Rolando Garcia led his first group of trekkers to the top of 9,220-foot Mount Roraima in 1983, while he was still a teenager. He would go on to summit the mountain,��the highest point in Venezuela’s Canaima National Park, at least 250 times during��his career as one of the best guides in the region.

Garcia honed his craft in the time of “the other Venezuela,”��when the country was the wealthiest in Latin America, during the last decades of the 20th��century. The prosperity helped create��a steady stream of adventurous Venezuelans and international tourists to Canaima to see Angel Falls, the world’s highest waterfall, and the ancient landscape that inspired Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World. During that time, the park also attracted��climbers seeking new big-wall routes up��its��giant tabletop mountains, called��tepuis, including Kukenan and Roraima, which have hosted some of the most famous accomplishments of��,��,��.

Straddling the main road that cuts through Canaima to the Brazilian border, and sitting at the base of Roraima, the indigenous Pemón village of Kumaracapay became a key stop for those��coming to the park. It was also home to Garcia and his wife,��Zoraida Rodriguez, who hosted climbers and trekkers in their household.

Many members of Garcia’s community might never get the chance to venture beyond their own corner of the park, but his��career as the country’s most famous guide��gave Garcia the chance to travel throughout Venezuela.

“People who saw Rolando at home in his hammock might think he had never left his village,” says Daniel Mamopulakos, “but this guy has been everywhere.” Mamopulakos, a climber and mountain biker who lives roughly 600 miles northwest of Canaima��in Caracas, first met Garcia in 2002 and became close with him over dozens of backcountry trips.

I met Garcia in April 2018. He was my guide for a two-week expedition in Canaima��with the an organization of Venezuelan rock climbers developing sustainable tourism in the park.��He had a compact build and a quick smile. He wasn’t an obvious athlete until you saw the grace of his movement. Garcia knew every rock from his years guiding��but was no less engaged than I was seeing this landscape for the first time.

While we were together,��Garcia explained how he and his wife helped make Kumaracapay a destination for visitors, their fight to keep tourism in the park alive in the face of political upheaval, and his vision for the future of the park and the Pemón when the country stabilized and visitors returned.

“The Garcia family is famous among people who know the history of trekking in the area,” says Mamopulakos. “They’re one of the few families who have managed to continue in tourism despite our country’s struggles.”

Venezuela’s economy has been in free fall for nearly a decade due to��corruption and crumbling infrastructure under the leadership of Hugo Chávez and his handpicked successor, Nicolás Maduro. Years of crisis also caused a dramatic shift in the economy of Canaima National Park. As tourism dollars declined, the Pemón turned increasingly to work in�� in and around the park. All around Garcia, guides and porters were becoming miners. Once popular destinations were in danger of becoming mining pits.

Despite these changes, Garcia was determined to continue his family’s traditional way of life.��To earn income outside of guiding, he��and his wife opened a store outside their home on the main road through Canaima. They sold empanadas to truck drivers on their way to the Brazilian border and served meals of chicken, rice, and beer to the trekkers and touring mountain bikers that still came to the park. The family made wood carvings, weavings, and other crafts to sell to tourists as well, small mementos of time spent in the family’s home in the shadow of the mountains.

Because his chosen profession was��becoming untenable, Garcia was eager to help the r. The group argues that even a small number of steady jobs in the tourism industry have the potential to create an economic alternative to mining, providing opportunities for indigenous communities while protecting the environment.

In recent years, Garcia was also spending time in the backcountry with members of the��organization. Those expeditions were part of a larger mission to train a new generation of Pemón guides. Garcia was��important to their work—an example to the younger porters that it was once��possible to earn their livelihood in the mountains and could be again.

However, in February of this year, the full force of Venezuela’s most recent��crisis descended on the quiet town.

The current turmoil was touched off in January when opposition leader and president of the National Assembly Juan Guaidó invoked the constitution to declare himself the legitimate president, citing irregularities in Maduro’s��2018 reelection. Recognized by the United States and more than 50 other countries as Venezuela’s rightful leader, Guaidó began coordinating with the U.S., Brazil, and Colombia to provide humanitarian aid for the country’s impoverished citizens. Maduro viewed the arrival of foreign food and medicine as a threat to his regime and sent military forces to block the aid shipments from entering the country. Pemón leaders�� their intention to peacefully intervene in support of the aid, setting the stage for a showdown with Maduro’s government.

Venezuelan government forces entered Kumaracapay in the early hours of February 22, on their way to block the aid at the Brazilian border. Villagers attempted to stop them. It’s unclear whether they set up a physical or human barrier. In a cell-phone video taken that morning, more than a dozen armed soldiers are seen entering the village on foot. A man can be heard addressing them calmly: “If you want to enter, you have to leave your weapons behind.” As the soldiers continue to advance, he pleads with them to “respect the people.” Then the shooting begins.

Zoraida Rodriguez��confronted the soldiers, asking them to leave. She was shot point-blank and died just steps from her doorway. Garcia ran to her aid and was shot in the abdomen. He survived a six-hour transport by car to a hospital in Brazil��but died on March 2 after a week in intensive care.

The couple had five children, ages 10 through 19.��Their eldest daughter witnessed the attack. Her account was relayed to me by Mamopulakos and by another eyewitness interviewed by Foro Penal, a Venezuelan human-rights organization. My attempts to contact Garcia’s daughter were unsuccessful.��

In addition to Garcia and Rodriguez, the attack killed Kliber Pérez, a 24-year-old mountain guide. Eleven others were wounded. Later that day, the assault on protesters continued in the nearby town of Santa Elena de Uairén, at the southern gateway of the park. In total, Foro��Penal����that seven died, more than 40 were wounded, and more than 60 were illegally detained during the attacks on the two villages.

The Bolivar state governor, a member of the ruling Socialist Party,��blamed the Pemón��for the attacks, in an from March, calling��the Kumaracapay residents’��actions��“terrorist acts.”

Many from Garcia’s village have since fled to Brazil in fear of further government reprisal. This exodus includes his five children, who were able to join their father at his bedside before he died. Since contacting��friends of the family��to announce their parent’s��deaths, they’ve��gone deeper into hiding in��Brazil and are out of contact. I tried to reach them multiple times��but was unsuccessful.

In recent months, Venezuela has suffered�� that have brought major cities to the brink of anarchy and made communicating with remote parts of Canaima even more difficult than usual. While there have been no reports of further violence,�� the possibility of a renewed assault on the Pemón as Maduro clings to power.

During my expedition with Garcia, he described a hoped-for future in which the situation in Venezuela stabilizes��and the tourists return. He knew he was getting too old to take rock climbers and other adventurers on some of the more arduous trips into the tepuis. He dreamed of opening a school to teach the next generation of Pemón guides, having witnessed the beginnings of this goal with the Tepui Project’s work and looking on with pride as some of the best climbers in Venezuela taught young Pemón rope skills.

As the crisis in Venezuela continues, Garcia’s��own long-term vision for his people and the future of Canaima itself remain uncertain. But Garcia was a mountain guide. He knew how to navigate uncertainty and the rewards that lay on the other side.

The post The Murder of Venezuela’s Visionary ���ϳԹ��� Guide appeared first on ���ϳԹ��� Online.

Patrick Symmes specializes in reporting from hot spots: He’s filed stories from Afghanistan, Venezuela, Timbuktu, Yemen, and Argentina. More recently, the ���ϳԹ��� contributing editor spent three weeks reporting for the New York Times Magazine about the . We asked Symmes for a list of the stuff he always keeps at his side.

Patagonia Headway MLC Duffel ($342)

I never check a bag if I can help it; waiting for it slows you down when you land, or it never arrives at all. Like the name says, this is the , so you can cram it full. You can carry it with the backpack straps or, if you want to look classy arriving at your hotel, sling it over your shoulder with a single strap. Mine is yellow, so it’s harder to forget in the back of a taxi.

Bill’s Khakis ($155)

and modeled after the original World War II service khakis. They’re lightweight and great for hot weather, and they’ll hold up to repeated wearing if you can’t get your laundry done for a few days. I wore a pair day in and day out for four years, and my mother still asked me if they were new.

Aerostitch Money Belt ($16)

Sometimes I’ll bring a decoy wallet with me if I’m going someplace where mugging is common. I fill it with some mail-offer credit cards—the kind with “YOUR NAME HERE” stamped into them—and some obsolete Bolivian pesos. In Venezuela a few years ago, someone actually robbed me and took the decoy wallet. I had $500 stashed in so I could taxi home.

Earplugs ($19)

Sleeping is the only useful thing to do on an airplane. Wax earplugs block out more sound, but I go with the foam kind because they are cheap and easy.

Logitech Keys to Go Keyboard ($43)

Owning an iPad means I no longer have to carry around a nine-pound laptop and pile of books. I pair it with this rechargeable, spill-resistant keyboard, which weighs less than seven ounces. For backup, I also take photos of my handwritten notes and email the photos to myself. I once had my notebook confiscated in Yemen but was able to recover my notes this way.

My Trail Co Men’s Down Light Jacket ($99)

Nothing . My preferred version packs down to the size of two fists and weighs just 12 ounces. I bring it everywhere except the tropics.

DeLorme InReach Satellite Communicator ($300)

I got this after a solo fishing trip on the Deschutes River, in central Oregon, when I was hiking a trail and ran into a half-dozen rattlesnakes. beacon gives me peace of mind if something were to happen in a remote location. I wish I’d had it on various trips to Afghanistan and Africa, where cell service was spotty. It’ll be a staple in my reporting kit going forward.

Insight Guidebooks ($15)

The farther afield you go, the more fun it is, and the more you have to worry about battery life or lack of Wi-Fi. That’s why I still like paper guidebooks—the kind you can pull out in the pouring rain or a sketchy neighborhood. is great, too, but I like for the historical and cultural background. I’m taking this one with me to Argentina.

The post The 8 Tools Our Travel Writer Never Leaves Home Without appeared first on ���ϳԹ��� Online.

Viva South America!
Where the adventure comes in one size: grande

THAT'S NICE, your little Alaska. One-fifth the size of Brazil, but maybe you like modest. The ocean off Hawaii is pretty; too bad the biomass is all in the Galápagos. Nevada has a lot going for it—but not the 11 languages of similar-sized Ecuador.

You don't really want middling and monochrome, do you? No. You'd prefer large. (“Dude, Iguaçú is almost three Niagaras!”) If you're going to have penguins, why not 500,000 on one beach? (It's called Punta Tombo, Argentina.) You'd like a surfing coast with twice the waves and half the boards? (Southern Ecuador to northern Chile. Not to mention Brazil and Uruguay.)

Yup, for a real adventure, you need an expanse of earth. Something bigger than your dreams. A place where the phrase No es posible still translates as “Oh yeah? Watch this.” Call me when you reach the real America—the one they call South.

You couldn't build this place in SimEarth: ���ϳԹ��� Travel Edition. South America is an immense continent, yet it has the coherence and culture of an island. It is ends-of-the-earth remote, but you can get there in an old VW bus. The cultures are exotic, but they're not incomprehensibly alien. Same for the languages: even five words badly pronounced will get you treated like a hero.

And there's always more of it: scores of islands from Chile to Colombia, a dozen countries, hundreds of indigenous nations, and uncountable dirt roads going to places unknown, at least to you. It is cleaner and greener than North America, at least outside the cities. You don't know what visibility is until you've watched ripples on Lake Titicaca through ten miles of thin air. Speak to me of whitewater when you can pronounce Futaleufú.

I've hitched the plains of Patagonia, horsed it over the Continental Divide in Chile, and floated remote corners of the Amazon. I drove a motorcycle from Buenos Aires to Lima once and even back again. I also drove a few nails into the cabin I started near the trout rivers of Esquel, Argentina. I've had a lost city in the clouds (Kuelap, Peru) all to myself. In the Galápagos, I learned that you stop being scared sometime around the 100th shark. Even Hugo Chávez can't keep me out. (Los Roques or bust!) And after 20 years of grazing, I'm still hungry: the 12,000-foot Altiplano, a plateau of northern Argentina, is on my list, along with the wildlife in Brazil's Mato Grosso. Cartagena, Colombia, sounds fun. I've still never made it to Tierra del Fuego. I dream about studying capoeira on the beach in Itacaré, Brazil, where the dancing martial art was born.

Fortunately, the place keeps getting bigger. Much of South America is only now opening up; paradoxically, as better economies and new infrastructure have arisen, the supply of places to be discovered has surpassed the demand. There are more turnoffs, more trailheads, more lost corners. There's unpeopled wilderness (Suriname, anyone?) and booty-shaking masses (see: Maracanã Stadium, Rio). And, yes, in South America they can bring the comfy. You don't have to suffer.

There's a rueful old joke down South America way. God is making the world, and he gives South America too much. He starts with 4,000 miles of cloud-splitting Andes, adds the biggest rainforest in the world and then the largest river by volume. He sticks gold, silver, and oil everywhere. He fills up the oceans. Even the deserts are superlative. (Driest! Highest!) Finally, Saint Peter cries out, “God, slow down. You're giving them way too much!”

The punch line—”Don't worry,” God says, “wait till you see the poor people”—is funny to self-deprecating South Americans. But the setup is what matters to us. Somebody made this other half of America too big, too good. Where else is adventure getting better all the time?

Explore the Amazon

Rio Aucayacu

Life on the Amazon's Aucayacu

One of the best ways to experience the Amazon’s incredible array of diversity is at Ecuador’s little-known Huaorani Ecolodge, a solar-powered oasis in the heart of the 1.7 million acres of Amazon owned by the Huaorani, the tribe at the center of Joe Kane’s 1995 book Savages. After a 40-minute flight from the small town of Shell—already the edge of civilization—you’ll land in the village of Quehueri’ono (translation: Cannibal River, but don’t be alarmed). Your guide will pole you down the slow-moving Shiripuno in a dugout canoe to the lodge, a traditional palm-thatched dining room surrounded by five simple cabins. There, you’ll learn how to use a blowgun, perfect your machete swing, set traps for monkeys and peccaries, drink the banana-smoothie-like concoction called chucula, and meet the tribe’s visionary leader, Moi Eno­menga. High points: spotting a jaguar on the riverbank while camping on a remote platform under the stars, then getting up before dawn to swim beneath a towering waterfall. Not many tourists have seen the Amazon this way. In fact, two branches of the Huaorani still live in virtual isolation downriver—and prefer it that way. Five days, $860 per person, double occupancy;

Fly-Fish Argentina

You could pay an American outfitter five grand to helicopter you to a remote river in Patagonia, point out a fat wild brown trout, and hold your hand while you cast. Or you could throw a decent six-weight fly rod, boots, and some leaders (2x to 5x) in a pack, book a flight to Bariloche, Argentina (Delta and Continental fly through Buenos Aires), and do it yourself. The trout here are big—seven, eight, ten, twelve pounds—and the beauty of the place is the dizzying amount of options within a day’s reach. For easy access, the big Rio Limay flows out of the eastern shore of 250-square-mile Lago Nahuel Huapi (day floats with Bariloche-based Outfitters Patagonia, $370; ; bring Woolly Buggers with rubber legs). Want to cast dry flies to rising 16-to-24-inch fish in the vicinity of exactly no one? Book a three-day, 40-mile float on the pristine Rio Caleufu ($1,050 with Outfitters Patagonia). If you’d rather wade-fish without a guide, drive two hours north to the Rio Malleo with a hatful of Parachute Adams and Pheasant-Tail Nymphs. Or drive two hours south of Bariloche and float remote Fonck Lake, where you’ll catch as many 20-inch browns as you wish. (Just don’t go the day after it rains—the road will resemble a milkshake.) If you don’t have access to a boat, make for Espejo Chico Lake, walk around the shoreline, strip Woolly Buggers along the steep ledges, and wait for your rod to do a very big double take.

Climb Bolivia

When talk turns to mountaineering in South America, one peak comes to mind—Argentina’s 22,834-foot Aconcagua. But that ignores the spectacular peaks of Bolivia. Mountaineers gravitate toward this country for the same reasons they head to Nepal: One, it’s got soul. And two, with its elevated Altiplano, deep blue skies, and big glaciers, Bolivia feels Hima­layan in scope. Deplane in the 16th-century capital of La Paz and you’re already at nearly 12,000 feet. There, meet your group of Berg ���ϳԹ���s International guides for a 16-day expedition. After five days of trekking and acclimatizing (and getting blessed by an Aymara witch doctor) on Isla del Sol, in Lake Titicaca—where you’ll see the same balsa-wood boats Thor Heyerdahl modeled Kon-Tiki after—you’ll travel to base camp at the edge of a pristine mountain lake in western Bolivia’s Cordillera Real. Depending on weather conditions, avalanche hazard, and the group’s experience, the local guides will choose up to four climbs, from the steep summit ridge of 17,618-foot Pequeño Alpamayo to the relatively straightforward ascent of Bolivia’s highest peak, 21,463-foot Sajama. If Sajama is a success, attempt 18,700-foot Cabeza de Condor, the Bolivian Matterhorn. Your reward? A soak in nearby hot springs. $3,200;

Bonefish in Venezuela

Los Roques, Venezuela

Snorkeling Los Roques, Venezuela

Welcome to the best place in the world to bonefish: the flats of Los Roques, an old-style Caribbean paradise 80 miles off the coast of Venezuela. Here’s why: only 1,500 people inhabit the 350-island chain, and the surrounding turquoise waters—packed with coral reefs, mangrove forests, and sea-grass beds—are the protected Los Roques Archipelago National Park. Hurricanes rarely land here, and with year-round temperatures averaging 81 degrees, there’s never a bad time to cast. Did we mention that during high-tide season, between October and December, you’re likely to catch permit, tarpon, and bonefish all in the same day? When you’re not fishing, kick back deckside at the simple, sophisticated Pez Raton Lodge, a five-bedroom inn with a chef who cooks up a mean lobster. The lodge is just far enough from Gran Roque, the islands’ main village, that you can enjoy solitude or walk to the town square for the islanders’ endless stream of fiestas. For your first visit, go with an experienced fishing outfitter like Frontiers Travel, which, besides leading you to the best fish, can also help you navigate Hugo Chávez territory. After all, you’re in Venezuela—it’s not dangerous, but traveling can be logistically tricky. Five-night, four-day trips, from $2,795 per person;

Raft Epic Whitewater

The Andes Mountains rise to heights exceeded only by the Himalayas. Here, 5,000-foot canyons seem to dot the countryside like footprints in a sandbox. At the bottom of nearly all of those canyons is a wild, primeval, tempestuous river—a whitewater fanatic’s paradise. Peru, with its combination of native cultures and remote rivers feeding into the Amazon rainforest, is ground zero for exploratory raft trips, where you encounter wildlife—parrots, giant river otters, condors—that is much less surprised to see you than the indigenous locals are (you wave, they stare). Eventually the rafts round the bend and drop in on another set of Class IV rapids. It’s all very civilized, in a Gods Must Be Crazy sort of way. Global Descents offers multi-day trips on the (relatively) easily accessed but still remote Rio Apurimac, near Cusco ($3,500, including an Inca Trail trek; ). Earth River Expeditions has a new trip this year exploring the practically undiscovered Rio Yavero, where Peru’s highlands transform into Amazonian rainforest in a less-than-100-mile stretch ($3,300; ). South America’s most renowned whitewater classic, though, is Chile’s Futaleufú. The Fu, as it is known, has the unique trifecta of being impossibly clear, massively powerful, and refreshingly brisk. While plenty of companies lead trips on the Fu, only Earth River offers multi-day outings that involve wooden hot tubs, five-star meals, and a night spent above the forest floor in a handcrafted treehouse ($3,300; ).

Find Colombian Ruins

Think of ruins in South America and you think Machu Picchu. Think again. La Ciudad Perdida (the Lost City), in northern Colombia, is one of the most prominent archaeological sites on the continent. And while it’s true that Colombia has had its safety problems—in 2003, eight trekkers were kidnapped at La Ciudad Perdida by the National Liberation Army and held for 101 days—the U.S. State Department reports that security has markedly improved in the past decade. (Just be aware that certain parts of the country remain unsafe, like the border areas and eastern Colombia.) Book a guided tour of the Lost City with Turcol outfitters and you’ll rest easier. I met my guides in the faded coastal colonial town of Santa Marta and began the trek to La Ciudad Perdida, a not-for-the-faint-of-heart five-day, 30-mile journey into the jungled and steep Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. Our group was small—just six of us, a guide, and a few porters. We slept in hammocks at night and trekked through farmland, swam under waterfalls, and crossed the Rio Buritaca nine times (no bridges) before we reached the gateway to the ruins: 1,200 jagged and moss-covered stone steps. We spent two nights at La Ciudad Perdida and were the only ones there. As I stood mud-soaked on the grassy terraces built in the late eighth century that once teemed with the city’s residents, I realized that if La Ciudad Perdida were anywhere but Colombia, it would have thousands of visitors per year. From $270 per person;

Sail The Galápagos

Believe the hype. Six hundred miles off the coast of Ecuador, the Galápagos Islands are like the Garden of Eden before the Fall. With its high concentration of endemic species and virtually zero predators, the wildlife on this archipelago is so at ease that a Nazca booby might waddle up to peck your camera lens. There’s plenty of controversy over the most PC way to see the islands. Hidden Places, owned by writer Maria Coffey and her husband, Dag Goering, has crafted an 11-day itinerary that’s as eco-conscious as they come, thanks to the couple’s local connections and commitment to environmental integrity. You begin in Ecuador’s colonial capital of Quito, where you’ll stay in a family-owned boutique hotel. Once in the islands, you’ll cruise on a locally owned 90-foot yacht that holds only 16 guests, has a state-of-the-art waste-management system, and uses biodegradable products. Your guide, Ernesto Vaca, has been working as a park naturalist since 1989. Along the cliffs of Española Island, he might point out a pair of waved albatrosses engaged in their mating ritual: clacking their beaks together like swords. You’ll also visit pirate sites, eat barbecue with one of the original Galápagos settler families, and watch tiny penguins zip past your snorkeling mask. Doubles from $4,850;

Beach-Hop Brazil

Bahia, Brazil

Beach life in Bahia, Brazil

Need to dig your toes in the sand? Take a couple of weeks and beach-hop in Bahia, a northeastern Brazilian state with 685 miles of pristine Atlantic coastline. This colorful region of wild, endless beaches brought the world the martial art of capoeira and the Afro-Brazilian samba. Get a feel for the culture in Salvador, the “happiness capital of Brazil,” a lively 16th-century city where you’ll find laid-back locals, pastel colonial Portuguese casas, and 31 miles of beaches (Busca Vida is a local favorite). Nearby Boipeba, a sleepy island with palm-lined white-sand shores and fishing villages founded by Jesuit priests in 1537, is the perfect place to do nothing but drink fresh coconut water in a beachside hammock at your inexpensive posada between swims. If you want more action, the bustling surf town of Itacaré has a nonstop party atmosphere with plenty of caipirinhas, a drink made from potent cachaça, sugar, and lime. Gorge on freshly grilled dorado on spectacular Itacarezinho beach or surf any number of breaks with Easy Drop Surf Camp (). Feel like splurging? The small village of Trancoso is paradise on earth and a low-key vacation spot for the world’s fashionistas. Uxua Casa Hotel (one-bedrooms from $750 per night; ) has nine eclectic casas surrounding the town’s square, all within an easy walk of Trancoso’s eight beaches. Dine at Restaurante Da Silvana, which serves up the best authen­tic Bahian dishes in town.

Ski The Andes

It’s every serious skier’s summer fantasy to make a pilgrimage to Chile, with its intense steeps, untracked powder, and abundant red wine. Book your trip now for the first three weeks in August, after the Chilean July holidays wrap up, leaving the ski areas empty. Start in Portillo—where each season the massive yellow Hotel Portillo hosts an eccentric cast of Brazilian heiresses and Austrian ski racers—and then head south toward the Lake District. Along the way you’ll find Nevados de Chillán, where you can ski off-piste powder past hissing, steaming blowholes on an active volcano and tap into the open bowls of Valle Nevado, El Colorado, and La Parva, where hidden gullies shelter powder long after storms. There, if you rent a car, you have the flexibility to do road laps (think DIY cat-skiing). Don’t forget the actual snowcat operation at wild, untamed Arpa, a low-key yin to Portillo’s luxe yang. For a great introduction to Andes skiing, check out professional skier Chris Davenport’s Ski with the Superstars week in Portillo, which features personalized coaching by some of the biggest names in freeskiing, including Mike Douglas, Olympian Wendy Fisher, and Davenport himself ($2,150; ). Admire your lines from the best ski-lunch spot on earth—the deck of Tío Bob’s, an old stone shepherd’s hut perched on the edge of a rocky ridge surrounded by the jagged Andes.

Road-Trip Ruta 40

Imagine Route 66 before development—hell, before pavement—and you’ll begin to understand the iconic and oddly pristine nature of Argentina’s Ruta 40 (or La Cuarenta, as it’s locally known). In its entirety, Ruta 40 stretches from the Bolivian border all the way down to the continent’s little toe, in Cabo Vírgenes—3,100-plus miles of gorgeous, unpredictable road-tripping that bounces past 18 rivers and 20 national parks, including the Moab-like Calchaqui Valley (home to the ancient ruins of Quilmes) and Talampaya, sometimes called Argentina’s Grand Canyon. Drive it all, or follow the 1,200-mile, weeklong slice I did with a couple of friends a few years back in a rented VW Gol we picked up in the colonial city of Salta. The road skirts the Andes for miles on end, so impromptu jags led us to hikes and trout-filled streams. Often there’ll be nothing for hours, and then the reward of a mirage proves real: the mystically lush valley town of Barreal or the petroglyphs at Talampaya National Park. Do not miss Posada San Eduardo, a charming, modest estate owned by a former Formula One driver in Barreal (Av. San Martín at Los Enamorados; no phone or website) and La Palmera restaurant, home to the best chivito (roast baby goat) on earth (Ruta 15 at Ruta 40, Villa Union, near Talampaya National Park, no phone or website). Near the finish line, allow for a couple of days in the fecund region around Mendoza, where—I can happily report—you’ll find wines delicious and cheap enough to bring any road trip to a sudden, gluttonous end.

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Venezuela Map

Fishing Venezuela

Working the

Venezuela

A crab fisherman

I’LL ADMIT THERE ARE MOMENTS, even on the mainland. The climate in Caracas is nearly ideal. People love to crowd the traditional bars, called tascas, to eat peanuts, chat with strangers, and cheer on their baseball teams. Venezuelans rank themselves among the happiest people on the planet.

But somehow it all looks better from a distance. For the nicest view of this country, you have to retreat all the way to Los Roques, the islands 70 miles offshore. The water is azure, full of bonefish, dotted with dive-bombing pelicans, rimmed with powdery white beaches. The Caribbean is so clear out there that when I hooked a four-foot wahoo a menacing, gray-striped creature, the largest fish I’ve ever caught I could see it twisting and thrashing 35 feet down, a tinfoil glitter in the featureless depths.

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Everything on Los Roques is imported, except the sunshine and the fish. In Gran Roque, the only town, the streets are made of sand. An old landing craft called the ���ǰ������Ի�í�� sputters in every few days with the whiskey, beef, toys, and statues of the Virgin Mary ordered by the village’s 1,500 people. If the ���ǰ������Ի�í�� shows up bearing only frozen strawberries, then every daiquiri served on the island that week will be a strawberry daiquiri. At the beach bars, your table comes with a sleeping dog underneath and fishing boats pulled up on all sides.

Even in Gran Roque, however, there is revolution. The old high school got renovated a few years ago, thanks to el presidente, Hugo Chávez. Now the people on Los Roques nearly all wear red caps or T-shirts not just red, but the red-red of the revolution, rojo rojito. When a boatful of young fishermen, all in rojito caps and T-shirts, comes zooming by, they deliberately cut in close, scattering the bonefish, running over your fly line, laughing as they do it. Bonefishing is for the oligarchs, not the people.

So eventually you must return to that other country, to the real Venezuela. The flights from the islands return to only one place: Caracas, and reality.

IN THEORY, THERE IS A LOT TO LOVE IN VENEZUELA. It’s the only place on earth where a chain of 15,000-foot peaks runs to the sea the Andes with beaches, and mountain towns with tropical warmth. The fishing is great, from those Caribbean wahoo to the toothy peacock bass in the jungle interior. A full fifth of Venezuela is untapped wilderness, and huge grasslands stretch across the interior toward the tepuis, flat-topped mountains full of biological oddities and punctured by the oldest caves in the world. Before my trip took a nasty detour, I was hoping to reach Angel Falls, the world’s tallest waterfall, at 3,212 feet.

But getting out to that wild Venezuela on your own is not easy. Venezuelans don’t like to get dirty. There is no pioneer history here, no conquering of the wilderness. Ninety percent of the population lives in cities or towns. The country’s favorite preoccupations are premium Scotch, plastic surgery, and beauty contests. (Venezuela has produced ten Miss Worlds and Miss Universes, more than any other country.) I met a groaning backpacker who’d been guided up Roraima the 9,094-foot tepui that inspired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Lost World stories which meant a week of bad food, leaky tents, and vanishing porters. As one American in Caracas told me, ecotourism requires “swimming upstream the whole way.” Indeed, it took six days of bureaucratic wrangling just to get my plane ticket to Los Roques.

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I skipped the wilderness and embarked on a tour of that other landscape, the political terrain of an oil country whose magic was being ground down by realism. In 1992, Chávez, an army lieutenant colonel, was arrested for trying to overthrow Venezuela’s corrupt democracy; he emerged from jail a populist hero, won the presidency in a landslide in 1998, and has been reelected easily twice more. Venezuela is now deep into year ten of what Chávez calls his Bolívarian revolution, after South America’s great 19th-century liberator, Simón Bolívar. Armed with oil revenues, he has been on a quest to undo the centuries of exclusion and decades of corruption that have made Venezuela, the world’s fifth-biggest exporter of oil, into the failed society of South America. To a polarized and wounded populace he has applied a poultice of Marxist central-planning and patronage schemes. He is paying thousands of Cuban doctors to work in the worst slums. He has spent lavishly $20 billion in three years on subsidized groceries and education for the deprived, and I myself watched old ladies line up for free medical care.

That’s Chávez at his best. At his worst, he has appointed brothers to top posts, and he has poured verbal gasoline on every fire in the country. He’s turned a blind eye to growing corruption and constant economic chaos. The inrush of oil dollars pushed inflation to 28 percent in 2008, and currency controls have created an absurd exchange rate where a Leones del Caracas baseball jersey costs $200 via credit card and less than half that in bolívares fuertes exchanged on a seedy black market. The official murder rate in Caracas is 26 times that of New York City, and kidnappings have increased sevenfold since he came to power. The local specialty is the secuestro express. As portrayed in a 2005 film by that name, these “express kidnappings” are a rapid tour through ATM machines and terror, with your husk sold back to your parents on Monday.

Americans do go to Venezuela, usually to pump oil, sometimes to catch fish, and occasionally (we saw you, Sean Penn) to pal around with Hugo himself. But Chávez is a natural demagogue who never misses a chance to goad “the empire,” as he calls the United States. (At the United Nations in 2006, he famously claimed to smell sulfur in the air the lingering odor of the “devil” George W. Bush, who was widely believed to have been behind a coup attempt in 2002.) But with worldwide oil prices crashing to one-third their highs and a Chicago community organizer moving into the White House, I was expecting at least a little love when I arrived in mid-November. In two weeks in Venezuela, I thought I would somehow measure the strange distance between our two countries close trading partners, bitter enemies. We share baseball and the culture of the shopping mall, which should have been enough.

This was too smart by half. Typical travel warnings for Venezuela include enough don’ts and don’t-even-considers to intimidate anyone: Don’t show up on schedule; don’t carry all your money in one place; don’t go to central-Caracas neighborhoods like La Candelaria or Sabana Grande by night; don’t walk anywhere at night; and don’t go down side streets “at any time of day.” Don’t hire cabs in the streets; don’t leave your doors unlocked at red lights; and don’t accept drinks, which may be laced with hypnotic burundanga, a potent derivative of belladonna and a precursor to rape and robbery. Don’t dress in anything fancy. Don’t travel with your passport, or without a copy of it.

So before boarding a plane for Caracas, I removed my wedding ring, my watch, and my wallet. I put on a quartz watch and a tin ring. I pulled a smooth leather folder from the closet, an old wallet of my father’s. In one pocket I stuffed a wad of fake money, hundreds of thousands of pesos in an antique Bolivian currency that had been out of circulation since the mid-1980s hoping the word BOLIVIANOS printed on those bills would be close enough to “bolívares” to fool any would-be robbers. In the other pocket, I added a few pieces of plastic, for razzle dazzle. I hadn’t handled that wallet since my father died, in 1990. The brown cowhide was still smooth and oily from his touch.

To the don’ts for Venezuela, let me add two more. First, don’t ask too much of the country if you plan to see Angel Falls and catch bonefish and dance salsa with happy revolutionaries, Venezuela will break your itinerary and your heart.

Second, don’t stand by the side of the road at night, counting the seconds until the boy with the gun walks away. Don’t count the seconds, or you’ll be counting them for the rest of your life.

SCARED YET? THEN DO what the oilmen and Italian tourists do, which is skip Caracas. Many visitors sleep 22 miles away at the airport, which has six major hotels and possibly the best black-market exchange rate (baggage handlers offer nearly five bolívares fuertes to the dollar). In the domestic terminal, I met a British lawyer, Mitwa Bavisi. She’d come overland from Colombia and followed advice to stay near the airport, visiting the city only once, on a bus, for a quick look.

“I’m glad I saw this,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m from London. I’m used to order.”

You’re a long way from Gatwick, girl. What lies up that highway is one of the world’s great slum cities. Caracas is shaped like an outstretched hand; in the palm are skyscrapers and government centers and affluent neighborhoods, from Nelson Rockefeller’s old estate on the edge of the 1940s downtown to five-story malls in the wealthy east. Around the southern and western fringes, rows of steep hills divide the slums into fingers: close to half of the 4.5 million Caraceños live in “informal housing” along riverbeds and up slopes, everything bedecked in laundry and mud. This human kaleidoscope contrasts sharply with the city’s north edge, which is dominated by an inhumanly severe green mountain, ávila, covered with frangipani up to 7,000 feet, a parkland so steep that there is not one invading shack.

I arrived just before the elections in which Venezuelans chose their governors and mayors, and the whole country was convulsed by red-versus-blue political rallies. By national law, all campaigning is suspended two days before the vote and so is the sale of alcohol. A few days into my visit, it was my last shot at both, but as I ran for the door I realized I was suffering from a catastrophic wardrobe malfunction: too many blue shirts. Blue turns out to be the “I hate Chávez” color, the uniform of the opposition, a loose assortment of businessmen, rightists, students, and civil-rights activists.

Part of me hoped that Chávez, who bombs around the country unannounced, would crash the rally I was headed for in lofty Altamira, at the higher, richer eastern end of town. I’d already been absorbing his personality cult of Big Brother billboards, and one night I’d watch him free-associate on television denouncing the “fascists” and “racists” who opposed him, and then segue into movie reviews, advising the nation that 300, the story of the Spartans at Thermopylae, was “a tremendous film, tremendous.”

The dictator’s whims have become diktat. He once broached a plan for “floating cities” in the Caribbean, and more recently promised a 5,000-mile pipeline across the Amazon. He has rumbled about war against Holland over the sovereignty of Aruba. He has changed his country’s name (adding “Bolivarian” to “Republic of Venezuela”). He’s changed the currency (from bolívares to bolívares fuertes), the coat of arms (now the horse faces left), the flag (one more star), and even the clocks, which now run half an hour ahead of Washington, as they did until 1965. (“It doesn’t matter to me that they call me crazy,” he said in 2007. ) He’s forced opposition television stations off public airwaves and ordered radio stations to play Venezuelan music half the time, which may be totally unrelated to the fact that he himself just released a folk song “El Corrido de la Caballeria,” “The Ballad of the Cavalry” that he sometimes sings at rallies.

Chávez didn’t appear at Altamira. Instead we got a socialist-themed dance party for 5,000. Waving a camera and an old press pass, I talked my way onstage, where a braided rapper named Kameroon was finishing a song about Che Guevara.

“One, two, three,” he called out, “who’s a revolutionary?” Five thousand hands shot up in a cheer.

“One, two, three,” he continued, “who’s a traitor?” Laughter. Not one hand went up.

“One, two, three, who’s a Chavista?” Five thousand hands.

“One, two, three, who’s a Yankee?”

One hand shot up. I couldn’t help it.

The stage crew stared at me Did he just raise his hand? but nobody else seemed to notice. I was standing behind Kameroon, in plain sight, under spotlights. The crowd, fixated on the distant enemy, couldn’t see a blazing-white �貹�ٰ�ó�� right here. It reminded me of the way Chávez simply dismissed Barack Obama. The new president was a fraud, his election “arranged in advance” by Bush and the corporate elite, Chávez explained on TV that same night. When I walked through the crowd, people clutched their beer cans nervously and backed away.

After the rally, I walked uphill to an arepa joint, where I had the classic Venezuelan sandwich pernil, the sweetest pork, inside a sliced corn cake and then strolled up to a gated and guarded hotel tower. On the roof was one of the better bars in Caracas, the aptly named 360 Roof Bar, where hammocks swing from hooks in the ceiling and the breezes, cool and scented by the night-blooming frangipani, come flooding in.

When I sat up, slightly, in my hammock on the 19th floor, I could peer right into Petaré, a slum of a million people rolling up the hills to the east.

LIKE BATTING AVERAGES, INCOME INEQUALITY is measured on a scale that goes from one to a thousand. According to this “Gini coefficient,” tracked by the World Bank, Venezuela doesn’t do too badly: .482, just eight percentage points behind the United States. In the 1950s and again in the ’70s, oil booms drove huge infrastructure projects and industrialization, and a middle class appeared. But the oil wealth always evaporates, and by 2003, before petroleum prices shot up again, four out of ten residents survived on less than $2 a day. Chávez has reduced poverty slightly, but oil remains Venezuela’s lifeline and its curse “the devil’s excrement,” as Juan Pablo Pérez Alfonzo, the Venezuelan founder of OPEC, put it.

Two-thirds of the nation’s output comes from beneath Lake Maracaibo, in the western province of Zulia. The lake is actually a placid gulf, 5,000 square miles of brackish water that joins the Caribbean at a peninsula called Paraguaná. Explorers found the lake rimmed with palafitos, waterfront shanties on stilts, and thus gave Venezuela its name, “Little Venice.” The 1904 Joseph Conrad novel Nostromo is also set here or, rather, on the Golfo Placido, in an eerily similar republic called Costaguana. But Conrad nailed Venezuela, from the war between classes to the way treasure can seduce both the rulers and the ruled, spreading inequality and fueling revolution. Conrad wrote about a fictional silver mine; what history has come up with is $91 billion a year in oil exports. Maracaibo City is the Houston in this equation, where the town plaza is cornered by Domino’s, Hooters, and Burger King and all directions refer to the closest “CC,” or centro comercial, the great shopping malls that define urban life for Venezuelans. Downtown, a ribeye cost $60. In my hotel the $50 lunch buffet was recycled from the breakfast buffet.

American baseball players were crowded around the steam tables anyway. Six or seven of them had come here to escape the even worse inland city, Maracáy, where they live. They played for the Tigres de Aragua in Venezuela’s big leagues. Venezuelans shine in the U.S. majors, but Americans are recruited here as well, typically six or seven per team. They played 60 or 70 games a season, an infielder told me, and the paycheck was better than on Triple-A clubs in the U.S. But they weren’t happy. They couldn’t get used to the bottle rockets that were fired onto the field at every game. They’d lost everything they owned when the truck carrying their luggage was hijacked, and at one game the clubhouse was cleaned out by armed men while the Tigres were on the field. “I’m ready to go home,” the American infielder said.

I’d flown to Maracaibo on a similarly benighted career move to investigate the lake and the oil industry. Up to 70 percent of Venezuela’s oil income never appears in national budgets and is disbursed secretly by Chávez through patronage networks and his state oil company, PDVSA. And now, after loudly demanding that the big multinational companies either leave or pay higher taxes, he’s quietly negotiating. Chevron, Total, and Royal Dutch/Shell are all here increasing production that Venezuela cannot. Americans on the ball field, Americans on the oil field.

My first plan for seeing the oil industry involved Jorge Hinestroza, a mild, liver-spotted professor of ecology at the University of Zulia, who knew fishermen who could take us out on the lake. “I’m an ecologist,” Jorge said when we met in a café beside the dirty shore of Lake Maracaibo. “A very rare definition in Venezuela. It doesn’t exist. In Venezuela, an environmentalist is someone who likes flowers, birds, and vegetarianism.”

One year before claiming to smell the devil, Chávez had improbably grabbed the mantle of global environmentalism, telling the world that American consumer capitalism was “insane” and “suicidal,” and specifically denouncing U.S. gas consumption as unethical for “warming our planet even more.”

“This,” Jorge snorted, “from the government that has done more than anyone to make it a world of cars.” Gasoline is almost free here about 40 cents a gallon which enables the poor to keep their rusted muscle cars rumbling down the roads, and the rich to import the hundreds of thousands of SUVs that choke Caracas to a standstill. The government had “put a few solar panels in a park,” Jorge said, but in any conflicts with the environment, oil won. Secrecy obscured everything. In 2004, when Jorge applied to study an invasion of duckweed on the lake, he was told that the government would launch its own investigation, a shoddy report he denounced as superficial.

As we left the café, Jorge turned his nose up toward the sky. “Smell that?” he asked. “Petrochemicals.”

I noticed that the front bumper of his car was smashed in, but Jorge waved away my concern. It was just a crash. Accidents happen.

IT HELPS, IN THE COUNTRY with South America’s highest murder rate, to occupy your mind with elaborate planning. Start with someone like Jorge, a well-connected local who can guide you around. Scout the riskiest places the day before, learning the towns, the streets and highways, the gaps in cell-phone coverage, the position of the oil refineries, and the disposition of the “oil police,” or PCP, who guard them. Blend in by taking por puestos, the cavernous cruisers that serve as collective taxis in Venezuela. Grab a 1982 Chevy Malibu full of women and children for a ride along the far side of the lake.

Plan A will be visiting the lake tomorrow, election day, with Jorge. But plans go wrong sometimes. Have a Plan B: Hire a uniformed driver in Maracaibo, tell him where you’re going, swap phone numbers, and pass the details for Plans A and B on to someone else by e-mail. Do all this just in case Plan A falls through.

And since even two things can go wrong, also write down the phone number of the Chevy Malibu driver. His name is Romulo, and he will be Plan C, the backup to your backup to your plan. Just in case Jorge the environmentalist doesn’t show.

Jorge doesn’t show. He cancels that night, due to a funeral.

Not that you notice, but a cascade of failures has now begun.

LAKE MARACAIBO is too broad to see across 75 miles at its widest but shallow. The deepest point is the channel dredged for the oil tankers that drift quietly past Maracaibo City with a treasure as dangerous as Conrad’s cargo of stolen silver.

Near Ciudad Ojeda, in the weed-choked Canyo del O (Shell designated the channels with letters), a fisherman I hired the day before was waiting. He was a rough, bare-chested guy named Amerigo, with a yellow wooden boat identical to the others in his fishing cooperative. My goal was simply to look for leaks, or any signs of a water crisis.

Just before the fisherman and I headed out at dusk, my driver the uniformed Plan B backup guy announced that he hadn’t voted yet. It was election day. He’d vote and be back in 40 minutes. It’s hard to say no to a voter. I nodded and got in the boat, and we started down the dirty canal.

Failure number two.

As soon as we entered the lake, I saw a steel forest growing on the water: I had to stop counting oil jacks at 70, only because new wells, platforms, pumping stations, pipelines, pylons, crew stations, and abandoned production derricks were appearing on the horizon faster than I could add them up. Oil was first pumped commercially here in 1914, and American companies began large-scale pumping in 1922. There are now more than 6,000 well jacks on the lake’s surface, and 26,000 miles of pipe hidden on the shallow bottom below, whisking away the heavy crude.

Pumping out oil requires pumping huge volumes of water as well. In my anticlimactic tour, I saw no evidence of oil spills, but at one point Amerigo had to steer a wide path around a giant boil, an upsurge of what looked like tens of thousands of gallons of water a second. “Broken pipe,” Amerigo said. It had been there, forcing water toward the surface, for years.

Jorge Hinestroza had observed hundreds of oil leaks on the lake. Some were deliberate: pipes opened by supervisors in the oil workers’ union during a strike against Chávez in 2002. But accidental leaks are also routine, Jorge said, and neither kind is fixed quickly. Still, the ecosystem has largely survived this abuse, thanks to the gifts of nature: Tides carry some of Lake Maracaibo into the sea twice a day, and four huge rivers sweep out oil pollution. Even at dusk the water remained clear enough to see duckweed floating six feet down, and it is true, as Chávez boasts, that the lake produces a large, though shrinking, shrimp crop. Amerigo and his colleagues were fishermen, after all; by dangling long lines with salted chicken heads, they caught crabs right next to the oil wells.

With Amerigo’s resigned acceptance, I boarded a series of untended oil platforms, climbed up steel ladders, and snooped fruitlessly for socialist scandal, looking exactly like the gringo saboteur the oil police watch for. They should be watching for pirates instead. Fishermen have been shot for their outboard motors, and Amerigo himself was robbed by men who took the motor, yes, but also his boat, throwing him in to swim for it. He blamed men from “over there, the other side of the lake,” much as Conrad’s journalist, Decoud, was warned to stay away from the far shore, where the fishermen “would cut your throat promptly for the sake of your gold watch.”

At last the tropics burst forth in their splendor, a great streak of orange light falling across the water, the sun setting behind cumulo­nimbus towers. The night skies here are famous for their lightning (cold Andean breezes meet warm, wet lake air, shedding ions), but instead a silent, humid blackness closed in, the lake water absorbing any stray photons. That darkness seals the fate of Conrad’s characters. His hero, Nostromo, collides with an unseen boat in these waters, losing everything in a flash. The antihero, a dilettante journalist from abroad, gets a bullet in the chest.

THERE WAS NO SIGN of the taxi driver when Amerigo and I sputtered back to shore, and no answer when I called him. The roads were blocked by election chaos.

So I called Romulo, the backup to the backup to the plan. He was out there in his Malibu somewhere and answered on the first try. “Patricio,” he said, “where are y “

The signal went dead. I tried him again, and again, and again. Amerigo grew tired of slapping mosquitoes and, afraid of crime, locked up the fishermen’s shed and closed the gate. After 15 minutes, he walked me to the road: a few silent, shuttered shops, a single streetlight, stray dogs, plumes of exhaust. Some boys were goofing under a streetlight, swatting at imaginary baseballs with their hands, laughing. People had lit a bonfire in the road and a rocket exploded somewhere, to celebrate the elections. “Viva la revolución,” Amerigo said. Then he walked off, a shirtless man with nothing in his hands.

Even I knew what was going to happen next. I took the memory card out of my camera. I put a single note 50 bolívares fuertes, almost $10 at the black-market rate in the cargo pocket of my pants. I was alone, so when I saw some people waiting at an intersection I walked up to join them.

There was the standard Venezuelan car crash. Men and women got out and looked at the fender in a quiet stupor. I thought I was safer, surrounded by cars, with six or seven people standing there, but that’s exactly when one of the baseball kids walked up, said something, and tried to shake my hand.

YOU SHOULD REFUSE to shake that hand, if possible. I advise you to back away slowly, apologizing, and say anything at all that comes to mind, like I’m sorry, I’ve got to catch this taxi, I’m just getting a taxi, you know how it is these days. Gain seven feet on him, and three more seconds.

Not that this will be enough. The kid, who is at once tall, strong, skinny, and smiling, looks at the ground, summoning a speech. Do-do-do, he says, and then do you, do you, and then he stops. He gets it out on the third try: Do you know how to run?

He lifts up his shirt and shows you the gun.

Don’t make any fast movements. Just breathe.

When he asks for the money I’m hungry, he says plainly, I have to eat, give me your money just keep breathing. Nod yes. Say yes.

Say, I’ll get my money out now. Move slowly. Get the wallet out and give him the money.

But give him the fake money first. Buy three more seconds. That’s all the fake Bolivian currency is for: un engaño to buy a pause, a little distance. Use those precious seconds to remember that no money, real or fake, is worth a life. Give him the fake money, yes, hundreds of thousands in greasy, dark bills. And then, before he can inspect them carefully, hand over the real money, too. The real money is worth about $70; it is money he will like crisp green bills in the new “strong” currency, bolívares fuertes. Each of these is worth a thousand of the dirty old “weak” bolívares still in occasional circulation among the poor. He thinks he is holding hundreds of thousands of those.

Keep the Jedi mind tricks coming, even though they won’t save you. Hand him the “credit card,” a cutout from an REI Visa ad. Hand him your membership card from Divers Alert Network. Hold the wallet open, so that he sees nothing but a scrap of folded paper.

Try not to look at the scrap of paper, a photocopy of your passport. Try not to do what I did at this moment, which is say to the kid, May I keep my identification?

Meaning, if you touch the old man’s wallet we’re both going to die right here.

That’s fine, he will say. And, after long seconds more, Now you can run.

WALK. FLIGHT EXCITES predators. Put the wallet in your pocket and walk up the road.

Try not to look behind you, to see if the kid is indeed heading in the other direction. Don’t count the seconds. And don’t run.

Eventually I did get a cab. I still had my camera (small enough that he didn’t notice it), my memory card, my 50 bolívar bill, and my life. We drove for only a few minutes before we were stopped by a knot of traffic hundreds of celebrating Chavistas, blocking the streets, waving red flags, blasting car radios, and dancing salsa. There weren’t any results yet, but true Venezuelans, they just know they’re going to win. Venezuela has one of the most collectivist cultures in the world, where the highest value is conformism, the agreement of everyone. No dissent can exist. The crowd called on us to blow our horn; the driver dutifully honked, amping the mood. In fact, the Chavistas had lost here in Zulia, and opposition candidates had taken some of the largest municipalities in the country, including most of Caracas, and governorships in the three most populous provinces. Chávez was still in charge, however, and everyone in Venezuela is always right about everything, so we applauded and honked.

I dug out the 50 and paid the driver, and he left me at an intersection in Cabimas, the first town. After a little negotiation, I got a real taxi here, and an hour later I was back in Maracaibo City. Here the streets were full of armed troops, and opposition people waving blue flags. We honked and applauded them, too.

In my hotel room, I locked the door, put the chain on it, and took a shower. There was nothing to drink. Even the minibar had been emptied, due to the election-day dry law.

I went down to the casino adjoining the hotel, where they confiscated my copy of Nostromo. (“Nothing in the hands,” the señorita at the metal detector explained.) In the smoky den of gamblers, I spotted the American baseball players at the blackjack table, waving in futility at the waitresses.

If you don’t gamble, and there’s no liquor, you might sit in your room and watch the lights of the tankers pass by in the night. Venezuela sells more than 1.2 million barrels a day to the U. S., almost 10 percent of what is in your tank. It is Chávez who keeps you warm at night, who lights your house, who sends you on your commute. The pusher man and the addict always hate each other.

Viva la revolución.

WATCH OUT NOW. Like an earthquake, a crime sends aftershocks through your life. In six days you can pass from grief to rage to sobbing tears in a restaurant and then end up on Los Roques, refusing to wear shoes or sunscreen, fishing by day and the dry law ends! drinking strawberry daiquiris with the London barrister by night. You might go on shopping sprees or dance up and down like an idiot or fly home and hold your son and kiss your wife.

But watch out. You will see the gun again. You will see it for days, weeks, and decades to come. A cheap, chrome-plated .45-caliber pistol, chipped and battered from years of use. You will remember the hammer and the trigger and the grip. You will wake up at night looking at the uneven cross-hatching on that white plastic grip as it pokes out of the boy’s waistline. In your long nights you will see that it is an old slum pistol. Sold from hand to hand. How many crimes has it seen?

How many still to come?

So be careful, in your days and weeks and decades. It’s just as easy to lose things on the way up as on the way down.

Now, in my last days in the country, I was doing whatever I could to dodge its crooked kismet. Instead of taking a taxi 22 miles up the highway from the airport when I got back from Los Roques, I grabbed a por puesto along the coast. Out on the gray Caribbean was a 550-foot-long shadow the Russian missile cruiser Peter the Great, invited here to rattle America’s cage. Like many of Chávez’s grand ambitions, it floated just offshore.

In a dingy town, I switched to a sightseeing jeep, which runs holidaymakers up the back side of Mount Ávila. Since we were alone there were no sightseers on a rainy day I’d made sure to get an introduction from the other taxi driver, to get names and be seen together. Leaving a trail of bread crumbs. But after half an hour of friendly chatter, I took out my camera one of those don’ts in Venezuela and the mood abruptly changed. The driver couldn’t keep his eyes off it.

“How much does that cost?”

I told him the price.

“I could rob you,” he replied.

Just give him the camera, part of me said. If he pulls a gun, just hand him the camera. It isn’t worth it.

But my hands were giving their own reply. I planted my pen in my palm: You can drive it through an eye socket that way. Ready, ready, be ready, grab the gun, fold his elbow back, one shot through the head

The driver quietly dropped me at a wire fence in a thick mist. We’d reached the top of Mount Ávila. There’s a tram, the teleferico, that runs from here down into Caracas, a 5,000-foot descent. As the car drops, your ears pop and you pass through silent cloudforest, over blooms of orange flowers, out of the rain and down toward the city.

Little skyscrapers appear, and then the first thing you hear is the sirens, waka-waka, like the soundtrack to a seventies film. You can pick out Rockefeller’s estate from the days of promise, the distant slums of the present, the great shopping malls of dreams.

As you drop lower, you hear the first car horns. Then the motorcycles. Then the rumbling muscle cars. The tram swoops right over the highway, and now you hear it all the chorus. Incredibly loud and dangerously close.

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Venezuela


Patrick Symmes shares photos from his not entirely pleasant trip to the strange and scenic land of Chavez.

Podcast: Patrick Symmes Interview


Our contributing editor went looking for adventure in the world’s most hostile environment for Homo Turisticus. He came back with a tale that will haunt him forever.

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For those who want to mix pleasure with principled travel, here are a few expedition guides that get a gold star for treading lightly and forging ahead with sustainable tourism.

A notch above: a TourIndia Kerala tree house

TAUCK WORLD DISCOVERY
In 1999, to celebrate its 75th anniversary, Tauck World Discovery, which travels to all seven continents and offers more than 100 upscale trips, sent a handful of its 450 staff members on a monthlong volunteer stint in Mesa Verde National Park. This move inspired an avalanche of good deeds: Tauck has since donated more than $1 million in grants to various national park projects and now offers regularly scheduled volunteer opportunities for both its staff and guests. Projects have included building new fences around George Washington’s headquarters in Valley Forge and mucking out the rangers’ horse stables behind Old Faithful in Yellowstone. Next year, travelers who sign up for Tauck tours can volunteer for cleanups at Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, and Zion national parks. For more details, call Tauck World Discovery at 800-788-7885, or visit its Web site at .

LINDBLAD EXPEDITIONS
Since 1958, this ship-based tour operator has taken clients to the loneliest points on the planet, from Antarctica to Norway’s Svalbard Islands. Acutely aware of the impact tourism has on these fragile ecosystems, the company set up an environmental management system in 2000 to reduce consumption and waste on its vessels. Clients can also help preserve the landscapes they’re visiting: Since 1997, Lindblad guests have donated $1.5 million to the company’s Galápagos Conservation Fund. Call Lindblad at 800-397-3348 for more information, or visit its Web site at .

TOURINDIA KERALA
This innovative outfitter, operating in the southwestern Indian state of Kerala, has, over the last quarter-century, become India’s model for small-scale sustainable tourism. One of its first projects was retrofitting kettuvallams, or rice boats, into low-impact houseboats to show visitors Kerala’s scenic backwaters. That was followed by village tours via open bullock carts, and by the construction of an eco-lodge near Vythiri, in North Kerala, where guests stay in private tree houses 86 feet off the ground. But the company’s greatest success so far is the development, in 2001, of the 22-mile Periyar Tiger Trail, which protects rare tigers and other species by partnering with the Kerala Forest Authority to patrol and monitor all activity within the 300-square-mile Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary. It employs former poachers as forest rangers and trekking guides. For more details, call TourIndia Kerala at 011-91-471-233-0437, or visit its Web site at .

BORNEO ECO TOURS
This Malaysia-based outfitter set up the Sukau Ecotourism Research and Development Centre in 2000 to funnel some of the profits from its Sukau Rainforest Lodge into conserving a portion of the million-acre Lower Kinabatangan River Basin, where the Asian elephant population was being forced out by logging. In addition, the center has adopted 64 acres of the degraded riverine land and invites every guest to plant a tree. The goal? To put 5,000 seedlings in the ground this year. For details, call Borneo Eco Tours at 011-60-88-234009, or check out its Web site at .

A Blueprint That Breathes

The world’s leading eco-architect on how to build green

MOST OF US IMAGINE that a stay at an eco-lodge means eyeballing howler monkeys from the deck of a tree house with a cup of shade-grown espresso. But beyond a remote location and a few solar panels, what makes a lodge “eco”? We asked internationally renowned eco-architect and planner HITESH MEHTA to walk us through the creation of a sustainable retreat that mixes the eco, the exotic, and the luxe.

Drawing up plans for the proposed LOBOLO ECOLODGE, on the western edge of Kenya’s Lake Turkana, Mehta began where all good design should: with the neighbors. “The local people are seldom included in the initial planning or in the assessment of a lodge’s potential impacts,” says Mehta, a Kenyan-born Indian working for the Florida landscape architecture firm EDSA. “Yet they are the ones who know the resources and whose culture needs to be respected.”

The pastoral Turkana tribe, whose cattle still graze the arid moonscape surrounding the lake, hold two things sacred: water and grass. So Mehta incorporated, for example, a path for cows, and gutterless buildings that speed rain back to the soil.

Although construction has been on hold due to regional strife, Kenya’s political situation has cleared, and Mehta’s client, the Kenyan outfitter Jade Sea Safaris, is already using the site as a tent camp for birders, cultural tourists, and fossil-seekers headed across the lake to the Koobi Foora archaeological sites made famous by the Leakeys. When completed, Lobolo Ecolodge will be luxurious—$300 a night for bush convenience—but its footprint will be decidedly low-key: Eco-architecture often means reining in grand plans—forget the gold-plated faucets if the metal was mined by exploited workers—in favor of local supplies. Mehta’s team studied native plants, searched out sustainably harvested timber, and found the best outdoor lighting that still allows for power stargazing. Will Lobolo’s guests appreciate Mehta’s hard work? Yes, if it’s done right. “The lodge will feel timeless,” he says. “Its main feature is the natural world. If we cannot create an almost spiritual connection to nature, we have failed.”

AERIAL VIEW OF SITE: “The whole landscape around Lobolo Ecolodge is a desert, and the site of the lodge is actually an oasis,” explains Mehta. “We wanted to make sure that we did not overdesign and therefore violate the limits of acceptable change to the site.” Mehta’s team calculated the carrying capacity of the spring-fed oasis, then subtracted the water needed to keep the cattle pasture green and to replenish groundwater sources. The final tally: enough water for only 16 guest units, eight campsites, and 12 units of staff housing—roughly 85 people in all. Structures are set far enough from the lake to make it accessible to cattle, goats, and shorebirds.

A.
LAKE TURKANA is home to huge flocks of flamingos, and serves as a nesting site or flyway for 350 other bird species. It’s also a fine swimming hole (albeit one shared with crocodiles and hippos), so there’s no need for an energy-and water-hogging pool.

B.
STAFF HOUSING: 12 to 15 employees (80 percent of the 20- to 30-person staff will be locals) will live on the grounds with their families.

C. A small GROCERY STORE and medical dispensary for use by locals and guests will be staffed by members of the Turkana tribe.

D. The tribe helped identify the best route for this CATTLE PATH to nearby grass pastures. “We want the Turkana to feel pride in this design,” says Mehta.

E.
DOUM PALMS AND LEAFLESS ACACIAS are indigenous to the area but have been damaged by El Ni-o storms. Reestablishing these will attract native birds and insects.

A Blueprint That Breathes, PT II

SIDE VIEW OF GUEST UNIT: Each of the two-unit guest villas—framed out of local pine—will be built on stilts to protect them from flash floods in the brief monsoon season and to allow the natural flow of surface water into the lake. The Turkana helped identify the best cabin spots for viewing sunrises over the water and for spotting the occasional oryx or gazelle. A. LIGHTS: ���ϳԹ���, movement-sensitive lights will point downward to maximize stargazing and reduce light pollution. Inside, you’ll find only low-wattage bulbs.


B. CONSTRUCTION: No nails will be used, because of their “high energy embodiment”—steel is made by burning fossil fuels, and the folks at Lobolo prefer their fossils in the ground. Tongue-and-groove construction will hold timber flooring and ceiling boards in place, and sisal ropes and palm strings will be used to secure the rafters to the roof frame.


C. GARDEN: Recycled gray water will irrigate the grounds and the organic vegetable garden. The lodge will eventually have two “constructed wetlands” to purify septic waste naturally. The camping area will use water-free composting toilets.


D. PORCH AWNINGS will be woven by the Turkana out of reeds from nearby wetlands and fast-growing bamboo.


E. BATHROOMS: Low-flush toilets will use only 1.6 gallons per flush, instead of the standard commercial 3.5. Even better, the shower heads will use a half-gallon per minute at high pressure, compared with the normal 2.5. Only biodegradable, non-phosphate shampoo and soap may be used.


F. ROOFS will be fashioned out of sisal-fiber-reinforced cement tiles, which will be made on-site. Energy will be supplied by photovoltaic panels.







INTERIOR: Floors will be made of local slate from the town of Loiyangalani, and furniture, floor mats, and recycling baskets will be locally constructed from palm fronds. Mosquito nets will keep the odd bug away, and ceiling fans and roof vents will serve as air-conditioning. You might sweat a little when summer temps reach 104 degrees, but just think: No noise to drown out the songs of the African skimmers, wagtails, and stints.

On The Beaten Track

We came, we saw…and every so often we left entire landscapes worse for the wear. ���ϳԹ��� grades the good and the bad of five classic destinations.

THE REGION
ANNAPURNA CIRCUIT, NEPAL
HOW IT RATES
Conservation Efforts C
Community Involvement B-
Outlook C+

THE LOWDOWN
Since Nepal opened its doors to outsiders in the 1950s, Western trekkers have flocked to the Annapurna region by the tens of thousands—bringing with them a demand for firewood and cheap labor. By the mid-1980s, large swaths of pine forest had been cut, ill-equipped porters working for $2 a day were dying of exposure, and enough ramen wrappers littered the ground to earn the area a reputation as one of the highest trash heaps on earth. The nonprofit Annapurna Conservation Area Project (ACAP), charged with managing the area since 1986, teaches locals about alternative fuels, waste disposal, and fair labor conditions; groups like the Boulder, Colorado-based Himalayan Explorers Connection () assist porters by collecting clothing donations and lobbying for better wages and working conditions. But without enforced government mandates, outfitters have no incentive to jump on the bandwagon, and both workers and the environment continue to suffer. Meanwhile, the recent Maoist uprisings have brought tourism here to a near-standstill. This may help the ecosystem, but it hurts the economy.

THE GREENEST WAY TO GO NOW
The adventure outfitter KarmaQuest (650-560-0101, ) emphasizes interaction with local villagers and donates up to 5 percent of its take to ACAP. The company’s Annapurna Circuit trips are on hold until the region stabilizes; in the meantime, try its 12-day trek through the calmer Langtang Valley.

THE REGION
GALÁPAGOS ISLANDS, ECUADOR
HOW IT RATES
Conservation Efforts A
Community Involvement B
Outlook A-

THE LOWDOWN
Even Darwin would likely appreciate how tourism benefits this arid archipelago, home to the mockingbirds and finches that inspired his evolutionary theory. The logic is economic: By providing island residents with alternative job opportunities, the travel sector discourages them from turning to the region’s most destructive industry, illegal fishing. Annual visits by some 60,000 natural-history buffs have helped create jobs for more than 1,000 locals, and the Galápagos, a protected area since 1959, has the controls in place to limit their impact: Tourists must stick to 60 designated sites and travel with park-certified guides, and strict laws cover everything from trash disposal to shoe-washing (required to prevent the introduction of foreign species). But with only two boats on hand to patrol 23,000 square miles of ocean, illegal tuna, shark, and sea-cucumber fishing continues to be a problem. Unless the Galápagos National Park Service finds funding for additional surveillance boats and increases fines for fishing violations, the islands’ stellar eco-record may be tarnished within this decade.

THE GREENEST WAY TO GO NOW
Untamed Path (800-349-1050, ) employs local naturalist guides and charters eight- to 16-passenger boats (quieter and less obtrusive than the standard 90-man yachts), so you’ll have access to quiet nooks—and giant tortoises, dolphins, and sea lions—that the mega-yachts can only long for from a distance.

THE REGION
MASAI MARA NATIONAL RESERVE, KENYA
HOW IT RATES
Conservation Efforts C+
Community Involvement C+
Outlook C

THE LOWDOWN
In the low season, it’s a sight more common than the Big Five: Land Rovers zooming across the plains to encircle a lone, wigged-out cheetah. Safari guides, under pressure to secure the perfect photo op for paying customers, too often let environmental concerns fall by the wayside. The standards—or lack thereof—were set in the 1960s, when Kenya’s post-independence government recognized safari tourism as a potential cash cow and encouraged foreign development but neglected to protect the land and wildlife. While the standards have been raised since the 583-square-mile Masai Mara was turned into a national reserve in 1974, little has been done to encourage lodges to properly handle garbage and wastewater, reduce firewood consumption at the region’s 25 camps and lodges, or compensate the original Masai inhabitants booted off their land. Despite a few recent positive steps—the Kenya Professional Guides Association is testing guides on game-park ethics, and the Ecotourism Society of Kenya has developed a very basic lodge certification program—little passes eco-muster in the world’s most popular wildlife-watching destination.

THE GREENEST WAY TO GO NOW
Dream Camp (011-254-2-57-74-90, ), on the banks of the Talek River, is a progressive anomaly for Kenya. Spend your nights in one of 15 thatch-roofed tents with solar power and hot showers. By day, follow expert Masai guides on foot to spot lions, cheetahs, and wildebeests without disturbing their habitats.

THE REGION
INCA TRAIL, PERU
HOW IT RATES
Conservation Efforts C+
Community Involvement B
Outlook C

THE LOWDOWN
As recently as the 1970s, Peru’s 30-mile path from the Urubamba River to the ancient city of Machu Picchu, at 7,710 feet, appeared untouched. A decade later, travelers joked that you didn’t need a guide to get up there—you could just follow the toilet paper. Despite the international cleanup efforts that began in the mid-1980s, repairing the damage done by as many as 900 hikers a day proved to be, well, an uphill battle. Promising change came in 2000: The area was declared a national park, and new laws required that visitors be accompanied by an officially licensed guide. A porter strike in 2001 led to a maximum weight limit of 20 kilograms (about 44 pounds) per bag and a minimum wage of $8 per day. And starting this year, a daily limit of 450 hikers will be imposed, cutting high-season traffic in half. “The Inca Trail is better than it’s been,” says Kurt Kutay, longtime guide and owner of Seattle-based Wildland ���ϳԹ���s. “But if you’re looking for a wilderness experience, go somewhere else.”

THE GREENEST WAY TO GO NOW
Hike the Inca Trail, with Wildland ���ϳԹ���s (800-345-4453, ), which runs small-group trips with four to ten people to minimize impact and limit trail crowding, and is staffed entirely by locals. Wildland has also run trash-removal trips to pick up all that toilet paper that littered the trail.

THE REGION
MONTEVERDE CLOUD FOREST RESERVE, COSTA RICA
HOW IT RATES
Conservation Efforts A
Community Involvement A
Outlook A

THE LOWDOWN
In 1954, three decades before Costa Rica became the world’s first packaged-ecotourism destination, a group of conscientious-objector American Quakers bought a chunk of orchid-and-fern-dotted forest in the 5,000-foot Tilarán Mountains, resolving to protect it from the devastation of slash-and-burn agriculture. When the San José-based nonprofit Tropical Science Center took over in 1972, it upheld that commitment to preservation. Home to endangered jaguars, three-toed sloths, and more than 400 bird species, the 25,950-acre Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve today sees upwards of 55,000 visitors a year and remains an international model for tourism-centered conservation. Only 150 people can visit at a time, and tourists must keep to a few marked trails that cover only 2 percent of the reserve. Tourism has created a thriving market for the local weaving-and-handicrafts co-op, and key decisions, like the one to limit the number of visitors, are made with input from local residents.

THE GREENEST WAY TO GO NOW
“Responsible” doesn’t have to mean basic. Four miles from the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve, The Monteverde Lodge (011-506-257-0766, ) has solar-powered Jacuzzis, a cozy bar where all glass and paper are recycled, and a fern-and-bromeliad garden that draws cloudforest wildlife to your doorstep.

Emerging Eco-Markets

The rising stars of sustainable development

GUYANA In 1989, the government set out to prove that a rainforest can yield social and economic profits without being systematically destroyed, and turned the 916,800-acre Iwokrama Forest into a development-free zone. The Trip Iwokrama Rainforest ���ϳԹ���s ($425 per person; 011-592-225-1504, ) offers a four-day canoeing excursion on the Essequibo River, where you can fish for piranha, paddle rapids, and spot black caimans.

PANAMA Forget about Noriega, the canal, and that little invasion we spearheaded in 1989. Panama is angling to be the next Costa Rica, with nearly 6,000 square miles of public lands and a wildlife population (jaguars, tapirs, giant sea turtles, sloths) that’ll make any tropical nation green with envy. The Trip From your treetop-level bed at the Canopy Tower eco-lodge (a five-story former radar tower) in Soberan’a National Park (doubles from $200; 011-507-264-5720, ), you’ll wake up eye to eye with purple-throated fruitcrows.

THE GAMBIA Its large beach resorts have drawn sun-worshiping Brits for decades. But lately tourists are aflutter over this tiny English-speaking West African nation’s avian activity: It’s possible to see up to 300 bird species in a two-week trip. This popularity is largely due to companies like Victor Emanuel Nature Tours, which has joined forces with Clive Barlow, one of The Gambia’s best-known ornithologists, to provide bird-watchers with ample sightings. The Trip Take a 16-day birding excursion with Victor Emanuel Nature Tours ($4,295; 800-328-8368, ) to Abuko and Tanji forest reserves and Kiang National Park.

VENEZUELA Once the current political crisis has been resolved, Venezuela is equipped for an eco-renaissance: In 2002, Angel-Eco Tours, a Caracas-based outfitter, formed ecotourism advocacy group EcoAlianza to better market the country’s 43 national parks. The Trip Bravely carrying on through this winter’s unrest (besides, the Caracas airport is 20 miles from downtown), Angel-Eco Tours ($1,499; 888-475-0873, ) offers an eight-day excursion to 3,212-foot Angel Falls led by local Pem-n Indian guides. Guests live with the Indians in their camps and visit other sacred waterfalls.

ACCESS & RESOURCES
The virtual vanguard of intelligent ecotourism

A comprehensive site that provides information on travel books, eco-forums, special reports, and other musings on the green scene. Business Enterprises for Sustainable Travel, a spin-off of The World Travel & Tourism Council, was developed in 2000 to promote sustainable business practices in the travel and tourism industries. The official Web site of the International Ecotourism Society gives a glimpse into the industry. For a $75 annual fee, join and gain access to its global network of 1,600 members. This UK-based Concern campaigns for ethical tourism. The current cause is convincing trek operators to commit to guidelines that protect porters. This Washington, D.C.-based travel retailer sends employees around the world to evaluate a resort’s worthiness. If the property is up to Manaca’s “Eco-Assessment” standards, it gets a juicy online write-up.

The post The Green Awards appeared first on ���ϳԹ��� Online.

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




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Say Hello to the Wild Life




The Next Best Thing to Actually Living There




Go the Extra Green Mile




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Water is the Best Element




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Remote Trips Right Here at Home




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What’s Up in the World’s Danger Zones

Star Power

Let the pros be your guides

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

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

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

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

Far Out

Get lost in the back of beyond

Big wig: a Papuan prepares for a tribal dance

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

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

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

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

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

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

Close Encounters

Say hello to the wild life

A scarlet macaw perched in the rainforests of Belize

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

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

Immersion Therapy

The next best thing to actually living there

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

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

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

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

It’s Only Natural

Go the extra green mile

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

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

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

Variety Packs

Take the multisport approach

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

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

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

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

Take It to the Top

No whining allowed

The frozen zone: Argentina’s Perito Moreno Glacier

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

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

Get Wheel

Blazing new trails by mountain bike

Sandstone heaven: on the rocks in Cappadocia

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

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

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

The Deep End

Water is the best element

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

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

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

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

Future Classics

Our next thrilling episodes

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

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

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

All-American

Remote trips right here at home

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

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

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

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

Elevator, Going Up

Three helicopter epics

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

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

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

Most Likely to Succeed

Six new additions to the adventure travel map

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

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

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

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

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

Cautionary Trails

What’s up in the danger zone

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cautionary Trails, PT II

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


JORDAN
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE

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

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



LEBANON
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE

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

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



LIBERIA
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE

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

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



LIBYA
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE

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

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



MACEDONIA
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE

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

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



NIGERIA
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE

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

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



PAKISTAN
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE

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

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



TAJIKISTAN
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE

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

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



SOMALIA
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE

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

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



SUDAN
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE

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

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



VENEZUELA
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE

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

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



YEMEN
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE

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

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



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

*This information is current as of January 14, 2003



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

The post Nomads Have More Fun appeared first on ���ϳԹ��� Online.

We’ve learned a lot in a quarter-century of roaming the planet. This month, to kick off ���ϳԹ���‘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 ���ϳԹ���, 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: “���ϳԹ��� 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 / Gunnbjørn 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 Gunnbjørn 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 ���ϳԹ��� 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 ���ϳԹ���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 / ���ϳԹ��� 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 ���ϳԹ��� 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 Futaleufú
The Futaleufú 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 ���ϳԹ��� 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 Valdés 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 ���ϳԹ���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 Tromsø, 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 Foncebadón 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 ���ϳԹ���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 piñon 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: ���ϳԹ���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 ���ϳԹ���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 ���ϳԹ���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 ���ϳԹ���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 ���ϳԹ���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
Galápagos 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 Galápagos 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 ���ϳԹ���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 ���ϳԹ���
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 ���ϳԹ���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 ���ϳԹ���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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La Digue

Seychelles, Indian Ocean Say you were alone on an isle packed with Euro honeymooners. You too might fall for a dark-hulled, double-ended Digwaz beauty.

Another lonely beach in the Seychelles

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LA DIGUE IS FOR LOVERS. Or so it seemed as I boarded a salty-looking schooner for the four-mile crossing from the neighboring island of Praslin. The benches around me were full of young, affluent, mostly European couples who, if they weren’t snuggling, nuzzling, or fully making out, were videotaping each other for later delectation. And once we’d arrived on this smallest of the Seychelles’ “major” islands, I had to agree: It’s a pretty romantic place, with its turquoise lagoon, its two dozen white-sand beaches, and most of all its towering granite rock formations. I, alas, was solo, not en couple, something the locals could never quite accept. “Madame is not coming down this morning?” the woman who served breakfast at my hotel kept asking. No, Madame wasn’t.



The Freudian term for my behavior during my first few days on the island is, I believe, sublimation. Each morning I set off on little bike rides—they can hardly be otherwise on La Digue, where there’s only one five-mile-long road—that somehow morphed into epic, Conradian quests. One day I rode down the windward side of the island and then, at road’s end, found myself scrambling off-trail to find a coastal route from Anse Caiman to Anse Cocos, two of the island’s most remote and unspoiled beaches. The distance was negligible—perhaps half a mile—but the terrain was fantastically rough, a jumble of pink granite monoliths the size of houses, and it took me several hours of tropical bouldering (flip-flops only) and full-contact bushwhacking to claw my way through the jungle.

Another day, after a heart-pounding dip in the breakers at Grand Anse, a favorite boogie-boarding and surf spot, I off-trailed it to the Nid d’Aigles, or Eagle’s Nest, the spectacular lookout at the top of the island. Fleets of low, moist clouds, a result of the southeast monsoon, were streaming in off the Indian Ocean at a dizzying clip. At dusk, the flying foxes came out—not flitting like bats but gliding between the fruit trees—and then the moon to light my ride home.

By day four, though, I was getting lonely. My hands were raw (from bouldering, you understand), and my legs looked like I’d been through some medieval rite of self-mortification. And then, just in time, I found her.

Access & Resources: La Digue

Private motor vehicles aren’t allowed on three-mile-long La Digue. By special dispen-sation, the island priest bops around on a Vespa, but everyone else rides mountain bikes. Be prepared for sticker shock: from $5 cigarettes to $35 paperbacks, the Seychelles are pricey.

GETTING THERE: Air Seychelles (800-677-4277; ) flies to the main island of Mahé from major cities in Europe (round-trip from Paris costs about $800). There’s no airport on La Digue, so unless you spring for Helicopter Seychelles’ chopper from Mahé (about $120, 011-248-37-39-00; ), you’ll need to take a ferry or an Air Seychelles Twin Otter to the neighboring island of Praslin, then head to La Digue via ferry (Inter-Island Ferry Service; 248-23-23-29). Mountain bikes are available for about $7 a day in La Passe, at Chez Michelin (248-23-43-04) and other places.

WHERE TO STAY: At La Digue Island Lodge (248-23-42-32; ), aging bungalows go for $265­$380 a night. Better deals are Chateau St. Cloud ($180; 248-23-43-46; or e-mail stcloud@seychelles.net), centered on a restored plantation house; and L’Ocean ($250; 248-23-41-80; or e-mail hocean@seychelles.net) at Anse Patates; and Choppy’s Beach Bungalows on Anse La Réunion ($150; 248-23-42-24; or e-mail choppys@seychelles.net).

WILD LA DIGUE: The $2 entry fee to L’Union Estate includes passage to Anse Source d’Argent, the magnificent boulder-strewn beach featured in all those Bacardi ads. La Digue ranks high on the list of the Seychelles’ top dive spots; check out the island’s only dive center, at La Digue Island Lodge. Gerard Payet (look for him on the dock in La Passe) will set you up with snorkeling trips to Îe Coco, Grande Soeur, Petite Soeur, and Félicité(about $40, including lunch). For deep-sea fishing and multiday yacht cruises, call Mason’s Travel (248- 23-42-27; ) or Travel Service Seychelles (248- 23-44-11; ).

ISLAND EATS: Most restaurants are attached to hotels. The two exceptions, Zerof and Loutier Coco, serve French-Creole dishes such as curry spiced with piment.

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Rarotonga

Cook Islands, South Pacific Hoist a frosty fruity, sniff the hibiscus, imbibe the swaying palms. The South Seas are still the spot for Everyman’s tropical fantasy.

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I was floating about eight feet above a sandy-bottomed reef, staring into the Day-Glo face of a sunset wrasse, when the notion struck me. Fish are not generally known for their prodigious brains, yet when you come face-to-face with poisson of the non-man-eating variety in their natural element, a strange exchange can take place. This one, for instance, seemed intrigued. Unlike the octopus that had shot under a rock, fast and bulbous, when I’d surprised it only moments earlier—shedding light on that obscure adage “Never trust a mollusk”—the wrasse seemed to want to dialogue. Most of his neighbors were too busy munching on coral to care, but he was trying to make a connection. When I blinked, he blinked back. When I raised my eyebrows, he emitted a stream of bubbles. Something was happening here. One small step for me, perhaps, but one giant leap for piscine-hominid brotherhood.

You could call it a eureka moment, I suppose, but it was really nothing more than the product of many hours of painstakingly indolent and hedonistic study. I had come in search of the True Essence of Nowhere, and had adhered to a strict regimen of snorkeling, lollygagging, and consuming exotic fruits, big blue drinks, and much fresh fish (sorry, bro). My wilderness study area, in this case, was the island of Rarotonga, a lush, craggy mountain of green that erupts out of the otherwise wide blue expanse of the South Pacific. At a humble 40 square miles, Rarotonga is the largest of 15 atolls, volcanic outcroppings, and sandy mounds that make up the Cook Islands, a far-flung group of landmasses that hover between French Polynesia to the east and New Zealand to the southwest. Which is a diplomatic way of saying the middle of nowhere. So I’d come to the right place.

Nowhere, I found, has its advantages. Being in the middle of it means that McDonald’s, Sheraton, Starbucks, Wal-Mart, Chanel, and the like have yet to establish beachheads, and that walking around in a loud floral shirt is construed as a fashion-do.

It also means that dogs and roosters pretty much run the joint. Roosters let you know this by crowing at 5:30 a.m. and at precise 20-minute intervals thereafter for the next 13 hours. Dogs let you know this by taking their own sweet time crossing the road—usually at the exact moment you’ve had the first of many lazy island epiphanies like “Hey, I’m driving 30 miles an hour on an island in the middle of nowhere. What do I have to worry about?” Roosters and dogs have their own worries, though. Due to their annoying punctuality, roosters get a lot of stuff thrown at them, so they’re a little skittish around humans. When it comes to dogs, well, as one guidebook flatly states, “Dogs are sometimes eaten by young men on drinking sprees”—in some parts of the world a fashion-don’t.

My search for the True Essence of Nowhere was arduous and thorough. The art of doing nothing is very hard work. You have to unhinge the shackles of time and space and bob on the slipstream of whatever slipstreams bob on. Rarotongans make it look easy. When not tending the papaya and taro crops that dot most patches of cleared land, or managing a host of businesses in the bustling, postage-stamp-size capital of Avarua, or cruising Muri Lagoon in an outrigger to inspect the traditional nets and traps they’ve been using for centuries, they can usually be found plinking ukuleles and singing old Maori folk songs to the wind. They’re not slacking, they’re just…passing time. It’s no wonder the standard greeting on the island is Kia orana—”May you live on.”

My wife, who threw herself into the search with vigor, became obsessed with finding the perfect abandoned shell—no easy task. Rarotonga is the tip of an ancient dormant volcano girdled by 20 miles of submerged coral and rock. The nubbly white-sand beaches are therefore spangled with a fresh crop of seaborne detritus with each new tide. You’ll never see more shells, and you’ll never drive yourself more crazy.

It was a benign lunacy. Myself, I became transfixed by the waves. On the west coast of the island, near the village of Arorangi, the reef is only about 200 yards offshore. You can sit for hours and muse on fish brains while watching meaty turquoise rollers pound the barrier with metronomic precision, only to flatten out like backwash on their final dash to the beach. I took about 30 snapshots of this phenomenon (known in common parlance as, uh, breaking waves). Hear me, fellow pilgrims: I was trying to capture that sublime moment when a wave flips up to a perfect pre-curl, like a jaw about to slam shut. I never got it right on film, but I could have watched them break for the rest of my days.

Our days, however, were numbered, and we caught only occasional glimpses of pure Nowheresville. Like the morning I opened the door of our bungalow in time to see a coconut fall and hit the sand with a tremendous thud. Or the afternoon we snorkeled the calm, cerulean lagoon at Aitutaki, an “almost atoll” about 140 miles north of Rarotonga, and communed with a school of bigeye bream. They just hung there, suspended in tight pods, beckoning me with their big freaky eyes, as if to say, “One of us, one of us…” (Oh yeah, they can think.)

Then one evening, while strolling on the beach as dusk succumbed to nightfall, we looked up and beheld the True Essence. Above us, the Milky Way had cracked open the heavens, spilling stars like snowflakes on black velvet. “Can you believe where we are?” I asked my wife. “No, I can’t,” she said. Pause. “But where are we?”

We were Nowhere and Everywhere at the same time. And we were doing nothing. And it felt great.

Access & Resources: Rarotonga

You know that Gilligan’s Island cliché of South Seas islanders as lei-wearing, ukulele-playing, hula-dancing happy people? Well, it’s not just a cliché; here it’s a refreshing reality.

GETTING THERE: Fly Air New Zealand (800-369-6867; ), the only major carrier that lands in Rarotonga. Direct from Los Angeles takes just under ten splendid hours (prices start at about $1,200).

WHERE TO STAY: Crown Beach Resort in Arorangi (011-682-23-953; ) has 22 one- and two-bedroom wood-paneled and thatch-roofed villas with eat-in kitchens ($214­$281 a night) perched directly on or just off the strand. Bungalows at the Muri Beachcomber ($93­$138; 682-21-022; ) and Palm Grove ($69­$108; 682-20-002; ) are only slightly less posh—think linoleum rather than stained wood. Most units come with kitchens, and many sit right by the beach. For those hitchhiking their way across the Pacific, the ack-packers International Hostel ($6.50­$11; 682-21-847; or e-mail annabill@backpackers.co.ck) is surprisingly homey, with a big communal kitchen and a rooftop sundeck.

WILD RAROTONGA: Car, scooter, and bike rental shops (in Avarua try Budget/Polynesian Bike Hire, 682-20-895 or Avis, 682-22-833; car rental is about $22 per day) pop up all over the island, making transportation easy. You can snorkel almost anywhere, but the best site is on the south side off Titikaveka. Expect to see sunset wrasses, Moorish idols, yellow boxfish, and the occasional octopus. Barry Hill at Dive Rarotonga ($22­$26; 682-21-873; ) knows every cave, drop-off, and wreck around the island, and has swum with humpback whales (“That’ll give you dreams for a week,” he says). If you’re keen to hook fish rather than swim with them, Trevor Yorke at Manatee Fishing Charters can take you out beyond the reef to troll for barracuda and dogtooth tuna ($27; 682-22-560).

ISLAND EATS: You can’t take a step without tripping over pawpaws (papayas), star fruits, bananas, or guavas. And then there are the fish: oysters, lobsters, wahoos, eels, yellowfins, scallops, green mussels, parrot fish—all just-off-the-hook fresh. Check out the Windjammer, Tumunu, and Flame Tree restaurants for steaks and seafood, fine New Zealand and Australian wines, and utensils. Other roadside attractions: the Ambala Garden & Café in Muri for organic breakfasts and lunches in a private botanical garden; in Avarua, Raro Fried Chicken, where the chicken-and-chips combo will easily satisfy your daily grease-‘n’-salt quota.

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Cat Island

Bahamas On this low-key string bean of land in the Out Islands, sip-sip and dominoes are about as rough as it gets

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MAYBE THERE’S SOMETHING on Cat Island that didn’t arrive by mail boat—some bag of cement, some chicken coop, some case of Gilbey’s gin, some straw-hatted old lady in a pretty calico dress. Anything is possible. But I came to Cat on the Sea Hauler, and so did a Chevy S-10 and a Ford F250 and an off-brand minivan, rolled aboard with much fanfare over two dry planks. And so did the gospel choir from the Dumfries Church of God and a side-by-side refrigerator marked “Frank” and a white sash window for “Mr. Butler Sr.” and somewhere on board a live squid, whose owner, a well-groomed businessman, described his missing charge as “a member of the octopus family.”


The Sea Hauler is a lovely old tug, diesel-soaked and coated in grime thick as bacon. We pulled out of Nassau on a hot, still afternoon, the conch sellers waving from Potter’s Cay pier on one side, a booze cruise­load of sun-pickled tourists on the other. Captain Allen Russell steered us southeast, the Church of God congregation crowded into the wheelhouse with him, belting out “Uncloudy Day.” We left the first of the Exuma Cays to starboard at sunset as men sprawled on coils of rope sat sipping Kaliks and two little Nassau girls—Lakeisha and Yeronnicker—taught me schoolyard games on the upper deck. We all slept where we lay, the girls and I spooned with our heads on my pack, safe under the stars and the satellites overhead.

At 4 a.m. on Cat Island, the bonefish were still sleeping, the clear waters of Smith Bay still opaque. A crowd had gathered, waiting for packages and family and news and sun. In the growing light Cat Island looked rough and beautiful, unapologetically unscrubbed, an older, more blessedly real Bahamas than the one we’d left behind.

Like everything else on Cat, the dock at Smith Bay clings to the lee side of the island, its gossip-linked small settlements strung 48 miles up and down Exuma Sound. I was picked up like a parcel and taken the mile south to Fernandez Bay Village resort, a collection of limestone cottages where, beware, days blur from beachside coffee to beachside cocktails with, if you’re determined to rally, bonefishing or snorkeling in between. On the second morning (or was it the third?), a little 19-foot Abaco motored in, piloted by marine biologist Stevie Connett, dropping in to see resort owners Tony and Pam Armbrister and to check on Cat Island’s sea turtles. The only way to count a turtle is to catch him, and so at high tide Stevie and I ran the Abaco south ten miles into Joe’s Sound, me standing lookout, the skiff’s deck blinding against the turquoise creek. The water moved and the clouds moved over it, tortoiseshelling the pocked sand bottom in shadows that resolved themselves into grass and algae and back into shadows again. Suddenly Stevie shouted and I cannonballed in, chasing a green sea turtle through the sun-filtered water. He was small, and I managed to grab a flipper, and then his shell; on deck we turned him over and he lay there panting, his turtle breast heaving. We tagged him with a leather punch, #BP9815, took his mug shot, released him. Track me, he said, see if I care.

In some elemental way, Cat Island is like that turtle. It just goes on doing its thing with or without you. Tourism is of the low-key, thatch-roofed variety— diving, a little bonefishing, catch a marlin, sure. ���ϳԹ���s, when they happen, happen on island time. The typical tourist is a naked German lady stuck in a cave at high tide, waiting for the police. The typical expat washed up on a sailboat and never left. Cat is the kind of place where on Sunday mornings in the village of Old Bight, the regulars at the Pass Me Not Bar lock the front door out of respect for the Baptist church across the street and play dominoes under the tamarind tree out back as the Baptist ladies holler scripture through megaphones. Where children roam under the midnight moon, catching hubcap-size palm crabs, and where you best not ask about obeah, or black magic, but where anyone will tell you that 21-Gun Salute, a bush-medicine Viagra, is “guaranteed to raise the dead.” Cat is the kind of place that doesn’t need you, but it likes you just fine.

There are unseen powers on Cat Island, demons that throw dishes, hands that reach down in the night. Cat has 2,000 caves and plenty of blue holes, but you won’t catch a Cat Islander in any of them: “Take us to one of the blue holes,” says island historian Eris Moncur, “and there’s something that happens to our skin.” Moncur is a sober man: white shirt, shiny shoes. As we sat under the thatched roof at Fernandez Bay, he told me about the island’s namesake, the pirate Arthur Catt, its past life as San Salvador, Columbus’s first landfall, and its first son, Sidney Poitier. Then he told me about spirits, and about the legendary nyankoo, a three-foot-tall gremlin with a human face. “You’re laughing,” Moncur rebuked me. “What we can’t control,” he intoned, “is safest for our sanity to deny.”

Late one afternoon, as the sun slanted into Exuma Sound, I threw a mask and fins into a kayak and headed up Fernandez Bay’s Bonefish Creek toward the Boiling Hole, a bluewater cavern that, through some alchemy of ocean, current, and creek, churns like a pot at high tide. I paddled for an hour, keeping the markers, tied to the mangrove branches, on my left. I passed the last one; no hole. I kept going. I got a feeling in my stomach that the water was sliding downhill, that I was being sucked into a drain. Spooked, I started to follow my wake back out, but the water had begun to percolate. Beneath the kayak the silt bottom opened into a limestone cavern, its recesses reaching farther than I could see. The idea had been to hop out and go snorkeling. You’d see great fish down there—snapper, grouper, barracuda.

But floating above the darkness, I suddenly understood. Cat Islanders have got it right; there are things you don’t fool with, powers bigger than tourism, or recreation, or paradise. God only knew what monsters swam in that hole. “Maybe live, surely die,” one islander had shrugged brightly to me at a midnight wake for his brother, who’d sat down on his front porch and never stood back up. You got to enjoy the time you got, drink your bush medicine, take the bright gifts the ocean offers. But don’t mess with the invisible. Ain’t no way, I thought, as I hung above that black water—ain’t no way I’m going in that hole.

Access & Resources: Cat Island

Don’t come down here thinking you’re going to “do” Cat Island. Oh, it’s all here to do—paddling, fishing, snorkeling, scuba diving—but you’ll be too deep into your blissed-out island reverie for anything too ambitious. And rightly so.

GETTING THERE: Visit during the Rake ‘n’ Scrape Festival, a feast of traditional music the first weekend in June, or for the Cat Island Regatta, a rowdy homecoming the first Saturday in August. Forty dollars will buy you 12 hours of chop on the Sea Hauler— or dish out $70 for the 45-minute plane hop from Nassau on Bahamasair (800-222-4262; ). In New Bight, you’ll pay dearly to rent a rusted-out Chevy Caprice at Gilbert’s Car Rentals ($65 a day; 242-342-3011).

WHERE TO STAY: Fernandez Bay Village is all outdoor showers, crisp linens, and a thatch-roofed bar (cottages, $160­$305; 800-940-1905; ). The beachfront Hotel Greenwood, with its 20 motel-style rooms, is a mix of hippie Berliners and dolphin therapists from Miami ($79­$105; 800-343-0373). Sport fishermen stick to Hawk’s Nest Resort and Marina ($124; 800-688-4752; ).

WILD CAT: Hotel Green-wood runs the only dive operation (two-tank dives, $75; 877-228-7475). Both scuba divers and fishermen will appreciate Cat’s Tartar Bank, an abrupt plunge from 60 to 6,000 feet. Hawk’s Nest’s fishing charters cost $400 half-day, $675 full-day; Mark Keasler is the island’s wiliest bonefish stalker ($195 half-day, $280 full-day; 242-342-3043). On your own, snorkel wherever the spirit moves you—any road off the Queen’s Highway leads to another deserted Atlantic beach. Just don’t leave Cat without a sunset picnic at the hermitage on 206-foot Mount Alvernia, the highest point in the Bahamas.

ISLAND EATS: Tear yourself away from that tenth plate of pigeon peas and rice at the Blue Bird Restaurant in New Bight and head for Hazel’s Seaside Bar in Smith Bay, where sassy octogenarian Hazel Brown offers up Kaliks, sip-sip (gossip), and dominoes. Soon you’ll be ready to lose your shirt down at the Pass Me Not in Old Bight, where the pros play. Dominoes under the tamarind tree and Percy Sledge on the jukebox—the perfect Cat Island combination.

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Grenada

Caribbean Islands Catch the fever dream, and let Boney take you on a wild ride past rocky cliffs, soursop trees, and the molasses devil that cavorts through town

In the drink: an offshore view of Grenada

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ON GRENADA, YOU DRIVE in the left lane and shift with your left hand, but it’s trickier than just that. Grenadan roads contain no straight lines. The narrow pavement follows the island’s volcanic contours with blind curves linking together for miles and sudden fearful inclines that match any in San Francisco. Roads are occasionally flanked by hundred-foot drop-offs with no guardrails. And around most every turn, something darts into your path: a bush dog, a Rastafarian, a coconut, a hobbling old-timer with a cane, an armadillo. Maps are of little use; street signs rarely exist. Taxis aim at oncoming traffic as if engaged in a good-natured game of chicken.

In time, my wife and I came to love driving on Grenada, but on the last afternoon of Carnival, we were sternly warned against it. There would be roadblocks, people said, and mobs of revelers. You’ll never make it around the island on your own. Hire a driver. Give Boney a call. And so we did.

He grew up near La Sagesse, a lovely bay on Grenada’s southern shore. His mother named him Stephen Morain, but 33 years ago, when he was 19, an Englishwoman rechristened the skinny kid Boney, and it stuck. A father of seven, he’s been a Rasta man, a policeman, a driver for the prime minister. He was taught by his grandmother, who lived to be 105 and passed on wisdom about plants that few remember anymore.

On a steep hill overlooking St. George’s, the capital, and the Carenage, the city’s artfully distressed harbor of anchored sloops and pastel warehouses, our education begins. Grenada’s roadsides are both pantry and pharmacy for those who can decipher the tangle of greenery. “This is dasheen,” Boney tells us, easing his maroon van to the shoulder and pointing to a spinachlike plant that’s the key ingredient in callaloo, the island’s signature soup. Next to it is a soursop tree, with huge, bumpy green fruits. There are breadfruits, mangoes, pawpaws, sugar apples. He fingers a weedy-looking vine—coriley, he calls it. “I take it once a month. Very bitter. For my kidneys. It help you a lot. A lot, my friend. Two or t’ree mout’ful a dis once or twice a month.”

He threads past a hilltop graveyard and down a twisting, plummeting backstreet, narrating all the while. There’s Fort George, on a brow of hill over the Carenage, where in 1983 a rival faction executed Prime Minister Maurice Bishop days before U.S. troops landed. Over there was an ice factory in the days before refrigeration, when the delivery man would announce his arrival in towns by blowing into a conch shell. On Grenada, most exchanges still begin with “Good morning” or “Good afternoon,” and even Boney’s irritation with other drivers seems tempered. To a passing minibus driver, as calmly as a schoolteacher: “Drive betta dan dot.”

We work our way clockwise along the western coast, past yawning valleys of coconut palms, enormous drooping banana plants, stately nutmeg trees. Here’s Molinière Reef, a few snorkelers undulating with the swells among the parrot fish and sergeant majors. We pass small vintage billboards for Ovaltine and Vita Malt, and an ominous sign: “Caution—Drive Slowly—Broken Road Ahead.”

At four o’clock, we enter Gouyave, a fishing village, just in time to witness a fever dream. Grenada’s Carnival takes place in August in part because it has roots in a harvest festival that started in the 1800s as Cannes Brulées (“burnt cane”), which gradually merged with the celebration of the 1834 emancipation of Grenada’s West African slaves, from whom most islanders are descended. There’s great commotion ahead on the main thoroughfare, so Boney diverts his van a block or so, darting down alleys, the houses close enough to touch. It works: We pull into a gas station at the town’s center, and the hallucination begins.

A flatbed truck leads the parade procession loaded with coffin-size speakers thumping out calypso at a deafening throb. Men on the truck bed are covered with glitter, some with red and blue body paint, some with huge blue horns flaring out from their skulls. Several dozen follow on foot, carrying a banner: “Splendid Pirates,” old and young alike wearing wigs and garish balloon pants of brown, red, green, yellow, white, and purple, stepping in unison to the beat as if in a trance. Then comes a marching pirate ship, a mock funeral, a brigade of men in identical Arab costumes. A fight erupts among four snarling dogs; a painted man beats them with his floppy straw hat. Here comes Death in his skeleton garb, and Jab-Jab, the molasses devil. Men and women walk in formation clutching tall cans of Heineken with straws poking out. Now comes a round-rumped gentleman wearing nothing but a lacy transparent curtain. Boney roars with laughter, though we can barely hear him above the din.

On to St. Patrick parish, on the island’s north side. Loaded vans and minibuses whiz past, slogans on their windshields: Humble Thy Self, Thug Life, Jah Rules. We enter Sauteurs, where Boney weaves through another mob, fragrant of ganja, and then throttles up a tightrope back alley lined by concrete troughs deep enough to swallow a jeep. He does this fast, uphill—and backward. He turns off the engine atop a cliff overlooking a rocky shoreline. From this spot in 1654, a small band of Carib Indians, trapped by French soldiers and fearing a life of enslavement, leaped to their deaths.

The sun sinks, and we arrive at an old airstrip, defunct since the new airport opened in the 1980s. Here sits an old Cuban turboprop, forlorn and abandoned in the grass. Boney has a dream about this plane: He wants to tow it closer to the sea and convert it into a restaurant. He’s talked to government ministers, but so far his plan has gone nowhere.

The notion still enthralls him, though. “If I had that airplane…,” he muses. He’s grinning broadly, gazing slightly heavenward. “I’d have some sparkling ladies there; old people in the kitchen; grilled foods, not fried; some guava ice cream, mango ice cream, soursop ice cream, chocolate, coconut…”

We vanish into the black night. Boney slaloms his van through unlit switchbacks, narrowly missing dreadlocked ramblers, dreaming aloud about empty fuselages and mango ice cream and a sweet-smelling entourage he’s sure will soon arrive. It’s a dazzling vision, on a day when no vision seems impossible.

Access & Resources: Grenada

Rumors of Grenada’s Club Med­ification have been exaggerated. Yup, there’s a new shopping mall near Grande Anse, the two-mile crescent of white sand where the island’s plushest resorts sit. But there’s also this sign just down the street: No Tethering of Animals Allowed.

GETTING THERE: Fly American (800-433-7300), British West Indies Airlines (800-538-2942), or Air Jamaica (800-523-5585). Rent a car from Avis in St. George’s (about $50 per day; 473-440-3936). Boney, aka Stephen Morain, charges $20 an hour to be your driver and guide (473-441-8967).

WHERE TO STAY: The 66-room Spice Island Beach Resort on Grande Anse is inches from the Caribbean ($214-$173; $359; 473-444-4423; ). A more economical choice is the nearby Blue Horizons Cottage Hotel, with a cool veranda restaurant called La Belle Creole ($170-$173;$190; 473-444-4316; ). La Sagesse Nature Center is a nine-room onetime English manor house on a gorgeous, palm-shaded cove ($70-$173; $125; 473-444-6458; ).

WILD GRENADA: Summit the 2,300-foot, delightfully named Mount Qua Qua in Grand Étang Forest Reserve or hike to the Seven Sisters, a misnamed series of five waterfalls. It’s worth it to hire a guide, and probably the island’s best is Telfor Bedeau, a 62-year-old Grenadan who’s hiked the island’s highest peak, Mount St. Catherine, more than 100 times ($25-$173; $30 for one person, $15-$173; $25 per person for groups; 473-442-6200). To see the island from the water, sign on with First Impressions for a jaunt up the west coast aboard the Starwind III, a 42-foot catamaran ($45 half-day, $60 full day; 473-440-3678). Divers mingle with barracuda around the wreck of the Bianca C, an Italian luxury liner that sank off St. George’s in 1961. Reputable dive operators include Dive Grenada (473-444-1092; ) and Sanvics Scuba (473-444-4753; ).

ISLAND EATS: Cuisine centers around fresh-plucked fruit and the daily catch, with a local twist: More nutmeg grows on this 21-by-12-mile island than anywhere else except Indonesia. A fine perch from which to sample local grub is The Nutmeg, on St. George’s harbor. Above Grand Anse is Calypso’s Terrace, which serves up nighttime views of St. George’s and a fine rum-and-coconut-cream blend called a Painkiller.

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Best Islands for Sea Kayaking

Round up: paddlers prepare to shove-off in Belize

Exuma Cays, Bahamas
This 90-mile-long mosaic of more than 365 sandy cays is blessed with calm seas and dozens of flourishing reefs. The Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park, a 130-square-mile marine wilderness, has a strict “no take” rule (that means you, cockleshell klepto) that has allowed hundreds of species to thrive. For information on guided trips, contact Ecosummer Expeditions (800-465-8884; ).

Rock Islands, Palau
Paddling the air-clear water of the Rock Islands, a group of deeply undercut, plush green knobs, feels more like flying than floating. Swoop over barrel sponges and giant clams and buzz the open maws of dark sea caves before you touch down on an exquisite, deserted slice of sand—your camp for the night. Sam’s Planet Blue Sea Kayak Tours (011-680-488-1062; ) can help with gear and guides.


Isla Espiritu Santo, Mexico
Leave the cockfights and tequila worms behind and head for this desert island in the Gulf of California, where turquoise coves slice into volcanic cliffs, sea lions raise their pups, and black jackrabbits look for shade in the sun-baked canyons. For a guided trip, call Baja Expeditions (800-843-6967; ).

Glover’s Reef, Belize
Sapphire-blue seas, the world’s second-longest barrier reef, and six palm-studded cays crying out for the creak of a hammock…all in an 82-square-mile lagoon. Contact Slickrock ���ϳԹ���s (800-390-5715; ).

Best Islands for Communing with Nature

Dominica
Peaks shooting 4,000 feet from the surf, rare Sisserou parrots, 100-foot waterfalls, an undersea hot springs called Champagne—welcome to the Caribbean’s most primeval isle. Play “Me Tarzan, you Jane” at the orchid-filled Papillote Wilderness Retreat ($90; 767-448-2287; .

Kangaroo Island, Australia
Eucalyptus-stoned koala bears roam this 1,737-square-mile island off Adelaide. Hundreds of miles of hiking trails take you through 21 parks, where you’ll spot sea lions, kangaroos, and nocturnal penguins returning to their colony at Penneshaw (Alkirna Nocturnal Tours, ).

Madagascar
Nearly all 30 species of lemurs live on this 995-mile-long island off Africa—broad-nosed gentle, ring-tailed, red-bellied, fat-tailed, hairy-eared dwarf—and despite a host of other exotic animals, they steal the wildlife show. Contact Lemur Tours (800-735-3687; ).

Fernandina Island, Ecuador
Flightless cormorants, pelicans, marine iguanas, and sea lions congregate on Punta Espinosa in the Galápagos Islands. Contact Galapagos ���ϳԹ���s (561-393-4752; ).

San Miguel Island, California
San Miguel is unique for its seal and sea lion colonies; Point Bennet is the only place in the world where six types of pinnipeds congregate. Click on .

Best Islands for Scuba Diving

Cocos Island, Costa Rica
To witness what lurks in the current just off this jungly island 300 miles west of Costa Rica, you’ll need to go long and deep. Live-aboard dive boats make the rough, 36-hour crossing; then it’s a 60- to 135-foot dive down to see hammerheads, white-tipped sharks, and manta rays. Book a trip on the Okeanos Aggressor (800-348-2628; ).

Little Cayman Island
Still home to some of the deepest walls and clearest water, and still scarcely inhabited, this Frisbee-flat isle 80 miles northeast of Grand Cayman belongs on every diver’s life list. Kick through tunnels, chimneys, and canyons; sail over 1,000-foot drop-offs; and come face-to-face with sea turtles. Book a diving package at quirky Pirates Point Resort (345-948-1010).


Wakatobi, Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia
Waka-who-bi? Largely unexplored, the Wakatobi National Marine Park in the Sea of Banda teems with everything from pilot whales to pygmy sea horses. Stay at the Wakatobi Dive Resort on Tomia Island (011-62-361-284-227; ), which has lodging for 22 guests.

Roatán, Honduras
Visit 33-mile-long Roatán and you’ll be faced with tough decisions: Reef-, wall-, or wreck-diving? Full-service dive resort or primitive beachfront cabana? Elephant-ear sponges and black coral or black groupers and whale sharks? Roatán Charter (800-282-8932; ) offers tank dives or weeklong packages.

Gizo, Solomon Islands
Diving near Gizo, in the western Solomons, means exploring coral-encrusted World War II wrecks and 100-foot walls surrounded by slow-cruising manta rays, tuna, barracuda, and a parade of confetti-colored reef fish. Topside, Gizo is a lush fantasy island smothered in orchids and mangroves. Call Dive Gizo (011-677-60253; ).

Best Islands for Fishing

Cast away: afloat off the Florida Keys

Madeira, Portugal
Obsessive record-stalking anglers descend on this mountainous, vineyard-covered isle 320 miles north of the Canaries hoping to haul in a “grander”—a thousand-pound-plus blue marlin, one of two things Madeira is famous for. The other is a sweet wine that’s sure to ease your pain over the one that got away. Charter a boat and guide from Nautisantos (011-351-291-222667; ).

Midway Atoll
Once a World War II battle zone, this U.S. National Wildlife Refuge 1,500 miles northwest of Hawaii began allowing visitors five years ago. Since then, more than 20 world-record catches have been hauled in, including a 78-pound giant trevally. Stay in Midway’s only accommodations, the spruced-up (and surprisingly pleasant) former Army officers’ quarters.Contact Destination: Pacific (888-244-8582; ) to plan your trip.

Mauritius
This volcanic melting pot 450 miles east of Madagascar, with its Creole-speaking Franco-Anglo-African-Indian-Chinese population, offers superb fishing for black and blue marlin, sailfish, and sharks. Captains generally keep your catch and sell it; if you insist on catch-and-release, expect to pay about $75 for each fish you land in this not-so-green economy. Call Sportfisher (011-230-263-8358; ).

Marquesas Keys, Florida
Monster tarpon, permit, and bonefish loll in the turquoise shallows of this handful of uninhabited islands in the Key West National Wildlife Refuge. Work the Marquesas on daylong charters out of Key West.Call Key West Fishing Guides (800-497-5998; ).

Best Islands for a Multisport Vacation

Corsica, France
Scraggly peaks and 620 miles of rugged coast draw Euro-masochists for canyoneering, sea kayaking, diving, climbing, mountain biking, and sailing, plus paragliding off 8,877-foot Monte Cintu and rafting the Class IV Golo River. But the sportif notch to carve on your belt is trekking the grueling Fra I Monti, or GR20 Trail, a 104-mile grind along the island’s spine. Call France-based Corse Aventure (011-33-495-259119; ).

St. John, USVI
Virgin Islands National Park, which claims about three-fifths of this emerald isle, is crisscrossed with 20 miles of jungle trails for hiking and biking and blessed with pristine coral reefs for some of the best snorkeling and diving in the Caribbean. Arawak Expeditions gets you out in the park on weeklong trips (800-238-8687; ). But schedule a few extra days to enjoy lounging like a Rockefeller.


Kauai, Hawaii
Mount Waialeale, near the island’s center, which gets more than 480 inches of rain a year, is a verdant backdrop for horseback riders, mountain bikers, hikers, and windsurfers. Kauai’s trophy trek, the 11-mile Kalalau Trail, leads you from the cliffs of the Na Pali Coast, past 300-foot Hanakapiai Falls, deep into the spectacular Kalalau Valley. For camping permits, contact the Hawaii Division of State Parks, 808-274-3444.

Dominican Republic
Hike 10,417-foot Pico Duarte, raft Class III­V Yaque del Norte, mountain bike in the Dominican Alps, windsurf off Cabarete, and surf the ten-foot waves near Sousa. Go green and stay at Rancho Baiguate, an eco-resort in the highlands (809-574-4940; ).

Best Islands for Boardsailing

El Yaque, Margarita Island, Venezuela
Fifteen- to 30-knot sideshore winds blow over water so shallow here that you can bail 400 yards out and still walk back to land. High-quality rental rigs, cheap Cuba libres, and pulsing merengue compensate for crowds. Call Club Margarita Windsurfing for details (011-44-1920-484121; ).

Flag Beach, Fuerteventura, Canary Islands
Wide beaches and sartorially challenged German sunbathers dominate this arid Spanish island 70 miles west of Morocco. At Flag Beach, low pressure from the Sahara pumps in sideshore winds and Atlantic storms kick up jumpable swells. Call Flag Beach Windsurf Centre in Correlejo (011-34928-866389; ).


Taranaki, North Island, New Zealand
Mast-dwarfing walls sculpted by 20-knot winds along the mountainous West Coast are ridden most days by only a handful of wild-eyed, whooping Kiwis. Get local wisdom and a bunk at Wave Haven lodge in Oakura (011-646-752-7800; or e-mail wave.haven@taranaki.ac.nz).

Fisherman’s Hut Beach, Aruba
Bankable trade winds and planeable flatwater lure windsurfers to this cactus-spiked isle. Goofy diversions—casinos, jet skis, rum-‘n’-strum cruises—keep fidgety nonsailors happy, too. Call Sailboard Vacations (800-252-1070; ) for rentals and lodging.

Hookipa, Maui, Hawaii
Kneel at the feet of the airborne masters of Hookipa’s North Shore and perfect your carve-jibe in the sideshore trades off Kanaha Beach Park. Call Hawaiian Island Surf & Sport (800-231-6958; ).

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AT THE CANCUN International Airport, in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, you have to hang around until your fly-rod case comes in from the plane on an oversize baggage cart, because the long, skinny tube won’t ride properly on the conveyor. This can make for a harrowing wait. There I sat, my backpack full of camping gear, with $200 in cash (which about wiped out my bank account) and a month to kill, and the one thing I really needed in order to do the one thing I really wanted to do—catch some bonefish—was likely lost and sitting on some other plane in some other country. When I finally spotted my rod case, my mind moved on to another anxiety: whether I’d have any luck hitching rides and finding fish.

On the hunt: bonefishing off Andros Island, Bahamas

Much of this anxiety was thanks to the naysayers at a fly-fishing shop back home, who assured me that my plan to hitchhike around the southern Yucatan Peninsula would yield me no bonefish and probably find me dead in the jungle by its conclusion. They told me that catching bonefish usually requires a small fortune, and they suggested an island resort where, judging by the brochure, a handful of bathing-suit models and I would loll on a private beach, sipping daiquiris while casting at millions of fish.

I was committed to my plan out of sheer stubbornness if not near-poverty, and once I changed into some cutoffs and got on a southbound bus to Tulum, I was feeling much better. Tulum is a small Caribbean beach town with a nice blend of local culture and European beach bums selling pot and handmade jewelry, and the place really sets you at ease. The main street is dotted with curbside chicken joints; after sampling around, I can definitively say that Jorge, the grillman at Pollos Asados Marisol, serves the best bird in town.

Tulum is also a good jumping-off point for fishing, because stretching south of there along the coast almost to Belize is the Sian Ka’an, a United Nations-sponsored, 1.3-million-acre biosphere reserve that has lagoons and beaches, Mayan ruins, monkeys, manatees, two kinds of peccary, jaguars, two species of crocodile, 350 species of birds, and plenty of fish. I bought rice and beans, a $12 hammock, and four gallons of purified water and thumbed a ride to the reserve’s north entrance, where I started walking down a long, bumpy road that led to Punta Allen, a lobster-fishing village some 40 miles distant.

The road runs the length of a thin peninsula separating the Caribbean Sea from a large saltwater lagoon. Every hour or so a truck would come by and not pick me up. After I’d gone quite a ways, I found a dead bonefish as big as a loaf of French bread lying in the dust on the side of the road. A guy hauling bananas and limes finally stopped. When we got to a good-looking area I banged on the back window of the truck. He wouldn’t let me out until he counted the bundles of fruit to see if any were missing. Just to the east of the road, waves pounded a long, sandy beach; to the west was the saltwater lagoon—primo bonefish habitat—barely visible through a 50-yard-wide, seemingly impenetrable thicket of mangroves.

I strung my matrimonial-size hammock between two coconut palms on the ocean side, found a piece of driftwood for a table, and picked a few coconuts that were ripe enough to have firm meat. (I would later learn that eating too many of these gives one a horrendous case of the shits.) Little crabs were tossing sand out of their holes all around my camp as I stashed my backpack, grabbed my rod and some flies I’d tied, and then crossed the road to face the mangrove obstacle.


Mangroves have green, waxy leaves, and the branches grow together like the many wires that make a window screen. I twisted and wrestled and crawled through these tangles, turning my clothes almost completely orange from a staining liquid that rubs off when you touch the limbs. About halfway through, I was stung on the arm by a worm, something that had never happened to me in all my 27 years. Before I could retaliate, he dropped from his perch and disappeared underwater. The bite swelled to the size of a 35mm film canister, and I got the terrible feeling that this trip was not going to work out and I would not be finding any bonefish after all. I named the worm the Mexican evasive fighting worm and made a mental note of its appearance in case I had to describe it at the emergency room.
The swelling receded by the time I finally reached the lagoon. The water stretched for miles, white or gray or blue depending on the depth, which ranged from ankle- to thigh-deep. Twenty feet in front of me, a three-inch razor blade stuck out of the water, waving back and forth. I was hallucinating from the worm. No, I realized, it isn’t a razor at all; it’s the tail fin of a bonefish. I’ll be damned, I thought. He was tipped forward in the water, making the same noise with his tail that you can make wagging your finger in the sink. There were several more fish with him.


I fumbled with my rod before casting a sparsely tied brown fly with ball-chain eyes about five feet in front of the fish, which raced over and picked it up so fast that he was into the backing on my reel before I had time to yell yeehaw. The line whipping through the water sounded like ripping newsprint and it shot a rainbow-colored mist into the air.


When I got that fish in my hand, I searched him from nose to tail and am pleased to report that there was not a huge price tag stapled to him. I thought of those guys in the fly-fishing shop back home and one syllable came to mind: Ha!

SOMETHING I quickly realized about on-the-cheap fishing in Mexico is that you wind up with a lot of time to kill. To spot fish on the flats, you need a high sun with no clouds, so you can only sight-fish for bones about five hours a day. The rest of the time I’d snorkel the reefs that parallel almost the entire Yucatan, or talk to the teenage soldiers who occasionally come strolling along the beach with grenade launchers and M-16s, searching for drug traffickers. In the evenings I’d try to catch something to eat. Killing bonefish is frowned upon in angling circles, which is no big deal, because they’re too bony to eat and they don’t taste very good. But I caught mangrove snapper, barracuda, mullet, and reef fish, and now and then I’d find a conch. You can wire the fish to a stick and cook it over dried coconut husks and you’ve got a treat. Sprinkle with lime, salt, and pepper, then lie around, swatting at sand fleas while you wait for the earth to orbit around the sun and get into a good position for more bonefishing.


SOMETIMES A POD of bonefish will be coming at you so thick you’d swear it’s a green queen-size mattress getting pulled through the water, and the fish will fight over who gets to eat the fly. Other times you can’t find any fish but a snobbish loner, and he’ll look at your fly like it’s the stupidest thing he’s ever seen.


One day I was having troubles with the latter situation, and I decided to try swimming across a deep channel that stood between a mangrove thicket and a large, knee-deep flat that stretched for hundreds of yards. The night before, I had watched a crocodile swim down this channel, gliding along with only his eyes and the thin ridge of his back above water. Just as I got out in the middle of the water, nervously doing a one-armed dog paddle with my rod held high in the other hand and my fanny pack between my teeth, a small white boat hauling two guys came zooming around a point, almost whacking into me. I had been so focused on a potential crocodile attack from below that I hadn’t even heard the motor. The boat veered sharply to miss me, and then disappeared as quickly as it had come. Shaken, I climbed onto the flat and wrung out my shirt as best I could. The sun had risen to its optimal position, straight up and burning bright. I drew a deep breath and took a paranoid glance around for crocodiles, which had become a habit of mine. The coast was clear, but off to my left, over a patch of turtle grass, several razor blades flicked just at the surface of the water, as bright as silver coins flipping in the sun.

Access and Resources

With more than 2,000 square miles of tropical forest, marshlands, mangroves, and coral reefs, Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve is among the largest protected areas in Mexico. The Cancún-based nonprofit conservation group Amigos de Sian Ka’an (011-52-9-880-60240) can provide information and leads one-day boat tours of the area for $55 per person. Admission to the reserve is free.

Getting There: Round-trip flights from New York to Cancún start around $550 per person on American Airlines (800-433-7300, www.aa.com); from Los Angeles, $670 per person. Tulum, on Sian Ka’an’s northern border, is 80 miles south of Cancún; from there, follow the rutted dirt road 40 miles to Punta Allen. Alamo Rent-a-Car at the Cancún airport (800-462-5266; ) can set you up with a four-wheel-drive vehicle starting at about $420 per week.
Where to Stay: The Cuzan Guest House in Punta Allen (011-52-9-834-0358; ) caters to fishermen and offers guide services for $350 per day. Their nine thatch-roofed cabanas with ocean views go for $40 to $80 per night, double occupancy. Camping in Sian Ka’an is allowed only in designated areas; for details, contact the reserve office at 011-52-9-849-7554.

The Ultimate Boneyards

Six more bonefishing hot spots across the globe

Cuba’s Jardines de la Reina

Shaped like fork-tailed torpedoes and damn near as speedy, bonefish (Albula vulpes) are some of the most challenging fish you can catch on a fly. Hook one and it’ll rocket away at up to 30 miles per hour—so fast the line will seem to melt from your reel and the backing will zip off in seconds. Then, just when you think it’s hurdled the horizon, it’ll come back for another round (a typical bonefish is good for at least two exhilarating runs before it tires). Up to 37 inches long and weighing from three to (if you’re lucky) 20 pounds, bonefish cruise shallow saltwater flats gobbling shrimps, crabs, and worms. Because they’re difficult to spot and easily spooked, casting for bonefish takes some practice, and stealth is a requirement: If you can see them, they can see you. But snag just one and you’ll see why anglers travel the world in pursuit of these elusive silver phantoms. Here, a half-dozen of the planet’s best bonefishing destinations.

Andros Island, Bahamas
The largest and wildest Bahamian island is the birthplace of one of the world’s first bonefishing lodges—the Bang Bang Club, popular in the 1940s and now under renovation—and the ubiquitous Crazy Charlie fly. Landing an eight- or ten-pounder is not uncommon on the flats off the North, Middle, and South Bights, deep bays that slice the island’s southern half. Local guides Charlie Neymour and Andy Smith can show you how it’s done for $350­$400 per day; book them through Westbank Anglers (800-922-3474; ). Westbank also offers six-day packages at Tranquility Hill Fishing Lodge, a basic hotel overlooking the North Bight, for $2,400 per person, double occupancy, from October through July.

Los Roques National Park, Venezuela
A sun-soaked collection of more than 340 islets and reefs about 80 miles northwest of Caracas, Venezuela, Los Roques National Park offers superb bonefishing from January to September. You can wade for miles, across everything from mangrove lagoons to pancake flats carpeted with turtle grass. Frontiers International Travel (800-245-1950; ) offers six-day packages, with accommodations at the three-room Pez Raton Lodge on car-free Gran Roque, Los Roques’ largest isle, for $2,995 per person, double occupancy.

Christmas Island
Sooner or later, every die-hard bonefisherman heads for Christmas Island. The world’s largest atoll, located 1,300 miles southwest of Hawaii in the South Pacific Republic of Kiribati, boasts miles of hard white flats, large fish populations, and consistently warm, dry weather. Local fisherman Moana T. Kofe was named Guide of the Year in 1995 by Fly Rod and Reel magazine; book him (from $110 per day) through Kaufmann’s Streamborn Inc., 800-442-4359. Seven-day packages from Castaway Fly Fishing (800-410-3133; ) feature beachside accommodations at Big Eddie and Joe’s Bonefishing Lodge and round-trip airfare between Honolulu and Christmas Island for $2,895 per person, double occupancy.

Jardines de la Reina, Cuba
This 150-mile-long archipelago about 50 miles off Cuba’s southeastern coast is home to hundreds of mangrove- and palm-dotted cays and miles of sandy flats that teem with macabi (that’s Spanish for bonefish). Sign on for a fishing trip with the Cuba-based, Italian-owned company Avalon Fishing and Diving Center Ltd. (it’s legal, technically, as you won’t be spending American money on Cuban soil) and you’ll eat and sleep aboard the Tortuga, a houseboat with seven double berths, a small fleet of skiffs, and a team of expert Cuban guides. The bonefishing’s best from March through June. Avalon’s six-day packages range upward from $2,500 per person, double occupancy (011-39-335-814-9111; ).

New Caledonia
New Caledonia, a 6,500-square-mile French island about 1,200 miles east of Australia in the South Pacific, is the sport’s fresh frontier. The draw? Nine- to 12-pound bonefish that are less skittish than most, and calm, clear waters where few bonefisherman have tried their luck. French guide Philippe Leroux has negotiated exclusive bonefishing rights with the local Nenema tribe and brings groups of up to three anglers at a time to their protected flats. His six-day packages, which include lodging at the six-bungalow Relais de Poingam, on the island’s northern tip, run $2,200 per person, double occupancy (011-687-42-54-11; ).

St. Francois Lagoon, Seychelles
In recent years, aficionados have declared the Seychelles, dozens of islands sprinkled across the Indian Ocean about 1,000 miles north of Madagascar, the best bonefishing destination in the world. The sparkling flats of the St. François lagoon near Alphonse Island (a tiny atoll about 240 miles south of Mahé) are the main attraction. This is bonefishing at its most exclusive—only 12 rods per week are allowed on the lagoon. Westbank Anglers (800-922-3474; ) offers six-day trips, with accommodations at the luxurious Alphonse Island Resort, the only hotel on the island, for $4,995 to $5,800 per person, double occupancy, September through May.

Walk On (and On, and On…)

Why lace up your boots for anything less than a thousand miles?

Every couple of years I ditch the real world. I quit my job, load up my backpack with mac and cheese, and light out for a long-distance trail. I’ve through-hiked the 2,160-mile Appalachian Trail and the 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail, no problem. Now I’m ready to savor the unique pain of shinsplints, oozing blisters, and long-term caloric deficit on a mega-path less traveled. Since new North American trails are being cut almost as fast as folks can hike them, it’s time to get packing. Here, six that are calling my name.

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