Wild Coast: Travels on South America’s Untamed Edge (Alfred A. Knopf, $29), British travel writer John Gimlette鈥檚 account of three overlooked South American countries, opens in the Guyanan capital of Georgetown with a warning about hand grenades. 鈥淭he people of Georgetown,鈥� Gimlette writes, 鈥渟till made a spectacle of murder.鈥� The city sits below sea level, supported by a system of levees left over from its onetime Dutch colonizers. Yet it is still flammable, built of tinderbox wood and prone to fire, and it is violent: Georgetown鈥檚 citizens, members of the Indian diaspora and the descendents of slaves, do not get along.

Author John Gimlette

Author John Gimlette

Wild Coast is a travelogue-slash-history of Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana, South America鈥檚 northeastern countries. Over several months in late 2008, Gimlette, a British lawyer and the author of three other works of travel literature, made excursions into the forgotten and unexplored territories between Venezuela and Brazil, an area the Dutch once called the Wilde Kust.

Many of Gimlette鈥檚 journeys, from northern Guyana鈥檚 Jonestown to former French penal colonies in French Guiana, form the basis for mini histories of the region鈥檚 landmarks. Gimlette begins in Georgetown, sketching the violent decades that left Guyana鈥檚 politicians wary of errant grenades, then moves inland to Jonestown, where 900 American cultists committed suicide deep in the jungle in 1978. From there he visits Suriname, recounting a misguided Dutch colonial counterinsurgency in the 1770s, and finally French Guiana, which today remains a Gallic territory and houses one of the world鈥檚 most active satellite launchpads.

Unfortunately, Gimlette鈥檚 explorations, though rich in detail, are hampered by an impulse to describe rather than narrate or analyze. Wild Coast is a fountain of bizarre and wonderful information鈥擝ritish expatriates* still live along Guyana鈥檚 rivers, and in Suriname colonies of the descendents of slaves* exist autonomously in the jungle鈥攂ut the book often lacks for context. We learn little, for example, of what life is like for the British or the slaves’ descendents, only that they are there.

Still, Wild Coast is worth a look. The strangeness of these countries could fill an encyclopedia, and if Gimlette has missed a few pages of analysis, he gets a pass as a curator鈥攈is histories, however incomplete, remain fascinating. 鈥淥ther places may feel more magnificent,鈥� Gimlette writes, 鈥渂ut nowhere feels quite so unconquered.鈥�

* The original version of this article said that dozens of British expatriates live along Guyana’s rivers. The number is smaller than one dozen. It also said that colonies of former slaves live in Suriname. No colonies of former slaves live in Suriname.

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Near dusk on our first night in the Surinamese capital of Paramaribo, my dad stood outside out hotel watching the sky fill with bats. I took this as a sign that they were generally thriving, even amid the throng and crush of the city. Dad shook his head.

Suriname Map

Suriname Map

Bat

The author and his father in the Central Suriname Nature Reserve

Bat

A field-mounted specimen of Artibeus obscurus

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“Look around,” he said. “What do you see?”

This is our familiar dynamic the dim but diligent seeker and the beleaguered but bemused scientist.

I studied the scene hard. I saw the whitewashed cinder-block buildings of our hotel lined up like boxcars. I saw a rum distillery, a bike-rental stand, half-collapsed homes held together by plywood and scavenged fencing. “What am I looking for?”

He pointed across the street to a tall palm spreading over a trash-strewn lot, holding his finger steadily, waiting. Then I saw: like drips from a leaky faucet, bats trickling from a hole in the trunk.

“Molossus molossus,” Dad said. Pallas's mastiff bat. A junk species.

“They're lousy fliers,” he explained. “Very fast but not very agile. They need wide-open spaces to hunt in, because they're not nimble enough to navigate tight spots. So for them to be this abundant means that an area has been extremely disturbed.”

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We were after something more elusive: Lophostoma schulzi, Schulz's round-eared bat, a species discovered by my father deep in the Amazon in 1979. Like many bats of the old forest, schulzi is a nimble flier that has the ability to thread dense undergrowth. Whenever timber is cleared, faster competitors take over, so our only hope of catching one was to go out among the tall trees, far from human development. We would confine ourselves to the areas where Dad had collected schulzi before jungle outposts inside Brownsberg Nature Park and at the base of the uncharted Tafelberg Plateau, in the Central Suriname Nature Reserve (CSNR). In Dad's heyday, he led teams of well-trained, well-equipped researchers, but this time it would be just the two of us, using a few ten-foot-tall nets. Dad didn't equivocate: He didn't like our chances.

“It's like casting out a net in the middle of the ocean and hoping to catch a specific fish,” he said.

The night had deepened and cooled, and the streetlights and neon signs of Paramaribo blazed in the twilight. A bass-heavy club beat struck up in the distance. Dad scratched his grizzled beard with mock seriousness, as if contemplating the half-moon climbing over the rooftops.

“But we came all this way,” he said. “So, what the fuck, let's go get one.”

EVEN AS A KID, I knew my dad wasn't like other dads. Most boys' fathers in the North Hills of Pittsburgh were mechanics, welders, steelworkers many of them Vietnam vets, laid off from the mills and scraping by. But my dad was Dr. Hugh H. Genoways, curator of mammals at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. He started the job in 1976 and soon after undertook a multi-year project, sponsored by Alcoa, the Pittsburgh aluminum giant, to study mammals in the isolated central highlands of Suriname. Those expeditions became the foundation of his career, but they also made him to my young eyes larger than life. He had been held at gunpoint in Mexico, housed his crew in a whorehouse in Jamaica, smuggled weapons into Guatemala. But Suriname represented a higher order of adventure: He was surmounting a remote plateau, hacking through dark jungle, returning with unknown species. The newspapers compared him to Indiana Jones. They called him Batman.

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And the bat he discovered was as exotic as the place in which it originated. It had a hairless face and a band of wartlike bumps that came to a point on its brow. Every visible inch of it was covered with these bumps its ears, its nose leaf, its arms, even the long digits that formed its wings. It was a ghastly little creature, but Dad's jesting affection for all bats became my genuine love for schulzi. It was Dad's bat and so somehow felt like my bat, my inheritance. Since its discovery nearly 30 years ago, however, only ten specimens of schulzi have been caught. The International Union for Conservation of Nature placed it on the Red List of Threatened and Endangered Species more than a decade ago, due to “ongoing human-induced habitat loss” a fact that, I long ago assumed, doomed it to imminent extinction.

Then, in 2007, a Conservation International expedition co-funded by Alcoa announced the discovery of 24 new species fish, snakes, toads, insects in two weeks of collecting on the Lely and Nassau plateaus of eastern Suriname. What caught my eye was the rediscovery of an armored catfish introduced to science 50 years ago but since given up on as extinct when runoff from illegal gold mines poisoned the only creek where it was known to exist. Its reappearance raised hopeful questions: Are species like schulzi really critically endangered or simply understudied? Was it possible they hadn't been seen in years only because no one had gone out to look?

But what drew me to South America wasn't just the adventure of netting bats. I also wanted a chance to take fuller measure of my father. Every summer, for most of my childhood, we rode around the country in our Chevy camper, my dad and his team setting traps and stringing the delicate lace-work webs known as mist nets. But when night fell and they started for the woods, I stayed at my mom's side, drawing pictures and writing stories while she cooked over the hiss of the propane stove. My dad never expressed anything like disappointment that I didn't take an early interest, but how could he not have felt a twinge?

A friend of his once confided, “I think it would be hard to be Hugh Genoways's son.” I knew what he meant. My dad is a gruff, barrel-chested giant a former college football player who approaches science and life with gridiron resolve. Experience tells him he's not only the smartest person in the room but the most tenacious. The refrain of my boyhood was this: “Nobody ever said it'd be fair.” But that didn't mean you gave up; it meant the only way to succeed was to outwork everybody else. To this day, our every phone conversation begins with him asking, “What are you working on?” and ends with him saying, “Get back to work.” But his grit is more than just runaway midwestern rearing. My father sees himself in an unwinnable race against the rest of humanity.

Twenty-five years ago, Dad told an international gathering of scientists that it was his goal to “preserve as much of the native habitat of South America as possible in an unaltered state for future generations.” But his pursuit of this legacy was interrupted. In 1982, at the height of his research, Suriname's military dictator, Desi Bouterse, ordered the so-called December murders, in which opposition leaders journalists, university professors, lawyers were rounded up and hanged. The ensuing chaos cut short Dad's work. He spent the rest of his career studying neotropical bats, but he never returned to Suriname.

When he retired last year, in his late sixties and slowed by diabetes, he vowed to go into the field only a few more times, just enough to wrap up unfinished business. So when I called him to say I'd booked tickets to Suriname, he seemed more resigned than enthusiastic. After so many years, I don't think he ever expected to go back. Nor, fearing what he might find, did he really want to.

NESTLED ON THE NORTH coast of South America, just above Brazil, Suriname (formerly Dutch Guiana) was colonized by successive waves of English and Dutch traders more than three centuries ago, but three-quarters of it remains unexplored. Some 80 percent of the nation's half-million people are strung along the Atlantic coast or crowded on the muddy banks of the Suriname River in Paramaribo, cut off from the interior by the verdant wall of the Amazon.

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Our first morning out, we headed toward Brownsberg Nature Park the country's first national nature reserve, three hours south of Paramaribo. As our Toyota pickup sped past the clapboard houses rotting in the blanketing humidity and blistering sun, it was hard not to feel that centuries of human effort have amounted to little more than a temporary stay against the encroaching jungle. On the outskirts of town, clouds broke into rain, forcing us to roll up our windows partway, until they whistled. The howl was so shrill that Dad had to tap me on the shoulder to get my attention.

“There it is,” he shouted.

In the distance rose the great, rusting bulk of a refinery, its even rows of smokestacks belching into the air. In 1941, Alcoa opened the Paranam processing plant to support cavernous bauxite mines along the Para and Suriname rivers. The mines were productive, but the cost to power them and process ore skyrocketed during World War II. When Holland granted Suriname limited self-rule in 1954, Alcoa saw an opening. The company negotiated an agreement with the new government for permission to dam the Suriname River and harness hydroelectric energy for a new smelter, aluminum oxide plant, and power station. The dam would bring electricity to a nation lit by kerosene. Alcoa called the dam Afobaka “back to African ways,” a return to ancestral glory for the Maroons, former slaves who inhabit the region.

But progress carried its own price. The lake created by the dam flooded at least seven Maroon villages and decimated the Suriname River they depended on. According to one long-term study, there were 172 species of fish just before the damming in 1964; within four years, that number was down to 62. The Maroons dubbed the lake Brokopondo literally “the canoe is broken,” a way of life scuttled.

In 1969, to counterbalance this disaster, the government created the Foundation for Nature Conservation in Suriname (STINASU), and Alcoa started underwriting expeditions from the Carnegie Museum, headed by my father. Their charge was to survey Brownsberg and other subsequently created provincial nature reserves while training a generation of Surinamese scientists under STINASU's first director, Johan Schulz, for whom my dad eventually named his bat.

As we neared the town of Brownsweg, the blacktop gave way to the greasy red clay typical of bauxite-rich soil. We fishtailed through puddles and throbbed over washboard. Dad snored contentedly in the backseat, but I was edgy, eager to get to work and away from the despoiled highway corridor. As we began our slow ascent up the plateau, out of the midday heat, I began to breathe easier. At a fork in the road, a park sign painted with a smiling, brown-faced monkey pointed the way through the trees.

BY MID-AFTERNOON, we'd set up in an abandoned World Wildlife Fund education center at the far end of the park headquarters. We threw open the windows and started unpacking gear nets, machetes for chopping poles, and an assortment of muslin bags to hold live bats. A clearing nearby served as the trailhead to several paths into the forest and provided a good spot to string our nets. “Bats are as lazy as people,” Dad explained. “If they find a trail, they use it.”

After setting nets and returning for dinner at a makeshift restaurant known as Rocky's, we met up with our guide, a young man from Brownsweg named Ramond Finisie. Known to everyone as Melkie (Dutch for “Milky”), he was only days from 20 but looked baby-faced, with wide, searching eyes. Wearing a traditional wrap around his neck and brandishing his machete, he had a mock swashbuckling air.

The night was cooling. The pale trunks of distant trees turned ghostly in the setting sun, then faded as fog rolled in. Before long, the socked-in plateau was cast in a hazy half-moon glow until, unexpectedly, the park lights buzzed to life. Their klieg-light brilliance the product of Alcoa's hydroelectric dam flattened everything into depthless overexposure. As we rounded a corner, we could see a bulb high overhead, its blinding fluorescent glare clearly illuminating our first net. Dad cursed under his breath.

We walked deeper into the foggy darkness but found the other nets empty, so Dad sat down under a palm-topped picnic shelter and waited. There's something maddeningly stubborn yet Buddha-like about him at moments like this not insistent, just unyielding, as if prepared to wait until the world comes to him. Melkie, too, seemed contented by the calm, circling the shelter, swinging his machete idly, crooning some unrecognizable snippet of song. I checked the nets obsessively, until I found one twitching with life, an irate bat that twisted in the nylon threads as it tried to bite its way out.

To remove a captured bat, you clasp it with a leather-gloved hand to keep it still. As it bites the glove's thumb, you work its rubbery wings free from the netting with your other hand. I'm no good at it and harbor the dual fear of being bitten and of dislocating their shoulders. Not Dad. He handled the bats with ease, talking to them all the while. “You're having a really bad night, aren't you?” Or: “Easy, now, don't be like that.”

Bit by bit, he educated me on what we were seeing. “OK, this little guy is a Saccopteryx bilineata,” he said, adjusting his headlamp to give me a better look. “See these sacs on his wings? He spends all day filling those with saliva and fluid from his glands, then he grooms that into his fur all over his body to attract females. Like Old Spice for bats. And see the two white racing stripes down the middle of his back? Also very distinctive. Sac-winged, double-lined Saccopteryx bilineata.” After each lecture, he took a muslin bag and dropped the bat in, then slipped the knotted drawstring under his belt like a scalp. That night we caught several bats, but no schulzi.

I could have slept the next day away, but Dad was up with the sun, skinning bats for scientific use. It's a process I learned as a small child. “You find the V in the rib cage,” he said back then, tapping my sternum, “then lift and push until the heart stops, the lungs collapse.” In seconds, the bats go from fierce animals to limp specimens. He slits them open and turns them inside out, working the pelts free, then stuffs the empty skin with cotton and wire, pinning it to a foam-core board until the hide dries.

While Dad skinned, I decided to hike down from the rim of the plateau to Witi Creek to scout the spot where the last two specimens of schulzi were collected, in 2002. Harry Hunfeld, STINASU's bluff, white-haired grounds manager, had warned that we might not be able to net in the area, because it had become a target= for illegal gold miners known as “pork knockers” a term coined in the fifties when the miners lived in the bush on a diet of salt pork and worked with pickaxes and shovels. Today the operations are huge, using bulldozers to level trees, backhoes and hydro cannons to trench the soil, and a mercury-separation-and-sluicing process that poisons the water.

Melkie and I descended the steep, rocky incline, weaving around fallen trees and hacking through undergrowth. We zigzagged from one bank to the other until the path leveled a bit and Melkie hopped into a bright patch of sunlight. Stepping out behind him, I saw that we were on the edge of a mud superhighway punched through the forest. Sun-hardened ruts left by heavy machinery stood two feet deep, pooled with standing rainwater and teeming with mosquito larvae. We followed the road up a short embankment into a stadium-size hole that pork knockers had slashed in the forest. The temperature must have climbed 15 degrees when we stepped into the sun. The area was devastated and, now, abandoned. There was no chance that forest-dwelling schulzi could thrive in an environment like this.

“Had the miners been down here for years?” I asked Melkie.

“Eight months.”

“Months?”

“Before that,” he said with a sweep of his machete, “all trees.”

BACK IN PARAMARIBO, we took off from the Zorg en Hoop airstrip and flew deep into the interior nothing but forest canopy below us, the coffee-brown Saramacca River snaking through. Our co-pilot was Henk Gummels, the owner of Gum Air, the same airline that flew Dad's crews to the foot of Tafelberg decades ago. Over the roar of the twin engines, I asked whether the Saramacca's muddy current was caused by tidal surge.

“Nee,” Henk said. “Pork knockers.”

As we flew deeper into the mountains, we saw their camps piles of slash, bulldozed gravel, and bright-yellow gashes of dirt carved from the lush green. Henk's wife, Jennifer, chatted in Dutch with her brother, Anton Brandon, the second in command at Suralco, the Surinamese subsidiary of Alcoa.

Before long, the distinctive flattop silhouette of Tafelberg appeared on the horizon, shrouded in clouds, its dark profile jutting some 3,000 feet above the forest floor. No one knows exactly when Tafelberg, or “Table Mountain,” was discovered it may have been during a Dutch voyage up the Coppename River in 1901 or an expedition on the Saramacca a year later. Either way, it remained imposing but remote, seemingly unreachable, marooned and embowered by the limitless forest, until in 1944 the New York Botanical Garden undertook a thorough probe of the forested mountaintop. Bassett Maguire, the garden's longtime curator, spent 54 days exploring the mountaintop and naming the Edenic places he encountered. But in nearly two months of collecting botanical specimens, his team didn't record a single word about the animal populations.

My dad set out to correct that in the fall of 1981, when two of Henk's planes carried his 13-person crew to the Rudi Kappel airstrip, where a pilot named Foster Ford ferried their gear on five round-trips to a sandy clearing on the edge of the plateau.

This mountain occupied such a large place in my childhood imagination that it seemed nearly unreal as we banked by the caprock. But there would be no trip to the top this time; Henk assured me that there was only one helicopter charter company in all of Suriname and that climbing was out of the question. I would have to settle for this flyby view, the plateau's square black shoulders already disappearing into the afternoon clouds. The engines revved, then smoothed to a hum as we swooped down toward the airstrip.

On the ground, we were greeted by the guide Henk had hired, Atinjoe Panekke. A Tiriy脫 Indian, Atinjoe had a pro wrestler's physique, a shaved head, a goatee, and facial tattoos, but he wore Air Jordan shorts and flashed a quick smile whenever we managed to get something across in our mishmash of English, Spanish, and Dutch. He cut 12 perfect poles for our mist nets, wielding his machete with unnerving force and accuracy, then heaved them casually over one shoulder.

The first night we set up near a handmade wooden bridge spanning a creek. Over the next six hours we caught only four bats all rare and diverse, from Trachops cirrhosus, which uses echolocation to pluck piping tree frogs from the lower canopy, to Artibeus obscurus, which thrives on guava and soursop. But Dad couldn't understand why we weren't catching more. He had expected 10, 15; if we got lucky, 20. Four seemed like a bad sign. Bats are bellwethers, he reminded me. Without bats, the whole forest is in trouble.

But Dad wasn't about to give up that easy, so the next night we got ambitious, spending hours setting up six nets, including some that were nearly 60 feet long, at spots that effectively cut off three major trails. We caught just two bats again, uncommon species, but only two, and no schulzi. The night passed with so little action that Atinjoe dozed in the tall grass, snoring until he woke himself.

Well after midnight, we sat on the porch of the airstrip lodge, drinking warm Parbo beers while Dad reviewed the field notes from his old expeditions, tallying the incredible numbers of bats 40 and 50 each night caught at these very sites. To boost our spirits, I checked to see whether the rain barrel had caught enough water to allow for a much-needed shower. But when I twisted the spigot, only a miserable trickle bubbled out. Dad laughed at my stricken expression. “Come on, rookie,” he said, and, by the dim light of our perched flashlights, he hopped breathlessly under the icy dribble, before handing the soap off to me.

“Sorry,” he said with a toothy grin. “I think I used up all the hot water.” I laughed in spite of myself, a gallows laugh. Whether or not we caught that goddamned bat the next day, our last at Tafelberg, I knew the moment would stand alongside tales of past misadventures that my dad and his friends told over howls of laughter. This was my initiation.

So I commended myself to the frigid water the sound of my hollering rattling the rafters and echoing out into the starless night.

FOR OUR FINAL NIGHT in the CSNR, Dad decided to move deeper into the forest. All through the cloudy afternoon, he scouted the canopy on the other side of the airstrip for bulging termite nests, explaining that two of schulzi's closest relatives Lophostoma silvicolum and Lophostoma carrikeri are known to day-roost in cracks in arboreal mounds. Spotting several along a trail, Dad selected net placements on either side of a grove of tall palms. Of the few schulzi ever taken, several have been netted in palm-dominated forest, leading some to speculate that the bats may use them for hunting roosts at night. As Dad explained all this, I felt an irrational surge of optimism. The conditions were perfect; of course we'd catch one there.

Maybe Dad was feeling optimistic too, because he decided to string only one more net, the largest we had. We'd set it up across a stream at the top of a spectacular waterfall. The water there was thick froth so suffused with leaf tannin that it had turned the color of port wine. Both banks were blanketed with razor grass, but Atinjoe mowed the way clear with a few swift machete strokes. Dad decided to make the most of the dwindling daylight, so we unfurled the net, the low sun dappling the orange water. No sooner had we tied off the poles and switched on our headlamps than a light rain started to fall. Then it got heavy. Then heavier. By the time we returned to the first net, it sagged with rain, glistening in the beams of our lamps. The trees were piping with frogs.

“Will bats fly in the rain?” I asked.

“Not rain like this,” Dad said. “Not many, anyway.”

We tramped to the shelter of a deck overhanging the newer, larger lodge where Henk's family was staying. They stretched out in their hammocks drinking cabernet and enjoying the downpour. After a few drinks of our own, I asked Anton about Suralco's plans for Nassau and Lely plateaus, east of Brownsberg. Now that so many endangered species had been found, would Alcoa still mine?

“You must understand,” he said. “The Paranam mines, when they were opened, were estimated to contain 60 years of bauxite. It has now been 65. The ore cannot last.”

He acknowledged that the research team had found many rare species, but they'd also found evidence of illegal hunting by Maroons and illegal gold mining, most of it by French Guianese and Brazilians. “Saying these lands are off-limits to development,” he said, “would change nothing.” Averting the sort of wholesale devastation that has occurred at Brownsberg requires research and enforcement. Both require money. And the only money in Suriname comes from bauxite.

The rain continued to fall as Dad and I zipped our jackets and headed back out. “He's right, you know,” Dad said. “We can't expect the Surinamese to sit on their natural resources. You look around here, you see the rainforest, but people like Henk or Anton see their country. This is where they live.”

“But he's as much as admitted they're going to mine there,” I said. “That doesn't shock you?”

Dad was quiet as we walked. “Alcoa is going to do what's in its best interest,” he said finally. “That doesn't shock me. Suriname will do what's in its best interest. That doesn't shock me. And everybody in Suriname sees Alcoa mines in their best interest, so, no, I'm not shocked. Besides, what's the alternative? Mine iron instead? What does that solve?”

This is my father no pundit, no poet, no profiteer. He makes no value judgments, argues for no outcome. He is a thoroughgoing scientist and professor, intent only on the twin purposes of mapping the rich complexities of the world and teaching others to do the same. He had no stake, no investment, in whether we found his schulzi or not. So when the final bat of the night, twisted and rain-sopped in the net, turned out to be Lophostoma silvicolum, it didn't bother him in the least. “So close,” I groaned. Dad shook his head. It's not about one species, he reminded me no matter how rare, no matter what sentimental attachment you may feel to it. It's about observing and learning, rather than consuming and destroying.

Surrounded by perfect darkness, rain soaking through my coat, I finally understood. Lophostoma schulzi isn't Dad's bat at all; it's Schulz's bat. My father didn't name his discovery for himself but for those who stayed in Suriname. And those who continue to fight for the forest are its true inheritors. In that expanse, more than anywhere, his simple lessons applied: “Nobody ever said it'd be fair. Now get back to work.”

I pulled on my glove. “It's OK, Dad,” I said. “I got this one.”

ON OUR LAST MORNING, as we scanned the skies wondering if the rain would clear enough to fly, we heard chopping rotor blades. Suddenly a helicopter hove into view and landed at the airstrip. I sprinted down and started talking begging, bargaining, bribing our way to the top of Tafelberg. The pilot, Jerome, worked for Hi-Jet, the company that runs the Surinamese medical-emergency service, but he'd flown out that morning to pick up some tourists from an illegal lodge under construction atop the plateau. We were shocked to hear such a place existed, but there was no time to consider. We agreed to Jerome's offer: For $600, he would take us up on his way back to Zorg en Hoop.

We'd be allowed only a few minutes on top, but that didn't matter. If we hadn't been able to net even one of Dad's bats, to assure ourselves of its survival, at least there was this unexpected gift. And in the months after our return, we would learn that a team of Canadian scientists, working in far-western Suriname, had netted several specimens of schulzi, dramatically increasing its range and likely population. Their expedition was so encouraging that in October the IUCN took schulzi off its list of endangered species. But, at that moment, all we knew was that we'd chanced upon this small, personal redemption before we were gone from Tafelberg. So we squeezed into the heli颅copter and zoomed up the escarpment and over the lip of the plateau, a dizzy-making sensation of falling even as you felt your body rise. Jerome laughed over the intercom. “It feels like a roller-coaster, huh?” He took us over the Arrowhead Basin, then around the southwestern edge to a tiny clearing barely big enough for the chopper's whirling blades. We touched down and hopped out, stumbling as we went. “Five minutes,” Jerome yelled. “I'm not even going to power down. Five minutes.”

We wouldn't need more. I couldn't believe that I was standing atop Tafelberg but especially with my dad. And as he looked over the edge of a cascading waterfall, then turned back into the chopper's rotor wash, I had a flash of a photograph I've carried in my mind all these years. When Foster Ford's helicopter lifted off in 1981, leaving my dad and his crew isolated for 11 days, someone thought to lean out of the passenger seat and snap a single black-and-white frame. It's my dad, a camera slung around his neck, wearing a T-shirt with the distinctive seventies logo of the Carnegie Museum. All around him, the vegetation swirls, but he stands with feet planted, hands on his hips.

But it was Dad's expression that brought the image back to me. His face had drawn and slackened, his stance grown less certain; still, his gaze was set now, as it was then, in a tight squint probably nothing more than a wince and a square-jawed grimace against the blast of the departing chopper, but it looked for all the world like defiance.

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“THEY ESCAPED INTO the jungle,” says Marvin, lifting his paddle from the hazel water and pointing the slim blade toward the tangle of verdure. “Just running and running. Not knowing where to go. Not knowing what to eat. Lost and day by day starving and cut all over from the thorns, and the soles of their feet bloody but still running because to be a slave is worse.”

Marvin lays his paddle inside the dugout and starts rolling a joint in his lap. He stops paddling whenever he tells a story, as if in deference to the primacy of the tale. Frankie and I keep pulling the boat downstream, plunging our long, fish-shaped paddles into the warm Suriname River. br.
“They slept hiding beneath big leaves and then ran more,” continues Marvin in his vaguely Rastafarian lilt. “They ran for weeks. All the way to the top of this river. So deep in the jungle only the jaguar knew where they were.”

Marvin learned his stories in the bush camp from his grandmother, at night, after the men and boys had spent the day clearing a plot and the women and girls had planted rice or cassava. Most of Marvin's yarns were humorous allegories involving clever monkeys or parrots or caimans with human weaknesses. But this was the legend of his people, his forefathers, the Saramaka maroons, so he was uncharacteristically grave.

“They knew they were not safe even this far back in the jungle,” he says. “They were escaped slaves. Escaped slaves that never come back give other slaves ideas. They maybe start to think they could be free themselves. This is impossible for the white people. So they sent out hunting parties. Men with muskets and swords guided by Indian trackers who knew the trails of the jungle.”

Marvin smokes, contemplating the passing wall of impregnable green. There is no hurry. This is a long story. He passes the cigar-size joint back to Frankie and exhales.

“They were hunted like animals. My grandfathers' fathers. Sometimes they were killed in the jungle, but this was bad, because no one saw them die. Mostly they were beaten and whipped and had iron shackles locked around their necks and their ankles and were dragged back to the plantations. Then the tortures began. All the slaves on the plantation were forced to watch. Tortures so cruel it is impossible to imagine. It is not possible to believe what they did to us…”

We are now gliding between islands of flat black rocks. I can hear rapids. Marvin lifts his paddle and in one sweeping, powerful stroke turns our dugout toward a tiny island cove. He will take the unstable boat through the rapids singlehandedly, while Frankie and I hopscotch over the rocks. We step out and Marvin twirls the canoe back into the current, yelling, “This story is not finished!”

Then he disappears. A lone black man in a small burnt-black dugout against white water.
听

I'D COME TO SURNAME, a country slightly larger than the state of Georgia and sitting on the right shoulder of South America, to canoe through the homeland of the Saramaka people. Descendants of escaped slaves, the Saramaka have, for centuries, sustained a remote wilderness civilization in the country's jungle interior, along the banks of the Suriname River.

As with most Saramaka, Marvin's family history is based on fact, not folklore. Runaway slaves were called maroons, a term derived from the Spanish word 肠颈尘补谤谤贸苍, which means “wild one” and originally referred to feral cattle. The first maroon absconded just as the slave trade was beginning, in 1502, into the mountains of Hispaniola, the island that today comprises Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Thousands followed, banding together and creating fugitive settlements.

“The wilderness setting of early New World plantations made marronage and the existence of organized maroon communities a ubiquitous reality,” writes Richard Price, a leading authority on maroon culture, in his book Maroon Societies. “Throughout Afro-America, such communities stood out as an heroic challenge to white authority and as the living proof of the existence of a slave consciousness.” Between 1672 and 1864, more than 50 maroon settlements were established in North America, with hundreds more in the Caribbean and Central and South America.

Suriname is home to the largest extant maroon population in the world. Like many emerging postcolonial states聴Suriname received its independence from Holland in 1975聴this nation of 460,000 citizens has slogged through military coups, guerrilla wars, colossal corruption, land settlements, and embry- onic parliamentary government. Of the six distinct maroon peoples living in Suriname today聴the Saramaka, Kwinti, Matawai, Ndjuka, Paramaka, and Aluku聴the Saramaka, 20,000 individuals living in some 70 settlements along the Suriname River, have arguably been the most successful survivors.
听

BELOW THE RAPIDS, the canoe is swamped. Marvin shovels to shore and bails it out. Then Frankie and I climb back in and the three of us continue down the languid, serpentine river.

From Paramaribo, the port capital of Suriname, I'd taken a one-hour bush flight to Bendekonde, a village of tentlike thatched huts along the upper reaches of the Suriname River. There I'd spent days searching for a boat and boatmates.

There are no roads in Saramaka territory. The one highway is the river, hence the Saramaka are expert canoeists and master canoe-builders. Up until the present generation, it was incumbent upon every husband to carve a dugout for his wife so she could paddle to and from the fields. Every family still owns a dugout聴it's the vehicle of choice and is used daily. But since the introduction of gas engines in the 1960s, no one paddles great distances anymore. Now there are bigger dugouts fitted with outboard motors that, like shuttle buses, transport people and goods up and down the river. I met one 89-year-old man who had canoed all the way to Paramaribo聴”a difficult eight-day journey”聴but he'd done it half a century ago.

I wanted to canoe from Bendekonde聴a pleasant village deep in Saramakaland with cashew and palm trees planted along the footpaths but no electricity, no telephone, and no running water聴to Atjoni, a village on the edge of the territory, where the first dirt track wriggles out of the rainforest. It was a distance of 50 river miles, past about 40 villages and down dozens of small rapids.

“It's very crazy, my friend,” Marvin Pansa shouted gaily the first time we met. He was tall and tattooed, and his long limbs glistened with sweat. He was in the midst of a ferocious soccer game in a pasture along the bank in Bendekonde. Word had gotten around that there was a white man looking to canoe the river.

“Who knows how long it could take,” he said. “Three, four, five days.” Frankie Pansa, Marvin's short, non-English-speaking sidekick, appeared behind him. “Me and Frankie will have to paddle the canoe back upriver.” Marvin grinned, revealing a gold front tooth. “You pay for both directions?”

I met them on the riverfront at half past six the next morning. They were in shorts and flip-flops, Marvin sporting a Nike visor, Frankie wearing a Giorgio Armani T-shirt. Each had a sealed five-gallon plastic tub with his belongings inside聴hammock, pants, extra shirt, toothbrush聴and a hand-carved paddle. Their supplies for the journey consisted of one bottle of 90-proof Mari'nburg white rum, a bag of homegrown ganja, a machete, and a shotgun.

Marvin, 20, lives in Bendekonde. He has a wife and young child and a girlfriend who is pregnant. (Traditionally, the Saramaka are a polygamous, matri-lineal society; most people in a village have the same last name聴as Marvin and Frankie do聴even if they are only distantly related.) Marvin knew he needed money, which is why he volunteered for this trip. Besides, he had experience with bakaa (Saramaka for whites). His father owns a tourist camp in the bush, and Marvin had guided Dutch bakaa on rainforest eco-tours.

Frankie, 22, had borrowed his grandmother's dugout. The intricately carved upturned bow and stern that Saramaka boats are known for (often reinforced and decorated with hammer-patterned metal fittings) had both broken off, and the normally smooth, elegant clapboard gunwales nailed to the hull were battered. But it floated. Almost.

We pushed off into cobwebs of mist, and within an hour the dugout, christened Oma聴”Grandma” in Dutch聴was sinking. Marvin and Frankie were unperturbed. Marvin started bailing with an oil can while Frankie stood up, machete in hand. Hiking up his shorts and pulling down his boxers, he sliced off a strip of fabric and plugged it into a bubbling crack in the hull. Then he cut off a second strip and sealed another leak.

Over the course of the journey, Frankie would use up his underwear chinking old cracked Oma.
听

OUTSIDE OF TOTAL insurrection, marronage was what most frightened planters. They called it “the chronic plague.” Runaway slaves threatened the very structure of the New World economy during the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. Without slave labor, the sugarcane, tobacco, and cotton industries would collapse and rich, aristocratic planters would become paupers. Thus, the most demonic punishments were reserved for recaptured runaway slaves. Br
According to Suriname criminal court records from 1730, “the Negro Joosie shall be hanged from the gibbet by an Iron Hook through his ribs, until dead; his head shall then be severed and displayed on a stake by the riverbank, remaining to be picked over by birds of prey. As for the Negroes Wierrie and Manbote, they shall be bound to a stake and roasted alive over a slow fire, while being tortured with glowing Tongs. The Negro girls, Lucreita, Ambira, Aga, Gomba, Marie and Victoria will be tied to a Cross, to be broken alive, and then their heads severed to be exposed by the riverbank on stakes….”

Maroon outposts were fortresses in the wild, located in the most inhospitable terrain. Paths leading to a village were concealed and booby-trapped with pits of sharpened stakes. The only way into or out of some villages was either through an underwater tunnel or by passing through a narrow defile; most communities were surrounded by wooden palisades.

To feed, clothe, and defend themselves, maroons became masters of outdoor survival, domesticating jungle plants, concocting medicines, fishing, hunting, carving wood, and weaving.

Always outnumbered and outgunned, maroons also developed guerrilla warfare tactics. Using ambushes, night maneuvers, and hit-and-run attacks, maroons sometimes managed to vanquish European mercenaries trained in regimented fighting. The most powerful maroon societies regularly raided plantations聴stealing slaves into freedom聴which eventually forced their former masters and colonial governments to sign accords granting them not only their freedom but also land ownership and trade opportunities.

Peace treaties with nascent maroon governments were inked in Hispaniola, Panama, Venezuela, and Ecuador in the 1500s, Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil in the 1600s, and Jamaica and Suriname in the 1700s. Despite these treaties, most maroon communities were eventually destroyed by colonial troops. And yet some聴through a combination of intelligent diplomacy, fierce courage, and wilderness resourcefulness聴survived. The Saramaka were one such group.

In 1762, they signed an agreement with the Dutch colonial administration granting them land rights along the Suriname River from 50 miles inland south to the headwaters. Remarkably, for the next two centuries this treaty was largely respected. During those many generations, the Saramaka built a world from the rainforest, creating their own language, their own animist religion, their own architecture, and their own cuisine.
听

WE CAMP ON THE BANKS of the river or in small villages. I set up my tent; Marvin and Frankie string their hammocks. One morning I awake at 4 a.m. to rhythmic thumping and laughter. It is a sound I haven't heard since my last journey to Africa, and it gives me enormous pleasure. I lie there listening, drifting through dreams, until dawn. When I unzip my tent I find a group of women using heavy, baseball-bat-size pestles and tree-trunk mortars to pound palm nuts into mush, which they will boil over wood fires for several days to transform into palm oil.

That afternoon, we buy three catfish from a boy fishing with a string from a listing dugout. Frankie, being a quiet bachelor, turns out to be something of a chef, acquiring onions and tomatoes and rainforest vegetables I don't recognize to produce an inspiring fish stew for dinner.

On the second evening, we paddle through a thunderstorm, a warm rain exploding the surface of the river. Marvin and Frankie just keep paddling and singing. I think it might be some ancient Afro-American river song.

“Hah!” Marvin shakes his head. “It's a Saramaka rap tune, mon.”

One glassy morning I foolishly decide it is my turn to sit in the stern and steer. The dugout doglegs radically right, then left, then right again. I can't get the boat to go straight to save my life. Marvin and Frankie peal with laughter.

When we stop to rest on rock islands, Marvin tells me about the Saramaka government. The Saramaka are divided into 12 matrilineal l么s, or clans. The gaanman, the king (currently Songo Aboikoni), holds office for life, and each village is administered by a kabiten, or captain. Crimes and disputes are settled through a kuutu, an oratory governed by elaborate rules and often conducted by captains and other village elders.

Near the end of the trip, I ask Marvin if he would like to boat on, past Atjoni, and cross W. J. van Blommestein Lake.

“It is not possible,” he replies flatly. “This boat would sink and we would be eaten by piranhas.”

I chuckle, but Marvin is serious: “That part of Saramakaland is gone forever.”

Blommestein Lake is actually a 600-square-mile reservoir created by the Afobaka hydroelectric dam, built by Alcoa and the Suriname government in the early sixties. The reservoir, one of the largest in the world, flooded roughly half of the riverine land of the Saramaka, forcing the removal of 6,000 villagers.

“What you have seen is all we have left,” Marvin says.
听

IN 1997, THE SARAMAKA discovered a large Chinese logging camp in their territory. Without notifying them, the Suriname government had sold logging concessions to their land. Suriname military personnel guard these logging operations and prohibit the Saramaka from entering. The clear-cutting, like clear-cutting the world over, is devastating the land聴destroying wildlife habitat, causing erosion that silts the streams, which kills the fish, and gutting a rainforest ecosystem that the Saramaka, through swidden agriculture and hunting and gathering, have maintained as a sustainable resource for 300 years.

According to witnesses, the majority of cut timber, much of it cedar, is simply bulldozed into piles and left to rot. Only the old-growth trees are trucked out, the ancient wood to be sawed into floorboards for shipping containers.

The Saramaka filed formal complaints with the Suriname government of President Ronald Venetiaan in October 1999 and October 2000 and never received a reply. In August 2002, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights issued a request to Suriname's government, including the attorney general and the minister of natural resources, asking that it “take appropriate measures to suspend all concessions, including permits and licenses for logging and mine exploration and other natural resource development activity on lands used and occupied by 12 Saramaka clans.”

Cognizant of their dire situation, the Saramaka presented a detailed map of their territory (surveyed by GPS) to the government in October 2002, requesting that they be recognized as the legal and rightful owners of this land.

To date, the government has not responded. And so the logging continues, devouring, acre by acre, Saramakaland.

In the last hours of paddling before we reach Atjoni, the river is as smooth as syrup. Giant white-skinned, baobab-like trees reflect upon the dark water. The air is still, warm, wet. We have found our rhythm and paddle in harmony. Each stroke hits the water at a slightly different moment, like synchronized drumbeats.

We're gliding downriver almost in a trance when Marvin starts to sing: “One love, one heart. Let's get together and feel all right.”

Marvin wails out the whole song, Frankie and I doing the refrain.

Together we sing all the Bob Marley anthems we can remember: “Buffalo Soldier,” “Exodus,” “Get Up, Stand Up.”

We sing “Redemption Song” two times through, and then we begin to hum it, the melody sailing over the water and into the jungle.
听

IN THE LAST HOURS of paddling before we reach Atjoni, the river is as smooth as syrup. Giant white-skinned, baobab-like trees reflect upon the dark water. The air is still, warm, wet. We have found our rhythm and paddle in harmony. Each stroke hits the water at a slightly different moment, like synchronized drumbeats.

We're gliding downriver almost in a trance when Marvin starts to sing: “One love, one heart. Let's get together and feel all right.” Marvin wails out the whole song, Frankie and I doing the refrain. Together we sing all the Bob Marley anthems we can remember: “Buffalo Soldier,” “Exodus,” “Get Up, Stand Up.” We sing “Redemption Song” two times through, and then we begin to hum it, the melody sailing over the water and into the jungle.

The post Up the Creek appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

Since 1972, UNESCO has bestowed 690 spots in 122 countries with the title “World Heritage Site,” which translates to “a property of outstanding universal value.” While 529 of these sites are culturally significant, 161 are “natural” properties鈥攎ore endowed with endangered species, magnificent scenery, and fragile ecosystems than your average hunk of terra firma. Here, the best of the ten most recently designated “natural” sites:

Fjord follies: the coast H枚ga Kusten, Sweden

GUNUNG MULU NATIONAL PARK
Sarawak, Borneo, Malaysia
Size: 204 square miles
Outstanding Universal Value: The world's largest limestone cavern, Deer Cave鈥攁t 1,968 feet long and 262 feet high鈥攃ould house eight 747s nose to tail.
Why go: Serious spelunking. Also: Hike 7,799-foot Mulu mountain, trek the seven-mile Headhunter Trail to Terikan River hot springs, or watch a half-mile-long stream of bats exit Deer Cave in search of dinner.
Phone: 011-60-82-423600
Web:
UKHAHLAMBA DRAKENSBERG PARK
KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
Size: 938 square miles
Outstanding Universal Value: 3,110-foot Thukela Falls, the world's second-highest waterfall; 11,355-foot Makheka mountain, southern Africa s second-highest peak.
Why go: Summit Makheka, 10,822-foot Mont Aux Sources, or countless other unclimbed (and unnamed) peaks.
Phone: 011-27-31-304-7144
Web:

GREATER BLUE MOUNTAINS AREA
New South Wales, Australia
Size: 3,977 square miles
Outstanding Universal Value: Home to the recently discovered Wollemi pine, which dates back to the dinosaur age, this site includes Blue Mountains National Park and seven other protected areas.
Why go: Canyoneer, climb, rappel, hike, and swim in 328-foot-deep Grand Canyon; take a moonlit mountain-bike ride along miles of fire roads lit by thousands of luminescent glowworm larvae.
Phone: 011-61-2-4787-8877
Web:

H脰GA KUSTEN
on the Gulf of Bothnia, V盲sternorrland, Sweden
Size: 550 square miles
Outstanding Universal Value: Hundreds of miles of wild, fjord-riddled coastline.
Why go: Kayak the waters of Gaviks fjord, hike the 80-mile H枚ga Kusten trail, camp in spruce forests, and rock climb in Skuleskogen National Park.
Phone: 011-46-611-55-77-50
Web: ;

CENTRAL SURINAME NATURE RESERVE
District Sipaliwini, Suriname
Size: 6,178 square miles
Outstanding Universal Value: Fifteen people and 400 bird species inhabit this New Jersey-size site lying between the Amazon and Orinoco River Basins.
Why go: Boat into remote Foengoe Island on the Coppename River; then hike four miles to the 787-foot granite Voltzberg Dome for a rainforest view. Observe the world's largest lek for Guianan cock-of-the-rock birds.
Phone: 011-597-427-102
Web:

The post The Chosen Ones appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

We’ve learned a lot in a quarter-century of roaming the planet. This month, to kick off 国产吃瓜黑料‘s silver anniversary, we’ve chosen 25 bold, epic, soul-nourishing experiences that every true adventurer must seek out—from the relatively plush and classic to the cutting-edge and hard-core. All that’s left for you is the easy part:

How do you put this thing in reverse? Heavy traffic in Kaokoveld, Namibia

GET OUT THERE





Our resident gadabout’s cri de coeur to get you off your duff and out chasing your dreams.
BY TIM CAHILL
Follow in the Footsteps of Greatness, Make a First Ascent, Get Lost in Your Own Backyard


Live a South Seas Fantasy, Track Big Game on Safari, Scare Yourself Witless on a Class V River


See the World from Behind Bars, Journey to the Ends of the Earth, Paddle with the Whales


Free Your Soul on a Pilgrimage, Explore Majestic Canyons, Help Save an Endangered Species


Master the Art of the F-Stop, Ski Infinite Backcountry, Take an Epic Trek


Get Culture Shocked, Go Polar, Stay Alive!


Swim with Sharks, Pursue Lost Horizons, Behold the Wonders of the Cosmos


Jump Down the Food Chain, Gallop Through the Surf, Cast Away in Paradise, Break On Through to the Other Side

Exotic Places Made Me Do It

Meteora Monestery, Greece

“A SUBMERSIBLE VOYAGE under the North Pole?” The radio host was leafing through a copy of 国产吃瓜黑料, reading off destinations and activities in tones of rising incredulity. “Trekking with pygmies in the Central African Republic? Backpacking in Tasmania? Swimming with sharks in Costa Rica?”


Talk-show hosts, I’ve discovered, often think confrontational interviews are audience builders. I said that the magazine strives to put together the ultimate traveler’s dream catalog. It wasn’t all about diving with sharks.


“A dogsled expedition in Greenland?”


“For instance,” I said.


“My idea of a vacation,” the guy declared, “is a nice oceanfront resort, a beach chair, and a pi-a colada.”


“Mine, too,” I said. “For a day or two. Then I’d go bug spit. I’d feel like I was in prison. I’d want to do something.”


Who, the host insisted, wants to, say, trek across Death Valley? His listeners wanted to lie on the beach and drink sweet rum concoctions.


The urge to grab the guy by the collar and slap him until his ears rang was nearly overwhelming.


But I didn’t. “I think that’s a serious misconception about who listens to this show,” I replied. It was, I thought, a serious misconception about human beings altogether.


So I did my best to defend all of us who aren’t in our right minds. These—I said of the destinations and adventures mentioned—are dreams. Everybody has them, though they often come in clusters when we’re younger. A lot of us first aspired to far-ranging travel and exotic adventure early in our teens; these ambitions are, in fact, adolescent in nature, which I find an inspiring idea. Adolescence is the time in our lives when we are the most open to new ideas, the most idealistic. Thus, when we allow ourselves to imagine as we once did, we are not at all in our right minds. We are somewhere in a world of dream, and we know, with a sudden jarring clarity, that if we don’t go right now, we’re never going to do it. And we’ll be haunted by our unrealized dreams and know that we have sinned against ourselves gravely.


Or something like that. Who knows? I was just sitting around talking with some doofus on drive-time radio.


Then it was time to take phone calls. It would be satisfying to report that each and every caller agreed with me, that they excoriated the host for blatant imbecility, and that the host, convinced of my superior perspicacity, apologized then and there.


It didn’t happen quite like that. But many of the listeners did, in fact, reject the pi-a-colada paradigm. Several seemed positively gung ho about the idea of travel under stressful conditions in remote areas. It gave me hope that somebody might even call in and ask The Question—the one that anyone who’s been writing about travel for any length of time gets asked. And then someone did:


“Can I carry your bags?”


THE MAJORITY OF THE PEOPLE I meet and chat with have their own peculiar travel fantasy. The dream varies from individual to individual, but it almost never involves seven endless scorching days in a beach chair.


Sometimes, after public-speaking engagements, it is my pleasure to sit and sign books. I speak with people then, and often they tell me about these fantasies, sometimes in hushed voices, as if the information were embarrassing and someone might hear. I suspect they fear the scorn of people like the radio talk-show host. They imagine they will be thought immature. Adolescent.


That’s why the words “Let’s go!” are intrinsically courageous. It’s the decision to go that is, in itself, entirely intrepid. We know from the first step that travel is often a matter of confronting our fear of the unfamiliar and the unsettling—of the rooster’s head in the soup, of the raggedy edge of unfocused dread, of that cliff face that draws us willy-nilly to its lip and forces us to peer into the void.


I’m convinced that we all have the urge in some degree or another, even the least likely among us. And we’ve never needed to respect and reward that urge more than we do now. Consider the case of my literary agent, Barbara Lowenstein, a stylish New Yorker, a small woman, always perfectly coiffed, tough and straightforward in her business dealings, and a terror to any ma”tre d’ who would dare seat her at a less than optimal table. Still, every year for the last decade, she has taken a winter trip to this river in Patagonia, or that veld in Africa. She’s been in places where baboons pilfer your food and monkeys pee on your head.


This year, after the September 11 attacks, people were, initially, amazed that she was still going anywhere at all. “It’s Spain and Morocco,” Barbara told me in October. “Not my usual. But people still think I’m crazy to go.”


I spoke with her just before she left on her trip in late December. I asked if people still questioned her sanity.


“No,” she said. “New York seems to be getting back on track. People have stopped asking ‘Why?’ and have started asking ‘Where?'”


What follows is the best answer to the latter question we’ve ever compiled: a life list of destinations, of dreams that won’t die. Read it. Try to refrain from drooling.


Can I carry your bags?

It’s a Real, Real, Real, Real World

One advantage in this dicey new world: “国产吃瓜黑料 travel” is finally living up to its name. While it’s true that previously unimaginable roadblocks are now as common as Oldsmobiles outside a Lions Club luncheon, odds are you won’t run up against them. But in case you find yourself S.O.L. in Sulawesi, our quick fixes for your worst nightmares.


Dilemma: A Third World crossing guard won’t let you into the Fourth World nation through which your third-rate travel agent booked your flight home. Creative Solution: High time you learned the ancient art of bribery. Cash is good, but don’t bother if it’s less than a $50. Low on bills? Freak out so they’ll pay you just to leave. Eat a couple pages of your passport or develop a contagious itch.
Dilemma: You’re trying to look like everyone else buying yak butter at the market in Hostilistan, but your clothing, gear, and pearly-whites scream U-S-A! Creative Solution: Memorize “I am Canadian” in 20 languages. Here’s a start: Je suis canadien. Ich bin Kanadier. Soy candiense. Wo sher jianada ren. Ana Kanady…



Dilemma: Your guide seemed like such a stable fellow when he loaded the duffels into the Land Cruiser. But three days later, he’s foaming at the mouth and stealing your tent poles to build an altar to Zolac, the God of Dead Ecotourists. Creative Solution: Finally, all that Survivor tube time pays off. Size up your group for an impromptu insurrection: Identify anyone who’s a telemarketer or attorney. Offer him/her as a ritual sacrifice to Zolac. Run like hell.


Dilemma: All you needed to bring, your carefree island-hopping friends said, was a bikini bottom and a cash card. Two weeks later, one is full of sand, the other completely drained. Creative Solution: (1) Get to an Internet portal, auction the bikini bottom on eBay, invest proceeds in bargain-priced Enron stock, wait. (2) Using rusty Craftsman pliers you found on the beach, extract gold crowns from the teeth of your carefree island-hopping friends, sell to village black-market jeweler. (3) Bite the bullet and call Mom collect.


Dilemma: Revolutionaries are headed for your remote camp with less than neighborly intentions. Creative Solution: (1) Climb a cliff, spend night on portaledge (be sure to push suspected militants off the edge first), wait for Kyrgyz Army to save you. (2) Booby-trap your campsite. First, turn fire pit into flaming cauldron of hell by greasing surrounding uphill slope with copious amounts of Gu. Carve a figurine out of campfire log, leave it propped against tent with Leatherman blade stuck directly through its head. Finally, rig a tent-pole snare and trip wire to hurl your ultra-crusty SmartWools directly at encroachers.


Dilemma: The airport security guy is sizing you up with a leer that says only one thing: Strip search. Creative Solution: (1) Preempt the search and voluntarily get naked, then start humming “Dueling Banjos.” (2) Ask him if he understands the phrase “uncoverable oozing lesions.”(3) Snap your teeth, bark, and threaten to bite.


Dilemma: To all the other revelers, it’s just your average disco ball and smoke machine. But when it comes to public places, you’ve got pre-traumatic stress disorder. To you it’s a stun-grenade precursor to absolute mayhem. Creative Solution: Relax, already. Get your groove on. It’s likely all that screaming is a just an overzealous reaction to techno-punk. But if not, what better way to go out than in a sequined halter?

The Red Planet: California’s Death Valley

1. Follow in the Footsteps of Greatness
Tibet / Mallory and Irvine’s Everest
It’s everything but the disappearing act: Follow the route of doomed explorers George Mallory and Andrew Irvine from Lhasa to Rongbuk Monastery, the sacred gateway to Mount Everest. You’ll camp and hike in the spectacular Rongbuk Valley, with jaw-dropping views of the world’s highest peak, before trekking to 17,900-foot Advanced Base Camp, from which the intrepid mountaineers launched their fatal summit attempt in 1924. OUTFITTER: Geographic Expeditions, 800-777-8183, WHEN TO GO: May, June, October PRICE: $4,945 DIFFICULTY: Moderate

USA / Idaho / Biking the Lewis and Clark Trail
(NEW TRIP) Retrace a portion of Lewis and Clark’s historic route as you pedal 85 miles on the Forest Service roads of the Lolo Trail, which winds through Idaho’s remote Bitterroot Mountains. But what took the explorers eight days in 1805, and drove them to eat three of their horses, will take you only five: You’ll bike 20 miles per day, and you’ll dine on grilled salmon, chicken diablo, and chocolate fondue. At night around the campfire, your guides will double as history professors, discussing Lewis and Clark’s journey and their interactions with Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce. OUTFITTER: Western Spirit Cycling, 800-845-2453, WHEN TO GO: July-September PRICE: $895 DIFFICULTY: Moderate

South Pacific / In the Wake of the Bounty
Your 22-day cruise won’t involve a reenactment of Fletcher Christian’s legendary 1789 mutiny, but you will meet his family. After three days exploring the mysterious stone ruins of Easter Island, you’ll board a 168-passenger expedition cruise ship and motor 1,200 miles west to the tiny Pitcairn Islands, to which Christian eventually piloted the Bounty and where the 48 residents boast mutineer DNA. Continue with visits to a dozen more exotic Pacific islands: You’ll snorkel in the Marquesas, look for crested terns with the onboard ornithologist in the Tuamotus, and follow a dolphin escort into Bora Bora’s lagoon. OUTFITTER: Wilderness Travel, 800-368-2794, WHEN TO GO: March, April, October, November PRICE: $7,665 DIFFICULTY: Easy

TRIP ENHANCER
Apple iPod MP3 Player
The sleekest, best-designed, and priciest MP3 player going. Apple’s iPod ($399; ) quickly stores up to three decades’ worth of greatest hits (1,000 tunes) and can play them for nearly ten hours straight. Sufficient entertainment even for the longest transpacific flight.

2. Make a First Ascent
China / Into the Kax Tax
(New Trip) Last year, Colorado mountaineer Jon Meisler used a century-old map to rediscover a hidden rift valley in western China’s Xinjiang province that provided access to some 30 nameless peaks in the Kax Tax range. Most of the mountains allow for four- or five-day assaults over nontechnical terrain to 20,000-foot summits. This year’s monthlong guided trips include an acclimatization hike into valleys inhabited by wild yaks, blue sheep, and Tibetan brown bears. OUTFITTER: High Asia Exploratory Mountain Travel Company, 800-809-0034, WHEN TO GO: June, August PRICE: from $5,000 DIFFICULTY: Strenuous

Greenland / Gunnbj酶rn Fjeld and Beyond
Pioneer a route up a 10,000-foot peak on your 14-day expedition to eastern Greenland’s Watson Range. A Twin Otter loaded with ropes, skis, and frozen chicken will fly you to base camp about 225 miles south of Ittoqqortoormiit, on the eastern fringes of Greenland’s icecap. After warming up on a four-day climb to the summit of 12,139-foot Mount Gunnbj酶rn Fjeld, your group will decide which of the 50-odd surrounding mountains to climb. OUTFITTER: Alpine Ascents International, 206-378-1927, WHEN TO GO: June PRICE: $9,500 DIFFICULTY: Strenuous

Bolivia / Exploring Apolobamba
Spend ten to 13 days in northern Bolivia’s Apolobamba range, tackling the unclimbed south face of 18,553-foot Cuchillo or a virgin peak in the Katantica group. You’ll trek on llama trails beneath glacier-cloaked peaks and watch condors soar over your base camp before you start the dirty work of picking a peak and route to fit your abilities. OUTFITTER: The 国产吃瓜黑料 Climbing and Trekking Company of South America, 719-530-9053, WHEN TO GO: June PRICE: $1,600-$2,575 DIFFICULTY: Strenuous

3. Get Lost in Your Own Backyard
USA / Minnesota / Paddling the Voyageur International Route
In the 60 miles between your put-in and take-out in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, you’ll find little more than a chain of pine-fringed lakes connected by muddy portages—so stopping to buy Advil is not an option. But the untouched land-scape on this ten-day canoe trip, which follows an 18th-century fur-trading route on the Canada/Minnesota border, from Saganaga Lake to Crane Lake, will keep your mind off your aching shoulders. At nightly lakeshore camps, look for bald eagles and timber wolves, and listen for the call of the loon. OUTFITTER: Wilderness Outfitters, 800-777-8572, WHEN TO GO: May PRICE: $1,649 DIFFICULTY: Moderate

USA / Alaska / Rafting the Nigu River
(New Trip) Paddle a four-man raft for 70 miles and ten days down the lonely Nigu, and it’s likely you won’t see another two-legged soul. A plane will drop you in the middle of the Brooks Range, where you’ll paddle the Class II water through rolling carpets of rhododendrons and lupines. From your riverbank camps, watch vermilion skies as they illuminate bears, wolves, and herds of migrating caribou. OUTFITTER: Arctic Treks, 907-455-6502, WHEN TO GO: August PRICE: $3,150 (includes flights between the Brooks Range and Fairbanks) DIFFICULTY: Moderate

USA / California / Death Valley Hike
Step out of the daily grind and into the empty moonscape of Death Valley National Park. You’ll hike four to ten miles a day through serpentine slot canyons and over 100-foot-high sand dunes and white borax-crystal flats, camping out under surprisingly serene skies. Yellow panamint daisies, magenta beavertail cactus blossoms, soaring peregrine falcons, and red-tailed hawks will convince you that the area is far from dead. OUTFITTER: REI 国产吃瓜黑料s, 800-622-2236, WHEN TO GO: March, April PRICE: $895 DIFFICULTY: Moderate

Paradise on the rocks: Palau, South Pacific

4. Live a South Seas Fantasy
Micronesia / Chuuk, Palau, and Yap Snorkeling
Micronesia’s abundance of sea fans and staghorn corals makes for some of the world’s best snorkeling, never mind the manta rays floating between giant Napoleon wrasses and downed WWII Zeros. For 16 days you’ll stay at beachfront lodges on Chuuk, Palau, and Yap to explore the 82-degree seas in outrigger canoes and visit Jellyfish Lake, home to hundreds of the stingerless blobs. OUTFITTER: World Wildlife Fund, 888-993-8687, WHEN TO GO: March, April PRICE: $5,495 (includes round-trip airfare from Los Angeles) DIFFICULTY: Easy

Papua New Guinea / Exploratory Sea Kayaking
(New Trip) Volcanic walls and 100-foot waterfalls provide the backdrop for paddling inflatable kayaks 75 miles on this exploratory 13-day mission around the Tufi Peninsula and Trobriand Islands of southeastern New Guinea. Snorkel in 80-degree water teeming with leather sponges, sheets of table corals, and schools of Moorish idols. When the cicadas rattle, retire to a thatch-roofed guest house or pitch a tent right on the sand. OUTFITTER: Mountain Travel Sobek, 888-687-6235, WHEN TO GO: March, April, November PRICE: $3,190 DIFFICULTY: Moderate
Fiji / 国产吃瓜黑料 Sailing
(New Trip) The Fijian high chiefs keep the Lau Islands closed to tourists to preserve their wild blue waters and secret coves. Lucky for you, your guides have family ties. Spend four days with 40 others aboard a 145-foot schooner, the Tui Tai, sailing north from Savusavu. You’ll anchor off islands with newly built singletrack (bike rentals included), 900-foot cliffs to rappel, and a maze of waterways to explore by sea kayak. Before the waves rock you to sleep in a specially prepared bed on deck, look overboard for glowing squid eyes. OUTFITTER: Tui Tai 国产吃瓜黑料 Cruises, 011-679-66-1-500, WHEN TO GO: Year-round PRICE: $300 (three nights); $375 (four nights) DIFFICULTY: Moderate

5. Track Big Game on Safari
Botswana / Okavango Delta by Horseback
Go lens-to-snout with the wildest creatures on the wildest continent. On this eight-day safari you’ll spend five days cantering with herds of zebras, milling among feeding elephants, and getting close to the lions, cheetahs, and leopards that roam the marshy plains of Botswana’s Okavango Delta. Then it’s out of the saddle and into a Land Rover for three more game-packed days in nearby Moremi Reserve or Chobe National Park. Your digs are comfortable tented camps—which feature roomy canvas wall tents with beds and private viewing decks—and, in Chobe, a posh game lodge. OUTFITTER: International Ventures, 800-727-5475, WHEN TO GO: March—November PRICE: $1,975 DIFFICULTY: Moderate

Tanzania / Ngorongoro Nonstop
(New Trip) Consider it a survival-of-the-fittest safari—the fittest traveler, that is. On this 12-day romp through the Tanzanian outback, you’ll paddle among the hippos in Lake Manyara, rappel down the Rift Valley’s western escarpment, and mountain bike through the rolling foothills—braking for giraffes, zebras, and tree-climbing lions—to watch the sun set over the Ngorongoro Highlands. Next, hike the wildlife-filled Ngorongoro Crater (watch for rare black rhinos) and trek with buffalo, hyenas, and gazelles in the rainforested Empakai Crater. Need a breather? No worries. Nights are spent in cush game lodges and luxurious tented camps. OUTFITTER: Abercrombie & Kent, 800-323-7308, WHEN TO GO: January-March, June-August, October, December PRICE: $4,395 DIFFICULTY: Moderate

TRIP ENHANCER
Grundig ETravelerVII Shortwave Receiver
Emerging from a 20-day trek through the rainforest to discover that a military junta has closed all airports and invalidated all visas is enough to make you long for the PDA-size eTravelerVII radio ($130; 800-872-2228). With its ability to pick up BBC Worldwide’s shortwave signals almost anywhere, it could’ve tipped you off before things turned ugly.

Kenya / Big Five Bonanza
Timed to coincide with the great Serengeti migration, when millions of zebras and wildebeests move from Tanzania into southern Kenya, this 15-day hiking-and-driving safari puts you directly in the path of the Big Five (lions, leopards, elephants, cape buffalo, and rhino) in Nairobi and Lake Nakuru National Parks. Finish with five days in the Masai Mara, where the sheer number of species is downright dizzying. OUTFITTER: Journeys International, 800-255-8735, PRICE: $4,250 WHEN TO GO: August, October DIFFICULTY: Easy

6. Scare Yourself Witless on a Class V River
China / The Great Bend of the Yangtze
What happens when five times the water of the Grand Canyon squeezes through a gorge only half as wide? Twenty-five-foot monster waves, a roaring Class V rapid three-quarters of a mile long, and whirlpools big enough to swallow a van. On this eight-day trip, you’ll raft more than 100 miles on the Great Bend section of the Yangtze River in China’s Yunnan Province and discover canyon walls stretching upward for a mile, with the 17,000-foot Snow Dragon mountains towering overhead. OUTFITTER: Earth River Expeditions, 800-643-2784, WHEN TO GO: November, December PRICE: $4,300 DIFFICULTY: Strenuous

Canada / The Mighty Ram
Wondering why this six-day Ram River run was attempted by commercial rafters for the first time just last year? Consider what navigating the 60-mile menace, which flows through Alberta’s Ram River Canyon just north of Banff, entails: You’ll rappel down 100-foot waterfalls, maneuver around massive boulders, and shoot through rapids hemmed in by steep vertical ledges (beware Powerslide, a narrow, 35-foot drop). And you’ll do it all with an audience: Bighorn sheep—the Ram’s namesake—watch from the riverbank, while cougars watch them. OUTFITTER: ROAM Expeditions, 877-271-7626, PRICE: $1,795 WHEN TO GO: June DIFFICULTY: Strenuous

Chile / Rafting and Kayaking the Futaleuf煤
The Futaleuf煤 is revered for its unforgiving hydraulics, which can suck paddlers under like a giant Hoover. But if you’re of questionable sanity and want an even wilder experience, try riding sections of the turquoise maelstrom in an inflatable kayak. Guides will make sure you’re up on wave patterns, ferrying, and how to swim the rapids in the very likely case you get dumped. Of course, you can always stick to the six-man raft, where you feel the joy (and see pine-covered banks, 300-foot-high white canyon walls, and granite spires) with relatively little terror. OUTFITTER: Orange Torpedo Trips, 800-635-2925, PRICE: $3,000 WHEN TO GO: December DIFFICULTY: Strenuous

South-coast solitude: Australia’s Tasmania

7. See the World from Behind Bars
Morocco / High Atlas Traverse
(New Trip) Pedal from the colorful markets of Marrakech to the loftiest peaks in North Africa, the High Atlas Range. This 15-day exploratory ride takes you over a 10,404-foot pass, between 13,000-foot peaks, and through mountains still inhabited by the Berber tribes that have lived here for centuries. OUTFITTER: KE 国产吃瓜黑料 Travel, 800-497-9675, WHEN TO GO: November PRICE: $1,945 DIFFICUTLY: Strenuous

New Zealand / Cycling on the South Island
Nowhere else in the world do velvety roads wind by such idyllic scenery. Sandwiched between ice-capped peaks and jagged coastlines, you’ll pump up to six hours a day from the Tasman Sea to Queenstown, through old-growth forests, over a 3,000-foot pass, and past geysers and glaciers. OUTFITTER: Backroads, 800-462-2848, WHEN TO GO: November-March PRICE: $3,398 DIFFICULTY: Moderate

Canada / Coast Mountain Crossing
COAST MOUNTAIN CROSSING Ten days of wilderness singletrack—need we say more? Starting on smooth mining trails near Tyax Lake, you’ll crank up 6,500-foot ascents, into the heart of the Coast Range, before descending to the technical trails of British Columbia’s western rainforests. Thirty- to 40-mile days are punctuated by nights spent stargazing from wilderness camps or soaking in hot tubs at historic B&Bs. OUTFITTER: Rocky Mountain Cycle Tours, 800-661-2453, WHEN TO GO: September PRICE: $2,495 DIFFICULTY: Strenuous

TRIP ENHANCER
Garmin eTrex Vista GPS
Soggy maps proving difficult to decipher? Break out the eTrex Vista GPS ($375; 800-800-1020). Better screen resolution (288X160), a more accurate WAAS signal, and downloadable maps from MapSource or Garmin (sold separately) let you use your paper version as emergency Wet-Naps. Just don’t forget batteries.

8. Journey to the Ends of the Earth
Mongolia / Riding with the Eagle Hunters
Riding with the Eagle Hunters When Aralbai, your guide, honors you with a sheep’s ear hors d’oeuvre, don’t gag. You’re in Mongolia for 11 days to learn traditions of the Kazakh eagle hunters, named for the hooded golden eagles they carry on their arms. Ride horses with the hunters by day; by night, sleep in a mud-brick cabin, dance to the sounds of the morin khuur (a two-stringed fiddle), and sip vodka, which will make that ear slide down nicely. OUTFITTER: Boojum Expeditions, 800-287-0125, WHEN TO GO: November-January PRICE: $1,950 DIFFICULTY: Easy

Australia / Tasmania Trek
(New Trip) It’s easy to become disoriented in Tasmania’s Southwest National Park. The nearest settlement can be a week’s walk away, trails often morph into muddy mangrove-covered slopes, and most of your companions are wallabies. So be sure to grab your map before the Cessna abandons your group and its 40-pound backpacks of food and gear near Melaleuca Lagoon. From there it’s a ten-day, 55-mile hike along the South Coast Track, where you’ll bask on deserted beaches, scramble up 3,000-foot passes, wade across tea-tree-stained lagoons, and weave through towering celery-top pines. OUTFITTER: Wilderness Travel, 800-368-2794, WHEN TO GO: February 2003 PRICE: $2,495 DIFFICULTY: Strenuous

Mozambique / First Descent of the Lugenda River
(New Trip) The Yao of northern Mozambique have seldom seen foreigners and have certainly never seen your fancy fiberglass boat. This summer be the first to paddle kayaks down the Lugenda River. For two weeks and 700 miles you’ll float the copper flatwater past the Yao’s thatch-roofed huts, dense woodlands, iselbergs—gnarled rock spires poking out of the flat land—and around pods of hippos. Camp on islands scattered in the quarter-mile-wide river or along its banks under skies framed by ebony trees near the Niassa Reserve, home to 14,000 elephants. OUTFITTER: Explore, 888-596-6377, WHEN TO GO: June PRICE: $5,000-$7,000 DIFFICULTY: Strenuous

9. Paddle with the Whales
Argentina / On the Coast of Patagonia
Tourism is strictly regulated on the Argentine waters north of Patagonia’s Vald茅s Peninsula, where nearly a third of the world’s southern right whales breed. But you can skirt the rules and sea kayak with the 55-foot-long mammals by helping conduct a wildlife census. As you paddle between beach camps for ten days and a total of 60 miles, you’ll watch female whales care for their calves and surface within feet of your kayak, while the males slap their flukes to get their mates’ attention. You’ll help guides count giant petrels, black-browed albatrosses, and some 40 other bird species. OUTFITTER: Whitney & Smith Legendary Expeditions, 403-678-3052, WHEN TO GO: October, November PRICE: $3,250 DIFFICULTY: Moderate

Mexico / Circumnavigating Isla Carmen
(New Trip) Endangered blue whales more than five times as long as your kayak love to cruise past Isla Carmen in the Gulf of California looking for tasty crustaceans. Get close to the world’s largest animals and be among the first to circumnavigate Carmen by sea kayak, paddling between six and eight miles per day for nine days. Along the way you’ll also watch fin whales, snorkel with angelfish in 72-degree water, and search for rare blue-footed boobies. Spend nights camping in sheltered coves where volcanic rock juts into the sea. OUTFITTER: Sea Kayak 国产吃瓜黑料s, 800-616-1943, WHEN TO GO: April PRICE: $1,350 DIFFICULTY: Moderate

Norway / Paddling the Svalbard Archipelago
In July and August, go where the whales go: the Svalbard Archipelago, 600 miles northwest of mainland Norway. Here you’ll find 90- to 190-ton blues, 40-foot-long humpbacks, square-headed sperm whales, hundreds of walruses, auks, and kittiwakes—and 24-hour daylight to take it all in. Paddle a sea kayak ten miles a day for eight days through frigid 32-degree water along Svalbard’s western coastline, returning each night to cozy cabins (polar bears make camping inadvisable) and spicy bacalau stew aboard a former Norwegian trawler. OUTFITTER: Tofino Expeditions, 800-677-0877, WHEN TO GO: July, August PRICE: $8,000 (includes airfare from Troms酶, Norway) DIFFICULTY: Moderate

Step inside: another inviting nook off the Grand Canyon

10. Free Your Soul on a Pilgrimage
Tibet / To the Center of the Universe
May 26—the date Buddha was born, reached enlightenment, and died—is the day to visit Mount Kailas, a peak sacred to Buddhists, Jains, and Hindus. And Tibetan Buddhism expert Robert Thurman (yes, he’s Uma’s dad) is the man to go with. On this 28-day journey, you’ll circumambulate 22,027-foot Kailas. For an authentic experience, prostrate yourself as you go. OUTFITTER: Geographic Expeditions, 800-777-8183, WHEN TO GO: May PRICE: $8,085 DIFFICULTY: Strenuous

Spain / Biking El Camino de Santiago
Devout Christians have been walking the roads from the city of Burgos to the shrine of St. James, in the city of Santiago de Compostela, for more than a thousand years. Modern pilgrims can save their soles by making the 326-mile journey on a bike. You’ll ride on dirt roads and trails up to 60 miles per day for nine days, stopping to sleep in small hotels and to explore Romanesque churches in villages along the way. Follow ancient tradition and pick up a rock (of a size proportionate to your sins) on day six, and carry it 1,200 feet before ditching it at the highest point on the Camino: 4,891-foot Foncebad贸n Pass. What, after all, would a pilgrimage be without a little suffering? OUTFITTER: Easy Rider Tours, 800-488-8332, WHEN TO GO: May-July, September PRICE: $2,250 DIFFICULTY: Moderate
Peru / Sacred Sites of the Incas
In the tradition of their Incan ancestors, the Quechua people of southern Peru celebrate the June solstice at the foot of 21,067-foot Mount Ausungate, the spirit of animal fertility. Circumnavigate the holiest peak in the Cusco region on this 44-mile, high-altitude (12,000-foot-plus) trek, following ancient paths past grazing alpacas and Quechua villages. The 18-day trip also includes a four-day, 27-mile trek up the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. OUTFITTER: Southwind 国产吃瓜黑料s, 800-377-9463, WHEN TO GO: May-September PRICE: $3,675-$4,525 DIFFICULTY: Strenuous

TRIP ENHANCER
NEC Versa DayLite Notebook PC
Kayak, Tent, or African bus: The 3.3 pound Versa DayLite ($2,499; 888-632-8701) goes where you’d never dream of hauling heavier laptops, and goes for seven hours on its battery. But the screen is the star; its significantly heightened contrast means easy readability under the harsh glare of, say, the Saharan sun.

11. Explore Majestic Canyons
USA / Arizona / Padding and Hiking the Grand Canyon
Floating 235 miles through the 6,000-foot-deep Grand Canyon on its storied waters is a once-in-a-lifetime experience (unless you have an in with the permit office, which is doubtful). On this 13-day trip you’ll hit all the raging Class IV+ rapids and have ample time to hike and boulder in the side canyons, play under 125-foot waterfalls, explore Anasazi granaries, and swim in the calcium carbonate-tinted bright-blue pools at Havasu Creek. OUTFITTER: Outdoors Unlimited, 800-637-7238, WHEN TO GO: May, September PRICE: $2,795 DIFFICULTY: Moderate

Peru / Whitewater Rafting Colca Canyon
The reward for threading through 40 miles of SUV-size boulders on southern Peru’s twisting Class V Colca River—beyond the rush of making it out alive—is the rare view of soaring black condors against the canyon’s 11,000-foot walls. But don’t look up too much. The run demands deft maneuvering in paddle rafts. An added boon on this eight-day trip are the abundant natural springs. Soak in the hot ones; drink from the cold ones. OUTFITTER: Earth River Expeditions, 800-643-2784, WHEN TO GO: July PRICE: $2,900 DIFFICULTY: Strenuous

Mexico / Trekking in Copper Canyon
Hike through four biotic zones while dropping 6,000 feet from rim to floor in Chihuahua’s Copper Canyon. This ten-day trek starts on a cool plateau of ponderosa pine and Douglas fir. You’ll descend on paths used for centuries by the Tarahumara Indians, through pi帽on pine and juniper to reach arid slopes and agave cacti. Lower still, enter the subtropics, where parrots squawk in mango trees outside your tent. OUTFITTER: 国产吃瓜黑料s Abroad, 800-665-3998, WHEN TO GO: February-March, October-December PRICE: $1,590 DIFFICULTY: Moderate

12. Save an Endangered Species
Mongolia / In Search of the Snow Leopard
Journey Mongolian-style across the golden steppes and 12-mile-long sand dunes of the Gobi Desert as you help biologists find the nearly mythical snow leopard in its native habitat. You’ll sleep in yurts as you travel by camel, horse, and four-wheeler south from Ulan Bator for 11 days. Drink fermented mare’s milk with nomadic tribesmen before scouring the wild southeastern fringe of the Gobi, searching for malodorous leopard markings: The elusive cats spray the same spots for generations. OUTFITTER: Asia Transpacific Journeys, 800-642-2742, WHEN TO GO: September PRICE: $5,895 DIFFICULTY: Easy to moderate

U.S. Virgin Islands / Tracking Leatherback Turtles
Heroic beachcombing? Absolutely, at least along the southwest shore of St. Croix, where the Sandy Point National Wildlife Refuge hosts a slew of endangered leatherback turtles and one very successful conservation team. For ten days, live in airy beachside cottages and walk the two-mile white-sand shores, helping resident biologists measure nests and count hatchlings as the newborns struggle toward the warm Caribbean. OUTFITTER: Earthwatch Institute, 800-776-0188, WHEN TO GO: April-July PRICE: $1,895 DIFFICULTY: Moderate

Suriname / Paddling with Giant Otters
(New Trip) This former Dutch colony contains some of the most pristine tropical rainforest in the world and offers the best chance to see—and help save—some of the 3,000 or so endangered giant otters still left in the wild. For eight days, paddle in dugout canoes with biologists and natives in Kaburi Creek, a favored otter habitat in central Suriname (and home to kaleidoscopic macaws and parrots). Sleep in hammocks on the shore and canoe to “otter campsites” in this pilot project to count and study the friendly six-foot-long animals. OUTFITTER: Oceanic Society, 800-326-7491, WHEN TO GO: September PRICE: $2,390 (includes airfare from Miami) DIFFICULTY: Moderate

F-stop and go: fishing nets in Vietnam

13. Master the Art of the F-Stop
Cuba / Vision and Discover in Havana
Here’s your shot at playing globetrotting photojournalist. You’ll spend six mornings discussing theory, history, and technical concerns with your instructor, New York-based commercial and fine-art photographer Stacy Boge, at the Maine Photographic Workshops’ Cuba headquarters, formerly a 19th-century convent. In the afternoons she’ll set you loose to photograph historic forts, artisans at the craft market, and the wizened faces of Old Havana with a bilingual teaching assistant and guide. Lab crews develop your film nightly, so it’s ready for next-day critiques and slide shows. OUTFITTER: The Maine Photographic Workshops, 877-577-7700, WHEN TO GO: February, March PRICE: $1,495 DIFFICULTY: Easy

Vietnam and Laos / That Luang Festival
With photo opportunities that include sacred wats, limestone-spired islands, bustling markets, and numerous saffron-robed monks and nuns—plus acclaimed photographer Nevada Wier as your guide—you can’t help but take a few incredible shots. In Vietnam, you’ll sea kayak in Ha Long Bay and mingle with people of the Hmong and Dao hill tribes in the Tonkinese Alps; in Laos, you’ll cruise the Mekong River in a junk and watch a candlelight procession in Vientiane, the capital city, as thousands of Buddhists celebrate the annual That Luang Full Moon festival. OUTFITTER: Mountain Travel Sobek, 888-687-6235, WHEN TO GO: November PRICE: $4,400 DIFFICULTY: Easy
USA / Midway Atoll / Avian Images
The bird-to-human ratio on this U.S. naval base turned wildlife refuge—which lies 1,320 miles northwest of Honolulu—is an astonishing 8,000 to 1. Spend seven days with photography instructor Darrell Gulin and you’ll shoot black-footed albatross in the island’s lush interior one day and backward-flying red-tailed tropic birds on a beach the next. Your base: a comfy (really!) suite in the renovated naval officers’ quarters—Midway’s only accommodations. OUTFITTER: International Wildlife 国产吃瓜黑料s, 800-593-8881, WHEN TO GO: April-May PRICE: $3,295 DIFFICULTY: Easy

14. Ski Infinite Backcountry
USA / Wyoming / Teton Crest Traverse
It’s America’s Haute Route, cowboy style (no chalets). Hone your winter-camping skills after skinning 1,700 feet from Teton Pass to 9,100-foot Moose Creek Pass, with views into more than 400,000 acres of wilderness. Camp here for three nights, skiing the varied terrain of the Alaska Basin, before your 13-mile descent through Teton Canyon. OUTFITTER: Rendezvous Ski and Snowboard Tours, 877-754-4887, WHEN TO GO: April PRICE: $825 DIFFICULTY: Strenuous

Europe / The Continent’s Best Powder
Western Europe’s off-piste wonderland has a dirty little secret: unreliable snow. But Gary Ashurst—of La Grave, France, by way of Idaho—won’t tolerate it. Meet him and his Mercedes van in Geneva; he’ll take you to the best powder around—wherever that is at the moment. Staying in B&Bs or chalets, you’ll spend seven days carving the chutes of the Cerces, jump-turning down tight couloirs in the Dolomites, or reveling in another one of Gary’s always-snowy stashes. OUTFITTER: Global 国产吃瓜黑料s, 800-754-1199, WHEN TO GO: January-April PRICE: $1,600 DIFFICULTY: Strenuous

USA / Alaska / Peaks of the Chugach
(New Trip) Welcome to the middle of nowhere. After the plane lands, settle into your base-camp hut on Matanuska Glacier and take a lesson in glacier safety. Then spend ten days exploring every crevasse, serac, and untouched blanket of snow between you and your goal: the 10,000-foot summits of the Scandinavian Peaks. OUTFITTER: Colorado Mountain School, 888-267-7783, WHEN TO GO: April PRICE: $1,800 DIFFICULTY: Strenuous

TRIP ENHANCER
Leica Trinovid BCA Binoculars
Leica’s nine-ounce glasses ($429; 800-877-0155) are compact enough to slip elegantly into a pocket, but they offer 10X magnification coupled with superior optics that sharpen contrast on objects 1,000 feet away, all in a package that doesn’t scream “tourist.”

15. Take an Epic Trek
Nepal / Jugal Himal Exploratory
Get off the teahouse circuit (and, let’s hope, the path of Maoist insurgents) on this 23-day exploratory trek through the Jugal Mountains of Langtang National Park, about 75 miles west of Mount Everest. Starting in the Balephi Khola Valley, trek up to eight hours a day among rhododendrons and banana trees, following shepherd trails to two delphinium-fringed lakes at 17,000 feet. OUTFITTER: World Expeditions, 888-464-8735, WHEN TO GO: October-November PRICE: $3,120 DIFFICULTY: Strenuous

Bhutan / In the Shadow of the Goddess
Your ultimate destination is 23,997-foot Chomo Lhari, the “Mountain of the Goddess.” But, like life, this trek’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey: You’ll hike seven miles per day (average daily elevation gain: 2,000 feet) through western Bhutan’s Paro Valley on an ancient trading path that winds through thousand-year-old villages, fields of blue poppies, and pastures filled with grazing yaks. Camp in meadows and share the trail with caravans bringing salt, tea, and Chinese silk to Paro on this 70-mile, out-and-back route. OUTFITTER: Asia Transpacific Journeys, 800-642-2742, WHEN TO GO: March, September PRICE: $4,395 DIFFICULTY: Moderate

Russia / Hgih-Altitude Altai
Storybook adventure at its finest: Be on the lookout for wolves, lynx, eagles, and the rare snow leopard by day; by night camp at the base of 10,000-foot peaks named Beauty, Fairy Tale, and Dream. On this challenging 65-mile trek in the Altai Mountains, in one of the most remote regions of Siberia, you’ll cover eight to 12 miles per day, hiking through cedar-forested valleys along the roaring Chuya River and ascending to glacier-fed lakes, before heading back to civilization—and we mean civilization. The Altai has been inhabited for hundreds of thousands of years.OUTFITTER: Mir Corporation, 800-424-7289, WHEN TO GO: July-August PRICE: $2,395 DIFFICULTY: Strenuous

The dog days of Greenland

16. Get Culture Shocked
Central African Republic / Tracking with Pigmies
(New Trip) Put down your cell phone, pick up a spear, and spend five days in Dzanga-Ndoki National Park fully immersed in the Pygmy way of life. You’ll bushwhack through remote rainforests in the southwest Central African Republic, helping hunt for small antelope, track lowland gorillas and elephants, and collect medicinal herbs like Carcinia punctatam (it battles the runs). At night, retire to comfortable bungalows on stilts perched along the Sangha River, near the Pygmies’ village. OUTFITTER: Wilderness Travel, 800-368-2794, WHEN TO GO: November PRICE: $4,695 DIFFICULTY: Moderate

Ecuador / The Magic of the Shamans
See your troubles revealed in the entrails of dissected guinea pigs and enjoy other, equally drastic healing measures (like being thwapped by twigs) on this ten-day visit with Ecuadoran shamans. You’ll sleep in locals’ huts and travel by car, canoe, and foot to three spiritually distinct regions. Before heading into the Andes, visit the Amazon, where shamans venture to the underworld on the wings of ayahuasca, a natural hallucinogen—sorry, audience participation is discouraged. OUTFITTER: Myths and Mountains, 800-670-6984, WHEN TO GO: March, July PRICE: $1,895 DIFFICULTY: Moderate

Vietnam / Ethnic Explorer
Motorcycle into the hills of north Vietnam and meet the Flower Hmong in their rainbow head wraps or get lost in a chicken-filled market. Then park the bike for a three-day scramble up 10,312-foot Mount Fan Si Pan, with a local guide who smells his way up the route. OUTFITTER: Wild Card 国产吃瓜黑料s, 800-590-3776, WHEN TO GO: Year-round PRICE: From $1,600 DIFFICULTY: Moderate

17. Go Polar
Greenland / Dogsledding Across Polar Tundra
Travel the Arctic with the in crowd. Join explorer Paul Schurke on his annual Polar Inuit spring trip, accompanied by Inuit hunters who happen to be descendants of Americans Robert Peary and Matthew Henson, arguably the first men to reach the North Pole. You’ll snow camp in ten-degree temperatures for 14 days and dogsled the snowy alien landscape for 300 miles over sea ice on coastal fjords and Arctic tundra. OUTFITTER: Wintergreen Dogsled Lodge, 800-584-9425, WHEN TO GO: April PRICE: $6,000 (includes round-trip airfare from Resolute, Canada) DIFFICULTY: Moderate

Sweden and Norway / Reindeer Packing in the Arctic
Welcome to a slice of polar paradise: With domesticated reindeer to do the heavy lifting and carrying, indigenous Saami guides will lead you for four days and 35 miles through the alpine birch forests and tundra of Arctic Sweden until you reach the Tys Fjord at the Norwegian Sea. There you’ll swap hiking boots for sea kayaks and paddle 58 miles of Norway’s Salten Coast, exploring lush fjords, camping on beaches, and fishing for arctic trout. OUTFITTER: Crossing Latitudes, 800-572-8747, WHEN TO GO: August PRICE: $1,900 DIFFICULTY: Moderate

Antarctica / Scuba Diving Under Ice
You may have explored the wrecks off Palau and swum with whale sharks off South Africa, but until you’ve submerged yourself under the Antarctic ice pack, you haven’t really scuba dived. Journey on a Russian icebreaker to the Antarctic Peninsula and for 13 days don a drysuit, hood, and a freezeproof regulator, and plunge into a frigid world of surreal rewards. The diffuse light and 32-degree water are home to spindly pink starfish, sea hedgehogs, and sea butterflies. Just don’t let the ice, in infinite shades of blue, distract you from the roving leopard seals. OUTFITTER: Forum International, 800-252-4475, WHEN TO GO: February, March PRICE: $4,890-$6,340 DIFFICULTY: Strenuous

TRIP ENHANCER
Fossil Wrist PDA Watch
Don’t tote your PDA around the world, wear it. Fossil’s wristwatch ($145; 800-969-0900) uses an operating system developed in collaboration with Palm to let you zap 1,100 contacts with addresses or 800 appointment memos from your PDA into its stylish little self. Added bonus: it also tells time.

18. Stay Alive!
Peru / Learn to Thrive in the Amazon
Failing economy got you feeling the need to sharpen your survival skills? Let Peruvian survivalists show you how to stun fish, start a fire in the waterlogged forest, repel mosquitoes (by smearing yourself with squished termites), and treat ailments like a venomous snakebite. Eating juicy beetle grubs is optional on this seven-day trip in northeast Peru’s Tamshiyacu-Tahuayo Reserve, but once you’ve tried them, stomaching a bear market seems easy. OUTFITTER: Amazonia Expeditions, 800-262-9669, WHEN TO GO: Year-round PRICE: $1,295 DIFFICULTY: Easy

Costa Rica / Survival Trekking in the Osa Peninsula
Get a taste of Special Ops action when you spend ten days in the Costa Rican rainforest with former Special Forces veterans, who teach you survival basics and throw in a little fun to boot. Lessons in shelter building, foraging, and wilderness first aid are mixed with beach trekking, diving, and wildlife watching on the biodiverse Osa Peninsula. OUTFITTER: Specops, 800-713-2135, WHEN TO GO: April, July PRICE: $3,495 DIFFICULTY: Moderate

Namibia / Forage and Hunt with Nomads
The barren Namibian prairie may seem like a wasteland, but after six days with the nomadic Ju’hoansi bushmen, you’ll see it as a bountiful Eden. Learn to make arrow-tip tranquilizers used to stun and kill impala; help gather roots, wild fruits, and the sweet sap of the acacia tree. Back at your mobile camp, the tribesmen may treat you to an evening of music. OUTFITTER: Baobab Safari Co., 800-835-3692, WHEN TO GO: April-October PRICE: $3,100 DIFFICULTY: Easy

Silent as stone: Angkor ruins in Cambodia

19. Swim with Sharks
Costa Rica / Live-Aboard Off Cocos Island
Bring courage and an empty logbook. With ten days on the live-aboard Okeanos, you’ll need plenty of room to record all the scalloped hammerhead and reef sharks that swim by on nearly every dive. Dry out with an optional trekking excursion on lush, 18-square-mile Cocos. OUTFITTER: International 国产吃瓜黑料s Unlimited, 800-990-9738, WHEN TO GO: Year-round PRICE: $2,995 DIFFICULTY: Moderate

South Africa / The Big Five Dive
Even if you feel safe on the three days you’re inside a steel cage watching great whites, your ten free dives could be a little nerve-racking, and this is one time you won’t want to chum the water. On this 12-day, hotel-based trip on South Africa’s northeast coast, you’ll see ragged-tooth, hammerhead, and bull sharks in their natural habitat—aka hunting grounds. OUTFITTER: EcoVentures Nature Tours and Travel, 800-743-8352, WHEN TO GO: July, September PRICE: $3,900 DIFFICULTY: Moderate
Gal谩pagos Islands / Cruising on the Sky Dancer
(New Trip) The hardest part about your eight days on the Sky Dancer will be resurfacing—and not because the 24-person live-aboard is anything less than first-class. No, it’s that the white-tipped, whale, and Gal谩pagos sharks will have you jonesing for your scuba tank all hours of the day, as will the gigantic manta rays that swarm here in Darwin’s playhouse. OUTFITTER: Ecoventura, 305-262-6264, WHEN TO GO: Year-round PRICE: $2,895 DIFFICULTY: Easy

20. Pursue Lost Horizons
USA / Utah / Rock Art and Archaeology in the Escalante Outback
Archaeologist Don Keller, who’s scoured Escalante National Monument’s backcountry for the past decade, has uncovered numerous ancient petroglyphs, but many of his finds remain undocumented. Join Keller this spring, hiking for nine days, three of which are spent photographing and mapping 4,000-year-old Anasazi and Fremont rock-art panels. OUTFITTER: Southwest Ed-Ventures, 800-525-4456, WHEN TO GO: April PRICE: $1,250 DIFFICULTY: Moderate

USA / Hawaii / Multi-Island Hike
There’s a lot more to Hawaii than Sex Wax and surf gods: Poke around the Pu’u Loa Petroglyphs on the Big Island, taro terraces on Oahu (both of which have been around since a.d. 500), and the ancient Hawaiian heiau (temples) on Kauai and you’ll feel like a hand fresh off Captain Cook’s Endeavor. But fear not, this custom seven-day camping and hiking trip is flush with the hedonistic pleasures for which Hawaii is famous: soaking under tropical waterfalls, sunning on secluded white sand beaches, and snorkeling with dolphins and sea turtles. OUTFITTER: Hawaiian Islands Eco-Tours, 866-445-3624, WHEN TO GO: Year-round PRICE: $895 DIFFICULTY: Easy to moderate

Cambodia and Vietnam / Discover Ancient Ruins
Spend hours exploring the 12th-century temples of Angkor Thom, Angkor Wat, and Ta Prohm, the Hindu centerpieces of the Khmer kingdom, on this four-day trip to the Angkor ruins—the front end of an 11-day cycling tour through Vietnam. When the heat becomes unbearable, lounge by the pool at the Grand Hotel d’Angkor, a French colonial palace with all the touches of early-20th-century Indochina: wicker chairs, lazily swirling fans, and teak beds. OUTFITTER: Butterfield & Robinson, 800-678-1147, WHEN TO GO: October-April PRICE: $2,250 (Vietnam costs an additional $5,450) DIFFICULTY: Easy

TRIP ENHANCER
Olympus C-700 Digital Camera
This featherweight digicam ($699; 888-553-4448) has two megapixels’ resolution with a 10x optical zoom and a 27x digital zoom that outfocuses anything in its class. If you’re lost, use the images in the view screen as a visual breadcrumb trail.

21. Behold the Wonders of the Cosmos
Canada /Northern Lights
Nowhere else on the planet do the northern lights have more pizzazz than in Churchill, Manitoba, and this year, they’ll be at their best: Scientists are expecting great solar storms, meaning that for four nights you’ll likely see flaming oranges, streaks of deep blue, and patches of magenta over the early-spring subarctic skies. Days are spent dogsledding and watching for polar bears near your lodge in Churchill. OUTFITTER: Natural Habitat 国产吃瓜黑料s, 800-543-8917, WHEN TO GO: February, March PRICE: $2,795 DIFFICULTY: Easy

USA / Colorado / Anasazi Sun Calendars
(New Trip) Eight hundred years ago, the Anasazi hailed the winter solstice using rocks and shadow tricks. You can still watch the shadows dance, but only on December 22 will the sun be perfectly positioned to cast the dagger-shaped shadows onto the heart of spiral petroglyphs. From your B&B base camp in Cortez, Colorado, you’ll spend a week day hiking in Ute Mountain Tribal Park—home to more than 20,000 protected archaeological sites. OUTFITTER: Southwest Ed-Ventures, 800-525-4456, WHEN TO GO: December PRICE: $1,395 DIFFICULTY: Easy

Australia / Total Eclipse 国产吃瓜黑料
The Australian outback is your front-row seat for the 2002 total solar eclipse. You’ll be awed by the shimmering lights that dance on the edge of the darkened sun—a phenomenon caused by sunlight shining through the moon’s valleys. But the events leading up to the big show are nearly as spectacular: six days diving from a live-aboard in the Great Barrier Reef and three days of hiking in the Cape York rainforest. OUTFITTER: Outer Edge Expeditions, 800-322-5235, WHEN TO GO: December PRICE: $3,500 DIFFICULTY: Easy

Grin and bear it: an Alaskan grizzly’s smile, frozen on film

22. Jump Down the Food Chain
USA / Alaska / Grizzlies of Coastal Katmai
Your expedition leader, naturalist and photographer Matthias Breiter, will tell you to bring your good camera, and for good reason. The first day, you’ll see puffins, sea lions, and bald eagles while kayaking Kodiak Island’s jagged shore. On day two you’ll meet your base camp: a research tugboat christened The Grizzly Ship. And for the next three days, you’ll cruise the Katmai coast, where thousand-pound grizzlies dig for clams. The brave can venture ashore in a Zodiac. The foolish can snap close-ups. OUTFITTER: Natural Habitat 国产吃瓜黑料s, 800-543-8917, WHEN TO GO: June PRICE: $4,695 DIFFICULTY: Easy

Uganda / Primate Safari
You hear a wild mountain gorilla—the largest primate on earth—long before you see it: The territorial scream of the 500-pound beast is bone-chilling. After five days in plush safari camps while exploring chimp-thick Kibale and Queen Elizabeth National Parks, machete your way into the Impenetrable Forest of Bwindi National Park and spend two days tracking your huge, hairy distant cousins. OUTFITTER: Mountain Travel Sobek, 888-687-6235, WHEN TO GO: January-September PRICE: $5,150 DIFFICULTY: Moderate

Brazil / Pantanal Jaguars
Ride horseback, boat, and hike into the steamy Pantanal floodplain in southwest Brazil, home to the highest concentration of wildlife in South America, to find the largest jaguars in the world. For nine days, you’ll help count the stealthy cats with motion-triggered cameras and scat and paw-print surveys, and stay at a comfy research lodge. OUTFITTER: Earthwatch Institute, 800-776-0188, WHEN TO GO: February, March, July, August PRICE: $2,195 DIFFICULTY: Moderate

23. Gallop Through the Surf
USA / California / Redwood Coast Ride
Survey the Mendocino Coast from the back of a regal Arabian or Russian Orlov cross. You’ll gallop along windswept Ten Mile Beach, atop oceanside bluffs, and through dense redwood forests. Where else can you fill your canteen at a mineral spring by day and sip cabernet in hot tubs at an oceanfront hotel by night? Welcome to northern California. OUTFITTER: Equitours, 800-545-0019, WHEN TO GO: May-October PRICE: $1,995 DIFFICULTY: Moderate

Greece / Aegean Sea Trail Ride
Trot from inn to inn and taverna to taverna for six days and 90 miles around the Pelion peninsula, 200 miles north of Athens. You’ll stuff yourself silly with feta and phyllo and sip your share of ouzo at every stop, so be happy the sure-footed horses are accustomed to the rugged landscape. From Katigiorgis on the Pagasetic Gulf, cross 3,000-foot mountains on old mule trails, then descend to the Aegean Sea, where you’ll canter on the beaches, and plunge—with your horse—into the warm surf. OUTFITTER: Cross Country International, 800-828-8768, WHEN TO GO: April-May, October PRICE: $1,430 DIFFICULTY: Moderate

Venezuela / Galloping the Beaches of Macanao Peninsula
Ride, siesta, ride. Repeat. This will be your blissed-out routine for three days as you explore the pocket beaches, rocky points, and cactus forests of Isla Margarita, off the northern coast of Venezuela. On the island’s undeveloped Macanao Peninsula, gallop into the waves, camp on the beach, and afterward part ways with your beloved steed. For the last four days, fly to famous 3,212-foot Angel Falls on the mainland, and then on to the island of Los Roques to snorkel among exotic corals and rainbow parrotfish in the national park. OUTFITTER: Boojum Expeditions, 800-287-0125, WHEN TO GO: January, November, December PRICE: $2,175 DIFFICULTY: Easy

24. Cast Away in Paradise
USA / Idaho / The Middle Fork of the Salmon
Few fishing spots nourish the ego like the Middle Fork of the Salmon, where even beginners can catch (and release) 30 fish a day. Raft on Class III water for five days and 60 miles in the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness, fishing with guides from your boat and camping on sandbars—many near hot springs—at night. OUTFITTER: Middle Fork Wilderness OUTFITTERs, 800-726-0575, WHEN TO GO: June-September PRICE: $1,790 DIFFICULTY: Easy

Canada / The Miramichi
While 80 percent of North America’s Atlantic salmon spawn in the 55-degree waters of New Brunswick’s Northwest Miramichi River, they’re persnickety bastards when it comes to biting on flies. Spend five days outsmarting them on water near your farmhouse post—the Smoker Brook Lodge—using flies you tie each evening under the tutelage of master Jerome Molloy. OUTFITTER: Smoker Brook Lodge, 866-772-5666, WHEN TO GO: May-October PRICE: $1,500 DIFFICULTY: Easy

New Zealand / The Rangitikei
Fly-fishing indeed: Access the North Island’s Class I-III Rangitikei River by helicoptering to its headwaters, then pile into a three-man raft and spend five days casting for gluttonous 16-pound rainbows. Camp on the river’s grassy banks and hike to rich side veins where the “flies” trout prefer are plump field mice. OUTFITTER: Best of New Zealand Flyfishing, 800-528-6129, WHEN TO GO: October-May PRICE: $2,500 DIFFICULTY: Moderate

25. Break On Through to the Other Side
North Pole / Journey to the Bottom of the Sea
(New Trip) Your mission: to be the first team to reach the ocean floor at 0 degrees latitude, 0 degrees longitude, in two 18-ton submersibles. For seven days, your nuclear icebreaker slices through the Arctic Circle. Once at the pole, you’ll spend eight hours descending 14,500 feet. OUTFITTER: Quark and Deep Ocean Expeditions, 800-356-5699, WHEN TO GO: September 2003 PRICE: $65,950 DIFFICULTY: Moderate

The World / Mysteries of the Earth by Private Jet
The Jules Verne experience! Only, swap the French sidekick for four world-renowned scientists, the balloon for a deluxe 757, and 80 days for 25. Taking off from Miami, touch down first in Manaus, Brazil, then fly westward for a dance with Upolu Islanders in Samoa, whisk across the International Date Line (crikey, we’ve lost a day!) to dive the Great Barrier Reef, go on safari in Nepal’s Royal Chitwan National Park, hoof it in the Serengeti, the Seychelles, the Canary Islands, and…isn’t it about time for cocktails? OUTFITTER: American Museum of Natural History Discovery Tours, 800-462-8687, WHEN TO GO: March PRICE: $36,950 DIFFICULTY: Easy

Space / Suborbital Space Flight
(New Trip) Train at a custom-built, U.S.-based spaceport for four days, reviewing the details of your reusable launch vehicle (RLV) and perfecting simulated-zero-gravity back flips in the hull of a cargo plane that’s nose-diving from 35,000 feet. Then it’s off to suborbital space (that’s 62 miles up) for ten minutes of weightlessness with a nice view of your native planet. OUTFITTER: Space 国产吃瓜黑料s, 888-857-7223, WHEN TO GO: 2005, pending development of the RLV PRICE: $98,000 (includes leather flight jacket and space suit) DIFFICULTY: Moderate

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