to each other in the United Nations (as they would sit alphabetically) and one sharing photos with the other. It's the only way I can explain this phenomenon witnessed only in these two dissimilar countries on the opposite sides of the planet.

-- Also in Panama, it was disorienting for me as a geographer to watch the sun rise over the Pacific Ocean and later set over the Atlantic, but in this strangely serpentine-shaped country, this is the only country on the planet where that phenomenon happens.

-- An apparently wealthy man (perhaps a drug lord) lying on the beach in Cartagena, Columbia, had several people waiting on him literally hand-and-foot. While one was filling his drinking glass, another was giving him a haircut and still another was manicuring his toenails! Others seemed to be at his beckon call.

-- Columbia, famous for coffee, has a novel way of getting it's favorite drink to you if you're on the run. Some folks riding around Bogota on roller blades carry a large pot of hot coffee on their backs and will sell you a cup if you flag them down. A similar practice exists in Turkey, although normally without the roller blades.

-- According to some folks who heard me, I woke up one night on our boat in the Galapagos Islands yelling "Help me, help me, save me!". My roommate didn't hear me, but folks in the adjacent cabins did.

-- Lonesome George, is a Galapagos land tortoise we saw, has no other tortoise with whom to mate. He is the very last of his particular sub-species on the planet.

-- On at least three occasions in various South American countries, marriage was proposed to me by young women (or mothers on behalf of the young women) within a minute of carrying on a conversation with them. On one occasion when a mother asked me, "Why don't you marry my beautiful daughter?" (Porque no casarse mi hija bonita?), my quick response as I suddenly turned white and felt faint was to say "I've got to go!" (Tengo prisa!), and I ran off to the nearest toilet and vomited. It was actually the start of a 24-hour flu, but I never got back to them to explain why I had run away after her question. It was the only time I was ill during the full year of travel.

-- Some showers in South America are heated electrically by the flipping of a large exposed copper electrode switch that looks like something from out of a Frankenstein movie. Typically, the switch, located right underneath the shower spout, is attached to wires barely hanging together with electrical tape. Most gringos enter such showers with pause while wondering whether they will be electrocuted.

-- I traveled with a woman for a few weeks in South America, and after a number of days we felt moved to share affection for each other. This brought me, at one point, to a search for condoms. Unfortunately, at the time, we were in a Bolivian town of perhaps 20,000 people, but where no condoms could be found for sale anywhere. After a visit to several pharmacies, a pharmacist told me that the only place that condoms might be available would be in the capital city, La Paz, eight hours away by bus. It's no surprise that the birth rate in Bolivia is among the highest in the Americas. Anyway, in one of my rare bold and shameless moments, I actually mustered up the gumption to pose a question to a couple of Australian guys we had previously met but didn't know well. I knocked on their hotel room door, and our conversation went something like this: "Excuse me, but I'm wondering if I could ask you one of the stranger questions I've ever asked of folks I don't know." After some nervous laughter, they said, "Okay, go ahead!" I said, "This is really weird for me, but do either of you have any condoms you could spare?" They laughed as I explained the situation, took it in the right spirit, and one of them tossed me some, saying "Yeah, that's a weird question alright."

-- There is a several block area in La Paz, Bolivia called the Witches' Market where local witch doctors have lots of exotic-looking substances and devices for sale (things like dried snake skins, bottled frogs, and various animal bones and parts).

-- When you make a travel companion of someone you meet along the way, you're never quite sure what you're going to get. An American woman with whom I traveled usually stood ready to demand her rights if she felt she was being overcharged by the locals or if they rendered poor service. The most memorable of several incidents came when she received some food at a Chinese restaurant that was, she believed, poorly prepared and different from what she was expecting. After taking one bite, she refused to eat or pay for it. The waiter insisted that she eat it (or at least pay for it), and later the cook, a young woman, came out and demanded the same thing, and they blocked the two of us (although I had paid for mine) from leaving the restaurant. To make a long story short, I went along with my travel companion for the adventure, a free ride to the police station in the back of a paddy wagon with the waiter and the cook who, when faced with the fact that it cost $10 to file charges against her (twice the cost of the meal), decided to forget the whole thing.

-- My image of an Amazon rainforest village was quite different than it turned out to be. Rurrenabaque, Bolivia has a bit of a wild west flavor to it, but I would never have imagined how loud it could be well into the wee hours of the morning. It didn't matter which of the several hotels one occupied in town, it was impossible to sleep with the noise from the music blaring loudly from the saloons through most of the night. Normal sleeping hours for the town's residents began after 4:00 A.M. and go until about 9:00 or 10:00 A.M. They catch up on lost sleep at siesta time.

-- While walking through the rainforest in Bolivia, our guide handed me a piece of a leaf and told me to chew on a very small corner of it. I probably took a little larger piece than I should have because it was a local anesthetic that numbed most of my mouth for at least ten minutes.

-- During the week of Carnival in Bolivia, one frequently needs to be on guard for water balloons flying indiscriminately at whomever seems to be an inviting target. No one is immune from getting wet. I somehow managed to avoid getting hit by the balloons, but was an occasional victim of water pistols.

-- In preparation for a tour of the Potosi Silver Mine in Bolivia, we were brought to a small shop where we were encouraged by our tour guide to buy bottles of water, coca leaves (a mild stimulant in its natural form) and sticks of dynamite as gifts to bring to the miners. The coca leaves and dynamite were freely available for purchase to anybody, including young children. When we got deep in the mine, it didn't take long to disperse all of our gifts. Thirsty, dirt poor and appreciative of what few pleasures they could find through a day's work (whatever buzz they could get from the coca leaves), they quickly grabbed at what we'd brought with us. The conditions under which they worked were incredible. Many were barefoot, lacked helmets, worked with picks and shovels and were obliged to bend over most of the day. I bumped the ceiling with my helmet a couple dozen times. Some of the miners were as young as 12 years old (if not younger). A typical life expectancy for the miners is only into their thirties. Dynamite explosions could be heard in other parts of the mine. The place was so claustrophobic and the ventilation was so poor that many of the tourists were glad to cut their experience well short of what the guides were willing to do.

-- Pushing and pulling busses out the mud is a common activity during the rainy season in the Andes. I participated in this activity about a half dozen times in Peru and Bolivia. One trip that was supposed to be a five hour ride, turned into 17 hours. Several busses on the same route took about the same amount of time. Each of the bus drivers had been awake probably for over 24 hours and, after a brief two hour break, were due to carry passengers back on the same road without sleep.

-- After seeing what turned out to be mirages of water on the Salar de Uyuni salt flats, I had both myself and my companions convinced that another area we were approaching was also a mirage. This mirage turned out to be real, though we all had been certain that it wasn't. Later, we came upon a hotel on the salt flats that was built entirely out of salt, including the restaurant tables, the beds (rather hard indeed) and other facilities. I'm not sure what they used for toilets.

-- Laguna Verde is a lake in the southwestern corner of Bolivia that changes color from blue to green between 10 and 11 each morning. It's a function of the sun's angle, reflection off the mountains, and the chemical content of the water (in a high borax area).

-- The border crossing between Bolivia and Chile is but a signpost at the side of two tire treads in the sand located in the middle of barren nothingness, many miles from anywhere.  On the Chilean side, the place to get one's passport stamped is over an hour away from the actual border. On the Bolivian side of this remote border crossing, it's two days of driving before you see the first Bolivian officials who can give you the obligatory passport stamp indicating that you've entered the country legally.

-- The Drake Passage, a body of water between Tierra Del Fuego and the Antarctic Peninsula, is notorious for its stiff westerly currents which terrified the early mariners and sunk many a ship. Even under relatively calm conditions, it kept many of us in bed. Some folks suffered full blown sea sickness, but most of us were just rendered incredibly sleepy from the constant rocking motion of the ship seemingly synchronized perfectly to our biorhythms. While crossing the so-called "dreaded Drake", for many of us, it was a struggle to get up in the middle of the day, even to enjoy a meal or some of the ship's very special entertainment. The seas calmed once we approached Antarctica.

-- After returning from Antarctica to our ship's home port in Tierra Del Fuego, Argentina, our ship's crew was preparing to embark with another group of 80 passengers when the captain and the ship's operators were placed under arrest and the ship was impounded.  It had something to do with the failure of payment for the fuel.  The new group of passengers, had already settled in their cabins and were just finishing their welcome aboard dinner when they were told the news that they wouldn't be going to Antarctica.  I'm told it was quite a bad scene, to say the least, with some people shouting very angrily and threatening lawsuits and others openly crying.  Some had been anticipating the trip for over a year and nearly all had traveled half-way around the planet just for this experience.  The company promised a full refund, but somehow that seemed inadequate to most. It was the last ship going to Antarctica until the next summer.

-- While preparing to take a photo of a warthog in Swaziland, both the warthog and I suddenly realized that I had approached perhaps a little too close. He charged at me and I turned high tail to run while snapping his photo. high tail to run.  I tripped over a log in the process, but by then, thankfully, the warthog was satisfied that he had made his point.

-- In the same vain, I thought I was going to be charged at by a group of Malawian women who were  upset and made quite a commotion when I snapped a photo of them while they were carrying large loads of wood on their heads.  Under the circumstances, it was kind of hard for them to suddenly put the wood down and come after me. I've literally had rocks thrown at me for such things in Tibet, so being a pseudo-photojournalist can be risky at times.

-- In small rural villages of the developing world, I noticed a phenomenon that I usually don't find in America and other more developed nations.  When friends, family and acquaintances gather together they can seem quite at ease not saying a single word to each other, often for relatively long periods of time.  Put Americans together at a party and they begin to feel uncomfortable if there's more than a 10 second gap of silence in any conversation. Meanwhile, in some of these small third-world villages, I attended small gatherings and larger parties where folks just kind of sat around and looked at each other.  It's understandable, when one considers how rarely things change in their daily lives, that there just isn't much about which to stimulate a conversation.  For travelers visiting these places, including myself, until we get used to it, it invariably makes us squirm.  We feel obliged to fill the long, long silences when they don't.  Pretty soon, even very shy American wallflowers become the unintentional life of the party.  We've been sitting here facing each other in total silence for five or ten minutes now, and somebody ought to say something, and I guess it's going to be me.

-- As is typical of travel in some parts of the developing world, short journeys often turn into something much longer than advertised.  An 8 hour journey from Mwanza to Arusha, Tanzania turned into a hellish 26 hour marathon of discomfort and mishap.  I had already seen Serengeti and Ngorongoro National Parks on a previous trip, so my only goal was to pass through them and get to the city of Arusha where I could continue on to Nairobi, Kenya.  The following are my journal notes from July 5, 1996:  I was up at 4:00 A.M., waiting from 4:30 (scheduled departure time) until 6:00 and our Landrover crew of locals didn't get on the road until 6:30.  The vehicle was overcrowded, carrying about 20 including several children (twice as many people as Americans might try to squeeze into such a vehicle).  We had a flat tire in Serengeti, problems with the engine and the suspension. The roads were rougher than I remembered from a previous trip 9 year earlier, and everything went much more slowly.  I had to pay the $20 park entry fee for Serengeti and another $20 for Ngorongoro.  The ride got progressively worse.  We stopped three more times for flat tires (including twice in the middle of the night), plus three more times to rig something for a broken suspension system, once for an engine problem and once for having run out of gasoline.  At night, it was cold outside, so we lit a fire while repairing the tire.  We had also stopped earlier at Ngorongoro's Rhino Lodge while repairing another tire.  We had to wait a half hour for the park official to permit us to leave the park after dark.  That required a small bribe.   Inside the Landrover we slept sitting up, except for the driver who went on without sleeping for at least 26 hours, pausing only once for 20 minutes of shuteye after a stressful ride down the rift valley escarpment.   At one point, two children were using my shoulders as pillows while a third had his head in my lap.  Meanwhile, the guy sitting next to me kept coughing on me as did one of his sons.  A section of the road between Lake Manyara and Arusha was extremely tedious.   It was braided seemingly forever, and it was never clear to me that we were choosing the right path in the sand.  After a couple hours of this at 12 miles per hour, I was believing that we were (literally) going around in circles. Finally, after 6:00 A.M. we arrived at a paved road and in Arusha at 8:00 A.M. We had to catch a matatu (van) ride into town because our vehicle had a flat tire at the outskirts.  (In spite of the torturous 26 hours being miserably packed into this demonic vehicle, the upside was that I saw loads of animals, most notably the annual running of the wildebeests in the Serengeti).

-- Crossing the border from Turkey into the Georgian Republic was nearly a five hour process, much of the delay due to attempts by the officials to extort bribes out of everybody they could.  It was not a pretty scene watching the shouting, intimidation and in a couple cases, minor assault that occurred between bus drivers, passengers and customs officials.  For some reason, the officials left me alone this time.  My moments were yet to come. (See Intimidation below).

-- Harassment by police of automobile drivers in Georgia and Azerbaijan has become so prevalent, that many of the bolder drivers just breeze on past officers on the side of the road who try to flag them down for some pseudo- violation.  Usually, these drivers can get away with it.  The police are so grossly underpaid that their survival demands corruption.
 

MOMENTS OF FEAR, APPREHENSION OR INTIMIDATION:

-- As our bus was about to begin an attempt to drive over a muddy landslide on the edge of a steep canyon near Sorata, Bolivia, all of the gringos and some of the locals yelled at the bus driver to stop and then rushed to get out, having decided that they felt much safer walking over the slide area.  The bus crossed the slide area without a problem, but it sure looked gaspingly uncertain for a few moments.

-- After having walked an hour into the Bolivian Amazon rainforest from the river's edge, we found ourselves disconcertingly lost.  For the next two hours we walked rapidly in seemingly every direction with our experienced guide, who became very quiet (possibly trying not to reveal his embarrassment or concern).  Our water supply was nearly exhausted and the hot sun was dehydrating us. A couple more hours and we would have been in trouble.

-- My travel companion, Connie, and I quickly sought shelter in a gazebo in Coroico, Bolivia high on an exposed mountain during a very frightening thunderstorm with lightening strikes hitting much too close for comfort.

-- Experiencing terror on a two-way single-lane mountain road with 3,000 foot drops and a driver who, on multiple occasions, swerved or slammed on his brakes to avoid head-on collisions after forgetting to honk his horn in advance of blind corners. In one of several instances, an oncoming vehicle that swerved to avoid us at the last minute, came rather close to going over the edge.  In another instance, we avoided a head-on collision by what had to be just inches.  Passengers in this van, particularly my travel companion, screamed at the driver and used some appropriately harsh language toward him.  He, also being shaken from an exceptionally close call, yelled back and eventually slowed down his pace a little, though not enough to prevent most of us from sitting tensely on the edge of our seats.

-- When I suddenly found myself falling down a pit of uncertain depth in the Potosi Silver Mine, Bolivia, I tried to grab hold of walls of loose dirt. Unable to get a grip, I fell first about six feet, bounced off a ledge and then fell another five or six feet.  After getting help from the mine guides to get out of the pit, I was able to continue with the tour, though with some pain.  My hip and shoulder were sore for weeks.  Other shafts that we walked past appeared to be bottomless.  Other European travelers warned the guides about me, "Look out, he's an American; he's sure to sue you."

-- While hitchhiking through the Argentinean Andes, I caught a ride with a lead-footed driver of a large semi-truck.  After a couple hours down steep winding two-lane mountain roads during which he felt obliged to pass every single vehicle that might slow him down, I came out with stiff cramps in my legs from pressing long and hard on imaginary brakes. I gave up hitchhiking after that experience.

-- During one 24-hour period in the Georgian Republic and Azerbaijan, I had five episodes of harassment and intimidation to pay bribes to police, military officials, and customs agents (or men impersonating customs agents).

The first instance, after boarding a train in Tblisi, Georgia, two big guys came into my sleeping compartment and tried to close the door behind them (which, luckily, failed to close completely) and demanded that I pay a $20 customs fee.  After challenging their authority for about 10 minutes they tried to negotiate a lower price.  Later, at the border crossing with Azerbaijan, another so-called customs agent said that the first two guys were impostors. I said, "Why should I believe you any more than I believed them?"  There was no reason to pay any customs fee anyway -- I hadn't bought anything that I was transporting out of Georgia.  Then, on the Azerbaijan side of the border, I was escorted off the train by a young soldier into a room where another soldier used various intimidating tactics to try to extract something from me (including slapping me hard on the back and pushing me, and subtly implying that he might throw me out the second story window).  Then, in another room, his commandant said that I had failed to get an exit visa from Georgia and said he would have to send me back. Of course, nobody on the train had received an exit visa, because the border patrols for both countries were cooperatively corrupt and were using the same gimmick on other foreigners.  Finally, in Baku, Azerbaijan, I was detained for 45 minutes and strip searched (ostensibly looking an explosive device) at a subway station by police who were also looking for contributions to their favorite police charity -- themselves.  In all of the previous cases, and in two additional cases over the next several days, I stood my ground, had patience, waited them out, and luckily for me, they left me unharmed and permitted me to leave without paying anything.
 

INSTANCES OF CRIME:

-- A wristwatch ($15 value) was removed from my wrist on a busy street corner in Lima, Peru.  Five minutes earlier, my hotel manager warned me that my watch would be stolen.  I said, I've had it for many years and it isn't worth much.  The thief managed to get it off my wrist without my knowledge in about two seconds.  Two seconds later, he was already in a sprint running through the crowd and I couldn't catch him.

-- My wallet (luckily only containing $12 cash and, unfortunately, my drivers license) was lifted while I stood on a Buenos Aires city bus with my hands hanging onto the bar above my head and my pockets exposed.  The way the bus drivers drove, it was the only way I could keep from falling over on others who were standing in the aisle. Perhaps the driver and the thief worked together -- or is that taking paranoia too far?

-- $350 cash was removed from my money belt and leg pouch after I had consumed a drug-laced cream-filled cookie offered to me by an elderly "gentleman" who boarded with me on a long-distance bus between Campo Grande and Corumba, Brazil. Believe it or not, I woke up 32 hours later in a different city and in a hospital with an intravenous tube coming out of my arm.  During the 32 hours, I apparently had been awake briefly in order to get off the bus and onto a ferry to cross a river, and at the final bus destination, to get my backpack out of the bus luggage compartment, but I had no memory whatsoever of either experience. In the later case, people told me, I was actually speaking to folks in Spanish, which is remarkable because I can hardly speak Spanish under normal circumstances.

It's not clear that the person who gave me the drug was actually the person who stole my money. Removing money from my money belt (which was well under my pants) and my leg pouch (which was way up my pant leg) would have been a little difficult to do on the bus without someone else noticing.  It was a night bus, but I was near the front where the driver or others could have seen something fishy.  Others could have stolen the money -- hospital personnel, my hospital roommate, the man who drove me to the hospital, even the notoriously corrupt police at the checkpoint along the bus route are possible suspects.

Anyway, whatever the drug was that I was given, according to the doctor, I was never in any danger. I just slept peacefully and woke up feeling more rested than I had in years.  Meanwhile, my mother received a call from the folks at Medic Alert (whose bracelet I wore for just such medical emergencies), but they only told her that I was in the hospital, not what had happened to me and not how to reach the person who called their number. Later, the woman at Medic Alert felt bad and called my mother back to give her the telephone number.  By the time she reached me, I was on my way out of the hospital and feeling quite fine.

I later reported the incident to the police, who could hardly pull themselves away from the chess game and soap opera I so rudely interrupted.  I also gave my story on camera to a local television reporter, who seemed more interested in how such incidents might impact local tourism.

Insurance fully reimbursed my hospital stay and about $200 of my stolen money.

-- From a train station storage facility in Pretoria, South Africa, my backpack and its contents were either misplaced or stolen.  After going through some bureaucracy, South African Railways paid me $700, which adequately compensated me for the loss.  Luckily, I had kept most of my irreplaceables (i.e.. seven rolls of used film) with me in my day pack.

-- On more than one occasion, I was alerted by others to the fact that some would-be thieves were eyeing my day pack, my camera, or whatever I had that happened to be vulnerable at the moment.  Sometimes, I caught them following me, and only after they noticed that I had noticed them would they stop, turn around and retreat.

-- One woman I met had her money belt removed from her waist without her noticing while she was walking through a dense crowd.

-- Scam artists are becoming increasingly common.  I met an inexperienced American traveler who, while sitting at a sidewalk cafe in Nairobi (also known as Nairobbery), thought he was being kind when he gave some small change to a beggar from Somalia.  A couple men flashing badges and claiming to be police said that it was illegal in Kenya to help this Somalian -- that the Kenyan government was trying to discourage the flood of refugees from neighboring Somalia.  I'm not sure what they told him, but they managed to collect a sizable "fine" from him.  You'd be surprised by how many tourists get scammed by the same or similar tricks.
 

THE MAD RACE AGAINST TIME:

Travel can often be like a sport. Enjoying the journey is often a matter of good timing and good pacing. Sometimes, one can get stuck in the middle of nowhere, wasting time, missing opportunities, and going stir-crazy.

On the opposite extreme, moving too quickly can make one jaded by the sensory overload to the point of not appreciating much of anything at all. Knowing these things led me into a four-day mad race to avoid the former, only to get caught up in the latter.

The Lake Tanganyika ferry leaves its Zambian port only once each week on Fridays at 4:00pm. On Tuesday morning, less than four full days before the ferry was scheduled to leave, I figured I still had a chance of catching it on time, even though I was separated from my goal by several days of rough riding over some of Africa's most pot-holed roads. The risk was that, if I failed to reach the boat in time, I would either be stuck in a rather boring place (also a place notorious for thieves) for a full week, or I would have to go several hundred miles out of the way over tortuous back-breaking roads squished in impossibly crowded flatbed trucks -- a much less pleasant and less convenient way to travel than by ferry. If I couldn't get to the ferry in time and instead had to suffer a much-prolonged rough road endurance test, I probably would change my plans entirely and go a different way; but that would mean I'd miss seeing the chimpanzees in Gombe National Park, a goal I'd had since before I began my overseas journey. Also, if I failed to catch the ferry, it could set me a week behind on other longer range plans. Compared to wars and pestilence, these matters seem trivial, but if I was going to attempt this race to the ferry, it seemed very important to me at the time that I be successful.

In order for me to catch the ferry on time, everything for the next four days had to go like clockwork. This being Africa, the idea of anything being as clockwork is anachronistic. Nevertheless, I thought there might be a chance, so I went for it. I began by cutting short a visit with a very hospitable rural Malawian family and got up early to catch a bus to Malawi's capital city Lilongwe. From there, each bus that I needed to catch had to be the first one available, or it was almost certain that I wouldn't get to the ferry by Friday afternoon. For the first two days, luck was going my way, although it was nip-and-tuck trying to get a seat on each bus, and each pot-hole nearly swallowed us whole. Failing to get a seat usually means standing for four to six hours tightly packed with others under hot and humid conditions -- conditions under which I have previously been known to faint.

Then things really started to slow down. First, I missed a connection to a 4-by-4 truck that would have taken me over the extraordinarily rough road from Chitipa, Malawi to Nakonde, Zambia; and although I was assured by some folks that I'd get to the boat on time, things were not looking good. When I saw the driver of the alternative truck opening the hood and spreading parts out on the ground, I knew the odds were beginning to go against me. We finally got going, three hours behind schedule, and as I rode cramped with produce, packages and a dozen folks in the back of a seemingly shock-absorberless flatbed, I was becoming conscious of every little delay. The border official was doing what such folks in this part of the world typically do, stalling for a bribe from whomever he thought he could obtain one. Every 10 to 15 minutes, the driver had to replenish the water in the truck to keep it from overheating. The stops for water became more frequent, every 5 to 7 minutes, as the day progressed.

When we arrived in Nakonde, a border town with Tanzania that is locally notorious for its thieves and con artists, I was lead by a helpful man to the only truck going the final six hours to the ferry port. My heart sank when I saw the truck. It looked like an attempt to get into the Guiness Book of World Records, packed well beyond criminal levels with uncountable people standing on packages piled high on the back of the mid-sized flatbed. If the tires weren't ready to burst from the additional weight, then surely one swift bump on the road would have sent people flying to disaster. At first, I thought, that's it -- my race to catch the ferry is over. I rode on a truck nearly as crowded when I was in Uganda, 10 years earlier, and I only remember it as being the closest thing to shear torture I've experienced in my life. That time, I thought my fingers were going to become a bloody mess from the sharp bar I had to hang onto for six hours, and that either I'd have to have my legs amputated from the loss of blood circulation or I was going to die from being sideswiped by another vehicle as my body hung way out over the side the truck. I wasn't going to go through anything like that again ... no matter what!

Then one man had an idea that if I paid extra, I could ride in the front with the driver. The driver agreed and I was about to get into the truck's cab when it became apparent that someone in the front was going to have to come out against his or her will. One man put up a fuss, and I was already feeling uneasy about playing the role of the "ugly American", so I said, "Forget it."

I then spent the remaining daylight hours hoping against hope that I'd find another truck driver going to the port, or perhaps going somewhere that I could find another vehicle going there; with the help of my Zambian acquaintance, I walked around the town talking to every truck and bus driver we could find, but no vehicle was leaving that could get me to the port by the time the boat was to leave the following afternoon.

So, with my tail tucked between my legs, I checked into a cheap hotel, with my mind humming still trying to figure a way out of my perceived predicament. It was clear that I wasn't going to catch the ferry at its starting port, but I kept thinking that maybe there was another way. Getting information from folks didn't seem easy. Nobody seemed to know much about the ferry or ways to get to the port. Most locals never have any reason to leave their little town, let alone travel internationally to the opposite side of Lake Tanganyika.

It turned out that there was one last hope. Someone knew that I could catch the ferry at its first stop in Tanzania, but this would mean another hectic day of travel with no certainty that after going well out of my way that I would reach the ferry on time. Still, I was up for the challenge.

The following morning, I rose well before sunrise, though doing so was pointless, since the border post in Nakonda didn't open until 7:00. It turned out that it was critical that I cross the border as soon as the post opened because, after getting my passport stamped and walking a mile, I was the very last person to get a seat on the only bus going my direction. The bus was starting to move as I arrived, but then other folks piled in and filled all available standing room.

Every moment mattered now, but it seemed every moment dragged. First, the bus stalled for about a half hour. Then, after the bus arrived in Sumbawanga, I had to wait in huge lines and bear an incredible barrage of bureaucracy to change money at a bank, before riding the final 40 miles to Lake Tanganyika by Landrover. Now, 40 miles doesn't sound like much, but, in Africa, it can seem like a lifetime. Before the Landrover could leave town, it seemed like the owner had about 20 errands to do, as well as looking for enough people and cargo to justify making the journey. When we finally did get going, I was quickly reminded of why only Landrovers went this way. The road was so deeply rutted from the tire treads of previous vehicles that, at times, it nearly tipped us over; and of course, at times, it slowed us down to a crawl. It's the difficulty of riding over roads like this that would have left me especially disappointed if I missed the ferry.

Looking at my watch every five minutes or less now, I realized at 4:00 p.m. that the ferry had already left the Zambian port and was on it's way to Kasonga, Tanzania, where I would board. I had no measure of how long it would take for the ferry to go from its starting point to where I would get on, but I figured time was getting very short. When the driver stopped for a restaurant meal, I thought, oh my God, that's it; I've missed the ferry now for sure. Luckily, the driver and the other passengers knew my time was short, and on my behalf they kindly wolfed down their beans and rice, and we were back on the truck in not much more than a few minutes.

The sun was setting when I caught my first glimpse of Lake Tanganyika. About the same time, the ferry appeared in the distance. We were still a half hour away from the lake and it wasn't clear who was going to get to the port first. As time went on, I was losing hope yet again. The ferry seemed to be beating us. The driver was going as quickly as he could down these rough roads without damaging his vehicle or endangering us.

It turned out that Kasonga was not a port at all, but a beach front. In order to board the ferry, which had already arrived when we came to the end of the road, I would first have to sprint about a mile down a path in the twilight and a mile along the beach to find a small boat with a boatman who would paddle me a quarter-mile out to the ferry. Luckily, a young local man grabbed my backpack and guided me or I would never have made it. Not only did he help me navigate the trail that winded confusingly through the bushes in what was now becoming moonlight, but he also set the high pace of running that we needed to set in order to make it to the ferry on time.

We were running so fast, I thought I was going to drop from exhaustion near the end.

Most of the folks that were boarding the ferry had already done so by the time I found the last remaining boatman on the beach who could row us out to the ferry. The ferry was already blowing its horn to leave, and the folks on the beach were shouting to those on the boats that they should shout to the ferry and tell them to wait for this most unpunctual mazungu (white man). I gave the young man who brought me to the boat as well as the boatman sizable tips, but if they had known what I'd been through the previous four days, they probably could have held out for 50 times as much.

It wasn't but a few moments after I got on the dangerously overloaded MV Liemba ferry before it blew its horn and began moving by the light of a rising full moon. After four days of nearly constant rushing, I couldn't believe I had made it by a matter of moments, and only then by the kindness of the ferry captain's patience. While I've previously slept on crowded ferry decks packed like a sardine, I decided to treat myself to a cabin and a little comfort this time. I quickly made acquaintance with the only other two foreigners on board, from Britain and the States, and three days later, I achieved the nearly lifelong dream of visiting the chimpanzees of Gombe National Park ... something I would have really hated to have missed.
 

FOOD AND HEALTH:

In much of the developing world, where I spent two-thirds of my journey, the main staple foods are rice, beans and often corn meal, or some other grinded grain. Being a vegetarian, these were frequently a major part of my diet as well. In order to assure balanced nutrition in areas where I didn't particularly care to risk getting sick, and to be polite to my foreign hosts, I loosened some of my normally strict vegetarian rules to include eating dairy products and fish. It was actually surprisingly easy to stick to these rules. Amazingly, in all of the major cities of the developing world, and many of the minor cities, including places where the diet is notoriously meat-centered, I had no problem finding vegetarian restaurants or places with tasty vegetarian dishes on the menu.

As for people's homes, most folks were understanding, respectful of and accommodating to my weird dietary restrictions, and in all cases, I found myself treated to feasts unlike any I would prepare for myself at home. I will say, however, that it was hopeless to try to avoid animal fat completely (such as in refried beans), so I didn't bother trying.

Drinking plenty of fluids is critical in the hot tropics. While I rarely took chances trusting the local water supplies, I found that when I did, I had no problem. Generally, I drank bottled everything -- typically soft drinks, beer or bottled water. I often rinsed my toothbrush in tap water, but only after I had completely finish brushing, and I would generally not rinse my mouth using tap water. Beyond the brief period of adjustment one experiences when going from one country to another adapting to the local microorganisms (usually resulting in a single brief instance of diarrhea), I experienced only one bug that kept me in bed, and that was limited to less than 24 hours, when I was in Ecuador.
 

MY CURRENT VIEWPOINT ABOUT TRAVEL AND WHAT MAKES ME TICK:

I have spent nearly four years (20 percent) of my adult life on the road visiting parts of 90 countries on seven continents.  My first world tour lasted over 2 and 1/2 years and covered 54 countries.  My more recent world tour was a one-year sabatical from my job.  Although shorter, it was more hectically paced, covering 37 countries.

Why travel so far and for so long?  Shouldn't one be raring to get back to work after a week or two of vacation, as most people do, fully refreshed and ready to go?  Some people, including my father and a former supervisor, confronted me with these questions; and I must admit that some of that work-ethic gene runs through my blood too.  Of course, the way to get around this quandary, if one truly wants to travel far and wide, is to view travel itself as a job, albeit one that is a labor of love.  Seeking out new experiences is for me the equivalent of making widgets.  It may not profit my employer, but of course, doing that is not the only thing for which one lives.

Before beginning my long journey, I thanked our division director, Peter Smith, for granting me the one-year leave-of-absence.  He responded by saying, "No...Don't mention it. You're our hero!"

Whoa, wait a second here. I have to pause and think about that one.  A hero, he says?  Me, a hero? Come on!!!  I can understand that some folks might get some vicarious enjoyment from imagining hitting the road themselves, but it is only the height of hedonistic self-indulgence, not heroism that moves me to take such grand journeys.  Enjoying life is my first goal -- purely self-serving, nothing heroic about it.  That's all most any of us hope to accomplish.

Of course, there is something in the human spirit that longs to be free from many of life's normal commitments, and some may consider my lengthy, free-spirited excursions as reason enough to make me a poster child for that cause.

If I am anyone's hero because of my travels, then it is heroism only in a tragic sense. I am as Achilles with a faulty heal or Don Quiote, slaying imaginary dragons.  My motivations are more pathetic than honorable.  I am driven primarily by a need to compensate for my own feelings of inadequacy in other aspects of my life.  While my peers advance along noteworthy career paths, developing a broad range of skills, accumulating trust funds and achieving some form of pseudo-immortality through the achievements of their children, I have achieved non of these things, and instead have had to figure out something else to do with my mediocrity.  There's little that I've done that has been particularly noteworthy.  Entertaining folks with songs like "Ode to the Outhouse" and "The Booger Blues" just doesn't qualify.

Travel seems to me a relatively easy solution to the problem of finding something to carve into my gravestone.  Firstly, I realize that I have the means and the will to travel, though it may mean putting off my acquisition of Microsoft Corporation for awhile; secondly, it doesn't require much, if any, intellect, so that works well for me; and thirdly, if one does enough traveling, there's a certain "wow" response one gets from folks who rarely stray beyond the path to Disneyland that sometimes even fools me into thinking that, well, perhaps this travel thing that I'm doing really IS something special.

Besides, I feel very familiar and at ease with travel. It's something I've been doing since I ran away from home on my tricycle at age five.  My parents wouldn't permit me to buy popcorn from the popcorn man as he drove his truck up our street; so after they went out for the evening and my brother wasn't looking, I took my 9 cents (this was 1962) and rode two miles to the popcorn truck stationed on the other side of the lake.  I was merely five and on three wheels, but just as a lion having his first taste of human blood, I had my first taste of freedom and adventure, and I was hooked.

My wander lust continued through my youth. At age 9, I was taking the bus by myself downtown to visit my mother at her office. At age 10 and 11, I was hiking 20 to 25 miles with friends of the same age to places outside the city, and without adult supervision.  At age 13, I was taking trains by myself halfway across the country.  It was only a natural outgrowth from these and other experiences that I kept moving, always in search of something new and different.

Since I am now a cartographer and make maps for a living, the desire to travel is an occupational hazard; maps have inspired me since I put together my first jigsaw puzzle of the U.S. as a young child.  Now, everyday I see places on maps that heighten my curiosity.  I don't know what it is about them exactly.  Perhaps, Freud or somebody would say that there's something subliminally sexual about it -- kind of like the feeling I get when I rub my fingers over raised-relief maps of the Himalayan Mountains.

One often meets travelers who've been on the road for months or years, and I can't help but wonder which ghosts chase them or what vision they see to compel them to do this. Everybody seems to be running from or to something -- they know not what.

One thing they all seem to know intuitively is the old adage that life is short ... "and uncertain", a friend of mine added, "so, eat dessert first!" A lot of travelers I meet are fatalistic folks who seek to live in "the now", because one can never be sure that there will be "a later".

Anyway, there's plenty of company on the road, and it's hard to be unique out there unless you're a special kind of risk taker or thrill seeker. You can bungy jump off Victoria Falls or climb Mount Everest, but join the crowds. That kind of gig is not mine.

For me, it's enough, in the words of John Lennon, to watch the wheels go round and round.  Travel has become a mere habit.  Often, it feels to me passively mindless, kind of like Forrest Gump's marathon runs back and forth across the U.S.  If people are looking for a vision from me after all the globetrotting I've done, then I'm sorry, I ain't got one.  I'm just doing what most folks do when their basic needs -- health, food and shelter -- are satisfied -- trying to combat boredom with new experiences.  Others read a new book, go to a new movie, make a new friend, buy a new car -- they are all variations on the same theme with the same basic reward -- diverting oneself from the mundaneness of everyday life.

So, why travel for so long?  Doesn't doing that also become mundane and redundant?  Certainly it does, like many things in life, but as I said before, it has also become an seemingly uncontrollable habit for me.  It's now so familiar that not doing it almost feels uncomfortable.  I can't stop --  I'm an addict.  It's similar to folks who are addicted to gambling or to jogging.  I must get some kind of norepinephine rush from it.  And usually, if one paces oneself correctly, there's enough variety across the planet to keep things sufficiently interesting to avoid real mundanity and redundancy almost indefinitely.  On these long journeys, travel becomes like life in general with its ups and downs, its good and its depressing moments.  As long as one expects no more than that, one could probably go on traveling indefinitely and happily ever after.

Actually, on my most recent journey, after ten months of high-paced and often stressful travel in the developing world, I was suffering from a high degree of burn out.  A two-week chill-out while visiting friends in the Ukraine was just what the doctor ordered. They said, "Okay now, you're just going to sit back and relax -- no sightseeing for you", and waited on me as if I were a king.  After two weeks, I felt refreshed enough to get back to the job of serious travel.

I have mixed emotions about using words that encourage others to travel as I have. I could easily pack my travel accounts (and have done so in many instances) with superlatives about the experiences that I'll no doubt cherish for as long as I have a memory.  There are a couple of downsides to doing this.  Firstly, there are risks to travel, and perhaps I've just been lucky so far.  In any such journey one is bound to encounter some near misses (which as comedian George Carlin points out is a euphemism for near hits). As with others who have traveled so much, I have had a number of these "near hits", and I'd hate to be the inspiration for somebody else's journey that ends in real tragedy.  Secondly, while one part of me would like everyone to have the chance to enjoy and appreciate many of the same wonderful places I have been, another part of me realizes that something else would be lost were that to occur.  As it is, the world is being overrun and in some ways ruined by tourism -- even so called environmentally conscious eco-tourism.

Much of the romance of travel is rapidly being lost to the hoards.  A part of me wants to say, "Rush to see it, quickly, before it's all gone (or before it changes completely from what it once was)". Another part of me prefers to say, "Stay home, and leave the planet to ME!"

What saddens me most is the rapid encroachment of sameness. The multi-millenia era of cultural diversity is nearly over. It's disheartening to arrive at the most remote, most exotic places of one's youthful dreams, only to discover that McDonalds, The Simpsons, and probably a cloned Elvis got there first.  Face it folks -- it's over!  The entire planet is very close to becoming a homogenous monotony of American vulgarity.  Western and especially American cultural imperialism has made web masters, political spin masters and casino masters of indigenous tribes worldwide whose noble elders taught the virtues of simplicity.  There isn't anything wrong with that except for the continued fertility loss to human spiritual gene pool.  One culture can no longer suddenly stumble upon some other previously unknown culture and acquire new insights from cross-pollination.  All cultures are known and are rapidly becoming one look-alike, sound-alike jaded bunch of neurotic, wise-cracking, thrill-seeking, pop-culture aficionados who suffer from attention-deficit disorder and don't give a damn about civility as long as they're amused.  That giant sucking sound you heard in the last sentence was the vacuum created by my own rush to become part of the whole.  Resistance is futile.

It's getting so you can't go anywhere on the planet without finding more of the same-old same-old.

Where Dr. Livingstone, I presume, discovered the isolated African waterfall he named for the Queen, folks are lining up for hang gliding, bungy jumping, and probably belly-button piercing. Roads are getting paved in Malawi just so the Coca-Cola trucks can get through to make their deliveries.  In the countries that were the old Soviet Union, Communist red has been replaced with Coca-Cola and Marlboro red. Satellite dishes in remote parts of the Amazon jungle capture signals that teach barefoot children the virtues of Nike.  A Mayan farmer, appearing as if he rarely strays from his farm, sits next to me on a bus in Belize and watches a video of explicit sex and violence marked Made in America.  In the mythical place once called Shangri-La, a place that early in the 20th century had still not yet seen the invention of the wheel, there's a Rambo Bar in front of the most sacred landmark of Tibetan Buddhism.  Youth gangs in Central America have adopted the clothing, the tactics, and the names of Los Angeles gangs. The whole planet is being Pepsi'd, Sony'd and Microsoft'ed into submission.  And take a number folks, because it's getting crowded on the top of Mount Everest.  You can reserve your place up there through Ticketron with your Visa or Mastercharge.  The old insight that says "the more things change, the more they seem the same" applies to geography as well as to time.  This planet is now fully occupied by the familiar.  When everything begins to look the same, it can sometimes feel as if one is not actually traveling anywhere.

Perhaps this is part of the reason for the barrage of interest in the possibility of extraterrestrials.  The charm and curiosity of our own planet has been exhausted.  Nothing on Earth is sufficiently different anymore to satisfy the human demands for bedazzlement. But even in space travel, we name the rocks with our own cartoon characters and personify the image of aliens with our own cheesy tastes for the absurd.

It's interesting that at this very moment, someone on television just helped to build my case by saying, "There's no such thing as being remote on the Internet".  The very concept of remoteness has become so remote as to be non-existent.  At the same time, there's no such thing as "local", because everywhere is local!  Try heading deep into the jungle, to the outback, or to the ends of the earth and there's an internet cafe and a means to monitor and to be monitored real-time by anyone and everyone.  Some folks like to market "great getaway" vacations, but you can't really get away -- you're already there, and so is everybody else.

As repulsive as they once were, I'm glad I had a chance to see the other side of the Berlin Wall before it came down and to witness Soviet totalitarianism before that huge nation disintegrated; I'm glad I had the opportunity to see what Malawi was like before it became the last country on the planet to be impacted by Married With Children; I feel lucky to have seen Lonesome George, the very last of his subspecies of Galapagos Tortoise, before he (and with him his subspecies) disappears from the planet; and I'm glad I had the opportunity to experience the pristineness of Antarctica before they install their first parking meters.

In spite of and partially because of the rapid trend toward sameness, I will continue to travel in search of the unique and the different. There really IS still plenty to keep things interesting and to keep me moving (aside from habit).  Landmarks from times that truly were different still remain, and with luck they always will.  Even if everybody will be typing (or speaking) into their laptops, some may steadfastly resist the pressure to adopt various other technological or cultural innovations. Some, for example, may resist the standard western buttoned down look for wearing the colorful clothing of their cultural traditions.

Whatever happens, I feel enormously fortunate to have experienced what I already have in my travels; and my wander lust remains unsatiated, though temporarily repressed by the practical needs of making a living and sublimated by the pleasures found from an equally powerful concept called "home".

The comedian Steven Wright once made the observation, "You can't have everything. Where would you put it?"  Well, I thought about that for awhile, and I decided that travel is the answer.  You really CAN have everything.  Just leave it where it is, and go visit it when you like.  Okay, so maybe you can't have everything all at once ... unless you successfully achieve Zen.  But, at least you can have everything when you're ready and able; and when actual travel is not feasible, then virtual travel through the VCR of one's mind always is. There's a great journey playing in my head right now in anticipation of the next real adventure.