Sail a boat about 12 miles from the coast of any ocean and you鈥檒l find yourself in international waters. Out there, the laws of the modern world fall away, and more importantly, so does almost any kind of societal scrutiny. In ($30, Knopf), journalist Ian Urbina investigates the corrupt and exploitative world that exists on the high seas, which we all benefit from but rarely take time to face. 鈥淎n escape for some, the ocean is a prison for others,鈥� he writes in the introduction.

The book is structured as a series of essays on legal gray areas at sea, with examples like a ship that provides lawful abortions in international waters and the story of a man set adrift in the Atlantic . Urbina began reporting many of these chapters while working as , where he broke stories on sea slavery in Southeast Asia and cold-blooded executions of fishermen by Taiwanese rivals off the Horn of Africa. (He previously for his role in reporting on former New York governor Eliot Spitzer鈥檚 involvement in a prostitution ring.) Taken as a whole, this body of work is a devastating look at the corruption, exploitation, and trafficking that thrive on the open ocean.

While Outlaw Ocean isn鈥檛 an adventure tale, Urbina nods to the excitement of the high seas. 鈥淔ull of devouring storms, doomed expeditions, shipwrecked sailors, and maniacal hunters, the canon of sea literature offered a vibrant picture of a watery wilderness and its untamed rogues,鈥� he writes as he ponders the appeal of the ocean. Urbina himself is often in the middle of the action. At various points, he finds himself on the deck of an Indonesian anti-poaching ship as it faces off with a heavily armed Vietnamese patrol, on a Sea Shepherd Conservation Society boat in pursuit of a ship that had been poaching Patagonian toothfish (politely branded in stores as Chilean sea bass), and caught in the middle of a simmering political conflict over fishing rights in Somalia that threatens to boil over into a coup. The writing is straightforward but clever鈥擴rbina packs sentences with a lot of information, but they never seem bloated. Atmospheric moments, like when Urbina describes the 鈥渇aint gurgling鈥� of seawater around the legs of an abandoned offshore platform, are rare but eerie and beautiful when they do appear.

Urbina鈥檚 reporting is clearly driven by a sense of responsibility to the people he meets, and the book offers a glimpse into his relationship with his subjects that isn鈥檛 visible in his newspaper articles. It鈥檚 not that he鈥檚 out to change each life he encounters鈥攖hat would obviously be futile鈥攂ut that he doesn鈥檛 want these stories to go untold. He tries, for example, to untangle the web that traps so many of his subjects into involuntary servitude at sea. For a few short pages, he visits a Thai karaoke bar that doubles as a 鈥渁 staging ground in the human-trafficking pipeline.鈥� There, a many-tentacled system of abuse stretches between sea and shore: young girls are pressed into prostitution, then used as a lure for boys from rural Myanmar and Cambodia鈥攁lso teenagers鈥攚ho will be trafficked into sea slavery. 鈥淥f all the evil things I saw while reporting鈥� the karaoke bars were perhaps the most sinister,鈥� he writes. In the moment, he鈥檚 paralyzed and openly uncomfortable with his journalistic remove.

His reporting has had some success bringing changes to this system. In the past decade, pressured by the investigations of Urbina and others, the Thai government cracked down on illegal fishing and sea slavery鈥攚hich often go hand in hand. But it becomes evident that fixing the fishing industry is like squeezing a balloon: put pressure on one spot, and it bulges elsewhere. Some of the worst Thai actors switched their registrations to Djibouti, which is not subject to such close media scrutiny and has turned an apparent blind eye to the problems. When Urbina visits Somalia to observe what seemed a successful effort to tamp down piracy, he鈥檚 instead forced out of the country with threats of assassination. The local government has tacitly approved of and profited from poaching by those same Thai-owned, Djibouti-registered ships at the expense of local fishermen, and Urbina鈥檚 presence becomes a threat.

These failures can make the book feel Sisyphean. No matter how relentlessly Urbina chases a scofflaw ship or an abusive captain, the sea can swallow them up. In a moment when Brazilian fascists are burning the Amazon and of Americans are living in a state of anxiety as we anticipate a worsening climate crisis, where are we supposed to put this news of the gross realities of the ocean? Urbina doesn鈥檛 spend much time linking American consumers and the abuses he chronicles, but the connection is obvious. The ships that pack cargo across the ocean also push stowaways overboard. The shrimp that goes into cat food could well have been caught by slaves. Urbina doesn鈥檛 have an answer for how to avoid complicity in this system, but one thing is certain: abuses will keep happening as long as no one is watching.

Don鈥檛 Miss: Another Great Read About a Little-Explored Frontier

Jill Heinerth鈥檚 career as a professional cave diver, which she recounts in her memoir ($30, Ecco), began with a pair of burglaries. In the mid-eighties, on her first night attending university and living in a seedy corner of Toronto, a man with 鈥渞ed-rimmed and crazed鈥� eyes broke into her student apartment and pushed his way through her bedroom door before she slashed him with an X-Acto blade. A few months later, while Heinerth was home on break, she chased a different would-be robber away with a handful of kitchen knives. The first encounter leaves her shaken, but the second makes her realize that she鈥檚 braver than she thought. The burglaries give her the courage to shed听an 鈥渋ll-fitting life鈥� as a graphic designer in favor of one spent exploring some of the deepest, most dangerous water-filled caves on earth.

The rest of the book traces Heinerth鈥檚 path into full-time cave diving, from days spent beach bumming in the Caribbean to her early dives amid north Florida limestone to the loss of friend after friend deep under the surface. Along the way, she wrestles with questions of belonging and confidence in a male-dominated sport. The writing can be a little over-the-top鈥攖he line 鈥淭his is awesome!鈥� makes repeated appearances鈥攂ut the worlds Heinerth conjures up are captivating: underground bivouacs, days-long journeys inside mountains, a 鈥渕ulticolored shag carpet鈥� of isopods and sponges and crabs living beneath an Antarctic iceberg. Despite the tragedies she鈥檚 witnessed, it鈥檚 easy to understand why she keeps going back into the depths.

The post This Book Investigates the Dark Side of the Open Ocean appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

In his two years and eight months as a hostage in Somalia, Michael Scott Moore spent his days and his nights confined to small, stifling cells, often in handcuffs. His guards, terrified that U.S. Navy SEALs would try to rescue him, moved him to a different safe house every couple of weeks. A 45-year-old native Californian with dual German and American citizenship, Moore was a passionate surfer who wrote an acclaimed book about the sport called ; now he watched his body grow soft from lack of exercise. During his captivity, Moore encountered 30 other hostages from a variety of countries. He was allowed to speak with them, and to his guards, who spoke little English and spent their days chewing qat, the mildly stimulating leaf to which many Somalis are addicted. But as the months turned into years, Moore grew increasingly desperate.¹

Mixed in with the boredom and isolation would have been moments of terror. Before dawn on January 25, 2012, a week after Moore was abducted while conducting research for a book about piracy, Navy SEALs cordoned off the nearby town of Galkayo and set up a staging area at the airport. The commandos climbed into helicopters and swooped into the village of Hiimo Gaabo, where two Western expatriates working for the Danish Demining Group鈥攖he American Jessica Buchanan and the Dutchman Poul Hagen Thisted鈥攚ere being held by pirates. The SEALs killed all nine of the Somali captors, and听 unharmed. Planning for the raid had taken weeks, and the SEALs, operating out of Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti, hadn鈥檛 had enough time to locate Moore, who was just a few dozen miles away. The operation sent his captors into a panic and the dead pirates鈥� brethren into a rage. They threatened to invade Harardhere, the coastal town where Moore was being held, and kill him. Moore鈥檚 captors, from a rival clan, strengthened their protection force, adding about fifty armed men, and began shuttling him around every few days. His captors were 鈥渟cared all the time,鈥� a source says.

Moore鈥檚 captors reportedly didn鈥檛 beat or torture him, but he did suffer psychologically. A shows a distressed Moore, surrounded by masked men aiming Kalashnikovs at his head, pleading for help. Moore claimed that he hadn鈥檛 eaten for two days. 鈥淢y life is terrible,鈥� he said, and he was 鈥渢errified.鈥� Eight months later, French commandos botched an attempt to rescue an intelligence agent, a man using the pseudonym Denis Allex, from an Al Shabaab stronghold southeast of Mogadishu. Allex, two French soldiers, and 17 militants .

In the many months that Moore was held, the skies over the area were often filled with U.S. drones and warplanes monitoring pirate activity. There would be no rescue for Moore, but he would gain his freedom. The nightmare ended on Tuesday, September 23, when, according to the Associated Press, Somali clan intermediaries hand-delivered a ransom of $1.6 million to his captors鈥攁 variation from the typical procedure of air dropping the money in by Cessna. It remains unclear who paid the money鈥攚hether it was the German government, Moore鈥檚 family, kidnapping insurance, or some combination. One security expert with tangential knowledge of the negotiations believes that the bulk was raised by Moore鈥檚 75-year-old mother, Marlis Saunders, of Redondo Beach, California, who 鈥減assed the hat鈥� around to friends, family members, and supporters. Saunders, sources say, not only was forced to deal with pirates holding her son in the bush half a world away, but was also likely thrust into the middle of a diplomatic kerfuffle between the German and U.S. governments, who have diametrically opposed views on ransoming hostages. An impasse over paying the kidnappers may have extended Moore鈥檚 captivity by months, if not years.

In the end, the pirates got their money, and Moore was driven to the airport in Galkayo, the lawless and violent town near which he was kidnapped in January 2012, and flown to Mogadishu. From Mogadishu he flew on to Nairobi, where he stayed at a private residence under heavy guard. Then Moore returned to Berlin, his home for eight years prior to his kidnapping, and reunited with his mother. If his post-release period follows the usual pattern, he is undergoing extensive debriefings by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and German intelligence鈥攖rying to identify his captors from photographs, and pointing out all the places where he was held.

Moore was the latest and among the most prominent of thousands of foreigners seized in Somalia during the past decade, most of them crew members on merchant vessels captured by pirates in a wave of hijackings that reached its peak between 2008 and 2010. Hostages in Somalia have included Western aid workers, holidaymakers, and journalists. The Canadian reporter Amanda Lindhout and her Australian colleague Nigel Brennan were seized in April 2008, and ransomed fifteen months later for $600,000. (Lindhout later wrote a book, , about her ordeal.) In October 2009, pirates , Paul and Rachel Chandler, from their yacht off the Seychelles, held them on board a hijacked merchant ship, then transferred them to the coastal town of Ceel Huur, near Harardhere, where Moore was also kept for much of his captivity. The Chandlers were released on November 14, 2010, after the payment of a ransom鈥攔eportedly as high as $1 million and as low as several hundred thousand dollars鈥攑atched together from friends and relatives.

Sadly, since ISIS has stepped onto the scene, the pirates鈥� modus operandi has come to seem downright old-fashioned鈥攖ake the money, release the hostage. As the West has become all too aware, after the grim beheadings of American freelance journalists and and British aid workers and at the hands of ISIS, Islamist groups, including Somalia鈥檚 Al Shabaab movement and affiliates of Al Qaeda, tend to be far more brutal than the pirate gangs. Half a dozen hostages have died while prisoners of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, founded in Algeria in 2006; an AQIM splinter group beheaded the French hiker 听in Algeria on September 24 of this year.听The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria has executed thousands of Iraqi and Syrian prisoners in addition to the four Westerners it killed this year. As dehumanizing, humiliating, and physically and psychologically punishing as Moore's imprisonment was, few, if any, hostages have been known to die while in pirate captivity.

Moore鈥檚 release has cast fresh scrutiny on the media blackouts that often follow the kidnapping of high-profile Western hostages鈥攎ost of the press remained silent about Moore throughout his captivity. During the 1980s, when the first wave of kidnappings of foreigners began in Lebanon, the Associated Press鈥檚 chief Middle East correspondent, Terry Anderson, Anglican Church representative Terry Waite, and dozens of other hostages received extensive press coverage. But over the past ten years, kidnapping has turned into a big business, with ransom, not political statements, now the primary goal of terrorist groups and criminal gangs. The kidnapping boom has given rise to a cottage industry of hostage negotiators and kidnapping and ransom (K&R) insurance companies who have a vested interest in expediting talks and keeping prices down.听

Colin Freeman, the chief foreign correspondent for London鈥檚 Sunday Telegraph, a former hostage in Somalia, and the author of the book , wrote in a 鈥渂y convincing the kidnappers that they have a very high value prize, who should not be lightly released.鈥� In addition, media publicity can bring out 鈥渄odgy鈥� middlemen who claim to have ties to the kidnappers, as well as rival groups looking for a cut. 鈥淭he whole thing can end up in chaos,鈥� Freeman wrote, 鈥渨ith no clear channels of communication, and no clear idea of whom, if anyone, a deal can be struck with.鈥�

Acting under the advice of its negotiating team, The New York Times pleaded with media colleagues not to write about reporter David Rohde, who was while researching a book in Afghanistan in 2008. After being held for eight months, with almost no news coverage, Rohde escaped from a house in a tribal area of Pakistan and made his way to safety. The parents of Steven Sotloff, kidnapped in Syria in August 2013, fearful that his captors would learn about his dual United States鈥揑sraeli citizenship and murder him, managed to keep his abduction out of the news for a year. Sotloff鈥檚 captivity was revealed to the world only when he appeared at the end of the video of James Foley鈥檚 execution. In the end, ISIS killed him too.

Two years ago, when I began researching a piece for 国产吃瓜黑料 about Moore鈥檚 abduction, the , which had given Moore a grant to report from Somalia, as well as the German newsweekly , which had employed Moore on its English-language website, asked us to stop pursuing the story. David Rohde, who had been in touch with Moore鈥檚 mother, also requested that we respect the blackout. 鈥淭he family and both news organizations think publicity at this time will increase the captors鈥� expectations and complicate negotiations,鈥� he explained via email. 国产吃瓜黑料 respected the family鈥檚 wishes and published nothing. In 2013, the Daily Beast assigned a freelance journalist to go to Somalia to investigate the Moore kidnapping, but the reporter backed off when he became aware of the family鈥檚 objections. Updates on Moore鈥檚 abduction did appear from time to time in , the , , and , and on surfing websites like and , but for the most part, the blackout held.

As Moore鈥檚 captivity dragged on, however, some close to him began to question the wisdom of the policy. 鈥淭he American government needs a kick in the ass,鈥� one journalist who knows Moore well told me about a year into his captivity. Frustrated at the pace of the negotiations, and suspicious that the U.S. was blocking efforts to pay a ransom, he believed that a magazine piece would increase pressure for a rescue mission or a deal. Moore鈥檚 mother wavered as well. 鈥淭here were moments when she seriously considered lifting the press ban,鈥� says a source close to the family. At one point, the source says, Saunders contemplated making a public cry for help鈥攑ossibly a video addressed to her son鈥檚 kidnappers. The FBI, sources say, was camped out at her home, monitoring the negotiations between her鈥攐r, more likely, a private security contractor representing her鈥攁nd a Somali negotiator hired by the pirate gang. Those close to the situation speculate that the FBI talked her out of going public.

The American journalist , author of The World鈥檚 Most Dangerous Places and the founder of Somalia Report, a nonprofit website compiled by a staff of Somali journalists, has been a strong advocate of transparency in the Moore case and other kidnappings. Pelton claims that the average time hostages have spent in captivity in Somalia has risen from thirty days in 2008 to six months in 2012. Pelton and other advocates of transparency鈥攊ncluding the family of Alan Henning, the aid worker recently murdered by ISIS in Syria鈥攁rgue that family publicity campaigns and media coverage can put additional pressure on governments to secure the hostages鈥� release. Reg Henning, Alan鈥檚 brother, told the press that he and his family were 鈥済agged鈥� by the British government, which opposes ransoms, and prevented from talking about the case in public. But as Freeman points out, by the time Henning was shown on an ISIS video with a knife against his throat, any publicity campaign would have been far too late.

Somalia Report was the first publication to reveal the details of Moore鈥檚 kidnapping; it and continued to cover developments in the case. This, says Pelton, prompted an angry response from Der Spiegel, which demanded via e-mail that Somalia Report cease coverage of his kidnapping. 鈥淭hey wanted to cover up their connection to Moore and limit their liability,鈥� alleges Pelton, who says that the newsmagazine scrubbed all of Moore鈥檚 articles on Somalia from its Web site after he was kidnapped. 鈥淭hey just want to protect themselves.鈥� Der Spiegel executives flatly deny this; since 2009, they say, Moore had been only an infrequent freelance contributor to the online publication. The only reason Der Spiegel discouraged media coverage, they say, was to facilitate any negotiations and speed up his release.

One factor that may muddy the waters is whether the hostage has a K&R policy. One of the first things that kidnappers do after seizing a hostage, the security expert familiar with this case says, is to 鈥渢roll for all the links and connections of the prisoner,鈥� to determine his market value. K&R insurers typically provide about $1 million in coverage for travel in Somalia. This, says Pelton, can actually raise an insured prisoner鈥檚 perceived value鈥攁nd drag out negotiations鈥攕ince the captors figure that the family won鈥檛 be footing the entire bill. Similarly, a hostage鈥檚 employer can come into play. 鈥淚f Moore were working for a little San Diego Web site,鈥� says the security expert, 鈥渢hat would look a lot less attractive than working for a giant German media house.鈥� Der Spiegel executives, however, insist that it held no K&R policy for Moore because he wasn鈥檛 on assignment for them.

The , which had given Moore a grant to travel in Somalia, wouldn鈥檛 comment on whether it provided K&R coverage for his trip; the organization will often require its grant recipients to carry insurance for travel to hazardous areas; it may underwrite those costs, but sometimes leaves it to the recipient to obtain the policy. (Full disclosure: I received a Pulitzer Center grant in 2014 for travel to northern Mali, an area still subject to occasional abductions by Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and was asked to purchase my own insurance with the promise of reimbursement.)

Moore鈥檚 release has also cast new light on the debate among Western governments about paying ransom to terrorists. Because Moore was a citizen of both the United States and Germany, his kidnapping drew the two governments into a rare and awkward collaboration. 鈥淚t鈥檚 complicated enough when there鈥檚 one nation involved,鈥� says a security specialist with some knowledge of the negotiations. 鈥淕etting two countries to coordinate their actions is a total nightmare.鈥�

Especially when the two nations have maintained opposite policies toward paying ransoms. In 2003, in the first of many such cases, a German diplomat carried about $6 million cash in suitcases on a plane to Mali to who had been held for months by the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, a precursor to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. The German diplomat turned the cash over to a Malian hostage negotiator, who delivered it to the kidnappers in a German diplomatic vehicle. 鈥淭hey denied it at the time, but everybody knew they did it,鈥� Vicki Huddleston, then the American ambassador to Mali, told me a few months back. The U.S. government, by contrast, has always maintained that it won鈥檛 make deals with terrorists. (There have been exceptions, however: last May, U.S. Army soldier Bowe Bergdahl was released by the Taliban in Afghanistan in exchange for the freeing of five prisoners held in Guant谩namo.)

As the Moore case unfolded, the two governments were in regular communication; an FBI agent attached to the American embassy in Berlin would likely have attended meetings in a basement crisis room in the German Foreign Ministry, along with representatives from Germany鈥檚 intelligence services, the defense ministry, and the interior ministry. (U.S. Embassy officials wouldn鈥檛 comment on the presence of the FBI at the meetings.) The security expert I spoke with believes that the U.S. government may have pushed Germany to refuse the kidnappers鈥� demands, putting a far greater burden on Moore鈥檚 mother to scramble to raise money and thus drawing out the process.

State Department officials won鈥檛 comment on that allegation or anything regarding this case; they emphasize, however, that, while it鈥檚 impossible to prove, the no-ransom policy may have protected more Americans from being kidnapped abroad. 鈥淥ur policy is clear: we make no concessions to individuals or groups holding our citizens hostage,鈥� a State Department official told me. 鈥淭he U.S. government condemns hostage taking and kidnapping under all circumstances and would caution that ransom payments made to any hostage taker or kidnapper encourage future instances of kidnapping for ransom.鈥� However, as ISIS has proved, seizing Americans鈥攁nd sometimes killing them鈥攃an have a shock value beyond, say, seizing a Dutchman or a German. While publicly denying that they pay ransoms, Germany and other European nations often quietly accede to terrorists鈥� demands, because they consider the alternative鈥攁llowing their citizens to be murdered, often brutally鈥攖o be far worse.

Moore, who may well know exactly who paid his ransom, has not spoken publicly about his ordeal, and he has asked his friends not to talk as well. 鈥淗e is hoping to do his own version of what happened to him and I respect him in that,鈥� says one of half a dozen friends reached by 国产吃瓜黑料 who declined to talk further about Moore for this story.

So what was a surfing writer doing in Somalia in the first place? Moore certainly wasn鈥檛 drawn there by the waves: the shark-infested and lawless waters off the Somali coast have never qualified as a surfer鈥檚 paradise. 鈥淵ou find several beach breaks along the coast out of Mogadishu, but it鈥檚 not safe to go here at the moment,鈥� with dry understatement. Rather, Moore was intrigued by a different coastal phenomenon鈥攑iracy. The subject was a natural for the peripatetic writer, who has long been drawn to gonzo adventures, bizarre subcultures, and, occasionally, breaking news. In the fall of 2009, when Moore first traveled to Africa to begin looking at Somali pirates in earnest, the story had never been hotter.

Moore was born on June 5, 1969, and spent his childhood and teenage years in Redondo Beach, where he attended Mira Costa High School. He later he moved to San Francisco, where he began his career as a writer, including a stint as a theater critic for the San Francisco Weekly. In 2003, he published a novel, . It was a semiautobiographical story, set in the 1980s in a fictitious Southern California beach town, about a restless teenager鈥檚 last months before his death at the hands of a friend. Two years later, he moved to Berlin to write. (Moore鈥檚 joint American-German citizenship was acquired through a relative.) He rented an apartment in Prenzlauer Berg, in the former East Berlin, at the time a shabby but gentrifying neighborhood popular among American expatriates. And he began translating and contributing freelance pieces to the English-language page of Der Spiegel's website, founded by three expatriate freelance journalists.

Moore also led an active social life. He played in a poker game with other Berlin-based American writers, and organized a Stammtisch鈥攁 鈥渞egular table鈥濃�攅ach month at Osswald, a bar in Prenzlauer Berg with sturdy wooden tables, wurst-heavy German cuisine, and cheap beer and wine. The Stammtisch drew students, writers, and other expatriates and grew into something of a Berlin phenomenon. 鈥淢ike is a gregarious guy, and establishing a social network was important for him,鈥� says an acquaintance. (On the night Moore was released, his Stammtisch regulars gathered at Osswald and raised a glass to him.) In 2006 he won a Fulbright journalism fellowship, awarded to promising Americans with a special interest in Germany. He started a blog called Radio Free Mike, in which he wrote about whatever captured his imagination: the Holocaust, Frank Zappa, Blackbeard the pirate, and Israel鈥檚 blockade of 23 surfboards donated to a Palestinian surf club by the U.S. nonprofit Gaza Surf Relief.听

In July 2007, Moore traveled to Munich for Spiegel Online to cover the Surf Open, held on a tributary of the Isar River at the most popular river-surfing spot in Europe. 鈥淓xcept for the landlocked heat and the freshwater smells, the Munich Surf Open seemed no different from a small-surf competition in Malibu or Huntington Beach,鈥� Moore .

鈥淗e had found these surfers in Munich who surf on the river, and it fascinated him,鈥� says one Berlin acquaintance. Moore landed a book contract to roam the world鈥攆rom the north coast of Germany to Cuba to Gaza鈥攅xploring the global surfing subculture. 鈥淗e was really trying to dig into this thing,鈥� says the acquaintance. 鈥淪urfing was something he deeply missed, living in Berlin.鈥�

Sweetness and Blood came out in July 2010 to wide acclaim. 鈥淢oore and a robust wet suit have boldly gone where only serious and often seriously unhinged dudes have gone before, mapping out a fresh, unexpected cartography of the waves,鈥� . The Washington Post 鈥渁 lively global jaunt that will offer some surprises even for the heartiest of wave-riding experts.鈥� Moore promoted his book with gentle humor: 鈥淓verybody join the Sweetness and Blood page! The book is #3 in Amazon鈥檚 鈥榃ater Sports鈥� category, which of course amuses me,鈥� he wrote on Facebook just after publication. 鈥淎ny urge to praise the book might be satisfied by leaving an enthusiastic five-star review on Amazon in advance of the Christmas season,鈥� he wrote on his Facebook site in December 2010. 鈥淎ny urge to criticize could be turned to good use with a private message indicating typos. There鈥檚 time to correct them in the next edition!鈥�

By then, Moore was thinking ahead to his next book. in June 2010, he described a trip taken to East Africa the previous November, at the height of the piracy epidemic. Somali pirates captured 42 vessels in the Gulf of Aden in 2008, 35 in 2009, and about three dozen in 2010. In a single three-month period between April and June 2010, according to a report by the , a British security company, Somali pirates captured 317 foreign hostages鈥攖he most of any nation on earth. (According to the International Maritime Bureau, armed seizures dropped to just 14 in 2012鈥攁nd fell to zero in 2013鈥攁fter ships began traveling in protected convoys and carrying armed guards. Still, 37 foreigners from three previous merchant vessel kidnappings are believed to remain in captivity in Somalia). , Moore investigated the U.S. government鈥檚 deployment of naval vessels off the Somali coast, ostensibly to protect commercial shipping but also, he suggested, to fight the terrorist group Al Shabaab. The piracy project, Moore told the Times, 鈥渉as the same appeal to me as the surf book鈥攊t has the same clash between hard fact and clich茅d mythology. It would also involve a great deal of travel.鈥�

Moore became interested in the case of the , a German-flagged vessel that had been captured by ten Somali pirates in April 2010. After its captain issued an SOS, Dutch naval forces boarded the Taipan, captured the hijackers, and turned them over to German authorities. In November 2010, Moore covered the trial in Hamburg for Spiegel Online鈥攖he pirates were given two- to seven-year prison terms. There, he met a German translator who had lived in Somalia and who encouraged him to visit Galmudug, a lawless autonomous region in central Somalia. 鈥淚t all started at the trial,鈥� says a longtime acquaintance. Moore lined up a grant from the Pulitzer Center in Washington, D.C.听and, around New Year鈥檚 2012, flew to Nairobi.²

Mike Pflanz, an Africa correspondent for London鈥檚 Daily Telegraph, met Moore at a coffee shop in a Nairobi shopping mall during the first week of January. Pflanz had covered the kidnapping of Paul and Rachel Chandler, the British couple seized by pirates while cruising around the world on their yacht. 鈥淗e struck me quickly as someone who was quite well-informed and keen,鈥� Pflanz recalled. 鈥淗e had done enough research, he could rattle off the names of pirates. He knew what he was talking about.鈥� Moore also seemed aware of the risk. 鈥淗e asked me whether I had experience moving with private security,鈥� says Pflanz, who replied that he had traveled in Somalia only with United Nations escorts. 鈥淏ut he was not gung-ho, and seemed to be conscious of the dangers.鈥� Pflanz put Moore in touch with Abdi Guled, his Mogadishu-based stringer. 鈥淗e asked for my advice on his already planned trip to Galmudug and I strongly advised him against that decision by e-mail,鈥� Guled, now the AP鈥檚 Mogadishu bureau chief, told me. Guled says that he warned Moore of the 鈥渉igh risk鈥� of kidnapping. 鈥淏ut he said he鈥檇 still go. Then he discontinued our communication.鈥�

Galkayo, a sunbaked commercial center of half a million people in central Somalia, is a divided city. The north belongs to Puntland, an autonomous region dominated by the Darod clan. South Galkayo is the capital of Galmudug, described by Pelton as 鈥渁 snaky little faux republic,鈥� populated by the Darod鈥檚 traditional clan rivals and sometime enemies, the Hawiye. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a violent place, with political assassinations and random gunfights,鈥� says Jay Bahadur, a Nairobi-based writer and consultant who traveled to the region five years ago to research a book about piracy. Moore and a fellow journalist hired a fixer in Berlin, a Somali expatriate who had arranged security for two similar trips to the region. The fixer, a Sa'ad from the south, accompanied the men as they conducted interviews with Galmudug officials and reformed pirates, and may have visited Hobyo, a coastal town and pirate enclave where plans were being hatched to build a port.³

It was on the Galkayo airport road that Moore was taken. Near the same spot where the Danish Demining Group team was kidnapped the year before, a reported fifteen men stopped Moore鈥檚 vehicle and pulled him from the car. According to Pelton, the kidnappers turned Moore over to a pirate commander named Ali Dulaaye, from the Hawiye鈥檚 Sa鈥檃d clan, which, with its rival Saleebaan clan, dominates the hostage-taking business in Galmudug. (Saleebaan kidnappers had abducted Buchanan and Thisted.) Moore was taken to the coastal town of Hobyo. Less than one week later, Navy SEAL Team Six, which had killed Osama Bin Laden in 2011, rescued Buchanan and Thisted and killed their captors. The raid threw Moore鈥檚 guards into a panic that never subsided. 鈥淭hey were always afraid of an attack,鈥� said a Somali source. 鈥淭hey were afraid of the Saleebaan clan and the U.S.鈥� Along with the fear came anger. The kidnappers initially demanded a ransom of $20 million鈥攁n unprecedented sum for a single hostage鈥攁s compensation for the extra militiamen they were forced to hire to protect Moore. They threatened to turn Moore over to Al Shabaab if they didn鈥檛 get their money.

Through his Somali contacts, Pelton tried to persuade the kidnappers to lower their demands. 鈥淚 said, 鈥楬e鈥檚 not a big fish, he鈥檚 a freelance journalist. You鈥檙e not going to sell him to Al Shabaab, that鈥檚 bullshit, they don鈥檛 buy hostages, and besides there is no Al Shabaab in this corner of Somalia.鈥櫶�� (The Islamic rebels are concentrated around Mogadishu and the south.) Moore was shuttled to a series of huts along the coast, then moved forty miles inland, to a desolate, heat-blasted region of scrub populated by desert nomads and outlaws. Pelton stayed in touch with the kidnappers. 鈥淔or a while they said, 鈥楬e鈥檚 in a hole, being kept away from the drones鈥� . . . He was not being treated like a normal hostage.”⁴

Meanwhile, negotiations for Moore鈥檚 release crept along. According to the security consultant with knowledge of the case, all talks with the Somali pirates went through a single channel. If Moore had been covered by a K&R policy, a 鈥渞esponse team鈥� from the insurance company would have handled the negotiations. But this was not the case, the consultant says. Moore鈥檚 mother was guided by private security experts鈥� evidence, he believes, that Moore was not carrying insurance. Those expert negotiators would have kept Saunders 鈥渇ront and center鈥� with the pirates, emphasizing the message that the pirates were bankrupting an old woman with little funds.

鈥淚 think she did quite a bit of this,鈥� says the consultant. 鈥淚 know that she took a leading role.鈥� If the process fit the usual pattern, the FBI would have provided her with a regular flow of information, including medical updates, 鈥減roof of life鈥� videos, and intelligence gleaned about Moore鈥檚 movements. Both the feds and the hostage negotiations would likely have warned her to deflect all media attention and keep his abduction a secret.

鈥淗ey folks 鈥� spoke to someone in the know, and the 鈥榖e quiet鈥� thing is real and useful,鈥� a friend of Moore鈥檚 posted on his Facebook page in late 2012. 鈥淧lease, to protect our friend鈥檚 safety, do not mention his name or personal info online鈥攈ere, Twitter, you-name-it. I have it on good authority that there are knowledgeable people working feverishly to bring him safely home, and there is concern that too much buzz will interfere with that. If you鈥檝e posted about him, please consider deleting or editing your posts to remove information that would identify him.鈥� Some of Moore鈥檚 friends took issue with the enforced silence. 鈥淕uys, do you think it still makes sense to stay quiet?鈥� challenged one. 鈥淚 mean, it鈥檚 been ten months.鈥� The other responded: 鈥淲e鈥檙e looking to his mom for guidance. She says please stay quiet. That鈥檚 what I鈥檓 doing.鈥�

Though the details of the talks are still not known, Pelton says that, last year, the ransom price was whittled down to between $3 million and $5 million. Talks then stalled, and Moore鈥檚 conduit made almost no contact with the pirates. Pelton says that he had his last conversation with the pirates in June 2014. 鈥淚 asked them, 鈥榃hy are you still holding Moore?鈥� They were very angry with everybody鈥攈is mother, the ransom negotiator. They said they had been lied to, and that they were done 鈥榩laying the fucking game.鈥櫶�� Pelton asked if he could speak to Moore. 鈥淭hey said 鈥楴o, we want money. We want the goddamn money. We鈥檝e been holding him too long.鈥櫶��

By late summer, the Somalis had allegedly tired of Moore and remained on edge about a rescue attempt. In September, they settled on a ransom of $1.6 million, less than a tenth of their original asking price. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think they鈥檇 be happy with that after two and a half years,鈥� says Jay Bahadur, the author and consultant. The pirates had been paying usurious rates to borrow money to supply themselves with qat and to pay those extra guards, and they also would have owed their negotiator either a percentage of the ransom or a flat fee鈥攗sually between $30,000 and $40,000. Divided among a dozen or more members of the gang, says Bahadur, the $1.6 million payoff 鈥渨as an extremely poor result.鈥�

Moore鈥檚 Facebook page lit up with greetings and expressions of concern from friends around the world. 鈥淗ow did you stay sane? How did you keep hope? How did you cope?鈥� asked one. 鈥淭oo many of us with too many questions鈥擨 guess a book is in order鈥攕o glad you are back.鈥�

Moore responded with gratitude, making it clear that he would answer all those questions in good time. 鈥淵ou鈥檙e all wonderful. I鈥檓 overwhelmed and still bewildered,鈥� he wrote. 鈥淢y friends here also know better than to talk with journalists. There are a lot of rumors circulating, but I can tell the story myself.鈥� Almost immediately after his release he issued a public statement requesting privacy: 鈥淩ight now I have to recover my wits and spend time with family and friends. I hope journalists will respect that. The support from everyone has been terrific and I knew nothing about it in Somalia.鈥� 国产吃瓜黑料 sought comment from Moore via Facebook and through several friends, but he declined to respond. (His corrections, sent to 国产吃瓜黑料 in March 2015, are reflected in this version of the story.)

His captors, meanwhile, were in less of a mood to celebrate. Two days after his release, the pirate gang that seized him got into an argument about the ransom. , one faction accused the other of cutting a private deal with the negotiator and collecting more than its fair share. A gunfight broke out, and three pirates, including the commander, were shot dead. Given the horror that they inflicted on Moore for nearly a thousand days, few would be surprised if he regarded the killings as poetic justice.

Notes

1. Moore told 国产吃瓜黑料 that he did not spend almost all his time in silence. Over the course of his captivity, he encountered 30 other hostages, from various countries, in various settings. He was allowed to speak with them, and to his guards.
2. Moore maintains that he did not end his freelance association with Spiegel Online in 2012, as this story originally reported.
3. Moore arranged a fixer in advance, not after he arrived in Somalia, as this article had stated. He and a fellow journalist, who traveled with him, hired a Somali expatriate in Berlin who had arranged security for two similar trips to the same region. The fixer was not a Darod from Somalia's north, but a Sa'ad from the south. He had never lived in North America.
4. Moore was not held in handcuffs, as originally reported, except for photos and videos sent out by the pirates.

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国产吃瓜黑料‘s Favorite Films from Tribeca

There were plenty of movies to watch at the 鈥�217, to be exact. Choosing favorites was an undertaking, but we loved these seven films for their adventurous subject matter. They brought us to the remote Finnish Lapland and Somalia’s pirate bases, introduced us to a legendary fly-maker and skilled reindeer herders, tugged at our hearstrings and made our hearts race. You’ll definitely want to put them all on your summer movie list.

• The Motivation
• Aatsinki
• No Limits
• The Nightshift Belongs to the Stars
• Gasland Part II
• Kiss the Water
• The Project
• McConkey

Films from Tribeca: The Motivation

An fascinating cross-study of what really makes athletes tick, from the perspective of professional skater

gets up close and personal with eight of the world鈥檚 top skateboarders as they compete for $200,000 at the 2012 Street League Championship, the brainchild of former pro skater Rob Dyrdek. The event offers the biggest purse in pro skateboarding, and director Adam Bhala Lough sets out to discover what drives each skater to compete.

Their incentives are as varied as their ages, which range from 17 to 30 years old: , who鈥檚 won more money than any other skater, made skating his life when a controlling father pushed him into it at an early age. Veteran is a legend, but has yet to win this coveted prize. has no shortage of female fans and media attention and is determined to prove that he can also win contests. With intimate access to the skaters and their families, The Motivation gets to the heart of what drives athletes to the top of their game.

Films from Tribeca: Aatsinki

A fascinating look at reindeer herders in the remote Finnish Lapland

In , director Jessica Oreck follows a year in the life of a reindeer herding family in the remote reaches of Finnish Lapland. Dispensing with documentary conventions like sit-down interviews or narration, Oreck simply films Aarne and Lasse Aatsinki as they run their herding collective from one season to the next. This entails everything from rounding up reindeer on ATVs to keeping inventory of the reindeer in pens.

It鈥檚 a communal job at times, but also very solitary, requiring solo camping trips as they track reindeer across snowy landscapes. The film does not fill in all the blanks鈥攜ou often wonder what they鈥檙e doing, and why鈥攂ut Aatsinki is more about immersing you in this foreign, beautiful world than it is about explaining. Aarne and Lasse rely on an intimate knowledge of the land and the animals that inhabit it, and you鈥檒l find yourself mesmerized by the minutia of their ancient trade.

Films from Tribeca: The Nightshift Belongs to the Stars

A promise between two avid mountain climbers makes for shots that can’t be beat

opens outside a hospital: Matteo (Enrico Lo Verso), an avid mountain climber, has just received a heart transplant. He says farewell to fellow heart patient Sonia (Nastassja Kinski) and waves a carabiner at her鈥攁 reminder of a climbing date they鈥檝e set for the future.

Six months later, they keep their plans and meet in the Dolomite foothills of Italy. She has a husband, but this isn鈥檛 an affair. She must make this climb, she tells her husband, to fulfill her promise to a man who helped her through surgery鈥攁nd as she and Matteo begin their vertical ascent, you get it. This is more than a promise. This is two people testing their new leases on life, affirming that no physical feat can hold them back. A bit sentimental? Yes, but it also resonates. Plus, the views from the top are pretty spectacular.

Films from Tribeca: No Limits

A documentary that revisits the 2002 death of freediver Audrey Mestre during a world-record attempt in the Dominican Republic reveals tragic details

revisits the 2002 during a world-record attempt in the Dominican Republic. Airing on ESPN this July, the documentary embraces a theory that it was Mestre鈥檚 husband, freediving champion Pipin Ferreras, who pushed her to take risks, and whose recklessness may have ultimately been responsible for her death.

According to friends, Pipin trained Mestre as a prot茅g茅 once he became too old to seek the thrills that once defined him. She went on to break world records, but it was an epic 170-meter dive that would be her last. Though she successfully reaches the bottom, she鈥檚 unable to ascend when her lift balloon fails. It鈥檚 a harrowing, terrifying sequence of events to witness, and it鈥檚 even more terrifying once you realize how few safety measures were set in place: Mestre only had two safety divers to assist her (rival Tanya Streeter has 16, by comparison), and the on-site 鈥渄octor鈥� was merely a dentist.

It鈥檚 hard enough to accept the death of extreme athletes who took every safety precaution. Then you have Mestre, whose motivations may have been external, and whose death could very possibly have been prevented.

Films from Tribeca: Gasland Part II

The sequel to the Oscar-nominated documentary Gasland continues director Josh Fox’s scathing indictment of fracking

In , a sequel to the Oscar-nominated documentary , director Josh Fox continues his scathing indictment of fracking and its viability as a natural energy resource. As in his first film, Fox visits towns across the country to speak with communities situated in ground zeroes of gas drilling.

He finds discolored, undrinkable water (and captures plenty requisite shots of residents igniting their methane-polluted water), children with mysterious nosebleeds, families forced to decide between moving and taking a loss on their uninhabitable homes or staying put and endangering their health.听

In each case, drilling companies contend that fracking is not to blame, but Fox鈥檚 evidence is difficult to ignore鈥攏ot only because it鈥檚 anecdotally significant but because the EPA actually intervenes in Pavillion, Wyoming, and concludes that fracking is a direct cause of the town鈥檚 groundwater contamination.

With every anti-fracking victory, of course, comes a host of new setbacks. If Fox鈥檚 doggedness is any indication, perhaps we鈥檒l be seeing a Gasland Part III in another couple of years.

HBO will air Gasland Part II this summer.

Films from Tribeca: Kiss the Water

A profile of the late Megan Boyd, legendary fly-maker, brings viewers into the mesmerizing world of fly fishing

The flies of a modern fly-fisher are made mostly of plastic and glue. Once upon a time, though, flies could be miniature works of art鈥攃olorful bits of feather and tinsel wrapped around metal hooks. In , director Eric Steel profiles the late Megan Boyd, a legend in the art of fly-making.

The Scotswoman lived alone in a cottage in the Scottish countryside, crafting flies that were renowned for their ability to ensnare elusive salmon. So renowned, in fact, that Prince Charles personally commissioned her to design flies for his own expeditions. Steel speaks with fishermen, all admirers of Boyd, and tracks down surviving fly-makers who knew or apprenticed with Boyd.

He suffuses the film with their accolades and anecdotes, which are almost as idyllic as the tranquil landscapes. It鈥檚 enough to make you want to drop everything and book a Scotland fishing retreat.

Films from Tribeca: The Project

Filmmakers Shawn Efran and Adam Ciralsky put their lives on the line to make The Project, a film about Somalia’s Puntland Maritime Police Force

Shooting a movie about Somali pirate hunters is not the safest undertaking, and filmmakers Shawn Efran and Adam Ciralsky can attest to that. During production on , a documentary that delves into the formation of Somalia鈥檚 , one of their producers was almost killed. Their camera crew was also arrested and indicted.

They all emerged unscathed, though, and the result is a 90-minute film about this obscure upstart military crew. Funded by donors from the United Arab Emirates鈥攁n oil nation that has been especially affected by Somali piracy鈥攖he PMPF was created by veterans of Executive Outcomes, a mercenary company similar in nature and reputation to Blackwater. The idea is to recruit men from regional tribes and dispatch this homegrown army to locate and destroy pirate bases.

That鈥檚 how it works in theory, at least. In reality, the operation is fraught with obstacles. For one, the U.N. denounces the project as a mercenary mission that flouts arms embargoes on Somalia. There鈥檚 also insurgency within the PMPF鈥檚 own ranks. Results are achieved, though, making this an ongoing and controversial experiment worth examination.

Films from Tribeca: McConkey

A heartfelt look at the life and death of freeskier Shane McConkey

When freeskier Shane McConkey passed away at age 39 during a ski-BASE accident in 2009, he left behind an inspiring legacy that鈥檚 deftly captured in the documentary McConkey. The film leads you through the many phases of McConkey鈥檚 career: After an unsuccessful attempt to join the U.S. ski racing team, he forged his own path as a freeskier, then a BASE jumper, then a ski-BASE jumper鈥攁ll the while documenting his exploits on camera, becoming an adventure film star. Directed by a team of his friends, is as heartfelt as it is gripping. We spoke with two of the directors, Rob Bruce and David Zieff, about the film.

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While climate scientists are constantly worrying about the effects of climate change on our planet, one man is doing something to stop it. Allan Savory began work in Zimbabwe studying desertification and has become a passionate advocate for changing the way we see grasslands. I had a chance to talk with the CEO and co-founder of the Savory Institute, Daniela Ibarra-Howell, who is working with Savory to renew our land and maybe even save our planet.

Savory and Ibarra-Howell believe in , which involves careful planning, managed grazing, and accounting for the constant possibility of change.

How did you get involved in this movement?
It was a long time ago in Argentina. I was working on desertification control with the United Nations and the Argentine government in Patagonia. All the solutions we had at the time were unaffordable. I went to New Zealand to study more and I met my husband there. He introduced me to Allan Savory鈥檚 research.

The work made sense. I went to New Mexico to work on a plot of land with Savory. Then I knew I wanted to work with him.

When did it click that this was the right way to save our grasslands?
It was immediate. As soon as I went through Allan鈥檚 research all the pieces fell into place. It wasn鈥檛 just about better management, but about planning and understanding the complexity of the environment鈥攏atural, cultural, social, and political.

How did the Savory Institute come to be?
About three years ago we realized we needed a better model. We needed a bigger model in order to help our clients become more entrepreneurial, to empower others, and to inform policymakers.

How do you form relationships with the landowners who adopt your techniques?
Our work is completely community-driven. In the U.S. we work with local offices, whereas in Zimbabwe we work with smaller landowners. We learned something along the way. With private land there is more incentive for change because of the commercial interests of the owner. Unfortunately, in many of the countries we work in, there is no access to traditional financial markets.

So in order to work with a community we first find out what they want because inevitably new ways of land management will cause changes to tradition, but it must come with desire for change.

What is it like working in a diverse agrarian society like South Africa?
In South Africa we work mainly with native pastoralists with no access to markets so we have to figure out how to get funds for these people. Can we get commercial partners is always a big question. But we found in many communities that if we find the innovators in a community they will become the agents of change. These people are found in every community.

How do you deal with predation by large carnivores in places like Kenya?
We do no management of wildlife. What we do is try our best to understand its habitat needs. Everything is mapped and planned so that we are not stepping on land used for breeding at certain times of year.

In general, though, livestock do not know what to do when faced with predators, but we are experimenting with portable enclosures, which seem to be effective because lions won鈥檛 cross the barriers.

How do you train your clients?
Our training involves lots of different modules on planning, management, living with local wildlife, and sustainability. The more important question is can we execute? Sometimes we find that people understand our system in theory, but cannot put it into action for whatever reason. That鈥檚 why we like to create hubs nearby so that they can work with us.

Many areas of the world have already undergone terrible droughts and desertification. How do you start working in such challenging environments?
We will start in areas where work can still be done. In areas like the Horn of Africa and Central Australia, there is no hope without huge investments, but we start on the edges and tweak management to start rebuilding the land.

Australia actually has a huge holistic management culture in place. It鈥檚 a hugely pastoralist country and they are very aware of climate change. Our hope is that we can continue to expand to 100 management hubs by 2020.

How is the movement changing?
Producers are facing more and more climate-related problems and we think we are reaching a tipping point. We don鈥檛 have to push them; over 25 communities have contacted us to help change the way they manage land. We are sponsoring an international event at our headquarters in Boulder, Colorado, this June to talk about training and the future of agriculture.

Right now we have more demand than we can serve. That is why we want to create franchises in the communities so that they can function locally as opposed to needing our support.

But with the bigger organizations such as the U.N. and large countries, change comes slowly. They are not fluid, but we use large organizations to help us inform policymakers and to show them there are stakeholders on all sides of the issue.

Where is a country that you want to expand to, but haven鈥檛 met with success?
We would love to work in China. China is a huge country with lots of grasslands suffering from desertification. Unfortunately, current policies address the symptoms rather than the root causes of the issue just as in other countries. We don鈥檛 have enough connections though; we are just getting started in Asia, but if we got an indication that the Chinese government or businesses were interested in working with us we would jump at the chance.

The post Daniela Ibarra-Howell on Saving the World’s Grasslands appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

Anderson Cooper

Eyewitness
[42, NEW YORK CITY]
You were in Port-au-Prince less than 24 hours after the quake. With a tragedy of this scale, where do you start?
You just turn the camera on and open your eyes. No matter what direction you move, you keep the camera rolling. It's all happening in real time and goes on for days like that. Each morning you go out and think, OK, I'm going to look for a rescue, or, I'm going to go to a cemetery, but invariably you never get there, because so much comes across your path.

Do you sleep?
The first couple of days, you really don't. You shoot all day, and spend the nighttime editing and writing. But frankly, you don't think about that stuff, because it's so overwhelming.

Watching your reports, it seemed like anger might have become the dominant emotion among Haitians.
I think first there's the shock and horror of it all, and then you see how things play out. It doesn't get better, and the local government is completely not meeting the needs of its citizens, so there are a lot of things that anger people. Those are the people we talk to all day long. It's not so much what I think about it; it's more what I'm hearing from people. Why are people dying stupid deaths? A child doesn't need to die from an infection from a broken leg.

Is part of your role to broadcast that rage?
It's not so much that I'm broadcasting rage. I'm there to bear witness to what's happening. There's really nothing sadder than a child dying and no one knowing the suffering and pain of the loved ones left behind. And I think there's value in documenting that and giving voice to it.

There's been criticism directed at you and some of your CNN colleagues for overstepping your roles as objective journalists and getting involved in the story. At one point, you jumped into a crowd of looters to pull out an injured boy.
To be in places before relief workers are there: That presents some unique challenges. You suddenly find yourself in a situation where, say, you're a doctor鈥攚hat do you do? There are some journalism purists who say that you do nothing, that you just go watch and report, and I certainly understand that. But in the case of the little boy [in Haiti] who got hit in the head with a cement block, no one was helping him. He couldn't get up. He'd try to get up and collapse. Blood was pouring from his head…It was a split-second decision to take him out of the situation. I think anyone would have done the same thing if they had the opportunity.

What kinds of stories make you want leave the studio and jump on a plane?
I tend to be drawn to stories that aren't on people's radar. When I was a kid, I used to look at old maps with unexplored regions. I find it interesting that with all the technology we have today, there are still places that don't make headlines. The situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo is one I've traveled to report on a lot. There are six million people who have died in the Congo in the past ten years. It's the deadliest conflict since World War II, but very few people know much about it. It's truly horrific.

We ran a piece recently by Nicholas D. Kristof, arguing for the need to find hopeful stories within a tragedy to get people's attention. Is that something you try to do?
I believe in telling the reality of what's happening. And some nights there isn't much to be hopeful for. But even the first day after the quake in Haiti, before the rescue crews got there, [we filmed] people rescue a little girl. That was a positive thing.

What effect do the things you witness have on you personally? Is it traumatic?
There was a time when I first started, when I made a fake press pass and borrowed a camera and headed into wars, and for three years that was the only kind of story I was interested in doing. It definitely takes a toll. You have to be very conscious of its effects and try to take a break when you need to.

There's also the inherent danger you're dealing with for prolonged periods.
I'm far more acutely aware of my surroundings than my friends who have regular jobs. I'm acutely aware of who's around and what the possibilities are. It changes the way you see your surroundings. But I don't seek out dangerous situations. I'm pretty much a chicken. Truly, I don't believe [my team has] taken any risks.

What about when you were younger?
My first three years, I can't believe some of the things I did. The idea of going to Somalia alone, not having a place to stay or security. I was 23 or 24. There was fighting between different clans in the city. I literally landed on the airstrip and had no idea about the town. A truckload of gunmen approached me, and I ended up hiring them as my gunmen, and we went around to the burial grounds where all these bodies were being dumped, and there were all these empty pits. I was thinking, They could just shoot me and put me in a pit and no one would ever know.

Were you just naive?
I don't think I was naive; I just didn't allow fear to stop me from going to a place. I don't believe you should be ruled by fear in anything in your life. I don't like anything that scares me, and I prefer to face it head-on and get over it. Anyone who says they're not scared is a fool or a liar or both. I just don't want that fear in my stomach to be part of my life, so I work to eliminate it.

Some of the athletes we talk to seem to crave the adrenaline that goes with fear.
I think it's a little different. I have no interest in jumping out of an airplane, or any of the things people do for thrills to push their limits and all that. To me, that seems foolish, and there's no point. If people are suffering in a place, to me, it's not a question of whether I'm going to go or not, it's a question of how fast can I get there?

国产吃瓜黑料 Icon: Ivan Watson

Chaos Correspondent

[34, ISTANBUL]
Cooper isn't the only guy in a tight T-shirt reporting live from Haiti these days. CNN recently poached Ivan Watson from National Public Radio. Here's his take on the crisis in Haiti:”You don't have someone you can be angry at in Haiti. There's little more you can do than shake your fist at the sky. This is real 'wrath of God' stuff. Yesterday they gave me a mandatory day off. I wasn't allowed to work. You go at a sprint for five days, and then your body starts to deteriorate. I've never covered anything this big鈥攖he amount of human suffering, the loss. It was so overwhelming that I couldn't process it at first. But then it became clear that it was a duty to get some word out about this place. The only way I could deal with the bodies stacked up was to put on the journalistic lens. The scale of the damage was so huge that I couldn't pretend to pitch in. There was a girl who was in trouble, and I didn't drop everything to help. We reported on her and we were running from one place to another. I checked up on her later and didn't expect this little girl to die. If it had happened three days later, and I had been capable of understanding what the hell was going on, I would have tried to do everything to save this trapped girl but…didn't. It will haunt me forever.”

国产吃瓜黑料 Icon: Sonnie Trotter

Rock Star

Sonnie Trotter

[30, SQUAMISH, B.C.]
A lot of climbers drill permanent safety bolts into the rock every six or seven feet, but we're going back and doing trad routes the way they would've been done back in the seventies. We've nicknamed it “retro-trad.” Some outstanding climbs would've never been bolted if they weren't 5.14. Only now, climbing that hard on trad gear鈥攕toppers, cams, and nuts that are placed into cracks and then removed鈥攊s relatively normal. So that's what we're doing. When I was 16, I saw footage of Peter Croft doing a climb like this in Yosemite. It was a 5.13 finger crack, and it had bolts on it. He ignored them. It just seemed to make sense to me. You can turn a lot of sport climbs into really dangerous trad climbs, but I'm looking for lines with big, bold features鈥攖he ones that scream out from across the valley. Maybe they have history. These I find worthy of the challenge. And, of course, they help me hone my skills for my own first ascents.

Trotter, who's climbed trad routes as hard as 5.14c, spent March establishing new routes on Mexico's 2,500-foot El Gigante.

国产吃瓜黑料 Icon: Lynsey Dyer

Huck Doll

[28, JACKSON HOLE]
The more skiing becomes a job, the less you get to ski for fun. I used to feel like I had to prove myself all the time. It was kind of like “Hold my beer. Watch this.” It's always good to stomp those giant airs, but the skiing part has become underappreciated. A lot of the time, just getting to the cliff is the burliest part of the line, the part that shows whether you're a legit skier. When you watch somebody ski fluidly from top to bottom, that's what makes you want to go do it. Most of the big lines I've skied so far have been around Jackson. But there's nothing like Alaska. I've put a lot of time in up there but still haven't gotten my dream opportunity. All the guys are champing to get up there. They have seniority and dictate what's going on鈥攚hether you get on a helicopter that's going to the best places. I just want to keep putting my time in, so when I get the call I'm ready. When women are given a chance, you'll be impressed.

Dyer, a former Junior Olympic gold medalist, left racing to ski the biggest cliffs and steepest faces for the cameras of Warren Miller and Teton Gravity Research. She's the co-founder of , which aims to increase female participation in sports.

国产吃瓜黑料 Icon: Reid Stowe

Marathon Mariner

Reid Stowe

[58, ADRIFT]
There are many reasons I decided to do this voyage, but they've changed a lot since I first conceived of it, in 1986, and left land in 2007. I've been at sail for more than a thousand days now鈥攖he longest sea voyage without resupply in history. But I still have months and months to go, so I can't celebrate. I'm trying not to look ahead, but right now it seems as if I don't have a home. This boat is the only home I have, and it's been beaten up in every way. At the beginning of the voyage, I was hit by a ship on autopilot, so I've sailed this whole time with a partially disabled boat. I capsized at one point, but I kept going. In a way, I succeeded through the power of love, because if you truly love what you're doing, you can succeed at whatever you do. I've learned a lot about myself by being separated from society for so long. I've learned that we as humans must explore. We must see and discover new things or we degenerate. My hope is that this voyage will inspire people to overcome their fears and follow their dreams鈥攖o explore. I kept going because I had to. What else could I do?

Stowe was on day 1,003 at sea when we reached him via sat phone. He'd been sailing back and forth between the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific oceans. He plans on docking his 70-foot schooner, Anne, at New York City this June.

国产吃瓜黑料 Icon: Lewis Gordon Pugh

Sea Lion

[40, LONDON]
I started out wanting to swim in places where nobody had swum before: Antarctica, the Arctic, all the bloody-cold places. I wanted to be a pioneer, a descendent of Scott and Amundsen, except an explorer of the oceans. I think I was born to swim, but standing on the ice edge at the North Pole in just a Speedo and goggles, I was terrified. You dive in and the water's 28 degrees鈥攃older than what killed the Titanic's passengers鈥攁nd it's like a death zone. It feels like somebody punched you in the stomach. You cannot breathe. Your skin is on fire. But doing this also gives me an opportunity to shake the lapels of world leaders who aren't taking the environment seriously. In 2008, I swam north of Spitsbergen and was so shocked by how thin the sea ice had become I called Gordon Brown on my satellite phone. We had a long chat. Shortly after, he appointed a climate-change minister in Britain.

In May, Pugh will attempt a one-kilometer swim through the near-freezing waters of an unnamed lake, at about 18,000 feet at the foot of Everest.

国产吃瓜黑料 Icon: Maya Gabeira

Giant Rider

[23, OAHU]
The first time I saw a really big wave was at Waimea, at the Eddie Aikau invitational. I was 17 and had just moved to Hawaii from Brazil. I wanted to live on my own. I wanted to figure out who I was and what I really wanted in life. I knew that day that I wanted to surf those waves. After a year of sitting in the lineup with the boys, I caught my first big one鈥攎aybe 15 feet鈥攁nd everything just felt right. I was so focused and in the moment. I loved it. Soon enough I was surfing big waves all over the world. I ended up at Teahupoo, in Tahiti. I was really nervous. I took two big wipeouts, either of which could have ended my career. But it didn't feel right to sit on my board and look stupid, to give up. So my partner, Carlos Burle, towed me out again, and I caught one. People criticized me for taking those risks, for getting in over my head. And, yes, in the beginning I did take a lot of risks, but in the beginning you have to take those risks. How else do you make it? How else do you realize your dreams?

Last August, Gabeira surfed a 45-footer at Dungeons, South Africa, the largest wave ever ridden by a woman鈥攚hich makes her a shoo-in for her third consecutive Billabong XXL title.

国产吃瓜黑料 Icon: Cody Townsend

Water…Skier

[26, SANTA CRUZ]
A little over a year ago, Mike Douglas and I came up with the idea to ski on waves. We're both longtime surfers and professional skiers, so the idea came naturally. Very few people knew about the project when we arrived in Maui. We were sure we'd get blasted out of there as kooks if locals heard about some haoles trying to ski on waves, but everyone was supportive. The technology is pretty far behind. It's like skiing on hickory skis 50 years ago. We used alpine ski boots and super-fat wake skis. After one ride, a wave sucked me down and gave me the worst hold-down of my life. I was standing on a reef below the surface. Even with a life jacket on, I couldn't get up. My skis felt like 200-pound weights on each leg. But we also got up to 25-second rides on some big waves with 20-foot faces. It felt like skiing on top of a slow, wet avalanche. It'd be the easiest way ever to get barreled. On a surfboard, you often get spit out, but on skis you can stall out in the tube. By the end of the trip we knew exactly what equipment we'd have to design to make it better.

Townsend is a professional skier, surfer, and watersports innovator.

国产吃瓜黑料 Icon: Nikki Kimball

Endurance Predator

[38, BOZEMAN, MONTANA]
Fun? The race? Fun? Yeah, there were parts of it that were fun. One time, five of us were running along the singletrack and saw this wasp nest, and there was nothing we could do but run through it. (You can't go off-trail, because the jungle's too thick.) These hornets were as long as your little finger鈥攈uge. You just heard swearing in five different languages. It was hilarious in a warped kind of way. It's not always painful. I was 27 when I started entering trail races. I'm a slow runner, but I can run for a really long time. It's like hiking at a faster pace. You get to see so much more country, and race organizers are always holding these things in amazing places. It's very social for me. I never took the racing seriously until the press noticed that I had a six-year winning streak. I think each person has a finite number of world-class performances in them.

Starting in 1999, Kimball went seven consecutive years without losing an ultramarathon, including the U.S. national championships. She just returned from winning Brazil's 150-mile Jungle Marathon.

国产吃瓜黑料 Icon: Teresa MacPherson and Banks

Guiding Lights

Teresa MacPherson

Teresa MacPherson and Banks

[57 and 6, FAIRFAX, VIRGINIA]
I went to Port-au-Prince with the second wave of people from our task force with Banks, my 65-pound black Labrador, who is trained to find living people. The rubble went on for miles and miles. Helicopters were continually overhead. Rescue teams were everywhere. We used the dogs to discover people trapped in difficult-to-reach places. Banks crawled into voids, tunneling through an unstable environment where no human could go. He barked when he detected the scent of a living person. It could be seven days before an extrication was complete. The doctors said the victims were probably able to survive because they were used to subsisting on so little. The best canine story in Haiti was about a dog that ran out of its search area and began barking at a wall. They bored a hole in it and stared into the face of a three-year-old, dehydrated but alive. That was a 100 percent dog find. I often wondered if our training would be good enough for a disaster of this magnitude. Would the dogs just go, Are you kidding me? But Banks totally did his job. Our group made 16 rescues, a new record for us. Thankfully, we made a difference.

Virginia Task Force One canine search specialist Teresa MacPherson manages FEMA's disaster dog program. She and her Labs have worked in the aftermaths of the Oklahoma City bombing and hurricanes Ike and Katrina.

This article originally appeared as Parting Shot in 国产吃瓜黑料's April 2010 issue.

国产吃瓜黑料 Icon: Rolando Garibotti

Silent Master

[39, JACKSON HOLE]
Am I media shy? I don't make sponsorship money or apply for grants. I make a living as a guide, and that works well enough. I don't object to media after the fact, but I'm always surprised when people promote a climb before doing it, because it's difficult to deal with the pressure of those expectations. The Torre Traverse [Patagonia's Cerro Standhardt, Punta Herron, Torre Egger, and Cerro Torre] took me almost three years. I dedicated all of my time to it. The reason Colin Haley and I pulled it off is because we're very good at planning, not because we're particularly good climbers. We had barely enough food and were barely warm enough. We asked to withdraw the climb from the Piolet d'Or [mountaineering's highest award] in early 2009. That was the second time I'd done that. The first was for a new route on Cerro Torre, in 2005. I just thought the idea that somebody would win this Piolet d'Or was ridiculous. I'm down here with Haley, again. We have an idea, but I don't know if we'll pull it off this year, so I think I'll keep it to myself.

Garibotti has held the record for the Grand Traverse鈥攃limbing ten Teton peaks鈥攕ince 2000, with a time of 6:49.

国产吃瓜黑料 Icon: Trip Jennings

River Lover

[27, PORTLAND, OREGON]
There's no road map that shows you how to make a living as a kayaker and filmmaker, but last December I knew I had done it when I paid my cell-phone bill on time. The idea behind my first film, Bigger Than Rodeo, was to blend environmental activism and cutting-edge whitewater. I drove around the country in a '96 Subaru Impreza and maxed out three credit cards while showing footage of a paddler running a 105-foot waterfall. It took three more films and two more credit cards to figure out a combination of adventure and activism that worked. You don't get an interesting job by filling out an application; you commit to your dream the same way you do a waterfall: pick your line and dive headfirst. I'm glad I did it. In the past two years, my filming expeditions to Papua New Guinea, China, the Congo, Bolivia, Canada, and Brazil have been paid for through a partnership with National Geographic and the International League of Conservation Photographers. In the next six months I'm scheduled to shoot one film about elephant poaching in the Congo and another about kayaking in Laos. I created my dream job. It all started because I spent a year living out of a moldy Subaru and poaching continental breakfasts at cheap motels.

In 2008, Jennings led a team down the rebel-infested lower Congo, the last of the world's great unrun rivers. His films for National Geographic TV use kayaks to access Class V rivers in the service of science.

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Of course they do—they get to trek with camels. But you can, too! We’ve got the COOLEST TRIPS, TOP TEN TRENDS, EXPERT ADVICE, AND BEST NEW PLACES TO GET LOST IN 2003. So what are you waiting for? Giddyup!




Let the Pros Be Your Guides




Get Lost in the Back of Beyond




Say Hello to the Wild Life




The Next Best Thing to Actually Living There




Go the Extra Green Mile




Take the Multisport Approach




No Whining Allowed




Blazing New Trails by Mountain Bike




Water is the Best Element




Our Next Thrilling Episodes




Remote Trips Right Here at Home




Three Helicopter Epics




Six New Additions to the 国产吃瓜黑料 Travel Map




What’s Up in the World’s Danger Zones

Star Power

Let the pros be your guides

BIKING THE TOUR DE FRANCE [FRANCE]
What’s better than watching this year’s 100th anniversary of the Tour de France? Riding it, just hours ahead of the peloton. You’ll pave the way for a certain Texan vying for his fifth straight victory, pedaling 10- to 80-mile sections of the race route through villages packed with expectant fans, and over some of the toughest mountain stages in the Pyrenees and Alps. At day’s end, ditch your bike for luxury digs in villages like Taillores, on Lake Annecy, and the Basque hamlet of St.-Jean-Pied-de-Port. OUTFITTER: Trek Travel, 866-464-8735, . WHEN TO GO: July. PRICE: $3,575. DIFFICULTY: moderate to strenuous.

MOUNT EVEREST ANNIVERSARY TREK [NEPAL]
This May, commemorate the 50th anniversary of Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay’s historic climb to the summit of Everest by spending more than a month trekking and mountaineering in Nepal. Starting in Tumlingtar, you’ll hike beneath Himalayan giants like 27,824-foot Makalu, and strap on crampons to climb the 20,000-foot East and West Cols, and cross 19,008-foot Amphu Laptsa pass into the Everest region. At trek’s end in Thyangboche, Hillary’s son, Peter, will preside over a ceremonial banquet, while the man himself (now 83) will join in by sat phone from Kathmandu. OUTFITTER: World Expeditions, 888-464-8735, . WHEN TO GO: April-June. PRICE: $3,690. DIFFICULTY: strenuous. CRUISING THE SEA OF CORTEZ [MEXICO]
To celebrate 25 years in the adventure business, Wilderness Travel has called on Ÿber-mountaineer Reinhold Messner and Amazon explorer Joe Kane to headline a weeklong cruise in the Sea of Cortez. When you’re not on the shallow-draft, 70-passenger Sea Bird, you’ll snorkel with naturalists as they track sea lions off Isla Los Islotes and spot gray whales in Bah’a Magdalena. Sea-kayak around uninhabited islands and hike desert arroyos, then spend evenings swapping expedition tales with Messner and Kane. OUTFITTER: Wilderness Travel, 800-368-2794, . WHEN TO GO: March. PRICE: $4,595. DIFFICULTY: easy.

CYCLING THROUGH THE TUSCAN VINYARDS [ITALY]
Might want to add another front chainring to your bike before embarking on this hard-charging eight-day affair in Toscana, birthplace of cycle touring. Thanks to the expertise of former Giro d’Italia winner Andy Hampsten, this 400-mile route is designed for riders who are as serious about their Brunello as they are about their hills. From coastal Maremma, you’ll pedal little-trafficked backroads past farmhouses and monasteries, resting your climbing legs and dining like a Medici at wine estates and 12th-century hamlets. Four nights will be spent at a vineyard for a thorough indoctrination in winemaking (and tasting). OUTFITTER: Cinghiale Tours, 206-524-6010, . WHEN TO GO: September. PRICE: $3,000. DIFFICULTY: strenuous.

KAYAKING THE YELLOWSTONE RIVER [USA]
Drop into Craten’s Hole with freestyle-kayaking phenom Ben Selznick. Bozeman local and winner of the Gallatin Rodeo 2002, Selznick is your guide on a seven-day tour of Montana’s most famous whitewater. After warming up on the Gallatin River’s Class II-III waves, you’ll graduate to the steep creeks off the Yellowstone, ranging from Class II to V. At night, ease your sore shoulders poolside and fireside at the Chico Hot Springs and Rock Creek resorts. OUTFITTER: GowithaPro, 415-383-3907, . WHEN TO GO: July. PRICE: $4,500. DIFFICULTY: moderate.

Far Out

Get lost in the back of beyond

Big wig: a Papuan prepares for a tribal dance

SHAGGY RIDGE TREK [PAPUA NEW GUINEA]
If you were to drop off the face of the earth, you’d probably land in Papua New Guinea’s steamy Finisterre Mountains. Rising 13,000 feet out of the sweltering lowlands, the mountains’ flanks are choked in jungle thicket that few have ever fully explored—not even the locals. Be among the first. Hike and camp for seven days on tangled game trails and World War II supply routes to Shaggy Ridge, an airy fin of rock 4,900 feet above the Bismarck Sea. Be prepared to answer a barrage of questions from Papuan villagers who rarely, if ever, see outsiders. OUTFITTER: World Expeditions, 888-464-8735, . WHEN TO GO: August, September. PRICE: $2,150. DIFFICULTY: strenuous.

THE ULTIMATE FLY-FISING ADVENTURE [MONGOLIA]
You’ve got much more than a fish on when you’ve nabbed a taimen, a specimen that regularly grows to five feet long and dines on prairie dogs and ducks. If you’re not up for hunting the world’s largest salmonid for a full week on the Bator River, you can cast for lenok, the brown trout of Mongolia; ride horses or mountain bikes; or just enjoy the good life in your ger, a woodstove-heated yurt with two beds and electricity. Outfitter: Sweetwater Travel Company, 406-222-0624, . When to go: May-June, August-October. Price: $5,200. Difficulty: easy.

RAFTING THE FIRTH RIVER [CANADA]
Caribou know no boundaries. Every June, the 150,000-strong Porcupine herd leaves the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and migrates into the Yukon’s roadless Ivvavik National Park. And because the Class II-IV Firth bisects the park, you’ll be awestruck when thousands cross the river in plain view. Other big game are afoot, too—musk ox, barren land grizzlies, and wolves—and in such high concentrations that the region is often referred to as North America’s Serengeti. With long Arctic days and three- to four-hour river sessions daily, you’ll have plenty of time on this 12-day trip to hike the gently sloping 6,000-foot Brooks Range and fish for arctic char. Outfitter: Rivers, Oceans, and Mountains, 877-271-7626, . When to Go: June. Price: $3,995. Difficulty: moderate.

RIO NEGRO & AMAZON ADVENTURE [BRAZIL]
The upper Rio Negro is your portal back in time on this 11-day adventure that plumbs the deepest, darkest corners of the Amazon Basin. From the former Jesuit outpost of Santa Isabel, you’ll motorboat on the Negro’s blackened waters through virgin rainforest, camping alongside Tucanos Indian settlements stuck in a 19th-century time warp. Off the water, you’ll trek with native Brazilian guides into the rugged tepuis (3,000-foot plateaus), prowling for medicinal herbs used by local shamans. Resist the urge to swim: Football-size piranha call the Rio Negro home. OUTFITTER: Inti Travel and Tours, 403-760-3565, . WHEN TO GO: year-round. PRICE: $2,750. DIFFICULTY: easy.

RUNNING THE KATUN RIVER [RUSSIA]
If you’re looking for bragging rights to a truly remote river, consider the glacier-fed Katun. This 90-mile stretch of whitewater drains from the southern slopes of the 13,000-foot Altai Range, dropping fast through alpine tundra, 300-foot granite canyons, and continuous sets of Class III-IV pool-drop rapids. After a long river day, your evening entertainment at camp consists of traditional Russian dancing and a steamy riverfront bana (sauna). Outfitter: Bio Bio Expeditions, 800-246-7238, . When to Go: July. Price: $2,800. Difficulty: moderate.

COAST TO COAST IN BALBOA’S FOOTSTEPS [PANAMA]
Cross a continent in less than two weeks? Improbable but true when you retrace the route 16th-century conquistador Vasco N煤帽ez de Balboa used to transport riches across the Isthmus of Panama. Five days of hiking, from the Caribbean village of Armila through the Darien Biosphere Reserve, take you to the Chucunaque River, where you’ll board dugout canoes and navigate a maze of flatwater channels past Ember‡ Indian settlements. Four days later, you’ll find yourself on the other side: a wide stretch of beach where Balboa “discovered” the Pacific in 1513. OUTFITTER: Destination by Design, 866-392-7865, . WHEN TO GO: May, December. PRICE: $3,290. DIFFICULTY: moderate.

Close Encounters

Say hello to the wild life

A scarlet macaw perched in the rainforests of Belize

EXPLORING REEF AND RAINFOREST [BELIZE]
Mingle with everything from crocs and tapirs to jabiru storks and hawksbill turtles on this eight-day whirl through Belize. After three days on the mainland, gawking at toucans and parrots at the Crooked Tree Bird Sanctuary and dodging howler monkeys at the Mayan ruins of Lamanai, you’ll be whisked 55 miles offshore to a tented base camp on undeveloped Lighthouse Reef. Spend your days snorkeling, kayaking, and scuba diving within more than 70 square miles of pristine reefs. OUTFITTER: Island Expeditions, 800-667-1630, . WHEN TO GO: December- May. PRICE: $1,929. DIFFICULTY: moderate. WALKING WITH BUSHMEN [BOTSWANA]
See the backcountry of Botswana and all its attendant wildlife—with a twist. On this nine-day safari, you’ll tag along with Bushmen on their daily hunting-and-gathering forays (while still bedding down in luxe lodges and camps). Following the lion-cheetah-leopard-elephant-giraffe-zebra spectacle in the Okavango Delta, you’ll head north for a night to stay in the River Bushmen’s new camp, where you’ll search for medicinal plants or hunt with bow and arrow. Farther south, in the arid Central Kalahari Game Reserve, San Bushmen will show you how they survive on roots and prickly pears. OUTFITTER: Africa 国产吃瓜黑料 Company, 800-882-9453, . WHEN TO GO: April-November. PRICE: $1,925-$2,595. DIFFICULTY: easy.

SWIMMING WITH HUMPBACK WHALES [TONGA]
It’s been said that life is never the same after you’ve looked into the eye of a whale. Here’s how to find out: Every year between June and October, hundreds of humpbacks congregate in and around the turquoise waters of Vava’u, a group of 40 islands in northern Tonga, in the South Pacific. For seven days, you’ll bunk down in Neiafu at night, and by day slide into the water and float quietly while mammals the size of semis check you out. OUTFITTER: Whale Swim 国产吃瓜黑料s, 503-699-5869, . WHEN TO GO: August- October. PRICE: $1,180. DIFFICULTY: moderate.

Immersion Therapy

The next best thing to actually living there

REMOTE HILL TRIBE TREK [VIETNAM]
Despite the boom in adventure tourism in Vietnam, few travelers venture into the far-northern hill country, some 200 miles north of Hanoi. You should. Following overgrown buffalo paths and ancient Chinese trading trails, you’ll hike steep terrain for 120 miles over 11 days, traveling north from Cao Bang and staying with Nung villagers in huts on stilts. Save some film for Ban Gioc Falls, on the border with China, and Pac Bo Cave, Ho Chi Minh’s legendary hideout. Outfitter: World Expeditions, 888-464-8735, . When to go: October-March. Price: $1,490. Difficulty: moderate.

TREKKING THE ATLAS MOUNTAINS [MOROCCO]
The M’goun Gorge is so narrow in places, you can’t see the sky—let alone the craggy summits of the nearby 12,000-foot Atlas Mountains. But they’re never out of sight for long on this ten-day trip through small Berber burgs in Morocco’s most fabled range. Over four days of hiking, you’ll climb Tizi n’ A茂Imi, a 9,528-foot pass, and sleep in Berber farmhouses en route to the Valley of A茂Bou Guemez, a rare oasis where you’re welcomed as family. OUTFITTER: Living Morocco, 212-877-1417, WHEN TO GO: May. PRICE: $2,950-$3,050. DIFFICULTY: easy.

BARACOA-GUANT脕NAMO CYCLE TOUR [CUBA]
Ride beneath the radar on this Canadian outfitter’s weeklong, 300-mile bike tour of Cuba’s northern coast, past black-sand beaches and nature reserves. The towns en route—Mayar’, a village immortalized by Cuban crooner Compay Segundo, and lush Baracoa—see few tourists and fewer cyclists, so you’ll have La Farola, a winding mountain pass known as “Cuba’s roller coaster,” all to yourself. Use caution when hydrating: Rum’s cheaper than water. OUTFITTER: MacQueen’s Island Tours, 800-969-2822, . WHEN TO GO: April, December. PRICE: $2,595, including round-trip airfare from Toronto. DIFFICULTY: moderate to strenuous.

SNOWSHOEING THE RHODOPE MOUNTAINS [BULGARIA]
Haven’t heard of the Rhodopes? No surprise. Obscurity has helped keep these 7,000-foot peaks in southern Bulgaria among the least visited in Europe. You’ll spend four to seven hours a day snowshoeing along ancient footpaths, through deep drifts and pine forests, to the slopes of Mount Cherni Vruh. Medieval monasteries and village guesthouses provide shelter on this eight-day trip, and Bulgarian perks include homemade sirine (a local feta cheese) and chance sightings of the Asiatic jackal. Outfitter: Exodus, 866-732-5885, . When to Go: February, December. Price: $775. Difficulty: moderate.

It’s Only Natural

Go the extra green mile

RAFTING THROUGH THE R脥O PL脕TANO BIOSPHERE RESERVE [HONDURAS]
Hail the monkey god on this 12-day rafting expedition through the R’o Pl‡tano Biosphere Reserve in eastern Honduras, a primordial jungle where more than 100 archaeological sites are covered with petroglyphs of the primate deity. On the R’o Pl‡tano, you’ll run Class III-IV rapids and float through serene limestone grottos, encountering en route the full Animal Planet menagerie of macaws, tapirs, spider monkeys, anteaters, and, with any luck, jaguars. At trip’s end, you’ll “hot dance” in a Garifuna Indian village. OUTFITTER: La Moskitia Ecoaventuras, 011-504-441-0839, . WHEN TO GO: December-August. PRICE: $1,430-$1,765. DIFFICULTY: moderate. DOCUMENTING RARE RAINFOREST PLANTS [CAMEROON]
Thanks to 4,000 resident species of plants, Cameroon’s 6,500-foot Backossi Mountains are a horticulturalist’s dream. Join scientists from England’s Royal Botanic Gardens and Bantu guides for 13 days to help inventory rare forest flora such as endangered orchids, edible fruits, and a new species of bird’s-nest fern. You’ll camp in a nearby village or bunk in a community hall and learn to prepare local fare, including plantains, fu-fu corn, and cassava. OUTFITTER: Earthwatch Expeditions, 800-776-0188, . WHEN TO GO: March-May, October-November. PRICE: $1,295. DIFFICULTY: moderate.

EXPLORING NAM HA [LAOS]
The Lao equivalent of a national park, the 858-square-mile Nam Ha National Biodiversity and Conservation Area in northwestern Laos offers some of Southeast Asia’s wildest rafting and trekking. Spend ten days paddling Class III whitewater on both the Nam Ha and Nam Tha rivers, sleeping in villages and bamboo-and-thatch bungalows at the Boat Landing Ecolodge, and trekking with local guides deep into the jungle, on the lookout for tailless fruit bats and Asiatic black bears. OUTFITTER: AquaTerra Ventures, 011-61-8-9494-1616, . WHEN TO GO: June-January. PRICE: $1,150. DIFFICULTY: easy to moderate.

ECO-TRAIL SAFARI IN KRUGER NATIONAL PARK [SOUTH AFRICA]
Go trekking with rangers on the newly designated Lebombo Eco-Trail, which runs for more than 300 miles along the previously off-limits eastern border of South Africa’s Kruger National Park and Mozambique. You might encounter rhinos, zebras, and even the lowly dung beetle in Africa’s most biodiverse park. You’ll also trek into nearby 200-million-year-old Blyde River Canyon and stalk lions on a walking safari. OUTFITTER: Sierra Club, 415-977-5522, . WHEN TO GO: September-October. PRICE: $3,695-$3,995. DIFFICULTY: moderate.

Variety Packs

Take the multisport approach

Skiing the extra mile: Norway’s version of the Alps

CROSSING THE PATAGONIAN ANDES [CHILE AND ARGENTINA]
The Edenic R铆o Manso Valley, at the southern tip of South America, is pure Patagonia—high, open country surrounded by ancient alerce forests (think redwoods) and populated by gauchos and trout. How you choose to play on this nine-day camping trip—rafting the Manso’s Class IV-V rapids, casting for rainbows, or horseback riding along the riverfront trail—is up to you as you venture west from the altiplano of Bariloche toward the chiseled fjords of coastal Chile. OUTFITTER: 国产吃瓜黑料 Tours Argentina Chile, 866-270-5186, . WHEN TO GO: December-March. PRICE: $2,900. DIFFICULTY: moderate.

MUSHING WITH THE GREAT WHITE BEAR [NORWAY]
You take the reins on this 12-day dogsledding sojourn across the frozen island of Spitsbergen, Norway, 600 miles from the North Pole. When the huskies are resting, keep busy by snowshoeing amid gargantuan icebergs, cross-country skiing over glaciers, and spelunking blue-green ice caves. Defrost at night in a lodge made of sealskin and driftwood, expedition-style tents (you’ll be snug beneath reindeer-fur blankets), and a Russian ship intentionally frozen into the pack ice. Your only neighbors will be the island’s 4,000 polar bears (in case of emergency, your guide’s got the gun). OUTFITTER: Outer Edge Expeditions, 800-322-5235, . WHEN TO GO: March-April. PRICE: $3,990. DIFFICULTY: moderate.

POST ECO-CHALLENGE MULTISPORT [FIJI]
The professional adventure racers have gone home, so now you can spill your own sweat on the 2002 Eco-Challenge course. This new ten-day trip gives you access to some truly wild, made-for-TV terrain: mazy jungle trails, precipitous singletrack, and idyllic beaches. After sea-kayaking two days to the island of Malake, where spearfishermen bring up walu for dinner on a single breath of air, you’ll mountain-bike 25 miles over rugged terrain from the village of Ba to Navilawa. Next up is a two-day trek through lowland rainforests to the summit of 3,585-foot Mount Batilamu, followed by Class II-III rafting on the Navua River, from the coral coast to the interior village of Wainindiro. After all this, you’ve earned two days of beachfront R&R on the little-visited island of Kadavu. OUTFITTER: Outdoor Travel 国产吃瓜黑料s, 877-682-5433, . WHEN TO GO: May-October. PRICE: $1,999. DIFFICULTY: moderate.

Take It to the Top

No whining allowed

The frozen zone: Argentina’s Perito Moreno Glacier

CONTINENTAL ICE CAP TRAVERSE [ARGENTINA]
Patagonia’s 8,400-square-mile slab of ice wasn’t even explored until the 1960s, when British explorer Eric Shipton crossed it first. Starting in El Calafate, on the shore of Lago Argentino, this arduous 16-day backpacking/ski-mountaineering trip cuts through Parque Nacional Los Glaciares, where you’ll cross rivers and crevasses, ascend 4,830 feet to Marconi Pass, do time on ropes, crampons, and skis, and set up glacial camps along the spine of the Fitz Roy Range. The payoff? A wilderness fix on the gnarliest mass of ice and granite this side of the South Pole. OUTFITTER: Southwind 国产吃瓜黑料s, 800-377-9463, . WHEN TO GO: November-March. PRICE: $3,395. DIFFICULTY: strenuous. SURFING EPIC WAVES [THE MALDIVES]
Board where few have surfed before: off the Indian Ocean’s remote Huvadhoo Atoll, site of several world-class breaks. Huvadhoo is a two-day voyage on a dhoni, a 60-foot, five-cabin, live-aboard wooden yacht, from the capital, Male; along the way, cast off the deck for tuna, marlin, and bonito. Once at the Huvadhoo, be ready for eight-foot-plus waves, especially near the atoll’s largest island, Fiyori, where there’s a fast (and dangerous) right break. OUTFITTER: Voyages Maldives, 011-960-32-3617, . WHEN TO GO: April-September. PRICE: $85 per day (typically a 7-, 10-, or 14-day tour). DIFFICULTY: strenuous.

RAFTING THE BRAHMAPUTRA RIVER [INDIA]
With 112 miles of Class III-V+ Himalayan runoff, the Brahmaputra, the lower portion of the legendary Tsangpo in Tibet, is one of the planet’s ultimate whitewater challenges. And a relatively new one at that—the first commercial rafting expedition was launched late last year. You’ll spend nine days blasting down emerald-green hydraulics (the Class V Breakfast Rapid is famous for flipping rafts), camping on sandy beaches, and passing through Namdapha National Park, home to one of Asia’s most varied tropical forests. OUTFITTER: Mercury Himalayan Explorations, 011-91-112-334-0033, . WHEN TO GO: November-February. PRICE: $3,300, including internal airfare. DIFFICULTY: strenuous.

Get Wheel

Blazing new trails by mountain bike

Sandstone heaven: on the rocks in Cappadocia

RIDING THE RUGGED NORTHEAST [PORTUGAL]
A good set of knobbies and generous helpings of local beef and nightly port will help you tackle this eight-day inn-to-inn tour through Portugal’s wild northeast corner. Dodge cows on Roman pathways, follow craggy singletrack alongside the Douro River, and spin along trails once used by smugglers trafficking coffee beans to Spain. The grand finale is the wide-open wilderness of the remote Serra da Malcata—land of pine-topped peaks, wild boar, and little else. OUTFITTER: Saddle Skedaddle Tours, 011-44191-2651110, . WHEN TO GO: May-July. PRICE: $1,120. DIFFICULTY: strenuous. MOUNTAIN-BIKING CAPPADOCIA [TURKEY]
In our opinion, any trip that starts off with two nights in a traditional cave hotel has promise. See for yourself on this six-day, 180-mile ride through Cappadocia in central Turkey. Thank three-million-year-old volcanic eruptions for the otherworldly terrain: impossibly narrow sandstone spires (called fairy chimneys) and towns that plunge 20 floors underground. Happily, the riding is as varied as the views. You’ll pedal along dry riverbeds, slickrock, and narrow jeep tracks en route to each day’s destination—luxe campsites or charming village inns. OUTFITTER: KE 国产吃瓜黑料 Travel, 800-497-9675, . WHEN TO GO: May. PRICE: $1,695. Difficulty: strenuous.

SECRET SINGLETRACK [BOLIVIA]
It was only a matter of time before Bolivia’s ancient network of farm trails, winding from village to village high in the Andes, found a modern purpose: mountain biking. On this new 14-day singletrack tour through the Cordillera Real near La Paz, intermediate riders can rocket down 17,000-foot passes, contour around extinct volcanoes, and rack up an epic grand-total descent of 54,000 feet. Nights are spent camping at Lake Titicaca and in local pensions like the Hotel Gloria Urmiri, where natural hot springs await. OUTFITTER: Gravity Assisted Mountain Biking, 011-591-2-2313-849, . WHEN TO GO: May-September. PRICE: $1,750. DIFFICULTY: strenuous.

COPPER CANYON EXPEDITION [MEXICO]
There’s lots to love about the 6,000-foot descent into Mexico’s Copper Canyon by bike—and gravity is only part of it. Get down in one piece and you’ll have a week’s worth of technical riding ahead of you in a canyon four times the size of Arizona’s Grand. Cool your toes on fast, fun river crossings near the village of Cerro Colorado, visit the indigenous Tarahumara, and bunk down in a restored hacienda built into the canyon walls. OUTFITTER: Worldtrek Expeditions, 800-795-1142, . WHEN TO GO: September-April. PRICE: $1,599. DIFFICULTY: strenuous.

The Deep End

Water is the best element

SAILING ON THE ECLIPSE [PALAU]
Captain John McCready’s 48-foot Eclipse—outfitted with a compressor, dive tanks, sea kayaks, and rigs for trolling—is your one-stop adventure vessel for exploring this South Pacific archipelago. After picking up the sloop near the capital, Koror, give yourself at least six days to explore Palau’s protected lagoon in the Philippine Sea, dive along miles of coral walls, and kayak and hike some of the more than 200 limestone Rock Islands. By the time you reboard each evening, chef Charlie Wang will have your pan-seared wahoo waiting. OUTFITTER: Palau Sea Ventures, 011-680-488-1062, . WHEN TO GO: November-June. PRICE: $4,200 for the entire boat (which sleeps four passengers) for six days, including captain, dive master, and cook. DIFFICULTY: easy.

SEA-KAYAKING THE MASOALA PENINSULA [MADAGASCAR]
Once a refuge for pirates, Madagascar’s rugged northeast coast has been reborn as Parque Masoala, the country’s newest and largest national park. For nine days, you’ll explore the calm coastal waters by sea kayak, watching for humpback whales, snorkeling the coral reefs, spearfishing for barracuda, combing the shorelines of deserted islands, and sleeping in one of two rustic tented camps. Onshore, scout for lemurs in the rainforest with Malagasy guides. OUTFITTER: Kayak Africa, 011-27-21-783-1955, . WHEN TO GO: September-December. PRICE: $1,080. DIFFICULTY: moderate.

SNORKELING AND SEA-KAYAKING NINGALOO REEF [AUSTRALIA]
A virtually untouched alternative to the Great Barrier Reef, Western Australia’s Ningaloo Reef is a 162-mile close-to-shore coral barrier protecting the white-sand beaches and high-plateau shrublands of Cape Range National Park from the Indian Ocean. Mellow two- to four-hour paddling days on this five-day romp up the coast are punctuated by snorkeling in 70- to 80-degree turquoise waters (never deeper than 13 feet), swimming with whale sharks just outside the reef, and hanging at the plush moving camp. OUTFITTER: Capricorn Kayak Tours, 011-618-9-433-3802, . WHEN TO GO: April-mid-October. PRICE: $450. DIFFICULTY: moderate.

KITESURFING SAFARI [BAHAMAS]
Steady winds, warm waters, and world-class instructors—essential ingredients for a perfect kitesurfing vacation—exist in plenitude among the numerous tiny islands off Abaco in the Bahamas. During this weeklong clinic, you’ll master board-off tricks and 360 jump turns, learn to sail upwind more proficiently, and critique videos of your kite moves over coconut-rum drinks at the seven-cottage Dolphin Beach Resort on Great Guana Cay. OUTFITTER: Kite Surf the Earth, 888-819-5483, . WHEN TO GO: mid-January-May. PRICE: $990, including airfare from Fort Lauderdale and all gear. DIFFICULTY: moderate.

Future Classics

Our next thrilling episodes

Everest’s seldom-scene cousin: Tibet’s Kawa Karpo

CLIMBING MUZTAGH ATA, “FATHER OF ICE MOUNTAINS” [CHINA]
Already been to Everest Base Camp? Next time, head to Muztagh Ata, a raggedy 24,754-foot summit in the Karakoram Range in China’s Xinjiang province. The five-day trek (instead of yaks, you’ve got camels!) starts at 12,369 feet, climbing through grasslands and river valleys to Camp One at 17,388 feet—where not one but ten glaciers converge in a vast expanse of ice and snow. Outfitter: Wild China, 011-86-10-6403-9737, . When to go: September- October. Price: $2,710. Difficulty: strenuous. PILGRIMAGE TO KAWA KARPO [TIBET]
Mount Kailash gets all the press—and all the Western trekkers. But this May, another sacred Buddhist route, the annual pilgrimage to Kawa Karpo, a 22,245-foot fang of snow and ice, will open to Western visitors. The 18-day camping trek climbs out of semitropical rainforest and Tibetan villages before circling the peak’s base. Snow leopards live here, too, but if you don’t catch a glimpse, at least you’ll leave with a lifetime’s supply of good karma. OUTFITTER: High Asia Exploratory Mountain Travel Company, 203-248-3003, . WHEN TO GO: May, July, October. PRICE: $3,800-$5,000. DIFFICULTY: moderate.

TREK THE VILCABAMBA [PERU]
Now that they’ve limited tourist permits on the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, we’re left wondering, What else is there? How about a 17-day camping trek to Peru’s lost city of Victoria, a 600-year-old ruins discovered in 1999 and encircled by 19,000-foot peaks of the Cordillera Vilcabamba. You’ll log some 40 miles over ancient Incan walkways along the Tincochaca River, and then climb 15,000-foot Choquetecarpo Pass. Once at Victoria, you’ll have the excavated homes and ceremonial sites all to yourself. OUTFITTER: Wilderness Travel, 800-368-2794, . WHEN TO GO: May-June. PRICE: $3,895. DIFFICULTY: strenuous.

All-American

Remote trips right here at home

THE ALASKAN CLIMBER [ALASKA]
Many peaks in the Chugach Mountains of southeast Alaska remain unnamed and unclimbed. Your objectives are the 12,000-foot summits of Mount Valhalla and Mount Witherspoon, but even with a ski-plane flight into the range, you’ll still spend 20 days hauling, trekking, and climbing on this self-supported trip. Outfitter: KE 国产吃瓜黑料 Travel, 800-497-9675, . When to Go: April. Price: $2,895, including flights within Alaska. Difficulty: strenuous. DOGSLEDDING AND WINTER CAMPING [NORTHERN MINNESOTA]
Forget your leisurely visions of being whisked from campsite to campsite: Dogsledding is serious work. During four days in the wilderness bordering the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, you’ll learn how to handle your team of malamutes and brush up on winter camping techniques. Outfitter: The Northwest Passage, 800-732-7328, . When to Go: January-February. Price: $895. Difficulty: moderate.

RAFTING THE OWYHEE RIVER [NEVADA, IDAHO, AND OREGON]
This 17-day, 220-mile trip on the rarely rafted, Class II-IV Owyhee takes you down one of the longest and most remote stretches of runnable river in the Lower 48, through rugged canyon country. Need something shorter? Several sections can be run in four to seven days. Outfitter: River Odysseys West, 800-451-6034, . When to Go: May. Price: $3,735. Difficulty: moderate.

HALEAKALA CRATER SEA-TO-SUMMIT HIKING EXPEDITION [MAUI]
Go from sea level to 9,886 feet on this three-day trek from Maui’s sandy shores, through Hawaiian rainforests, to the moonlike floor of Haleakala Crater. You’ll climb 11 miles and 6,380 feet on the first day alone—good thing horses are hauling your gear. Outfitter: Summit Maui, 866-885-6064, . When to Go: year-round. Price: $1,190-$1,390. Difficulty: moderate.

GRAND GULCH TRAVERSE [UTAH]
What’s better than backpacking the 52-mile length of the Grand Gulch Primitive Area in southeastern Utah? Llama-trekking for much of the same seven-day route, past ancient Anasazi ruins and more recent historic landmarks—including Polly’s Island, where Butch Cassidy, some say, crossed the Gulch. Outfitter: Mountain Travel Sobek, 888-687-6235, . When to Go: April. Price: $2,590. Difficulty: moderate.

Elevator, Going Up

Three helicopter epics

MOUNTAIN-BIKING THE CELESTIAL MOUNTAINS [KAZAKHSTAN]
Just as your quads begin rebelling during this two-week, 300-mile traverse of the Tien Shan—the fabled 21,000-foot mountain range that separates Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan from China—a midtrip bonanza brings relief: A Communist-era cargo helicopter will whisk you to the top of the 12,000-foot “hills” for two days of screaming singletrack and goat-trail descents. Outfitter: KE 国产吃瓜黑料 Travel, 800-497-9675, . When to Go: July-August. Price: $2,395. Difficulty: strenuous.

RAFTING IN THE HOOKER RANGE [NEW ZEALAND]
Rarely boated, the upper reaches of southwestern New Zealand’s Landsborough River and the nearby Waiatoto are so remote that the only way to the put-ins is by helicopter. You’ll spend seven days roaring down Class III and IV rapids on both rivers, fishing for brown trout, searching for keas (the world’s only alpine parrot), and camping under the gazes of 10,000-foot peaks Mount Deacon and Mount Aspiring. Outfitter: Mountain Travel Sobek, 888-687-6235, . When to Go: March, December. Price: $3,190. Difficulty: moderate.

SHOOTING THE COLUMBIA MOUNTAINS [BRITISH COLUMBIA]
Spend four days coptering from Adamant Lodge in the Selkirks to remote 10,000-foot hiking trails in the Columbia Mountains for a photography workshop with widely published outdoor lensmen Chris Pinchbeck and Paul Lazarski. After pointers on lens selection and composition, shoot sunrise-lit alpine meadows till your film runs out. Outfitter: Canadian Mountain Holidays, 800-661-0252, . When to Go: July. Price: $2,360. Difficulty: easy.

Most Likely to Succeed

Six new additions to the adventure travel map

SURFING THE WILD EAST [EL SALVADOR]
Though the civil war ended 11 years ago, it’s been difficult to access El Salvador’s remote eastern point breaks on your own. Now you can hook up for eight days with Punta Mango’s local guides to surf Los Flores, La Ventana, and other perfecto Pacific peelers. OUTFITTER: Punta Mango Surf Trips, 011-503-270-8915, . WHEN TO GO: year-round. PRICE: $394-$818. DIFFICULTY: moderate. EXPLORING ISLANDS AND VOLCANOES [NICARAGUA]
Once a war-torn dictatorship, Nicaragua is now drawing scads of expatriates to its safer shores. Hike and mountain-bike around belching 5,000-foot volcanoes on the Pacific side, and kayak, fish, and loll in natural hot springs on islands in Lake Nicaragua. OUTFITTER: Nicaragua 国产吃瓜黑料s, 011-505-883-7161, . WHEN TO GO: November-September. PRICE: weeklong trips start at $600. DIFFICULTY: moderate.

RAFTING THE SOCA RIVER [SLOVENIA]
Spilling from the Julian Alps, the roiling Soca has long been a backyard destination for Europe’s whitewater intelligentsia. With improved infrastructure and an exchange rate favorable to Americans, now’s the time to hit this Class II-IV river. OUTFITTER: Exodus Travel, 800-692-5495, . WHEN TO GO: June-September. PRICE: eight-day trips, $715. DIFFICULTY: moderate.

BIKING AND BOATING THE DALMATIAN COAST [CROATIA]
Sail from island to island in the Adriatic Sea, stopping to cycle the nature reserves and medieval villages, safe again after a decade of political strife. OUTFITTER: Eurocycle, 011-43-1-405-3873-0, . WHEN TO GO: April-October. PRICE: eight-day cruise, $690-$740. DIFFICULTY: moderate.

MOUNTAIN-BIKING IN THE JUNGLE [SRI LANKA]
While the northeast is still volatile, don’t discount a southerly traverse of the island by mountain bike, through lush jungles and over cool mountain passes. OUTFITTER: 国产吃瓜黑料s Lanka Sports, 011-94-179-1584, . WHEN TO GO: year-round. PRICE: 15-day trip, $985. DIFFICULTY: moderate.

TRACKING GORILLAS [GABON]
Onetime host to warring guerrillas but permanent home to the peaceful lowland gorillas, Lop茅-Okanda Wildlife Reserve is the jewel of Gabon, nearly 80 percent of which is unspoiled forest woodlands. OUTFITTER: Mountain Travel Sobek, 800-282-8747, . WHEN TO GO: February-March, August. PRICE: $6,490 (19 nights). DIFFICULTY: easy.

Cautionary Trails

What’s up in the danger zone

When it comes to foreign travel, how risky is too risky? It’s hard to know. But the best place to start researching is the U.S. State Department (). At press time,* these 25 countries were tagged with a Travel Warning advising against nonessential travel. Here’s the lowdown on what you’re missing—and just how dicey things really are.

RISK LEVEL:
1听听听听GENERALLY SAFE
2听听听听SIGNIFICANTLY RISKY
3听听听听EXTREMELY RISKY

AFGHANISTAN
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE
Despite the U.S.-led Operation Enduring Freedom, now in its 18th month, Taliban holdouts still lurk in a country once known for great hospitality (and hashish).
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING
Trekking in the Hindu Kush’s remote, red-cliffed Bamiyan Valley, where the Taliban destroyed two monumental fifth-century Buddhas carved into mountain rock
RISK: 3

ALGERIA
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE
Terrorism in this oil-rich country has dropped off slightly in recent years, but there is still risk of sporadic attacks in rural areas and on roadways, especially at night.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING
Hiking in the El Kautara Gorges and the jagged Ahaggar Mountains, near the town of Tamanrasset
RISK: 2

ANGOLA
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE
An April 2002 cease-fire put a stop to the 25-year civil war, though millions of undetonated mines are still believed to litter the countryside.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING
Checking out Operation Noah’s Ark, an effort to relocate elephants and giraffes from Namibia and Botswana to the savannas of Quicama National Park in the northwest
RISK: 2

BOSNIA-HEREGOVINA
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE
The 1995 Dayton Accords ended the war between Muslim Bosnians, Serbs, and Croats, but UN troops remain to control localized outbursts of political violence, which are sometimes directed toward the international community.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING
Some of the best—and cheapest—alpine skiing in all of Europe at the Dinari Range’s 6,313-foot Mount Jahorina, site of the 1984 Winter Games
RISK: 1

BURUNDI
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE
Decades of ethnic strife between Hutus and Tutsis have killed hundreds of thousands. The resulting poverty and crime can make tourist travel dangerous in this small, mountainous nation.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING
Scuba diving in Lake Tanganyika, at 4,710 feet the world’s second-deepest lake (after Russia’s Baikal) and home to some 600 species of vertebrates and invertebrates
RISK: 2

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE
After independence from France in 1960 and three decades under a military government, C.A.R. was turned over to civilian rule in 1993. Still, it remains beset with instability and unrest.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING
Bushwhacking and hiking with Pygmy guides through the rainforests of Dzanga-Ndoki, arguably the most pristine national park in Africa
RISK: 2

COLOMBIA
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE
Dubbed “Locombia” (the mad country) by the South American press, Colombia is rife with cocaine cartels, guerrilla warfare, and more kidnappings than any other nation in the world.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING
Encounters with the pre-Columbian Kogi people while trekking through dense jungle and the isolated 19,000-foot Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta Mountains
RISK: 3

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE
Though rich in diamonds, gold, and timber, this equatorial country is still in tatters—famine, millions of displaced refugees (since Mobutu’s despotic 32-year rule ended in 1997).
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING
Mountaineering in the Ruwenzori Mountains on 16,763-foot Mount Stanley, Africa’s third-highest peak
RISK: 3

INDONESIA
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE
Anti-Western terrorist attacks in Bali and separatist violence in West Timor, the province of Aceh, central and west Kalimantan, and Sulawesi have destabilized the world’s largest archipelago.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING
Surfing Sumatra’s legendary breaks off the island of Nias and jungle trekking in Gunung Leuser National Park
RISK: 2

IRAN
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE
Despite inclusion in Bush’s “axis of evil” and the U.S.’s suspension of diplomatic relations, Iran is generally safe—though travel to the Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq borders is best avoided.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING
Skiing in the 12,000-foot-plus Elburz Mountains, where the resort in Dizin receives more than 23 feet of snow annually and lift tickets cost $4 a day
RISK: 1

IRAQ
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE
Even if you wanted to go to Iraq, no U.S. commercial flights enter the country that’s ruled by the world’s most infamous dictator.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING
Canoeing the Marshes, the historic ecosystem at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers—birthplace over 10,000 years ago of the Mesopotamian civilization
RISK: 3

ISRAEL
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE
Israel has been a hotly contested geopolitical and religious crucible since 1948, but the two-and-a-half-year Palestinian intifada has produced more suicide bombings than any other period.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING
Scuba diving to the underwater ruins of Herod’s City at Caesarea, along the palm-fringed Mediterranean coast
RISK: 2

IVORY COAST
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE
Once the most stable West African country, this coffee-producing nation suffers from falling cocoa prices and clashes between Christians and Muslims.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING
Trekking through the virgin rainforests of Ta茂 National Park, home to the threatened pygmy hippopotamus
RISK: 2

Be aware that the State Department also posts advisories about unstable regions in many other countries, like Kyrgyzstan and Nepal. Carefully check the Web site’s postings and consult with well-informed tour operators before finalizing any travel plans.
*This information is current as of January 14, 2003

Compiled by Misty Blakesley, Amy Marr, Dimity McDowell, Sam Moulton, Tim Neville, Katie Showalter, and Ted Stedman

Cautionary Trails, PT II

RISK LEVEL:
1 GENERALLY SAFE
2 SIGNIFICANTLY RISKY
3 EXTREMELY RISKY


JORDAN
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE

Jordan is considered the least dangerous Middle Eastern country; still, threats of random violence (witness the October 2002 killing of an American Embassy employee) remain high.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING

World-renowned sport and trad climbing on the 1,500-foot sandstone walls in Wadi Rum, and camel-trekking with the Bedouin in the country’s southern desertscape
RISK: 1



LEBANON
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE

Home to the terrorist group Hezbollah, Lebanon has a history of anti-U.S. violence, and there have been recent protests, sometimes violent, in major cities.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING

Skiing the 8,000-foot-plus peaks and six resorts in the Anti-Lebanon mountain range, then heading to the coast to swim in the Mediterranean
RISK: 2



LIBERIA
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE

Though a democratic government took power in 1997, ending an eight-year civil war, this developing West African nation is plagued by clashes between government forces and dissidents.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING

Safaris to Sapo National Park, Liberia’s only national park and one of the last rainforest refuges for bongo antelopes and forest elephants
RISK: 2



LIBYA
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE

Seventeen years under U.S. sanctions, convictions in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, and rising crime make travel to Libya a tricky proposition.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING

Safaris to the Ubari Sand Sea, land of shifting, 300-foot dunes and salt lakes
RISK: 2



MACEDONIA
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE

A geopolitical hot spot, this mountainous Balkan country is still smoldering with ethnic tension, most recently between Albanian rebels and Macedonian forces.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING

Spelunking among the dripstone formations and stalagmites in the caves around 3,000-foot-plus Matka Canyon
RISK: 1



NIGERIA
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE

Though nearly 16 years of military rule ended in 1999, this oil-rich West African country suffers from rampant street crime, ongoing religious and ethnic conflicts, and kidnappings.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING

Trekking through rolling grasslands and exploring the volcanic 3,500-foot Mandara Mountains along the border with Cameroon
RISK: 2



PAKISTAN
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE

In 2002, members of the Taliban, who had crossed the vertiginous Hindu Kush from Afghanistan, are believed to have instigated a rash of anti-Western terrorism in Islamabad and Karachi.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING

Completing the classic three-week trek to the base camp of pyramidal K2 in northern Pakistan, leaving from Askole and crossing the Baltoro Glacier
RISK: 2



TAJIKISTAN
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE

A mountainous and unstable “stan” in the heart of Central Asia, Tajikistan is thought to be home to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) terrorist group.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING

Climbing untouched glaciers and rock faces in the Pamir Mountains, where first ascents of 17,000-foot-plus summits abound
RISK: 2



SOMALIA
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE

Ever since dictator Siad Barre was ousted in 1991, anarchy has ruled this drought-prone East African nation. Warring factions are still fighting for control of the the capital, Mogadishu.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING

Deep-sea tuna fishing in the waters off Somalia’s 1,876-mile coastline, the longest in Africa
RISK: 3



SUDAN
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE

Nearly 40 years of civil war, coupled with famine, have made Sudan extremely unstable, especially in the oil-producing Upper Nile region. Americans have been assaulted and taken hostage.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING

Scuba diving in the Red Sea to famous shipwrecks and coral atolls, first explored by Jacques Cousteau in the sixties
RISK: 3



VENEZUELA
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE

Opposition to President Hugo Ch谩vez and a nationwide strike have destabilized this tropical country, causing acute oil shortages and triggering violent protests in Caracas.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING

Trekking through humid jungles and the vast savannas of the Guiana Highlands to 3,212-foot Angel Falls, the highest waterfall in the world
RISK: 2



YEMEN
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE

This country on the tip of the Arabian Peninsula has been plagued by anti-American sentiment since long before the 2000 attack on the USS Cole.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING

Exploring the coral beaches of Socotra, the largest Arabian island, which abounds with flora, including frankincense, myrrh, and the dragon’s blood tree
RISK: 3



Be aware that the State Department also posts advisories about unstable regions in many other countries, like Kyrgyzstan and Nepal. Carefully check the Web site’s postings and consult with well-informed tour operators before finalizing any travel plans.

*This information is current as of January 14, 2003



Compiled by Misty Blakesley, Amy Marr, Dimity McDowell, Sam Moulton, Tim Neville, Katie Showalter, and Ted Stedman

The post Nomads Have More Fun appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

BAIDOA, SOMALIA

“SALAT! SALAT!”

The call to prayer came at 4:30 a.m.

“Pray! Pray! It's better to pray than to sleep!”

I was staying in a house across the street from one of Baidoa's mosques, so there was no chance of dozing. As the echoes from the loudspeaker faded into the darkness, I could hear the neighborhood stirring as people rose to wash their hands and feet and kneel in prayer toward Mecca.

There was a knock at the bedroom door. “You awake?” John Miskell called out.

Miskell and I were leaving Baidoa before dawn on a journey to a town named Tieglo, deep in the Somali hinterland a few miles south of nowhere. Miskell, who oversees CARE International's relief programs in southern Somalia, was planning to rendezvous there with a convoy of 12 trucks bringing 254 tons of food from Mogadishu. Between Baidoa and Tieglo lay 13 hours of Somali bush, dirt-and-boulder roads offering little more than lungfuls of dust and lobe-deadening headaches and the bleak scenery of a country pounded by civil war and famine. It was Miskell's job to make sure the food got to Tieglo safely.

It's been nearly a decade since jeering mobs dragged the body of U.S. Army Ranger Bill Cleveland through the streets of Mogadishu, and in that time little has improved. When the United Nations armed forces departed in 1995, the implicit message was simple: You people want to kill? Go ahead, kill yourselves. Call us when you get tired of it. Since then, northern Somalia has stabilized somewhat, but southern Somalia, with Mogadishu at its heart, remains a nightmarish, Hobbesian realm that once again hovers on the cusp of famine.

Our Toyota Land Cruiser was parked in the house's courtyard behind a steel gate topped with barbed wire and guarded by a couple of teenagers toting AK-47s. Loaded in the rear were 80 liters of gas in plastic containers. We would be traveling in a four-wheel drive, all-terrain bomb. Miskell would have liked to put the gas on the rooftop luggage rack, but that space was reserved for two other militiamen bearing AK-47s, who were to keep an eye out for trouble鈥攐f which, unlike food or water or peace or schools or law and order, there is plenty in Somalia.

“Where's the driver?” I asked when we got to the courtyard.

Miskell nodded at a prostrate form on the ground.

“Apparently our driver is praying,” he said.

The prayers seemed unusually devout. When he finished, we drove into the center of town and met up with several more Somalis who worked for CARE. They would travel with us in two other Land Cruisers鈥攐ne in front of our vehicle, the other behind鈥� equipped with the requisite duos of rooftop gunslingers. As dawn broke, our convoy headed into the bush, only to stop after a few miles. We were surrounded by stunted trees covered in dust. Camels plodded past, herders in tow. Finally Cobra, one of the Somalis鈥攅verybody has a nickname in Somalia, and his was Cobra鈥攚alked back from the lead vehicle to tell us what was happening.

“There is an ambush ahead,” he said.

MANGAR ANGUI, SUDAN

JUST AS SUDAN has the unfortunate distinction of possessing Africa's longest-running civil war, the food drops Loftus helps oversee are part of Africa's longest-running, and most controversial, aid project. The war itself began in 1956, when Sudan gained independence from British rule; went into remission in 1972; and returned worse than ever in 1983, after the Muslim government in Khartoum imposed Islamic law on the country, including the largely Christian and animist southern half. (The U.S. government supports the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army.)In the last 17 years the war has cost some two million lives鈥攎any from war-induced famines鈥攁nd turned several million more people into refugees.

Loftus's work is part of Operation Lifeline Sudan, an 11-year-old joint project of the United Nations and some 40 NGOs, including CARE. The operation has run up an estimated $2 billion tab so far through its food and medicine drops, and critics have charged that such projects allow bloody conflicts to continue indefinitely since aid groups strike devil's bargains with warring factions, which inevitably get a cut of the food in exchange for safe passage of their convoys. Refugees get fed, but so do murderers.

Out in the field, Loftus has more important things to worry about than lofty policy debates鈥攖hings like not dying. Born the year John Miskell joined the Peace Corps, she is relatively new to the game. She came to Sudan via Great Falls, Montana, a place, she says in a mock serious voice, “where a handshake is still the law.” Always athletic, she became an expert rock climber in her teens, and after high school moved to Boston and worked as a nanny, an emergency medical technician, a vegetarian chef, and an orderly in a mental institution before getting an anthropology degree from the University of Massachusetts. After college she drifted to Kenya and worked as a guide for luxury safaris, but there was an emptiness to the work鈥攂aby-sitting rich white people in Africa is not terribly meaningful. So two years ago she applied for a job with the World Food Program in Sudan and, thanks to some persistence, got it.

Every six weeks Loftus boards a bush plane at the UN base in Lokichokio, Kenya, and is dropped off several hours later in rebel-held territory in southern Sudan. This is assuming the UN plane does not nose-dive into the landing strip and flip over (as one did while I was in Sudan) or that its passengers are not taken hostage by gunmen (as happened to another UN plane shortly after I left). If all goes well Loftus and a partner stay at each drop-off point for a few days to a week. Then another plane takes them to another site. Loftus sleeps in a Kelty tent, cooks over a kerosene burner, and does her best to avoid snakes, scorpions, hyenas, soldiers, and wild dogs. The WFP requires its field-workers to keep a survival bag handy with food, water, first-aid supplies, flashlight, and compass in case they have to flee. In Mangar Angui, I asked Loftus's field partner, John Kamemia, where he keeps his “fast-run kit.” He laughed and pointed to his ample belly. “This is my fast-run kit,” he said.

If Loftus needs to investigate food conditions in a village ten miles from her camp, she must walk. Paved roads do not, for the most part, exist in southern Sudan, nor do vehicles to drive on them鈥攋ust the occasional NGO Land Rover or military truck being pounded to death by the baked earth in the dry season or swallowed up by that same earth in the rainy season. Some monitors are sent out with bicycles (one-speed bikes made in China have proven more durable here than American-made mountain bikes), but the terrain tends to be too rutted or too swampy for travel on anything but your own two feet, which will be cracked or infected, depending on the season.

Mosquitoes can be so dense that you inhale them. Sudan also boasts 80 percent of the world's cases of infestation by guinea worm, whose larva enters the human body via unclean drinking water and grows in the bloodstream into a three-foot-long white worm before chewing its way through the skin, usually at the foot, and emerging in its entirety in an agonizing and horribly disgusting process that takes weeks at a minimum, and usually months.

“Sudan,” said one WFP field worker, a woman who'd endured cerebral malaria and a mysterious grapefruit-size growth on her neck, “tries to destroy people.”

TIEGLO, SOMALIA

DESPITE WHITE HAIR and a white beard, John Miskell looks absurdly vigorous for a man who has spent his adult life in the punishing bush. The mystery of his youthful appearance deepened as we drove to Tieglo. In places the road wasn't even dirt, just rocks, and the Land Cruiser jolted up and down as though perched atop a giant jackhammer. Red dust invaded the cabin in clumps; the 100-degree air tasted of gasoline. I placed a bandanna over my mouth; our driver jammed the end of his scarf into his mouth and gnawed on it. Occasionally we passed small towns nearly wiped out in the last decade of war, a Dresden-like vista of ruin. Small groups of underfed people sat in what shade they could find beside mud huts. They stared as we passed, our Land Cruisers strange apparitions from the land of plenty.

Miskell sat up front, seemingly unfazed. Nothing covered his nose or mouth. He patiently scanned the bush for birds; when he saw one, he would jot its name in his notebook. I tried to stump him, asking the names of birds that flew past in a millisecond, but he was miles ahead of me. “Red-billed hornbill,” he said as one zoomed by, and then he delivered an ornithological trump card: “Female.” On occasion he would tell the driver to stop, and he would leave the car, binoculars in hand, and shuffle toward a creature perched in a tree. The rooftop guards seemed baffled by this white guy chasing after birds.

Long-term exposure to other people's suffering can harm aid workers in a process known euphemistically as “vicarious traumatization.” The mind and body have ways of coping: alcohol abuse, withdrawal. This has not happened to Miskell. His defense mechanism is unique鈥攈e retreats into an alternative universe of wildlife. For him, the bush isn't full of misery, but of mysteries unsolved. He has coauthored a book on Somali birds and is updating it for a second edition. He has discovered three new species of beetles, and two admiring colleagues named beetles they discovered after him. “Every time a botanist comes to this country, they find a new species of plant,” he enthused. “It's just amazing.”

Miskell has become a man of Africa rather than a visitor to Africa. He drinks camel milk by the gallon, and almost everywhere he goes, he carries a six-by-eight-inch picture of his family, a posed studio shot where he stands proudly with his Somali wife and his half-Somali, half-American children. It is, in a way, a passport that tells everyone Miskell is African, that he is not just another white guy with the power to provide free food, that he is more at home in the chaos of Somalia than in the comfort of America.

Well after sunset, and nearly 14 hours after leaving Baidoa, we pulled into Tieglo reeking of gasoline and sweat and dust. The food trucks, which had set out from Mogadishu, were scheduled to arrive the next day. But as we were to find out, things had not gone according to plan. Miskell was about to get another dose of chaos.
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MANGAR ANGUI, SUDAN

AT SIX IN THE evening, Loftus fired up her WFP solar-powered radio and shouted out, “Lima Two, Mike Golf India!” No response. She shouted again, and this time summoned a voice from the ether.

“Sienna?”

“Yes!” she yelled back. “John? How are you doing?”

John Burns, another WFP field-worker, is Loftus's boyfriend. Like lovers meeting on the same bench in a park, they talk on the radio at the same time every evening.

“Great,” Burns replied.

“Are you still smoking?” Loftus asked.

“No, but I really crave it.”

“That's a good copy. When will you get to the field?”Burns, who was at the UN base in northern Kenya, was waiting to be sent into southern Sudan.

“I don't know. There's nothing for me to do there yet.”

“OK,” Loftus yelled. “Well, keep on not smoking.”

“Right, talk to you tomorrow.”

Loftus turned to me. “Now everyone in the SPLA, SRAA, and WFP knows John is trying to quit smoking,” she said, laughing. “You'd like to say, 'I love you, I love you, I miss you, I miss you,' but you can't.”

Two-way radios are the Internet of the aid world. Virtually every aid worker in southern Sudan鈥攖here are hundreds in the field at any time鈥攗ses a shortwave radio to stay in touch with headquarters and, if the need arises, as it frequently does, to arrange emergency evacuations for medical or security reasons. At night the airwaves become a vast chat room in which people swap gossip like teenagers burning the phone lines after lights-out. If you flip between channels鈥攁nd aside from talking with your colleagues, the best form of entertainment is eavesdropping on them鈥攜ou will hear WFP staffers talking about sports, bitching about the weather, trying to sell each other used cars.

The foreigners work alongside Sudanese whose grasp of English seems to derive, in part, from radio chatter. In Mangar Angui, one of Loftus's colleagues was a 26-year-old local named John Garang (not to be confused with the head of the SPLA, who has the same name). If Garang wanted to know whether Loftus understood something, he would ask, with a hint of BBC in his accent, “Do you copy?” If he wanted to indicate that things were fine, he might say “Oscar Kilo,” radio-ese for “OK.”

One day, after a grueling six-hour walkabout to check food conditions, Garang hung around our tents, which we had set up inside mud huts, and leafed through a copy of Yachting that Loftus had brought into the field along with a recent copy of Newsweek and one of Shape, its cover advertising “8 New Moves for a Knockout Tush.” Putting his finger on a color picture of a 45-foot sloop, Garang鈥攁 man who had likely never seen open water in his life, nor a vessel larger than a canoe鈥攁nnounced enthusiastically, “I want this boat.”

Loftus and I were slumped in the shade of a tree, swallowing oral-rehydration salts.

“Aren't you tired?” I asked.

“Negative,” Garang said. “Small walk.”

The Dinka are known for being exceptionally tall and long-legged. The most famous Dinka in the world is seven-foot, seven-inch retired NBA center Manute Bol.

“How long can you walk?”

“Twenty-four hours,” Garang said.

“Twenty-four hours?”

“Affirmative.”

TIEGLO, SOMALIA

THE TOWN HAS several hundred mud huts, but no hotels, so Miskell and I stayed in a local merchant's home that had a roof made of tin rather than plastic sheeting, making it deluxe accommodations. In the morning, the CARE team gathered for a breakfast of sweet tea, camel milk, goat meat, and anjera, the local bread. Miskell didn't bother saying good morning.

“You haven't heard yet,” he told me. “The convoy was attacked.”

The news had come over the two-way radio. No one was sure where the convoy was or whether anyone had been injured. After breakfast Miskell visited the local radio operator, in a lean-to crammed with Somalis waiting in line to talk with friends in other towns, and got through to someone in CARE's office in Merca.

“When do you expect him to reach this location?” Miskell shouted.

“I don't know,” came the reply. “There was fighting. Over.” The connection broke off abruptly.

“Can you use channel 8044?” Miskell shouted. “Channel 8044! Over.” They briefly re-established contact. Miskell left the hut in disgust. Four guards had been killed, three wounded, and a technical destroyed in the ambush, at a checkpoint about 100 miles from Tieglo. “Why are they doing it?” Miskell fumed. “It's insane.”

The rest of the day consisted of quick updates with CARE employees in Merca and Mogadishu. On one occasion, Ahmed Abdulle, the CARE convoy leader, was patched through. Because anyone could listen to the shortwave conversation, including the gunmen who attacked the convoy, little was said about where the convoy was holed up or how it was going to get here intact.

“Are you safe where you are?”

“Yes,” Ahmed replied. “I am safe. The convoy is intact and safe.”

“Will you be able to leave?”

Static.

Before dinner we listened to the BBC World Service, which reported that the office of a British aid group, ACCORD, had been attacked in a town near Merca. Two people were dead. A militia tracked the gunmen down and killed their leader, but two bystanders were wounded in that shootout. There was silence in the compound.

The next morning, when I wandered into the courtyard for breakfast, Miskell again skipped the pleasantries. “You haven't heard?” he asked.

“What now?” I said.

“A civilian truck that was on the road the convoy was on hit a land mine. We don't know how many were killed.” The mine, he explained, was meant for our food convoy.

The ambush appeared to be a business dispute. The trucking firm that CARE hired to transport the food was being attacked by a rival company that wanted CARE's business, we learned. Allies of the victimized firm had already struck back by kidnapping one of the owners of the firm that launched the ambush.

There was more. We soon heard that the CARE convoy had been attacked a second time the previous evening, as many as ten more guards killed and another technical destroyed by rocket-propelled grenades. On top of that, militias linked to the warring trucking firms had begun fighting in Beledweyn, a town near the ambush sites; shops in the town had been looted.

“Food is dangerous,” Miskell remarked. “If we're not careful, this convoy is going to start a war, a big war.”

There was nothing he could do except return to Merca the next day and instruct Ahmed to give the food to local charities and go back to Mogadishu. When he returned from the radio shack, Miskell sat in the courtyard, ignoring dozens of children who stared at him through the wooden fence, and began reading a novel by Tony Hillerman. I drew his attention to a beetle climbing a wall behind him.

“Longhorned wood bore,” he said.

MANGAR ANGUI, SUDAN

BEFORE THE SUN had risen much above the horizon, Loftus and I put on running shoes and headed for the dirt airstrip. We jogged back and forth for a half-hour, past women lugging jugs of water on their heads, past thin hunters with spears, past naked, giggling children.

“They think it's the most bizarre thing,” Loftus said. And it is. But in Sudan, where serious illness is a scratch or a sneeze or a dirty fork away, staying fit (or at least unsick) is important. Loftus travels with an arsenal of health- and sanity-preserving weapons. She eschews the beans-and-rice strategy of bush survival, opting instead for jars of garlic and olives, packets of cumin and coriander, powdered coconut milk, cans of tikka marsala, and bags of bulgar and lentils. She carries $60 tubes of Lanc么me skin cleanser, toenail polish, and a solar-powered cassette player. “I have one week off for every six weeks in the field,” she explains. “If I didn't feel at home, I couldn't work here.”

Sadly, these self-protective strategies can widen the gulf between aid workers and the people they help. It's not a white-versus-black issue; Kamemia was almost as much of an alien in Mangar Angui as Loftus, although his knowledge of Arabic, which some educated southern Sudanese speak, brought him closer to a few. Aid workers learn to be insular: The hands extended toward you鈥攁nd everyone wants to shake your hand鈥攃an transmit any number of gastrointestinal diseases. Loftus has already perfected a method of waving in such a friendly way that people don't realize she hasn't shaken their hands.

for another village, we were watched closely by two women who had been employed, during our visit, to wash our dishes and bring water from a well a half-mile away, carrying the 20-liter containers on their heads. They had been paid with a sack of maize, which would fulfill perhaps a quarter of a family's needs for a month, after the women pounded it into powder and cooked it into a sludgy porridge. But they wanted more, and they held out their hands to Loftus as she stowed her food in her trunk. The women wore torn, soiled bits of clothing and, like all but the luckiest of local villagers, had no shoes.

“Don't beg,” Loftus said sharply to one, in English. “It doesn't make you look good.”

It sounded harsh, and it was. But her words reflected the sort of hard-heartedness aid workers must adopt to keep from being driven into utter depression by the insurmountable misery around them. It also reflected an effort to stay sane by following the rules even when doing so seems callous or futile. You can't save everyone, nor can you protect them from vultures in their midst. Sometimes you have little choice but to walk away. During the food distribution, as women left with entire 50-kilo bags, Loftus spoke with local officials who told her the food would be kept nearby and redistributed the next day. By that time, as they well knew, she would be gone. And the chiefs would divide the food however they wished.
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TIEGLO, SOMALIA

THE ELDERS OF Tieglo gathered in the village's television hut, where you pay the equivalent of five cents for an evening of satellite TV, and listened to Miskell explain that the convoy had been attacked twice and dozens killed. Their people鈥攁 scattered 10,000 in all鈥攚ould not be getting any food, not now. The quartet of elders, carrying finely carved wooden staffs and wearing elegant sarongs, sat in plastic lawn chairs and stroked their beards.

“Hunger is increasing,” one of them said, as a Somali translated for me. “We didn't get any food in December or January. People are selling their livestock for food.” This is true. The WFP was about to appeal for a massive infusion of food aid for countries in the Horn of Africa: According to the UN, roughly eight million people are at risk of starvation in Ethiopia alone, as well as in parts of Kenya and Sudan. Pockets of malnutrition were already developing around Tieglo鈥攊ndicators of big trouble ahead.

“We have to go,” Miskell replied. “We'll come back as soon as we can.”

The elder shrugged in the resigned manner of men who have come to expect the worst in a country that has experienced the worst. “It is Allah's will,” he said.

It was hard to keep track of all the thievery and corruption. There was the provincial official seeking free food for his orphanage, an empty house filled with kids only when aid workers visited. There was the Baidoa warehouse set on fire to cover up the pilfering of UN supplies by its managers. There was the 370-ton food convoy stolen by a provincial governor's gunmen and used, the rumor goes, to acquire new Land Cruisers. And the WFP official who was so corrupt that, according to a joke making the rounds, WFP stood for “Warlord Food Program.”

When the meeting ended, everyone filed away quietly, as though leaving a funeral. Miskell returned to our tin-roofed room, which was stiflingly hot. 国产吃瓜黑料, a stiff breeze stirred up clouds of dust.

“Most people in this country would like to see the warlords evaporate,” he told me. “If you cut the food out, who is going to starve? Not the gunmen. They have guns and they will find ways to get food. The other people will starve. If we pulled out there might be some sort of conclusion reached faster than otherwise, but the number of people who would die would be pretty incredible.”

This dilemma is at the heart of the debate over food aid. Perhaps pulling out would be, in the long run, the right thing to do, but doing so would take the ruthlessness of a Machiavellian and the heartlessness of a Malthusian. “Sometimes you feel like packing it in,” Miskell admitted. “Some people would tell you I'm crazy, and maybe they're right.” But he stays.

“My family keeps telling me to come back to America, that I can find a job, I don't need to do this,” he said. “But every time I go to the States I go for about four weeks, and after about a month I know it's time to leave again. Maybe it's because everything is too perfect. I find it boring.”

Miskell is no adrenaline junkie. He may be an unpredictability junkie, however鈥攁 guy who wants to be surprised by what unfolds in front of him or what flies over his head. And he wants to feel that he is really doing something. As I discovered, he is pathetically out of touch with the rest of the media-saturated First World, out of touch with IPO fever and the latest box-office sensation. He still cares about starvation, the poor bastard, even after 30 years in the field.

We returned to Baidoa the next day and then flew to Merca. After a 30-minute stopover to load some fuel, the plane headed to Nairobi, with me on it. I watched as Miskell climbed into his Land Cruiser and started home with his quartet of bodyguards. His first order of business was to find a trucking company that could get a convoy of food to Tieglo. He will likely be doing that sort of thing for the rest of his working life. He does not plan to return to live in America, ever. When he retires, he wants to build a house on a plot of land that he owns with his wife. The land is in Mogadishu..

LOKICHOKIO, KENYA

IT HAPPENED QUICKLY, the switch from blighted war zone to bush-camp luxury. Loftus, Kamemia, and I waited at Mangar Angui's airstrip with our gear for the single-engine plane that would take us to the next village. The nine-seater landed with a bump, and the pilot stepped out and told us we wouldn't be going to the other village after all, because the dirt airstrip there, which the villagers had just scratched out of the bush, and over which he had just flown, was too short. We radioed Lokichokio for instructions and were told to return to Kenya.

Loki is a cross between a military camp and a summer camp. The roar of cargo planes is constant, and an army of four-wheel-drive vehicles shuttles between the airstrip and the aid workers' residential compounds a few miles away. The jeeps pass through town, a parched collection of dilapidated storefronts and dome-shaped huts of branches and plastic sheeting inhabited mostly by members of the Turkana tribe.

The main compound has some incongruous Club Med touches: Attractive thatch roofs cover outdoor picnic tables; a disco ball hangs in an open-air bar offering everything from Russian vodka to American cigarettes. There is a volleyball court a few paces away. At night, aid workers unwind over beers kept ice-cold in a refrigerator hooked up to a generator. Later still they might head off in pairs to each others' tents and huts.

Early one evening, Loftus and I sat down for a quiet beer. The bar was crowded with Afrikaner UN pilots bossing around the Kenyan bartender. Friends of Loftus's said hello. A few yards away a swimming pool was surrounded by bougainvilleas in bloom. 国产吃瓜黑料 the perimeter, delineated by a barbed-wire fence patrolled by men with rifles, sat the baked red desolation of northern Kenya.

I asked Loftus to tell me what she was learning, living this life.

“When you see war,” she told me, “when you see a culture that has changed into a war culture, you become grateful. People in the States do not know what it's like to not be free. They have no clue. All the issues that I would scream and march and yell about in college鈥擨 didn't know shit. You don't know what loss of freedom is until you see people who have no freedom, until you see people whose children are stolen into slavery.”

On my last day at Loki, the security guards went on strike and held a protest outside the main gate. The local police were called in, and they fired at the crowd, and after the crowd dove for cover, shots were fired at the police and into the compound. Loftus and her colleagues hardly flinched. They finally retreated into a courtyard after several volleys were fired and after the head of security began yelling, “I suggest you get somewhere safe! Anything can happen!” As sporadic gunfire continued for an hour or two, the aid workers slouched on the ground, so casual they could have fallen asleep.

Earlier, when we talked at the bar, Loftus said, “You know you can be shot, you know it, but you really feel like you're not gonna. Somehow, because you're here trying to help, somehow you've got this protective armor. Which is bullshit. You almost have to feel that way to go into it, because if you're constantly thinking, 'Oh, God, I could get shot,' then it doesn't work.” She laughed. “I think it's not going to happen to me, which is crap.”

Loftus has already been evacuated from the field twice鈥攐nce for malaria, once because her village was about to be attacked by militiamen. One night in Mangar Angui, when the BBC World Service reported the deaths of the eight aid workers near the Ugandan border only about two hundred miles from us, I went to Loftus's hut and told her; she was less interested than I expected. She didn't know them. I told Kamemia. “Oh, yeah?” he said, and returned to his book.

Loftus did know Richard Powell, a WFP worker from Australia who died last year in a plane crash. Powell's ashes were buried in January at a Sudanese village where he had worked, and Loftus cried at his funeral. The African ceremony involved the slaughter of a half-dozen cows, the burial of a live sheep, and at the end of it all, the playing, on a portable stereo, of Pink Floyd's “The Wall.”

It is a form of cognitive dissonance: I could be killed; I can't be killed. John Miskell has this capacity, too. He doesn't scare easily, and he doesn't have a death wish, but he has paid for extra insurance that will provide his family, in the event of his death in the field, with a year of his salary in addition to the three years' salary CARE would chip in. Like Loftus, he knows the risks, and he carries on. There is a difference between risking your life and thinking you will lose it. All aid workers do the former; few do the latter.

Loftus's insurance is a four-leaf clover worn on a pendant around her neck. She doesn't know how much longer she will last in Sudan. A year, maybe two. After that, she's not sure. She wants to sail around the world with her boyfriend and return to aid work, somewhere, somehow. Perhaps not in a war zone, but in a country with development work, the sunnier side of the humanitarian world. I asked whether she might return to America and live a life that would fit within the parameters of “normalcy.” If she wanted to help people, she could work in a soup kitchen; for thrills, she could go climbing, the sort of thing she used to do before heading to Africa. But Loftus told me that when she visits home and sees her old climbing buddies, her attention fades as they talk about mountains they have summited; theirs fades as she talks about Sudan.

My question lingered in the air. Finally, Loftus shook her head from side to side. 听

Peter Maass is the author of Love Thy Neighbor, a memoir of covering the war in Bosnia.
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