Morocco: Sandstorm-Dispatch 1

March 15th, 2006

Our drive through Morocco was more an excursion than a journey. At the time, we didn’t realize we were doing a practice run for things to come. We just wanted to see a broad cross-section of the country at our own speed and in a compressed amount of time. It seemed clear to us that the best way to do it would be to rent a 4×4, buy some maps and drive ourselves wherever we wished to go. So, we did.

Even on so short a trip, and with no expectations of applying our experience to something more rigorous in the future, we each fell into what later became our standard roles. Bernard drove. I handled the maps and the snacks.

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Kenya: Endurance Riding Safari–Dispatch 2

March 10th, 2006

We never know what we’ll see on a given day, as animals are not posing for our pleasure. It might be a pride of snoozing lions, pillowy bellies confirming their successful night’s hunt. When they’re full like this they couldn’t care less about the horses, and barely raise a head or half-open an eye to acknowledge our presence. We, on the other hand, have our hands full, holding the reins in one while trying to snap a meaningful photo of non-menacing lions with the other. We might see a family of elephants ambling through the tall gold grass toward a faraway river, stopping now and then to thrash an acacia tree into submission. Their droppings are the exact size and shape of a three-layer cake. It’s a camp tradition to cover one with chocolate icing and present it to whoever is unlucky enough to claim it’s their birthday or anniversary during the ride.

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Kenya: Endurance Riding Safari–Dispatch 1

March 5th, 2006

Traversing the bush on horseback is exhilarating 24 hours a day. There’s the pungent, perfumed smoke of wood fires in the early morning, the filigreed light sifting through flat-topped thorn acacias as the sun rises. Chill post-dawn air rapidly warms as the sun rises and the myriad birds, monkeys, baboons and jackals check in with each other, asking “Are you still alive?” High-lined horses munch their grain and hay, well-oiled tack is set on each carefully groomed back, legs are lifted to check that shoes are still securely nailed in place and no bruising stones are stuck in the hoof. A night guard from the local tribe strides through camp barefoot, a rifle over his shoulder, a long spear in his hand. He wears a scarlet plaid blanket draped around his waist, with one end slung over his sleekly muscled torso. “Look,” he says, squatting next to me and pointing to where the pug mark of a lion is clearly visible in the soft dirt between the tents. “Do not worry. He is interested in the horses, not you.”

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Nepal: Kanchenjunga–Dispatch 3

August 1st, 2005

One night during a thunderstorm that would have made Thor proud we sat on a splintery wood bench in a mountain teahouse, where candle stubs cast weak puddles of yellow light. The teahouse was cavernous, its scruffiness hidden in a cloak of blackness, only to be exposed intermittently by a crackling bolt of lightening. From our perch along the wall we could hear quiet conversation broken now and then by a burst of laughter.

A man brought us each a mug of yak butter tea. In the spirit of taking what’s offered, I sipped the rancid-tasting brew, feeling happily authentic. Big mistake. By midnight my stomach was in upheaval with food poisoning and I spent the night vomiting my guts out in our tiny tent. I managed to stagger through the 7-8 hours’ walk the next day, then retreated to my sleeping bag, there to lie in the shivering heat of fever for another 12 hours.

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Nepal: Kanchenjunga–Dispatch 2

July 25th, 2005

Lulled into general ease by our first day, we find our second day that much more excruciating. In fact, in a fit of understatement, I label it the day from hell, a continuous barrage of steep slippery descents into steaming tropical gorges, an occasional tiptoe over a river on a failing plank bridge tied by thick but fraying ropes to stones at either end, followed remorselessly by an arduous, twisting yak trail of a climb up to the next ridge. “Why bother to go down if I just have to go up again,” I grumble to myself in a fit of pique. No encouraging snowy peaks poke over the green hills to lure me onward. A sure sign of Bernard’s soccer folly is his left knee, which starts to ache shortly into our first major descent. By the end of the day he’s hobbling along using his walking poles like crutches to avoid putting wait on his off leg.

At camp that evening I try to ply him with heavy duty anti-inflammatories that I’ve saved from various surgeries. He’s having none of it. It’s as if by taking a pill he’d have to admit something’s wrong. And if he doesn’t take a pill, then he must be fine. To take our mind off our aches, we find a secluded spot where we can dunk naked in the glacial river that rushes by our camp, water that I tell myself must originate somewhere in the vicinity of Kanchenjunga. Bernard’s sole concession to the reality of an injured knee is to dangle his leg in the icy water until the skin is a bright red.

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