We’ve been tracking the adventure travel world for more than three decades. Our latest discovery?

The planet is more wide open for exploration than ever. Whether you want to raft an unknown Himalayan river or link a few Colorado peaks in your own backyard, we have 30 adventures to stoke your wanderlust.

The New, New Places

Go here now—before the secret gets out

PANAMA
Azuero Peninsula
It seems everything is expanding in Panama. A $5.25 billion upgrade will more than double the Panama Canal’s capacity by 2014, tourism nationwide has nearly doubled in the past six years, and in 2005 alone more than one million visitors spent upwards of $1 billion in this tropical destination. The Azuero Peninsula, four hours southwest of Panama City, on the Pacific coast, is a direct beneficiary of the cash infusion. The still-uncrowded peninsula has been getting increasing attention, thanks to its surf-filled beaches and world-class tuna and marlin fishing. Popular digs for foreigners include Villa Camilla, a classy seven-room hotel built mostly from local materials (doubles from $300; meals, $50 per day; 011-507-232-6721, ).

BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA
Tofino
Take a province with more than 16,700 miles of coastline and a few hundred thousand snowboarders itching to embrace the coming summer and you get the British Columbia surf scene. Tofino, a sleepy town of 1,711 on Vancouver Island’s Pacific side, explodes into a mini-metropolis every season as a horde of surfers descends in pursuit of consistent beginner and intermediate breaks. For the student who wants to mix surfing with celebrity, there’s Bruhwiler Surf School, owned by one of Canada’s renowned big-wave riders, Raf Bruhwiler (two-and-a-half-hour group lessons, $75; 250-726-5481, ). At the Wickaninnish Inn, every room has an ocean view (doubles, $208–$398; 800-333-4604, ).

CHINA
Yangshuo
Beijing may be the center of the 2008 Olympics universe, but the heart of China’s adventure-sport community sits more than 1,000 miles to the south, near Yangshuo (pop. 298,000). Climbers first began setting routes in the myriad karst peaks here in the 1990s; today there are about 300 established climbs. (Last fall, Briton Neil Gresham set the region’s first 5.14b.) After climbing, there’s caving, hiking, and mountain biking. And anglers can hire a guide—who’ll use a trained cormorant—to catch fish at night. Get on belay with China Climb ($40 per half-day with guide; 011-86-773-88-11-033, ), then crash at the peaceful Yangshuo Mountain Retreat (doubles from $40; 011-86-773-87-77-091, ).

BULGARIA
Bansko
Get a piece of the Pirin Mountains while you still can. Bulgaria’s January 2007 admission to the European Union will only bolster its booming vacation-home market. Towns like Bansko—where property values have more than doubled in recent years—are where everyone’s buying. It’s no wonder: One of the most modern ski resorts in Bulgaria is nestled below 9,000-foot peaks with Jackson Hole–style off-piste steeps. Even if you don’t have a couple hundred grand to snag a condo, the resort’s multi-million-dollarupgrades make it visit-worthy. The new Kempinski Hotel Grand Arena (doubles, $213; ) has a mod Swiss-chalet vibe and a primelocation at the base of the gondola.

INDIA
Madhya Pradesh
Last November, Taj Hotels and CC Africa generated big-time adventure travel buzz when they opened Mahua Kothi, the first of five upscale resorts in central India, marrying the African safari with Indian hospitality. Bandhavgarh National Park, abutting the Mahua Kothi, is one of the most famous tiger habitats on earth, with centuries-old man-made caves that now serve as big-cat dens. After a day exploring the sal forests and bamboo jungle, guests chill out in one of 12 suites on the 40-acre property, which offers all the best amenities of a conventional luxury safari—but with hookah pipes in the common area, private butlers in traditional costume, andin-room Ayurvedic massages ($600 per person, all-inclusive; 011-91-11-26-80-77-50, ).

The Classics

The definitive life list for intrepid travelers

TANZANIA

Kilimanjaro
One of the world’s tallest “walkable” mountains, this freestanding 19,340-foot massif draws some 30,000 wide-eyed—and often ill-prepared—hikers annually. Though technical climbing is not required, it’s no stroll: A number of those who attempt the five- to nine-day push through rainforest to wind-flayed icefields turn back before reaching the top; about five die en route every year (often from altitude sickness). The payoff for summiters? Views of Africa, in all its brawny magnificence, in every direction. Guides are mandatory; book one in advance through a reputable company, and avoid touts pushing cut-rate outings via the tourist-trampled Marangu Route (the Umbwe Route and others get less traffic). For group treks, seek out experienced companies like Thomson Safaris, which offers hikes on less-traveled trails, with summit-success rates near 95 percent (from $3,990; 800-235-0289, ).

ARIZONA


The Grand Canyon
Few paddling experiences come close to matching the epic 297-mile Colorado River run from Lees Ferry to Lake Mead. There’s the monster whitewater (including Lava Falls, called the fastest navigable rapid in North America), the mile-high bisque- and red-hued rock walls, the tent-perfect beaches, and the sheer, walloping Great American West feel of it all. About 22,000 people a year raft a portion of the Colorado’s 277 Grand Canyon miles; most travel with one of 16 outfitters licensed by the Park Service, but those with strong river-running skills can arrange a private outing. Good news on that front: As of 2006, noncommercial launch permits are being awarded by lottery (800-959-9164, grca), replacing the laughable 25-year waiting list. Motorized or oar-powered rafts are the most common way to go, but purists say nothing beats the grace and responsiveness of a wooden dory. Veteran outfitter OARS offers 15- to 19-day full-canyon dory trips (from $4,535;800-346-6277, ).

NEPAL


The Annapurna Circuit

After years of violent unrest, a 2006 peace agreement between the government and Maoist rebels promises to return the tourism spotlight to this Himalayan wonder—one of the original adventure travel meccas. No trekking route is more spectacular, or more accessible to reasonably fit hikers, than the three-week, roughly 200-mile inn-to-inn Annapurna Circuit. With a constant backdrop of 20,000-foot peaks, the trail loops from the semitropical city of Pokhara, over 17,769-foot Thorong La pass, on the edge of the arid Tibetan Plateau, and back to the terraced lowlands. Thanks to the détente, U.S.-based outfitters have noticed a surge in interest in Nepal. Wilderness Travel will return to Annapurna this fall after a four-year absence (from $2,795 per person;800-368-2794, ).

FRANCE & SWITZERLAND

The Haute Route
Linking the two most iconic peaks in the western Alps—Mont Blanc, in Chamonix, France, and the Matterhorn, in Zermatt, Switzerland—this famed seven- to ten-day, 70-mile high-country journey is best suited for advanced skiers who feel confident in dicey conditions. (If kick turns on icy steeps aren’t in your repertoire, consider waiting for summer and hike the route instead.) Nights are spent in small hotels and dorm-style alpine huts, where you’ll find goulash, beer, and the kind of conviviality that generally ends in off-key singing. Even if you’re an accomplishedski mountaineer who can parlais français (quick, what does “Danger de mort!” mean?), it’s wise to hire a guide (consult ) or hook up with an outfitter like Selkirk Mountain Experience ($3,225; 250-837-2381, ). Prime ski-touring season is mid-April to mid-May.

ECUADOR

The Galápagos Islands
Straddling the equator 600 miles off the west coast of Ecuador, these far-flung volcanic islands have been the focus of scientists and wildlife lovers since Charles Darwin first scratched his head here in 1835. Now that the Galápagos have become one of the most popular destinations on the planet—120,000 yearly visitors come to spy on the islands’ famous giant tortoises, fur seals, and blue-footed boobies—the Galápagos National Park Service keeps tight control on where boat passengers disembark and how long they spend at designated land and underwater visitor sites. The best way to avoid crowds? Charter a private yacht that’s stocked with dive gear and sea kayaks. Mountain Travel Sobek can arrange private one- to two-week yacht charters (from $3,795; 888-687-6235, ). Or join ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Life’s new nine-day hiking trip, with overnights in small inns (from $2,095; 800-344-6118, ).

Epic Journeys

Work off your wanderlust the hard way

Kenya

On most days, the closest you’d get to sharing the trail with a Kenyan is probably several miles behind. Not so on this new running safari, a 12-day pounding that places you on twice-a-day runs with some of Kenya’s most gifted athletes. You’ll start in Eldoret, a city about 200 miles northwest of Nairobi and the heart of the country’s long-distance scene. Next you’ll team up with 1997 and 1998 Los Angeles Marathon winner Lornah Kiplagat in her hometown of Iten for runs through the verdant hills. The group—not the champ—sets the distance and pace. Most nights you’ll sleep in basic accommodations in villages and get your carb-to-protein ratio right with meat pastries called samosas. Move on to Mombasa, where, on March 24, the World Cross Country Championships unfold—the first time Kenya will host the prestigious race. March 14–25; $3,900; Micato Safaris, 800-642-2861,

INDIA

The Tons River

The Tons River roars from 20,000 feet in the Indian Himalayas with such sustained intensity—think 55 miles of nearly continuous rapids—that the river hasn’t seen a single paddler since whitewater pioneer Jack Morison first rafted it in the 1980s. Now the whitewater gurus at New Delhi-based Aquaterra ºÚÁϳԹÏÍøs have reopened the river to expedition-style, 11-day rafting trips, using upgraded equipment like self-bailing boats that were unavailable in Morison’s day. Start at Camp Lunagad, about 270 miles north of New Delhi, and spend the next seven days floating through chilly glacial runoff that boils into Class IV–V rapids. Come evening, pitch tents in alpine meadows redolent of rhododendron and chir, and mingle with Gujar tribesmen. April 24–May 4; $1,250; info@treknraft.com

COLORADO

The Colorado Trail

Of all the big hikes that run across U.S. wilderness, few pack as much awe per step as the Colorado Trail. But tackling all 482 miles from Denver to Durango, through six wilderness areas and eight mountain ranges, would take you about a month. Instead, concentrate your efforts during a ten-day romp along a remote 95-mile ribbon that runs just east of San Luis Peak to Molas Pass, in the southwestern part of the state. Start at Spring Creek Pass, 33 miles northwest of Creede amid the 13,000-foot-plus San Juan Mountains. Plan on grinding up to 15 miles a day along airy ridges, down steep gorges, and up winding switchbacks. You’ll spend four days cruising above tree line, at nearly 12,000 feet, and the closest you’ll come to a town (Lake City) is about 17 miles, which means tackling thousands of vertical feet each day with a heavy pack. Take a break and frolic in Snow Mesa, a flat, grassy expanse so huge it takes a few hours to cross. 303-384-3729,

COSTA RICA

There may come a time—perhaps after your third endo over the handlebars—when pedaling 160 miles across Costa Rica by mountain bike makes an overcrowded bus tour look appealing. But keep riding—you won’t regret it. Head out from San José for about 20 miles a day and 14,000 feet of total climbing to eventually reach the town of Nosara, overlooking the Pacific. For eight days you’ll pedal Specialized hardtails (or your own bike) into villages where people still get around by oxcart, spending nights in hotels, research stations, and a private home tucked into a misty cloudforest. Get off the bike to bushwhack through monster ferns to reach the summitof Cerro Chato, a 3,937-foot sleeping volcano. When you slip into a hot spring near the 5,741-foot Arenal Volcano, your sore muscles will melt away. $2,596 per person with your own group of four; Serendipity ºÚÁϳԹÏÍøs, 877-507-1358,

GREENLAND

Arctic Circle

When Fridtjof Nansen became the first to schlep across the Greenland ice cap, in September 1888, he studied Inuit culture, weathered minus-50-degree storms, and spent a cold, dark winter waiting for a ship to take him home. Today, adventurers can follow his tracks along the Arctic Circle using kites to pull them on skis—at about 12 miles per hour—under the guidance of polar explorer Matty McNair. Never skied behind a kite? You’ll spend a few days on Frobisher Bay, on the southeast coast of Canada’s Baffin Island, learning techniques that advanced skiers can pick up quickly. Then hop a two-hour flight to Greenland for a 345-mile trek, where the kites will help you pull a 150-pound pulk (loaded with tents, stoves, and beef jerky) in 20-below temps. The adrenaline rush will diminish the hardships as you rip in 24-hour sunlight through a landscape of dizzying white. May 1–31; from $5,000; NorthWinds Polar Expeditions and Training, 867-979-0551,

Big Frontiers

Formerly off-limits, these territories are finally opening their doors

ALASKA

Adak Island

Shrouded in fog and mystery, most of this remote Aleutian isle went public in 2004, after its naval air station was closed and transferred—lock, housing stock, and runway—to the Department of the Interior and the native Aleut Corporation. Most of 280-square-mile Adak is now a federally designated wilderness and wildlife refuge. Bald eagles soar above dormant volcanoes, and 3,000 caribou (introduced during the Cold War as an emergency food supply) roam the moors. Roughly equidistant from Alaska and Russia, the “Birthplace of the Winds” is also a birdwatching hot spot—nearly one-fourth of the 200 species recorded here are migrants found nowhere else in the Americas. High Lonesome Bird Tours leads expeditions ($4,600 per person for eight nights, all-inclusive; 800-743-2668, ), or check out .

Kurdistan

The typical headline out of Iraq is about roadside IEDs, not roadside attractions. Yet last fall this long-suffering autonomous region bordering Syria, Turkey, and Iran launched an irony-free international marketing campaign, “The Other Iraq,” to showcase its superb scenery, ancient history, and relative security. Virgin snow blankets the mountains, while the plains hold Sumerian ruins and the hospitable capital, Erbil, one of the world’s oldest continuously inhabited cities. In December, Austrian Airlines began twice-weekly flights from Vienna to Erbil. For information, go to .

PERU

Cordillera Azul National Park

Imagine a forest primeval, with uncontacted jungle tribes and animals with no fear of humans. That Lost World still exists in this national park in the eastern Andes, established in 2001 after biologists from Peru and Chicago’s Field Museum recorded 28 new plants and animals—including a bird species confined to the cloudforest atop a single mountain. Only three other scientific groups have since surveyed the 5,225-square-mile Cordillera Azul, which holds endangered jaguars and spectacled bears. In July, the Sierra Club will run a pioneering trip (non-members welcome) that includes an eight-day transect of the preserve by foot, bamboo raft, and dugout canoe ($3,395–$3,795; 415-977-5522, ).

LAOS

Houaphan Province

Sealed off by the daunting Annamite Range and shackled by its past (unexploded wartime ordnance, guerrillas, reeducation camps), Houaphan—in northeast Laos near the Vietnamese border—lies beyond the typical backpacker trail. But a trickle of DIY travelers now seek out this lush outpost for its unaffected hill tribes and vaulting karst mountains. In Vieng Xai district, about 20 miles east of Xam Nau, you can explore the cave-riddled peaks that served as rebel fortresses throughout the Vietnam War. While the U.S. unleashed its bombing campaign, 23,000 Pathet Lao hunkered down in limestone caverns equipped with electricity, dorms, and weapons depots. The Lao Association of Travel Agents () can provide a list of tour operators.

FINLAND

Kvarken Archipelago

The 5,600 islands in the Kvarken Archipelago are literally in flux; released by the diminished weight of melting Ice Age glaciers, the seabed is rebounding from the Gulf of Bothnia at the rate of a third of an inch annually. The astonishing amount of uplift—more than 900 feet over the last 10,000 years—prompted UNESCO last year to designate some 480,000 acres as Finland’s first natural World Heritage site. Paddle the ever-changing labyrinth of emerging islets and expanding peninsulas, washboard moraines and shallowing lakes, then bunk down in a former pilot station on Rönnskar. Björkö Wardshus () runs guided boat trips; offers travel info. But get there now: In a few millennia, the uplift will form a land bridge to Sweden.

Top Travel Innovations

Eight indispensable travel innovations

Solio Charger

Solio Universal Hybrid Charger

Singapore’s Changi Airport

With some 160 stores, 80 eateries (including a cigar lounge and live jazz bar), a Balinese-style swimming pool, leather “snooze chairs,” and massagesoffered 24/7 at the Rainforest Lounge, there’s no rush to claim your bags.

The MLC

Short for “maximum legal carry-on,” this handy bag holds up to a week’s worthof gear—just enough for hitchhiking through Belize. Tuck away the ergonomic shoulder strap for a presto backpack. Two large compartments separate the clean stuff from the sweaty climbing gear; the coated reflective fabric repels rain. $148;

Want your trip to be socially sound and eco-friendly? The Green Globe program, launched by the World Travel & Tourism Council, certifies hotels and tour companies that meet top standards for everything from water managementto noise control.

Founded by a frustrated frequent flier, this time-tested site allows users to share info on how to get the most out of their bonus miles, with discussion forums for every major airline, a live chat for last-minute queries, and an option that helps you create a mileage-maximizing itinerary.

Ex Officio Give-N-Go Skivvies

Breathable, lightweight, moisture-wicking, and bacteria-resistant, these boxers and women’s bikinis won’t let you down. Super comfortable (made of nylon and spandex), they air-dry in a snap. Boxers, $25; bikini briefs, $16;

Solio Universal Hybrid Charger

This groovy solar-power station—the size of a deck of cards, with interchangeable connector tips—offers a one-stop charge for your camera, cell phone, PDA, GPS, and digital audio player. (One hour of sun equals one hour of iPod use.) $100;

A juicy source of inside information and tips about the good, the bad, and the disgusting. Check out the Hotel Hell stories about not-so-hot spots (like Room 15 at Nevada’s Caliente Hot Springs Motel, home to polygamist ceremonies), or skip to the Hotel Heaven tales (which for one woman included sunglasses-cleaning pool boys at the Grand Rotana Resort & Spa in Egypt).

Canon CP730 Selphy Compact Photo Printer

Create personal postcards in 58 seconds with thispaperback-size portable printer. It hooks up to any laptop or Canon camera(and some cell phones), churning out 300-dpi, four-by-six color photos on address-ready cards. $150;

Notes from the Guru

Take it from adventure travel trailblazer Richard Bangs: Understanding the world requires immersing yourself in it

If you could trace the roots of adventure travel to one person, Richard Bangs, 56, might well be the man. In 1973, back when big chunks of the world, like Russia and Eastern Europe, were virtually closed to Americans, he and high school pal John Yost headed to Ethiopia to explore the Omo River (a trip featured on the first cover of this magazine). What began as a last hurrah of youth morphed into the founding of a travel company, which eventually became Mountain Travel Sobek, one of the largest, most respected outfitters in the industry. Although Bangs is still a co-owner, he left MTS in 1991 to bring travel to the Internet, launching Microsoft’s now-defunct online adventure ‘zine Mungo Park in 1996 and going on to produce travel features for Expedia, Yahoo, MSNBC, and . His latest film project, a documentary on the vanishing crocodiles of the Nile, airs on PBS this summer. Senior editor STEPHANIE PEARSON recently caught up with him in San Diego for this as-told-to about the past, present, and future of wild journeying.

I was 22 in 1973 and had this notion to head to Africa to see if I could explore some rivers that hadn’t been navigated. It turned out to be such a magnificent experience that I decided to organize a little company to take people on extraordinary adventures. It was patched together in my mother’s basement in Bethesda, Maryland. We began to offer trekking, climbing, ballooning, diving—at that time there was no adventure travel landscape. The concept of travel with a purpose, travel with meaning, travel that would bring you back fitter, with a clearer mind, with a better connection to the world, did not exist.

ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø travel is in a much better place than it was 30 years ago. We owe a lot of our global interconnectedness to adventure travelers. People who started to wander the earth and appreciate its beauty were people who became activists. Now everybody talks about ecotourism and green travel. It’s all the rage. There are downsides and abuses, but it’s a good attitude, and it comes from people who are willing to step off the beaten track.

Is the world a smaller place? Absolutely. Within 24 hours you can get to almost anywhere on the planet. But all of this is good. Dark political things would happen when doors were closed. It’s very easy to be judgmental and raise the fear index when you don’t really know who the other person is. Mark Twain said it best: “Travel is fatal toprejudice and bigotry.”

What will adventure travel be like 30 years from now? I was in Bosnia a few months ago, and they have all these outfitters in places where the Croats and Bosnians were once lobbing mortars at each other. This is much harder to do when people are roaring with laughter as they roll down a river… ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø travel is the fastest-growing segment of the travel industry. It’s increasingly impossible to find a country that does not have it. Places are opening up and landscapes are shifting all the time. I just received an invitation to Lebanon. We do a trip to the Galápagos almost every week of the year now. Lots of people are doing things that were unimaginable a few years ago.

I’m an advocate of traveling with technology. I have an Iridium sat phone I take with me everywhere. If you need a moment of Zen, it’s easy to take off all your clothes and be as natural as you want, but when it comes to survival, sat phones have saved a lot of lives. In Namibia, a doctor broke both ankles on a trek and was in danger of dying. I was able to call an evac and get him out. The less you have to worry about your own survival, the more you can assimilate the actual experience. Technology in the field can give you an assurance of survival so that you can be more in the moment, more in the experience—so you can contribute and extract more.

ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø is a very elastic concept, but it has to deal with stretching your consciousness and going beyond your comfort zone. The world, or you, will not change if you are static. If you are willing to stick your neck out, try untried things, have that moment of unknown discomfort and sharpness, then you’re fully alive. When I did the first descent of the Zambezi, nobody considered it. Now when I go back to the Zambezi, there are thousands of people tumbling down. Everybody who rafts it has an amazing experience, and it makes a difference. It becomes transformative when you go beyond the concrete and the familiar.

Travel rejuvenates. It’s new, it’s very childlike, it keeps things fresh. Anything is possible. There could be dinosaurs around the corner. If you don’t travel, you deaden yourself. I continue to look at maps and get very excited by the places I haven’t been. The more you see, the more you recognize what you have yet to see.I have a long list. It’s an endless quest.

2007 Trip of the Year Winners

The best of the best

Overall Winner


Trek to the Source of the Tsangpo, Tibet

The last time trekking guide Gary McCue set out to explore far-western Tibet, he happened upon an acre-size hot spring that tumbled from a mountainside near Lake Manasarovar. “I’d never seen a boiling creek just come crashing out of a hole in the ground,” he says. But it’s just the sort of surprise the Tasmania-based author of Trekking in Tibet: A Traveler’s Guide has come to expect from this part of the world. Tourism may be booming—the controversial new Qinghai-Tibet Railway helped bump up visitation to Tibet by 30 percent last year—but much of this mysterious land of Buddhist temples and mist-shrouded peaks remains blissfully unexplored by outsiders. This spring, McCue will return to the Himalayas on a quest to reach the source of the Tsangpo River, the mightiest of four rivers that flow from the sacred 22,028-foot peak of Kailas. The 42-day exploratory trek is the first commercial expedition to a pilgrimage site very few Westerners have seen since a Swedish explorer hiked nearby in the early 1900s. After driving across the plains from Lhasa to Darchen, you’ll trek the perimeter of Kailas before camping in the Lha Chu Valley during the annual Saga Dawa full-moon festival. Then you’ll start the weeklong journey through a glacial valley to Tamchok Khabab, the river’s source. The trip ends with a visit to the temple-strewn Limi Valley, a newly opened region of western Nepal. “It’s hard to find wilderness this wild and remote that doesn’t require Reinhold Messner-level skills to reach,” says McCue. “It’s the closest you can come to what the explorers experienced 150 years ago.” OUTFITTER: Wilderness Travel, 800-368-2794, ; PRICE: $10,560–$13,160; DIFFICULTY: Challenging; WHEN TO GO: May–June

North America


Cross The USA On Two Wheels

This epic, coast-to-coast challenge takes you from Santa Barbara, California, to Charleston, South Carolina—2,949 miles with 167,000 vertical feet of climbing—in 33 grueling days. You’ll pedal on two-lane blacktop across the Mojave Desert, over Rocky Mountain passes, and through southern prairies en route to the Atlantic seaboard, staying in roadside hotels along the way. You’ll earn a lifetime’s worth of bragging rights (you’re averaging a century ride per day) and get a two-wheeled take on the classic American landscapes that most travelers experience only as a blur through the car window. Just be sure to remember to dip a toe in both the Pacific and Atlantic or your efforts might be in vain. OUTFITTER: Trek Travel, 866-464-8735, ; PRICE: $10,000; DIFFICULTY: Challenging; WHEN TO GO: September–October

Polar Regions


Canoe With The Caribou In Alaska

The 23-million-acre National Petroleum Reserve, on Alaska’s north coast, holds the largest swath of unprotected wilderness in the U.S.—and you needn’t look beyond its name to guess its primary purpose. But the region harbors much more than black gold: Half a million western arctic caribou march across its sprawling plains each year, along with grizzlies and wolves. On this 11-day trip, you’ll follow the herd by foot and in two-person canoes on the untamed Kokolik River, hiking where woolly mammoths and saber-toothed tigers once roamed. OUTFITTER: Equinox Wilderness Expeditions, 604-222-1219, ;PRICE: $4,495; DIFFICULTY: Moderate; WHEN TO GO: June

South America


Three Jewels Of Aysén, Chile

This isolated piece of Patagonia, where the population density is just 1.2 people per square mile, is framed by vast icefields that feed blue-green rivers and streams so pure you can drink from them. The 27-day, 132-mile expedition combines three seldom-traveled routes: the Cerro Castillo hike, where you’ll camp amid the basalt spires and crags that gave Castle Hill its name; the Aysén Glacier Trail, a year-old hut-to-hut circuit through an unspoiled wilderness dotted with glacial lakes; and on to the icefields surrounding 11,073-foot FitzRoy, where iconic Andean peaks rise dramatically from the frozen lowlands. OUTFITTER: Patagonia ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Expeditions, 011-56-67-219894, ; PRICE: $4,850; DIFFICULTY: Challenging; WHEN TO GO: January

Eastern Europe & the Middle East


Journey Through Ancient Oman

Just east of Saudi Arabia, on the Arabian Sea, centuries-old shepherd trails crisscross the rocky ridges and deep wadis of the Al Hajar range, which rises 10,000 feet above Oman’s placid northern coastline. It’s the Middle East that doesn’t make the nightly news, and it’s virgin territory for most American travelers. On this ten-day trip, you’ll trek and camp in lush valleys filled with date palms, in ancient sand-colored villages that blend seamlessly with the surrounding hills, and on a sugary beach where you can snorkel in a sapphire bay. OUTFITTER: KE ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Travel, 800-497-9675, ; PRICE: $1,995; DIFFICULTY: Moderate; WHEN TO GO: March–April, November–January

Western Europe

Giro Del Gelato, Italy

Finally, a trip that acknowledges the number-one reason we cycle in Italy. Vacations don’t get much sweeter than this eight-day ride through southern Piedmont with gelato-making genius Danilo Zecchin, of Ciao Bella Gelato. Pedaling an average of 40 miles per day on paved roads that roll through vineyards and over patchworked hills, you’ll work up just enough hunger for the copious Italian dinners, private wine tastings, and all-you-can-eat frozen treats. Recharge at 500-year-old castles and 17th-century farmhouses as the chef spills the secrets behind his sinful concoctions. Then pedal, gorge, repeat. OUTFITTER: Ciclismo Classico, 800-866-7314, ; PRICE: $3,995; DIFFICULTY: Moderate; WHEN TO GO: May

Asia

Discover Rinjani, Indonesia

If trekking near active volcanoes isn’t daunting enough, how about climbing a few—including the 12,224-foot Gunung Rinjani, on the island of Lombok, east of Bali, via a scenic new route to its unexplored southern rim. On this ten-day trip, you’ll start in the village of Aibuka, scramble to the gorgeous Sengara Anak crater lake, then paddle inflatable rafts to the base of Gunung Baru (7,752 feet), an active young volcano in mid-lake. After topping that “warm-up” peak, you’ll soak in surrounding hot springs, then trek to Rinjani base camp. The push to the summit begins under a full moon at 2 a.m. and ends at about sunrise. OUTFITTER: No Roads Expeditions, 011-03-9502-3789, ; PRICE: $1,422; DIFFICULTY: Challenging; WHEN TO GO: May–June

Bahamas, Mexico & Central America

Island-Hop In Nicaragua

If the crater lakes and verdant slopes of Nicaragua’s volcanoes have hosted few adventurers, it’s not for lack of suitable terrain. The playground potential in the rumpled topography of this fun mecca rivals that of its neighbors. This nine-day trip takes you island-hopping by kayak in Lake Nicaragua, hiking through a rainforest, and wandering among the pre-Columbian artifacts, caves, and rock art of Zapatera National Park. You’ll spend most nights in wilderness lodges, where howler monkeys provide the morning wake-up call. OUTFITTER: Mountain Travel Sobek, 888-687-6235, ; PRICE: $2,690–$2,990 (plus $150 internal airfare); DIFFICULTY: Easy; WHEN TO GO: January–February, October–December

Oceania

Dive Into Palau’s Shark Week

Reef sharks in the midst of mating season are the headliners at Shark Week, the Micronesian Shark Foundation’s annual conservation-oriented celebration of these cartilaginous creatures. Expect cameos from silvertip, tiger, and hammerhead sharks, among others, as you explore the reefs and walls of underwater Palau on this ten-day, resort-based expedition. By day, a 28-foot boat will take you to dive sites, many of which are open only during this event; the nights are enhanced by lectures from experts on sharksand preservation. OUTFITTER: Oceanic Society Natural History Expeditions, 800-326-7491, ; PRICE: $2,990–$3,490; DIFFICULTY: Moderate; WHEN TO GO: March

Africa

Paddle Madagascar

Long isolated from the flora and fauna of the African mainland, the world’s fourth-largest island teems with evolutionary anomalies, such as the 30 lemur species and countless other miscellaneous critters that exist nowhere else on earth. You’ll hear a cacophony of grunts and wails as you kayak the aquamarine water of the Indian Ocean through the newly designated Masoala National Park. Inland you’ll paddle on calm rivers and lakes through forest reserves on this 18-day adventure. In the tropical home of indiris, sifakas, and octopus trees, you’ll sleep in wilderness lodges and camp on palm-shaded beaches where you can snorkel in secluded lagoons few outsiders have seen. OUTFITTER: Explorers Corner, 510-559-8099, ; PRICE:$4,553; DIFFICULTY: Moderate; WHEN TO GO: October–November

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EVEN IN THAI, I can make out the pilot’s request to turn off computers for the remainder of the flight. I shut mine down and look out the window: The smog and skyscrapers of Thailand’s capital have given way to the sawtooth mountains of northern Laos, stacked to the horizon. The Bangkok Airways turboprop drops steeply into a narrow valley, skirting a temple-topped hill and buzzing low over stupas poking through a fringe of palm trees. As we angle toward a short runway, I pack away my laptop—most likely for the duration of my trip: @#95;box photo=image_2 alt=image_2_alt@#95;boxLuang Prabang isn’t exactly a Wi-Fi hot spot. In fact, the tranquil town rides the trailing edge of urbanized, digital Asia. Which is precisely the reason I’ve fled Bangkok’s chaotic hustle and 24/7 gridlock. I’ve flown less than two hours, yet it feels like I could set my watch back 30 years.

Luang Prabang, Laos

Luang Prabang, Laos

ASIAN GRACE: Left, traditional service with modern style; a tranquil suite at Maison Souvannaphoum

Luang Prabang, Laos

AFTER DARK: Sifting through stacks of local silk at the night market

In this slumbering Mekong River valley, life flows at its own languid pace. Once, it was a matter of terrain—the jungle, rivers, and especially the ranks of mountains dissuaded European explorers until the 1860s. A century later, after Laos was swept up in the Vietnam War, the prevailing communist leadership banned tourism until the late 1980s. That cultural quarantine made Luang Prabang what it is today: an enchanting townscape of lush foliage and ornamental ponds, centuries-old temples and moldering French colonial buildings, all in the middle of absolutely nowhere.

It was a no-brainer for UNESCO, which considers Luang Prabang one of the best-preserved traditional cities in Southeast Asia, to give it World Heritage status in 1995. The buzz has taken a while to build, but this placid backwater is drawing an increasing number of travelers seeking that ineffable quality: atmosphere. In 2003, the province counted 78,129 foreign visitors, up more than 200 percent since 1997.

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Backpackers still come overland, but equally independent, far more upscale “flashpackers” now arrive on nonstop flights from Bangkok and Chiang Mai, Thailand. Boutique hotels like Les 3 Nagas and the Pansea’s La Résidence Phou Vao, which recently hosted Mick Jagger, bloom like fresh bromeliads. Earlier this year, Banyan Tree’s Colours of Angsana brand opened the town’s first spa, the sparkling Maison Souvannaphoum, in a former royal residence. Quite a capitalist makeover for a communist state with the official handle of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic.

While Old Asia ambience is Luang Prabang’s signature allure, outfitters have begun venturing beyond the city limits to survey the rugged mountains and rock-strewn rivers. It’s now possible to balance a yin for soulful solitude with the yang of ripping adventure in places where falang (the Lao word for “foreigners”) are still a novelty. Over the next week, I intend to offset indolence with activity in a spree of cycling, hiking, and kayaking that will make those Thai-Swedish massages hurt so good.

But first I need to decompress, and my huge room at La Résidence Phou Vao—a harmonic convergence of rosewood and hand-loomed textiles set on a hillside with a panoramic view of the sacred, dome-shaped Phu Si mount—looks like it will do the trick. I settle on the balcony with a cold Beer Lao, already quite fond of Luang Prabang.

VIENTIANE, A DAY’S DRIVE SOUTH, may be the political capital of Laos, but the country’s essence resides in Luang Prabang. The town looks much as it did in the 1930s-era murals on the old Royal Palace’s walls. Battered trucks have replaced the elephants, but otherwise the vignettes of village life remain unaltered.

One such tradition plays out at dawn at Wat Xieng Thong, a 16th-century confection of tiered, swooping roofs and walls decorated with loose mirrored-glass mosaics. Every morning, while the sticky-sweet scent of frangipani infuses the misty air, hundreds of young novitiates muster with their alms bowls at temples around Luang Prabang, then fan out onto the streets in silent, single-file processions. Devout villagers kneel and chant along these routes, hoping their offerings of steamed rice will earn them karmic brownie points.

After this centuries-old rite, the town gradually awakens. Women, many in traditional sin sarongs, glide by on bicycles, toting parasols against the rising sun. From old shophouses wafts the aroma of fresh-baked baguettes. At the Hmong Market, wizened old women in traditional hill-tribe dress display their needlecraft and begin haggling with customers who want the cheapest “morning price.” Away from the bustle, artisans set frames of handcrafted saa paper out to dry along sun-splashed brick lanes.

As the long saffron line of monks heads into the homestretch along riverside Khem Khong Road, photographer Martin Westlake and I clamber down the Mekong’s steep embankment to meet boat captain Thongdy Siphanthong, who will take us 15 miles to the holy Pak Ou caves. We thread our way upriver, where we find Tham Ting, the shallow, lower grotto, crowded with more than 2,500 antique bronze and wooden Buddha statues. An additional 1,500 icons are arranged in the lengthier upper cave, Tham Phum, where a caretaker lights incense as a religious offering.

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When we cross the Mekong to Ban Pak Ou, a settlement in the shadow of a sheer limestone cliff, we find the village temple’s bell has been fashioned from the most profane of objects: the nose of an old American bomb. It’s a reminder of Laos’s 15 minutes of geopolitical fame. During the Vietnam conflict, the United States used CIA-sponsored planes and Hmong hill-tribe mercenaries to wage a secret war, dropping enough ordnance to earn Laos the dubious distinction of being one of the most heavily bombed nations in history. After the communist victory, thousands of citizens were confined to reeducation camps. By the late 1980s, however, even hermetic Laos admitted market reform and tourism development.

While the number of guesthouses, restaurants, and tour agencies in Luang Prabang has grown exponentially over the past decade, the town has clung to its laid-back aura and architectural vernacular thanks in large part to the preservation work of La Maison du Patrimoine, or Heritage House. “I went to Thailand in 1977. Chiang Mai was Luang Prabang—the same ambience. Do you know Chiang Mai now? It looks like a little Bangkok,” said LMP chief technical adviser Emmanuel Pouille from his office in the old French customs house, built in 1922 and recently restored to its ocher-hued glory. “We’ve avoided the disaster of big hotels because the regulation is very strong.”

One former royal residence has been renovated into a hotel with arguably the best kitchen in town, Villa Santi, an elegant, linens-and-china restaurant. Luang Prabang province has a distinctive slow-food cuisine featuring such local delicacies as jaew bawng, a thick paste of dried buffalo skin and fiery chiles, and khai paen, or stir-fried river moss tossed with sesame, that are best knocked back with shots of lao-lao rice whiskey. Before the tinkling sounds of a musician playing the ranyaat, a xylophone-like instrument, lull me to sleep, I head for the night market by the Phu Si. Compared with the touts-and-trinkets scene in Chiang Mai, the bazaar is tame: a few dozen stalls filled with saa paper lanterns, hand-loomed silk sashes, laughably fake coins (the French were not minting Indochine piasters in 1422), and piles of papayas, bananas, and mangosteens.

“You buy?” a merchant asks in a voice barely above a whisper. That’s as insistent as the salesmanship gets. By 10 p.m. the commerce ceases and everyone drifts quietly home.

THE FOLLOWING MORNING, we decide to trace another river, the Nam Khan, this time by 21-speed mountain bikes. Just beyond town, the pavement cedes to a dirt road to Ban Phanom, a renowned weaving center where spirited bargaining yields several silk scarves for 60,000 kip apiece. (Relax: That brick of currency is only $6.) From the village, the unpaved road gets hilly and rockier, and Martin’s rear tire blows out.

As we change the tube, I check a digital thermometer on Martin’s handlebars: 40 degrees Celsius. I don’t even want to know the Fahrenheit equivalent. Repair complete, we crank in low gears for three miles through open forest to the overgrown tomb of the naturalist Henri Mouhot, Luang Prabang’s first Western visitor, who died here in 1861. Before succumbing to fever, the Frenchman faced unbelievable hardships in Southeast Asia; he certainly wouldn’t be able to comprehend my luxe Pansea digs, with their infinity pool and terrace restaurant. A group of scooter-riding Lao teens picnics tomb-side by a stretch of rapids, playing cards while grilling a fish over an open fire. It is a forlorn fate for a famed explorer whose posthumously published journal, containing the first detailed descriptions of Angkor Wat, created a sensation in Europe.

Just a few miles upstream from his tomb, the riverside Lao Spirit Resort offers five luxury wooden bungalows set among a collection of restored 19th-century French-Lao homes beneath trees teeming with flycatchers, bee-eaters, and ioras. Here, the world Mouhot encountered endures. In the morning, mahouts still bathe their elephants in the Nam Khan. Beyond the river, beneath mountains too formidable to clear, Hmong and Khmu hill-tribe villagers eke out a living as subsistence farmers.

A few days later, we travel nearly 40 miles through these mountains to put our kayaks in at Ban Nam Ming, a cluster of split-bamboo and thatch huts along a swift, chai-brown Nam Khan tributary. It is the planting season, and the rains have washed away topsoil from ski-jump-steep slopes torched to cultivate maize, sesame, and upland rice. The current quickly carries our troupe of inflatables away from the village and into the relative cool of a narrow, wooded valley. For several hours we tackle small rapids, dodge fish traps, and duck deadfall before working down the broader Nam Khan.

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In the late afternoon, we take out at Ban Khonvay, an isolated Khmu hamlet approximately 20 miles and centuries of amenities removed from Luang Prabang. We are the first visitors in months, and it seems half the village has shown up to greet us. Young boys leap into the kayaks and organize an impromptu regatta, paddling with far more energy than we ever managed.

The parents are as hospitable as their offspring are curious. They lead us up a sandy bank to the headman’s two-story house, a concrete construction with wood walls and a corrugated tin roof. The rest of the village gathers to watch through the open windows as their chief lavishes hospitality upon his honored guests. In a candlelit ceremony rooted in animist tradition, the old man prays loudly over steaming platters of boiled chicken and sticky rice, then ties strings around our wrists. The baci, says the chief, will bring Martin and me good luck, big money, many children. Then, to the onlookers’ approval, we all toss back ceremonial shots of searing lao-lao moonshine, which tastes like it was distilled through the radiator of a ’54 Citroën.

Now, what can we wish for the headman? Martin knots a string around the chief’s wrist as he solemnly offers a sci-fi sacrament: “May you live long and prosper.” Everyone nods— yes, the Vulcan ways are good and wise. More lao-lao, more baci, more good wishes. On this humid night, I’ll have no problem crashing on a thin mattress beneath a mosquito net, secure in the knowledge that tomorrow I can retreat to Maison Souvannaphoum, crank the A/C, and crawl between clean, three-digit-thread-count sheets.

Access & Resources

Thai Airways International flies nonstop from New York to Bangkok for $1,000 round-trip (800-426-5204, ). From there, Bangkok Airways flies direct to Luang Prabang ($278 round-trip; 866-226-4565, ). October through March is the most temperate, though crowded, time. WHERE TO STAY: Perched on a hill a mile south of the old town, Pansea’s 34-room La Résidence Phou Vao (doubles from $126; 011-856-71-212530, ) offers luxuriously appointed rooms. In town, enjoy princely spa treatment at the 22-room Maison Souvannaphoum (doubles from $170; 011-856-71-254609, souvannaphoum). Or go more rustic at the Lao Spirit Resort bungalows (doubles from $59; 011-856-20-557-0221, ), ten miles east of town. WHERE TO EAT: Dinner for two runs $25 at Villa Santi’s Princess Restaurant and $30 at Pansea’s Phou Vao Restaurant. An ice-cold Beer Lao costs 80 cents at the riverside Boungnasouk Guesthouse and Restaurant. EXPLORING: Green Discovery Laos (011-856-71-212093, ) organizes kayak trips; our two days cost $62. Tiger Trail Outdoor ºÚÁϳԹÏÍøs (011-856-20-557-0221, ) offers a range of mountain-biking and trekking trips. To visit the Pak Ou caves, hire a boat (about $20–$25) along the Mekong.

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When we planned a trip to Washington State last summer, my son immediately produced a passport book that he uses to log his visits to national parks. Stamps for Olympic National Park and Seattle’s Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park were a lock. But what about another blip nearby on the map, San Juan Island National Historical Park?

I knew that the San Juan Islands, a hundred miles northwest of the Space Needle, had been the setting for Snow Falling on Cedars and—more important for my son—Free Willy. But neither of us knew anything about the Pig War, a 19th-century showdown with Britain commemorated by the National Park Service at this 1,752-acre, two-part park on San Juan Island.

We settled on visiting San Juan and Orcas, two large islands with the widest range of services. To get there, we took a morning car ferry from Port Angeles to Victoria, British Columbia, and then made another international crossing from nearby Sidney, B.C., to Friday Harbor on San Juan Island.

Our first stop was American Camp, the larger section of the historical park, situated on the southeastern tip of the island. After a park ranger stamped my son’s passport, we walked oceanside trails and the earthen redoubt that the U.S. soldiers had built into their windswept cape. The long-ago imbroglio sounded like the plot of a quirky Miramax film. The Oregon Treaty of 1846 had set the northwest U.S.-Canadian border at the 49th parallel, but was vague about dividing the smaller islands north of Puget Sound, which both nations claimed. The flash point came in 1859, when an American farmer shot a loose pig belonging to the Hudson’s Bay Company that he found rototilling his garden.

Soon, nearly 500 Americans were facing off against five British warships. Then, a reality check. Instead of going to war over a boar, the two sides agreed to a joint occupation. The Yanks hunkered down at American Camp; the Brits dug in at English Camp. Thirteen years later, an arbitrator, Kaiser Wilhelm I of Germany, ruled in America’s favor, with that wayward pig the only casualty.

We then headed west through rolling hills. The weather, sunny and temperate in the rain shadow cast by the Olympics, was perfect. After stopping to gorge on roadside thickets of blackberries, we hiked a short coastal trail into Lime Kiln Point State Park and watched harbor seals cruise the rocky shoreline.

The next morning we ferried to rugged Orcas Island to camp at Moran State Park. Donated in part by shipping baron and Seattle mayor Robert Moran, the 5,252-acre park is fourth-largest of Washington’s 120-odd state parks. Our campsite overlooked Cascade Lake.

On our last day we sea-kayaked on East Sound, spotting ospreys and a pair of river otters, then drove up 2,409-foot Mount Constitution, the islands’ highest point. At the summit, we climbed the stone staircase of a watchtower built by the Civilian Conservation Corps. The panorama was stunning: the archipelago spread upon slate-blue seas, backed to the east by Mount Baker and to the south by the snow-capped Olympic range. It was a view to die for. Better the pig than me.

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A Pantanal piranha

SIX HOURS EARLIER, hiring a local with a four-wheel-drive pickup truck had sounded like a brilliant idea. But Luciano and his boss’s Mitsubishi had proved no match for western Brazil’s Pantanal, and now a particularly mucky portion of the 90,000-square-mile wetland was settling in around our bogged-down vehicle.

In the glow of a rising moon, I could see only the lagoon Luciano had swerved to avoid. Luciano ran down his emergency inventory: no flashlight, flares, shovel, or winch. In case of deep muck, like the kind currently gripping our tires, he did have the city dweller’s rescue tool of choice, a cell phone.

But we were in a dead zone—nearly 200 winding miles northwest of Campo Grande, the capital of Brazil’s Mato Grosso do Sul State—mired in the home turf of millions of toothy alligator-like caimans and the planet’s largest jaguars.

In the 16th century, cartographers labeled this watery world the Sea of Xaraes, after a local indigenous tribe. It’s easy to understand why: Every fall, rains overwhelm the region. As a result, 80 percent of the shallow basin becomes an Oklahoma-size lake, inundating massive stretches of Brazil, Bolivia, and Paraguay and rendering roads impassable. In April, the epic flood recedes, leaving a shifting mosaic of open savanna, gallery forests, scrub grassland, and meandering rivers.

This extreme and varied habitat supports 3,500 plant species, 650 bird species, 260 types of fish, and more than 100 different mammals, including such endangered species as the jaguar, the maned wolf, and the giant otter. It is the Pantanal, not the Amazon, where you’ll see the greatest concentration of New World fauna.
After the wildly popular Brazilian soap opera Pantanal debuted in 1990, curious travelers began to arrive in the region. Inns appeared along the Trans- pantaneira, a decrepit 90-mile causeway south of Cuiabá, the capital of Mato Grosso State, that is the only route into the northern section of the floodplain. Now a multitude of lodges in the southern Pantanal cater to a growing number of year-round visitors.

In 1999, Conservation International (CI), a Washington, D.C.-based global environmental organization, bought a sprawling ranch—the Fazenda Rio Negro, where Pantanal was filmed—and converted the main house into a guest lodge. The original ranch was founded in 1895 by a descendant of Colonel Candido de Silva Rondon, the famed Brazilian explorer who accompanied Theodore Roosevelt on his 1914 expedition through the Pantanal. Now the fazenda runs just 100 cattle on its 19,000 acres, and its mission has shifted to research, conservation, and low-impact tourism. This month, CI is expected to announce the creation of a 271,700-acre biodiversity protection area composed of three private reserves and the newly established Rio Negro State Park, just west of the Fazenda Rio Negro.

With rustic rooms, two suites, and a guest house, the ranch can accommodate 28 visitors. Its all-inclusive program includes tracking wildlife by horseback, boat, canoe, and open truck. Heaps of free-range beef and savory feijão com arroz, or beans and rice, are on the menu every day. Afternoons are spent taking a siesta in a hammock; sunsets are for sipping lethal caipirinhas. That is, if only we could get there.

THERE’S NO EASY WAY into the Pantanal. We’d hopped a Varig shuttle from Rio de Janeiro to S‹o Paulo, then flown almost 600 miles west to Campo Grande. Because I didn’t want to risk my family—wife, seven-year-old son, and mother-in-law—flying on a bush plane to the ranch, I’d arranged for a truck and driver through a local outfitter, Delgado Tour. Luciano Barros, who met us at the airport, confessed he had never driven to the ranch. But his boss had handed off the job and a crude map.

“I have a mouth,” Luciano assured me, in Portuguese. “I’ll just ask directions.”

I bought the best map I could find at the airport gift shop. In the midst of the void, I spied a faint red 40-mile line running to the ranch. This was August, the best time of the year for a road trip.

From Campo Grande we made good time to the village of Aquidauana, where we found a washboard road leading north into the Pantanal. We saw rare pampas deer and ostrich-like rheas along the desolate route, but we only encountered a handful of motorists, all outbound. By nightfall, that thin red line we were following had disintegrated into sandy tracks. We blundered on for hours, passing through the cattle gates of anonymous ranches, scattering cows, coatis, and caimans, before we got stuck.

Then, a miracle. By standing tiptoe on the truck cab and raising his cell phone, Luciano finally reached his boss. Shortly before midnight, a truck from the fazenda rumbled out of the gloom.

“I’ve worked here three years, and three people have come by car,” ranch manager Paula Rego told me when we arrived, nearly 12 hours after leaving Campo Grande. “All the tourists fly—even the people who live here get lost.”

The next morning broke with the chatter of a half-dozen cobalt-blue hyacinth macaws, the world’s largest parrots. Beyond the horse paddock, a troop of capybaras, pig-size aquatic rodents, emerged from the tree line and settled serenely into a wallow. Down by the boat landing, several dozen caimans basked in the rising sun.
As our piloteiro, David Albuquerque, maneuvered an aluminum fishing boat along the tannin-stained Rio Negro, we saw toco toucans and jabiru storks. More capybaras materialized from the forest, while the caiman count approached three figures. That wasn’t all: Paula told us that camera traps had photographed three jaguars near the ranch.

Our swamp savior, Elio Antonio “Picole” Martins, later took us on a three-hour, 15-mile circuit of the northern and eastern sections of the fazenda. Wheeling his truck along rutted savanna trails, Picole found giant anteaters, monk parakeets, and a pair of crab-eating foxes. Near a remote salina, a brackish water hole, the tracks of ocelots and lesser anteaters dimpled the shoreline. After watching a tapir feed on the algae covering a lagoon, Paula led us to a giant egret rookery, where the twilight screamed like a million soccer fans.

The next morning, there was no hope of sleeping in, not with the racket made by flocks of nesting monk parakeets. After a breakfast of papaya, pastries, and bracing coffee, it was time to explore the back forty by horse.

Paula took us across the ranch’s grassy airstrip, where a wind sock hung limply in the heat. A squadron of hyacinth macaws glided into a grove of acuri palms behind a whitewashed house, now the home of former owner Don Orlando de Castro Rondon.

Longtime employees like Pedro “Japan” da Costa, who was born under a tree behind the big house, back in the thirties, could recall a time when the pantaneiros embarked on six-day cattle drives to the slaughterhouses in Aquidauana. But by 1999, falling beef prices, reduced government aid, and advanced age had convinced Don Orlando to sell out. Once a passionate jaguar hunter, he now saw his fazenda as a model for conservation in the Pantanal. In a deal that allowed him to maintain a modest home, CI bought out Rondon.

After fording the swift Rio Negro, Paula rode along the banks of an old channel, pointing out a tapir’s tracks and the skittish prints left by a drove of white-lipped peccaries, a favorite jaguar victim.

While Fazenda Rio Negro has survived for more than a century in relative harmony with the Pantanal, other areas suffer development pains. Cuiab‡ discharges the untreated sewage of its 800,000 people into Pantanal tributaries, which also carry mercury from gold-mining operations near Poconé.

Compared with the Amazon, however, the Pantanal remains healthy. Steeled by the annual cycle of wet-season floods and dry-season fires, the marsh demands badass Darwinism: In a place where 30-foot snakes eat 120-pound rodents, there’s no room for the unwary.

The day of our departure, we took two canoes and headed upstream, following a pair of giant otters for several hundred yards, then landed near a bend in the river. The lurking caimans ceded the beach but hung ten yards downstream while I took a wary dip.

“Don’t worry about piranhas,” David advised. “They prefer still water.”
Fishing with a bamboo pole and a scrap of beef, however, my son pulled a piranha from the water. Time to get out; I’d seen enough feeding frenzies on TV.

Then the clouds opened and heavy rains pelted the parched earth. Our return promised to be another gripping adventure. Back at the ranch, Picole drew a map; at each cattle gate he indicated one direction: Segue. Continue.

“What day is your flight back to the States?” Picole asked.

“Sunday night,” I replied.

“Then you have three days to get to Aquidauana,” he said with a little smile.

No problem. Luciano still had his mouth and his mobile.

FORGET THE AMAZON, the Darién, even Patagonia—the Pantanal, centered mostly in Brazil but edging into Bolivia and Paraguay, is the best spot in South America to view wildlife. The dry season (May through October) finds the Pantanal at its most pleasant: no flooding, cool temperatures, and big beasts such as tapirs, capybaras, and caimans clustered around water holes. The rainy season (November through April) attracts birders who come to feather their life lists with sightings of the hyacinth macaw, the crested caracara, and the turkeylike southern screamer. Bear in mind, however, that much of the swamp will be flooded, the roads will be a quagmire, and the mosquitoes, known affectionately as “the Bolivian Air Force,” will be relentless.
LODGING The FAZENDA RIO NEGRO (011-55-67-326-0002, ) is open year-round. Lodging, all meals, and guided activities cost $130 per day per adult. The fare for children under 12 is $84 per day. The comfortable, if basic, accommodations range from suites in the main house to a five-room guest house. All rooms have private baths and air-conditioning.

EARTHWATCH INSTITUTE (800-776-0188, ) needs Fazenda Rio Negro-based volunteers to help scientists study jaguars and giant otters.

Several other fazendas in the southern Pantanal offer a similar mix of adventures. An oasis about 100 miles north of the Rio Negro, POUSADA CAMPO NETA (011-55-67-382-2068, ) is best accessed by plane, and is affiliated with the Wildlife Conservation Society.

An easy 22-mile drive north from the Campo Grande-Corumbá highway, the REFÚGIO ECOLÓGICO CAIMAN (011-55-11-3079-6622, ) has four lodges on its 130,000-acre property.

POINTS OF ENTRY Almost 400 miles northwest of Campo Grande, and 200 miles north of the Fazenda Rio Negro, Poconé is the starting point for the TRANSPANTANEIRA, a road intended to bridge the swamp. After 90 miles, a third of the way in, the project was put on hold. But the causeway has been a boon to naturalists. Animals congregate on the road in the wet season; during the dry season, ditches along the highway are the only permanent water sources. Eighty-seven miles south of Cuiabá, the 15-room ARARAS PANTANAL ECO-LODGE () offers horseback riding, hiking, biking, and canoeing.

The area’s sole national park, 486,000-acre Parque Nacional do Pantanal Mato-grossense, is accessible only by plane or boat. Call the IBAMA office in Cuiabá (011-55-65-648-19147) for permit information, but be prepared to converse in Portuguese.

GETTING THERE Varig Brazilian Airlines (800-468-2744, ) has several daily flights from the United States to São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Varig flies nonstop from S‹o Paulo to Campo Grande, with continuing service to Cuiabá. Fazenda Rio Negro can arrange for chartered single-engine bush planes from Campo Grande ($870 for three) or Aquidauana ($455).

Avis (800-230-4898, ) has offices in the Cuiabá and Campo Grande airports. From Campo Grande, the roads are decent to Corumbá. Be prepared, however, for sloppy conditions while motoring the Transpantaneira. Don’t even think about trying to reach Fazenda Rio Negro by yourself. But if you must defy common sense, the lodge’s coordinates are 19°34’29.2″ S, 56°14’37.1″ W.

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