Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Chinese Base Camp

We were on the road to Chinese base camp.  After now adventuring the last six days from Kathmandu, we would finally begin to use our feet to lead the way to Cho Oyu Mountain.  After many hugs and well wishes, our climbing team split up, some to tackle another 8000 meter peak, Shisha Pangma Mountain.

It was low clouds and drizzle, no views of the big mountains though we had hoped to steal a glimpse of Everest, especially since the Everest View Hotel offered none.  There are less than 2000 people who have stood on the top of the world, but I wondered, as we drove along, how many had even seen this mountain.

Our first base camp was at 16,000 feet and by the time we arrived, our Sherpas and cook team had already set up camp.  An enormous pile of gear waited to be separated and dragged to tents.

sorting the tent at Chinese Base Camp

I looked around in the drizzle and saw a city of tents, probably 200.  The Chinese government had denied permits to climb Cho for a number of years. Now with the mountain opened once again, there were some 300 climbers in this short fall weather window, vying for the top.

Nearby, we could hear the neck bells of the yak who restlessly waited for their loads. The yak would carry our group gear, personal high altitude bags, suits, boots and snow gear, food, cooking fuel, and pizza oven (!) to Advanced Base Camp at 18,100 feet and then just the necessary gear up to Camp 1 at 21,000.  From there we’re on our own!  After two days at base camp, the yak loading process began.  It took 60 yak carrying 60 kilos each to move our expedition team.  The gear was piled up and then weighed using two men, one large pole and a rusty meat scale.  Each piece of gear was lifted by two Sherpa  and roughly tossed onto the meat hook, the weight called out and then dully scribed in a notebook.  Normal wear and tear definitely took on a meaning even the airlines couldn’t rival!  Bags often fell off the yak into rivers or sent rolling down hillsides, though unlike the airlines, no bags were ever actually lost.

Yak train on the way to Advanced Base Camp Cho Oyu

UP to Intermediate Camp at over 17,000 ft.

The wind howled as we began our trek up to Intermediate Base Camp (IBC) at 17,200 feet.  I added a few more layers as we climbed, pulled my hood down snugly and then added a wool cap on top.  A wall of snow moved its way across the mountain and began dropping large beautiful flakes on us.  Monstrous peaks came in and out of view briefly through the snow squalls and I could only imagine what was truly towering above us.  I only knew we were going there!

The climb was slow and steady and the important thing was realizing how high we were.    It wasn’t terribly steep for most of it but it was relentlessly UP.  Each climber took his own pace and soon we were strewn across the mountain.  Some plugged in the iPods and cranked the music for the climb.  I prefer the silence of the outdoors, the ringing of the yak bells, and the sound of my own labored breathing.  It gives a feeling of being alive and very present in the moment.  Four hours later, we arrived at IBC and before our yak team.  Four seasonal teas houses are set up here during the climbing season and we quickly huddled inside for warmth.  We were immediately assaulted by the sweet smell of burning yak dung even as our eyes were adjusting to the darkness inside the tent.  Long benches lined three sides of the tent covered in warm, filthy wool blankets.  They served as a place to sit and drink tea as well as beds for the families that run the tea house.  Each tea house had a supply of cokes and warm beer,  pre-packaged noodle bowls and assorted food.  Regular as well as sweet tea, a blend of yak butter, sugar,  and evaporated milk, can be found in abundance!  As the tea warmed us from the inside out and I rested on the itchy wool blanket, contentment as well as sleepiness encompassed me.   I would realize later just how much this fatigue affects me at elevation, on some days leaving me too exhausted to do more than get up for a meal.  All too soon, the bells signaled the arrival of the yak and it was time to sort the gear and get the tents set up before cold and darkness drove us in for the night.

While the women also made cooked to order food such as pancakes, eggs and many other dishes, our own cooking team prepared our meals.  Extra special care was needed to eat the local prepared foods as the Tibetan women often collected the yak dung with bare hands and then made the meals, no stopping to wash hands in between.    If we wanted to remain healthy and have a chance at the summit, we had to take these pre-cautions.

During our stay at IBC, we made friends with the young grand daughter of one of the tea house proprietors. This little four year old was a whiz at setting up a tent and had all of our tent poles strung together and was lacing them through the main tent before we could even get it spread out on the rocky ground.  Once we had the main tent up, she was off to gather large rocks to tie down the outer stakes.  I half expected her to sling my pack on her back and lead us up to the summit.  Then, once we had the tent up and were snug inside, she came over, sat in the dirt and hung her arms over the tent flap and just watched us with her dirty hands and filthy face.  She smelled like the smoke from the yak fire and had threads of wool from her sleeping blanket in her hair.  We shared an energy bar and I wondered what went on in her little head….and what would become of her in the future.

Final Push to Advanced Base Camp over 18,000 ft

We made only a one night stop at IBC and then pushed on up to Advanced Base Camp (ABC).This was the day, we were told that we could hit the wall, that the elevation might prove too much and it could well be a tough climb.  The climb is very strenuous with as much uphill as down.  It would take from 4-8 hours depending on the climber’s physical abilities, the weather conditions and how well our bodies had acclimated.  At this point, the climb was still snow free but that was the only thing that wasn’t on the climb.

We began with a slow ascent out of IBC on a military road.  Coming out of the valley and around the mountain, a river appeared before us.  Yet it is a frozen river, of ice and snow peaks, a magnificent glacier that look like a stiff meringue.  Within minutes we could hear and see rocks tumbling off the mountains down towards the glacier and the sound of water running below it.  The processes of nature are all around and we could feel just how dynamic the Earth is right under our feet.  Mountains crumble, avalanches roar, glaciers creak and break and roll forward with minute speed but incredible mass.  It is a symphony of sounds if we take the time to listen.  At once I felt small and insignificant among these giants.

Feeling insignificant among the giants of the Himalayas

The road gave way to a trail which made several river crossings and picking out just the right rocks to jump across on could make the difference between comfort and wet and hypothermic feet.  From the river bank, it climbed steeply up a sandy slope and then turned to undulating scree fields dotted with spectacular alpine ponds as blue as the sky.   Scree gave way to a boulder field several miles long.  Here, we stopped for lunch, a bit of homemade bread, a hard boiled egg and an apple.  I could have sat there all day and watched the glacier below me and the snow capped peaks above but the cold was setting in and it was time to move.  One more river crossing before climbing up the steep mountain ridge for the next two solid hours.  At one point, I became so chilled, Ridlon had to dig out layers and help me dress.  My body was expending so much energy just breathing and moving at over 18,000 feet, there didn’t seem to be enough left to heat me.  I left my mind wander to a warm tropical beach and finally I began to shake the cold.

We Made it To the Beginning!

As we made it into camp around tea time, five and a half hours after we began, we could see that the camp stretched out for about 1/2 mile.  It was an international party of climbers all staged on this rocky mountain slope beneath avalanche prone giants, tents of every color palate dotting the gray boulders.  Our camp was at the far end of the city, which would put us a full thirty minute hike closer to the summit as the climbers would now begin the process of going up and down to the high camps.  The next  6,000 feet would be climbed as much as six times.  Allowing the body time to acclimate here was the most critical.  At these elevations the body will begin to shut down extraneous processes and go into survival mode.  By the time the climbers reached near the summit at 26,000 feet they would be in “the death zone”.  This is a place where no matter what you do, the body can’t keep up with the lack of oxygen and begins breaking down.  The only body systems that will remain functioning will be the lungs, heart and brain, even the digestive system closes down. I definitely felt the fatigue of the lack of oxygen.  For the rest of our days here we would be monitoring our uptake of oxygen and checking respiration rates.   In the history of the world, there is no known civilization that has lived permanently above 17,000 feet and now I knew why.  We would limit our own exposure to this elevation to just three weeks.  I had arrived at the extreme limits of where mankind can survive and I was humbled.  Now the climb would truly begin…

Expedition Team at Advanced Base Camp Cho Oyu

TO YOUR ADVENTURES!  ~Mantagirl

Fortunately I have no photo to go with this post!  This comes to me today through Science daily.  Quite interesting….
ScienceDaily (Oct. 11, 2010) — Whale feces — should you be forced to consider such matters — probably conjures images of, well, whale-scale hunks of crud, heavy lumps that sink to the bottom. But most whales actually deposit waste that floats at the surface of the ocean, “very liquidy, a flocculent plume,” says University of Vermont whale biologist, Joe Roman.   And this liquid fecal matter, rich in nutrients, has a huge positive influence on the productivity of ocean fisheries, Roman and his colleague, James McCarthy from Harvard University, have discovered.

Their discovery, published Oct. 11 in the journal PLoS ONE, is what Roman calls a “whale pump.”

Whales, they found, carry nutrients such as nitrogen from the depths where they feed back to the surface via their feces. This functions as an upward biological pump, reversing the assumption of some scientists that whales accelerate the loss of nutrients to the bottom.

And this nitrogen input in the Gulf of Maine is “more than the input of all rivers combined,” they write, some 23,000 metric tons each year.

Nitrogen limits

It is well known that microbes, plankton, and fish recycle nutrients in ocean waters, but whales and other marine mammals have largely been ignored in this cycle. Yet this study shows that whales historically played a central role in the productivity of ocean ecosystems — and continue to do so despite diminished populations.

Despite the problems of coastal eutrophication — like the infamous “dead zones” in the Gulf of Mexico caused by excess nitrogen washing down the Mississippi River — many places in the ocean of the Northern Hemisphere have a limited nitrogen supply.

Including where Roman and McCarthy completed their study: the once fish-rich Gulf of Maine in the western North Atlantic. There, phytoplankton, the base of the food chain, has a brake on its productivity when nitrogen is used up in the otherwise productive summer months. (In other parts of the ocean, other elements are limiting, like iron in some regions of the Southern oceans.)

“We think whales form a really important direct influence on the production of plants at the base of this food web,” says McCarthy.

“We found that whales increase primary productivity,” Roman says, allowing more phytoplankton to grow, which then “pushes up the secondary productivity,” he says, of the critters that rely on the plankton. The result: “bigger fisheries and higher abundances throughout regions where whales occur in high densities,” Roman says.

“In areas where whales were once more numerous than they are today, we suggest that they were more productive,” say McCarthy.

The numbers of whales that swam the oceans before human harvests began is a question of some controversy. “Conservative estimates are that large whales have been cut to 25 percent,” says Roman, “though the work done on whale genetics shows that we’re probably closer to 10 percent,” of historical levels. To cover the range of possibilities, Roman and McCarthy’s study considered several scenarios, estimating current whale stocks as 10, 25, or 50 percent of historical levels.

“Anyway you look at it, whales played a much bigger role in ecosystems in the past than they do now,” says Roman, a conservation biologist in the University of Vermont’s Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources and the author of a book on whales.

“And everything that we do to enhance recovery and restoration of the great whales to something like pre-harvest levels works against other deleterious effects that humans are causing in the oceans,” says McCarthy, like the decline of overall ocean productivity as climate change drives up water temperatures, which, in turn, causes a decline in nutrients for phytoplankton.

Save the whales, save the fishermen

A further implication of the new study is that ongoing calls by some governments to relax international whaling restrictions are ill-considered. Culls and bounty programs would reduce nitrogen and “decrease overall productivity,” Roman and McCarthy note.

“For a long time, and still today, Japan and other countries have policies to justify the harvest of marine mammals,” says Roman. These countries argue that whales compete with their commercial fisheries.

“Our study flips that idea on its head,” Roman says, “Not only is that competition small or non-existent, but actually the whales present can increase nutrients and help fisheries and the health of systems wherever they are found. By restoring populations we have a chance to glimpse how amazingly productive these ecosystems were in the past.”

To Your Adventures!

Keep Expenses Down At Home While you are Working Your Adventure Job

If you plan to get an adventure job where you will be traveling, be sure all of your expenses are covered.  For example, if you work on a cruise ship they will pay for your flights and travel expenses and also room and board.  This means that while you are working you are not using your salary for rent, food, vehicle, gas, satellite TV, telephone (except a cell phone), entertainment, electric/water/sewage/gas bills, vacations, insurance, and on and on.   Sit down one day and add up all of your monthly expenses living “at home”.  You will be stunned!  Beware of taking a job where you have to pay your employer for room and board.  Run the numbers and be sure you are not getting paid just enough to cover the cost of being there!

Keep Expenses Down Further.

If you rent, get out of your contract and put your belongings in storage at $40/month.  If you own your home, can you rent it?  Can you make your home an asset?  We do.  We rent our home on www.vrbo.com . One week’s rental will pay our mortgage for the month.  When not rented, all utilities except electric are shut down and I have someone who basically lives there for free to watch the house.

Where Do you Live When you are not Working Your Adventure Job?

We live in Montana.  There’s a reason.  First, it’s beautiful, but second, it’s cheap.  If you work overseas then it doesn’t matter where you have your home.  You can give yourself a pay raise living in Montana over California.

Saving and Shopping During Your Adventure Job

Be cautious with your spending when working an adventure job.  I once worked with a fantastic team of 24 dive instructors on an all diving cruise ship.  One female instructor went to town every Saturday and spent all of her salary on bathing suits.  While she had a knock out pile of bikinis, she was broke when she left the job.  When you travel, it’s easy to start shopping.  Keep your shopping in line with your current salary just like you do at home.  The average American saves 5% of their income.  While working on board a cruise ship for five years in the 1990’s, we averaged 95% saving rate.

Investments

If you are working a job where you have little to no expenses, you can use your money to work for you.  While someone else pays us to travel the world and pay our expenses, we use OUR money to invest and make even more money for us.

Paying Taxes While you work an Adventure Job

There are clever (and very legal) ways to decrease your tax liability in an adventure job, especially if you work overseas.  We use the Physical Presence Law.  For over five years we worked under this tax law.  The law states that if you remain outside the US for 330 days per year, you are exempt from taxes for the first $70,000 you earn.  You are not required to prove this unless audited.  However, we kept very careful track of the number of days we were in the country so if audited, we would fall well within the law.  Now, take the money you DIDN”T pay in taxes and invest it while you travel and voila!  Note:  Tax law changes constantly, use a good CPA to help you.

Offshore Banking

It can be done but it takes good research.  Consult your CPA to be sure you are above board on this one.  We chose not to use offshore banking but for you it may be different.

Wealth Beyond Money The True Asset of an Adventure Job

If I had no limits on my finances I would travel the world, dive and do loads of humanitarian work.  Now, however, I do have limits on my finances and what do I do with my life?  I travel the world, dive and do some humanitarian work.  I just use OPM to do it ( other people’s money).  I work for companies who send me all over the world.  I teach diving and lead dive expeditions now surpassing 7500 lifetime dives and two years ago I began a charitable non profit foundation, www.oceanofhope.net .  I continue to live the life I’ve dreamed and though it doesn’t look exactly like it would if I were financially independent, it’s pretty damn good.

Decide the level of Comfort You Want and Need

Decide the comfort level you want in your job. We live on a five star luxury cruise ship at the moment.

This may sound odd but it’s something to really take a look at.  Are you a salty dog backpacker type or are you a five star luxury type?  When you apply for an adventure job be sure you are where you want to be.  Decide if you want to work for a company where you take a group of broke teenagers in a run down non air-conditioned bus through Central America or work for a luxury liner with a five star client base across the French Riviera.  Be sure you are in the place where you feel comfortable.  Living the adventure life and pursuing an adventure job doesn’t mean you have to live like a backpacker if that’s not your thing.

More coming Friday on living the adventure life!

To Your Adventures!

Last weekend we attended the Overland Expo in Amado, Arizona.  It’s only the second annual but already is quickly gaining momentum because overlanding enthusiasts are well….enthusiastic about their community, the world, adventure, giving back and hitting the road.

But what exactly is overlanding?  To be honest, three weeks ago, I didn’t have a clue and I’ve been a world traveler all my life.  Overlanding by traditional definition describes how the Australians used to travel with their sheep…over land.  Today the term is quickly becoming known to describe a method of travel.  It is vehicle supported adventure travel and it wears many hats.  You can “overland” in a Land Rover with a roof tent across Africa or take a tricked out monster rig around the world.  It is within the attitude, truly, that to me describes overlanding.  It is not about getting from point A to point B, it is about the journey.  It’s not about covering 600 miles to get across Nebraska, it’s about stopping along to the way to meet people and experience life at a crawl.  It’s about seeing a big world from a small perspective.

Who Put THIS Idea in our Heads?

We were introduced to the concept and the Expo by the former Camel Trophy director Duncan Barbour who Ridlon met through LinkedIn.  He is an off road specialist and camera tracker. Duncan was coming over from Scotland for the show and commented that we should check it out.  So we hopped in our truck, threw in the camping gear and mountain bikes and “overlanded” our way down, leaving Montana in 8 inches of fresh wet snow to arrive three days later in 86 degree southern Arizona.

We met up with Duncan during the show set up on Thursday, looking every bit the explorer in his safari hat and khakis.

Ridlon and Carin and Duncan with his new toy

The world famous Duncan buys the groog!

Duncan became our mentor and guide throughout the show and introduced us around.  Only later, through reading the industry’s phenomenal magazine, Overland Journal, did we realize that Duncan, our humble Scot, was a celebrity among this community. We weren’t exactly sure who we would meet at the Overland Expo.  Would we find Bubba on his souped up 4×4 tearing it up or retirees in their Winnebagos?  What we found was a community of like minded explorers, wanderers and adventurers with an itch to see the world on their terms, to live life a bit differently, slowing down to savor its riches.  We found journalists and photographers who work on the road as well as businessmen who had quit jobs, sold their homes and took off on motorcycles around the world.  It was all here.

Who Did We Meet?

Come…let me introduce you.

Meet Monika and Gary Wescott  They have been traveling for the past thirty years in a series of vehicles all by the name of “Turtle”and their company Turtle Expedition.  They are currently on Turtle #5, now sponsored by Ford.  They have traveled the globe most recently with a Ford 350 with a camper on the back all custom built.  To make a living, Gary writes and has produced a couple of documentaries.  They are also, we happily found out, USANA associates and have a small business with the same nutritional supplement company Ridlon and I work with.  One day while we were hanging out with Monika and Gary, a young man came up to them and told the story that they had been his heros since he was young.  After seeing a documentary where Monika and Gary drove their Turtle through a river, the man described how, at age five, he went out into his backyard, dug a hole, filled it with water from the hose and kept driving his Tonka trucks through it!  That was 20 years ago and he wanted to have his photo taken with his heros!

Turtle Five, all tricked out and ready to rumble

Meet  Connie Rodman and Graham Jackson.  Graham grew up in South Africa and like many of his friends spent heaps of time in a Land Rover with a rooftop tent scouring Africa.  Now he wanted to show  Connie, the concept of overlanding.  It took Graham years to convince her to go but finally they took off from London to drive to Capetown and experience the world. During the expo, Connie gave seminars about the expert ways to pack, store, and keep food while being on the road for nine months at a time.

Meet Lois Pryce.  Lois has done the world, SOLO, on a motorcycle!  A Brit with an abounding sense of adventure and bubbly personality to match, Lois boldly goes where few women have gone and has recently written a book called, “Ladies on the Loose”.

Meet Alice Gugelev and Jay Shipiro of The Muskoka Foundation.  They travel in the EcoRoamer complete with solar panels on the roof and a couple of small children inside.  They have founded the Muskoka Foundation.  This non profit aligns overlanders who want to “do good as they go” with projects throughout the world.  Overlanders are people who will take days or even weeks to stay within a community and give back be it by teaching them to fix an engine or educate a child.  If you plan to travel and spend time, hook up with Alice to find out where you can give back.  They have many innovative ways to do good around the planet.

So many to choose from- here is the EcoRoamer

The Overland Journal

This is a very small taste of a not so large group of world wandering heros in the overlanding community.  One day we sat and chatted with Scott and Stephanie Brady, the founders of the gorgeous, Overland Journal.  Scott and Stephanie are huge adventurers themselves but currently are content to use their time and talents making a cohesive industry out of this group of vagabonds.  Stephanie with a flair for design, creates a fine art photography book out of every issue, giving space and light to world travel.  Stephanie explained to me that the magazine is not about highlighting vehicles it’s about showing off the world and the amazing stories of those who dare to crisscross its borders without trepidation.

Panel Discussion with Overland Journal founers Scott and Stephanie Brady

What’s the Plan?

So besides being world adventurers ourselves, why would the overlanding community beckon us?  We have decided it is time to take on our own epic world adventure called “Seven“.  It began with a declaration by Ridlon to climb the seven summits, the highest peak on all continents.  Then I added that we should include the “7 summits” of diving along the way.  Then, Ridlon suggested we simply drive around the world to do it.  Sounds like a plan to me!  So we are pulling together the overlanding, diving and climbing communities in this grandest of all adventures.  It’s a feat that has never been done but that’s not why we will do it.  It is the culmination of our grandest passions of being under the sea, seeing the world and all it’s beauty and culture at our own pace and declaring our love of life from it’s highest peaks, while doing good in the process.  More to come on this adventure soon!

What to Drive?

cool half mil for this gobalXpedition rig

I'll take two please!

Wow, I don't know what it is but I want it!

It will keep the lions out but how about elephants?

Not sure if THIS is how WE want to travel

In closing this post, we’d like to say thanks to all of you who helped open our eyes to even greater possibilities this weekend at the Overland Expo.  We look forward to becoming an integral part of this wondrous community of adventurers.  We feel we have found our soul mates with you all.

No limits to what you can do in the world!

See you on the road!

Live Adventurously is a premium provider of SCUBA diving vacations and advice on travel, adventure & the adventure lifestyle.  We provide our guests and friends the experiences and knowledge to live an extraordinary life through adventure.

Today, I want to tell you about my experience in the village of Ravi Ravi on the island of Beqa off the coast of Fiji. I want to tell you about a humble, wonderful man who opened his heart and home to us.

Pastor Siad and his son at home

We were there to check out a dive resort. We had not been to the island in about 12 years and were urged to go back by a friend who had told us about great updates to the resort. We agreed it was probably time to re-visit the island.

But we had another agenda as well. Our international mission for our non profit organization, Ocean of Hope is to assist school children in oceanside villages around the world in ocean conservation education. Part of this involves bringing educational materials to them to learn about the ocean around them. There is a small village we wanted to visit to see how we could assist them in this way and with basic infrastructure support as well. We came, armed with workbooks, to meet with the headmaster and teachers, the elders of the village, and the children themselves. We did not expect to be personally invited to dine with the village pastor. What a treat!

Meeting the Pastor

It is only about a 10 minute walk from the dive resort to the village but one of the young women, Annie, who works in the resort offered to lead us to the village and introduce us. She was a very kind woman and stayed with us throughout our meetings. Afterwards she gave us the full tour of the village and introduced us to her uncle, Siad, who was, in fact, the pastor of the village. He kindly asked us if we could return the next day to share a meal with him in his home, explaining that he would cook us traditional Fijian fare. We gratefully accepted his hospitality.

As I lay in bed that night, I began to think about what an enormous gesture he had made towards us. Here was a man who lived poorly and simply, reaching out to make a personal connection. It didn’t matter what he had or didn’t have, he wanted to share it with total strangers and he had no ulterior motive. I wondered how many times in my life, I had reached out in such a way, certainly not enough. I wondered what the world would be like if more people had such goodness in their hearts.

Dinner in the village of Ravi Ravi

The next day I asked his niece a few questions in order to be prepared. How long should we stay? Should we bring a gift? Is it the Fijian way to be on time? late? early? Any customs we should know? I didn’t want to learn about the culture by doing something inappropriate! The most important thing to understand was the ritual of the drinking of kava, which is the Fijian way to welcome. We had been exposed to this numerous times before so we were confident we wouldn’t embarrass anyone on this account!

When we arrived, Siad, greeted us and brought us into his small home. He had spent most of the day preparing for our visit. The day began by walking to his “farm” which he tends daily. In Fijian villages, these farms are more like large gardens where the villagers grow most of the food they eat. He harvested cassava, a potato like starch, breadfruit, taro leaves, and coconut. The onion he used was the only thing he had not grown himself. Then he built a “lovo” which is an earthen oven. In a small dirt pit, a fire is built, then the food is wrapped in leaves and cooked and the whole thing is covered in palm fronds, no pots and pans, no tin foil, nothing, all from the earth and recycled back into it. We have a lot to learn from the Fijians in this regard! Siad brought us into his home and then excused himself to uncover the lovo and bring in the meal. “Feel free to look around” he explained.

Cooking in the traditional Fijian lovo

Siad serving traditional Fijian meal

A typical Fijian village home

The home was one room with a partition in the back to separate a sleeping area. There was a small refrigerator and stove in the corner though he explained that they mostly cook outdoors. A bookshelf held a few pots and pans, a cup with some silverware, and some books. There was a small table as well along one of the walls. The building had a front and a back door that probably were never closed allowing for little distinction between indoors and out. No indoor plumbing or running water.

On the partition wall were a few faded photos and quotations about the merits of being children of God. The center of the room was vacant of furniture, the Fijians preferring woven mats of pandanus to sit on. It was simple, yet had all the things the family of four needed.

Siad came back into the house with the meal fresh out of the lovo. He proudly told us he had caught a wild dog the other day so we would have fresh meat. My throat tightened and I wondered how on earth I would be able to eat dog! Then he said, “Oh, excuse me I meant pig”. Whew! That was close!

He excused himself again to quickly bathe outside and put on a fresh shirt and skirt (skirts are traditional dress for Fijian men).

Kava Ceremony

Ritual kava drinking ceremony

At this point, he pulled out the kava bowl and prepared the ritual welcome ceremony. Kava is a root from a pepper plant that is ground and then mixed with water in a large three legged bowl. It is mixed with a rag that looks like a dirty dish rag and then scooped into a communal half coconut shell. There is a series of ritual claps and spoken words that accompany the kava ceremony. Fijians LOVE their kava which has a mellowing effect, slightly narcotic and makes your lips numb and tingly if enough is consumed. I laughed inwardly as Siad gave us half bowls while he consumed brimming cups, referred to as high tide. Like I mentioned, Fijians LOVE their kava!

After the kava, he prepared the plates, freshly cooked wild pig (thank goodness!), taro leaves cooked in coconut water and onion (delicious!) and cassava. I’m not sure whatever happened to the breadfruit. He placed the plates before us on the floor, a virtual Fijian feast! It was wonderful. Siad, however, did not eat with us, he would wait until his wife came home. We chatted easily about many topics including the Fijian rugby team (a national source of pride), the recent hurricane the family rode out in this small hut, his duties within the village as pastor of the Methodist church and his family. His young son arrived and was sent as well to bathe and then he joined us. Siad sat and drank kava and smoked a cigarette while he used this other hand to brush away flies while we ate.

A Fijian feast in the pastor's home

cassava, taro and wild pig....traditional Fijian fare

A Truly Local Experience

After the meal, he told us we should go as we were supposed to meet with the headmaster once again. It was the signal that we had stayed the appropriate length of time, about an hour and a half. He would stay and finish the kava. We thanked him for his hospitality and presented him a gift of a new rugby ball for his community team. I never did find out if this was appropriate or not, but it felt good to give something back.

It was an unforgettable experience to simply “be” with him and his son and experience day to day Fijian life in just this small way. Too many times as travelers, we see but don’t experience a place in the true way of the culture. To truly travel and understand a place, it is important to reach out to those who live within it. I will forever be grateful to Siad for his hospitality, his warmth and his desire to make a person to person connection.

A gift of a rugby ball for the community team

Live Adventurously is a premium provider of SCUBA diving vacations and advice on travel, adventure & the adventure lifestyle.  We provide our guests and friends the experiences and knowledge to live an extraordinary life through adventure.

But what about the valuables that just can’t be left at home: passports, cash, credit cards, cell phones, cameras, etc.? Here are some tips to protect the valuables you do take with you.

Before you leave, document valuables.

•  Leave one copy of the documentation at home, and take one with you.
• Make copies of your debit and credit cards, both front and back, and include bank contact information, and account information. (Make sure the trusted contact back home knows where to find your PIN, social security number, and other details, and that your bank and credit card company have the required authorization to talk with your designated contact if you can’t do it yourself.)
• Document your cell phone account information and carrier contact numbers.
• Take pictures of your camera, iPod, video camera, jewelry and other valuables. Note serial numbers and other information for police reports or insurance claims.

Theft on airliners is rare, but does happen, especially on overnight flights.

• Stash your bag in the compartment across from your seat, so you have a clear view of the overhead bin where items are stored.
• Turn zippers and openings toward the back of the bin, to make it harder to open them in flight without removing them from the overhead compartment.
• Keep passports, cash, and other important items on your person – don’t leave them in a coat pocket, and then put the jacket into the overhead bin.

Remain alert for pickpockets or thieves as you travel.

• Street performers sometimes work with thieves to hold your attention while their associates make off with wallet, cameras or purses.
• Be aware of your surroundings and the people near you.
• If you carry a purse (experienced travelers don’t, relying instead on a small daypack or stashing wallets and personal items in front pockets of trousers or jeans), keep it in your lap or between your feet when dining.
• Make it hard for a pickpocket by putting wallet and passport in a concealed carrier that fits beneath your clothes.
• If confronted, do not resist. Giving up valuables is better than risking injury or death for a few dollars.
• Never count money in public.

Don’t assume that your hotel room, ship cabin, or rented apartment is secure.

• Pacsafe  sells has small, virtually indestructible bags that fit easily into a backpack, and then become portable safes for passports, small cameras, and other items. When needed, hide them with valuables in a hotel room, secured to some immovable object like a bedpost.
• Keep luggage closed, and belongings out of site in your hotel room or cabin.

Common sense, remaining aware of your surroundings and good choices in what to take with you are the primary factors in a travel adventure without fear of lost property!

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alkanchaglar/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

Live Adventurously is a premium provider of SCUBA diving vacations and advice on travel, adventure & the adventure lifestyle.  We provide our guests and friends the experiences and knowledge to live an extraordinary life through adventure.

Leading an adventure group in remote Panama

It’s funny.  While I’m a serial adventurer and traveler now, the only international travel I did growing up were a few family Christmas trips to Toronto and one ill fated family vacation to Cancun.  Determined to find a way to travel overseas, I had to get creative because I was a broke and burned out college Junior.  That’s when I found my first adventure job working at a resort on The Dominican Republic and found that adventure jobs are awesome things.  It totally changed my life and put me on track to where I am today.

An adventure job can be a temporary thing or a lifelong thing – whatever makes sense for you; we all want to break the dull barrier, feel like we are truly living, connect with purpose and have a blast.  We’re all searching for a way to make every day count and live beyond the TGIF syndrome.  And, there’s a primal calling deep within us that says – “I want to go out and experience the world.”  That’s exactly what an adventure job does.

What’s An Adventure Job

Adventure jobs usually mean working somewhere out of your hometown and often out of the country.  They include working at a resort, on a ship, as a tour director, teaching English or working with a non-profit overseas.  I’ve done most of these and each one was the best thing I ever did.  They helped me dump TGIF for TGIT (thank God its today).  I’ve learned a PhD’s worth living out in the big wide world among its amazing people and had the time of my life doing it.

With an adventure job, you don’t have to be an entrepreneur to live and work overseas and do something that fires you up everyday.  Today, I’m an entrepreneur but back when I started, I couldn’t even spell the word.  Because an adventure job usually includes accommodation and board, you don’t have to figure all that stuff out.  You just show up to work at a cool job, get paid and often the company takes care of the rest.

Just like any other job, you’ve got to have a skill and be good at what you do.  You must find out what the company needs and fill those needs with your abilities.  I was a sailing instructor, windsurfing instructor, skiing instructor, trapeze artist (yes, as in flying) and a SCUBA diving instructor.  But the same companies I worked for also needed accountants, comptrollers, social directors, hotel management, F&B people, dining room managers and maintenance crews.

Making Money with an Adventure Job

Adventure jobs sometimes don’t pay big money but your bank account can still grow.  Most companies know that they can pay less when you’re working in “paradise” and doing something that makes you want to get out of bed everyday.  Plus, they are often covering your lodging and meal costs.  But remember, it’s not what you make; it’s what you keep and deposit in your brokerage account that really counts.  And if done right, your savings rate in an adventure job can be very high because your accommodations, board and lifestyle are all typically covered by your job.  My savings rate at one time was as high as 96% of my gross income.  Compare that to less than 5% for the average American household and you can see how the math does work.  I also knew a girl that blew half of her salary every week on bikinis so common sense stuff on spending still applies.

A lot of people tell me, “I wish I could do what you do” or “You’ve got the most amazing job.”  The reason I am sharing this story is so you can see that you can too.  Are you a 20 something on a college break or wanting to see the world before you commit yourself to a cubicle, a 30 something wanting more out of life, a 40 something on sabbatical, a 50 something who’s retired early and ready to do all the things you said you were always going to do or a 60 something ready to find purpose?  All you’ve got to do is take the first step.  For me, it all started with an adventure job.

Do All Jobs Suck?

The word J-O-B has been getting a bad wrap lately.  I know because I was one of the J-O-B bashers until recently when I realized I’ve had some totally AMAZING jobs.  I may be eminently unemployable now but years ago I really needed the structure and support that a job offers.  All jobs don’t inherently suck.  It’s just when we choose to do something that we’re not passionate about, or we’re not using our talents, or we only do it for the money … you know the story.  You may be living it.  If you want to change TGIF for TGIT (thank God its today), check out an adventure job.  It may be the perfect thing.

Questions?  Email me at sharkman@live-adventurously.com