Wild Ideas About Adventure Travel

When I first answered the call of the wild, I was sure it would be a wrong number.

The idea of long-distance hikes, with hot and heavy breathing, seemed vaguely obscene. Naturally, there would be dust and bugs. I was not keen to reach out and touch anything.

That is why adventure travel has exceeded my expectations. I expected nothing but misery.

My first exploration was sailing east of Bali to call at islands along the Indonesian archipelago. An early stop was Komodo, a hilly, arid knob that is home to the giant black lizard called the Komodo dragon.

The ship’s doctor said the hike would be rigorous and the temperature high. He asked passengers to check with him before going. I figured that he would listen to my tales of asthma and sunburn, and insist that I stay on board.

“The exercise will be good for you,” he said with a laugh. “Come back when you’re 90 and we’ll talk.”

I gasped a lot on that steep trail, but I did not stumble. For five hours I kept my eyes focused on the backs of the knees of a retired Caltech professor. When I slowed down in the rubble of a dry riverbed, he called over his shoulder: “Don’t stop. It makes it tougher to get started again.”

When we finally reached a clearing at the top, I collapsed in the shade of a banyan tree and opened a sack lunch. But the view killed my appetite. A goat carcass had been skewered on a spit near the edge of the bush.

Two Komodo dragons, each almost 10 feet long, soon came lumbering out. Golden tongues flashed from monstrous heads. They tore into their meal with relish.

My photographer friends loved the action, even when a dragon charged our circle. A native pelted it with sticks and rocks until it veered away.

Still, Komodo was the beginning of a healthy, rejuvenating trip. Long walks and coral swims were part of each day; lectures, laughs and sea turtles were part of moonlit nights.

On island after island, as far as the Asmat of New Guinea, I met some of the kindest people I’ve ever known, certainly the kindest headhunters.

Since that summer I have continued to find the outdoor world accommodating--from the High Sierra trails of Yosemite to the sandy banks of the Colorado River. It may be soft adventure, if compared to scaling K-2, but it’s hard enough for me.

Among the lessons I’ve learned:

Don’t sit at the front of a rubber shore boat. In a choppy sea, that position gets the most splash. The boatman doesn’t stand in the rear for nothing.

Exception: On a hot day of rafting through white water, the cold spray can be as welcome as a broken fire hydrant to kids in a sizzling city.

Pack a rattail comb for hikes through cactus country. Balls of cholla cactus jump at the chance to ride on your desert boots. If you flick them off, they stick to your hand. Any comb will lift them away; a rattail gives a margin of safety.

Carry a small mirror in self-defense. The woods are full of motes. If one gets in your eye, it is maddening not to be able to see to remove it. A stranger’s finger is not the same. Nor is a friend’s.

A mirror can be glued inside the crown of a hat or into a camera case. Clip-on mirrors can be attached to penlights or lip balms.

Hard mints or chewing gum can help fight thirst. An apple is a classic quencher.

For an August muleback trip I carried a canteen that fit into a large pocket or attached with Velcro to a belt. It had a built-in plastic straw that you could pull up with your teeth, leaving one hand for the reins.

Unless you’ve tested the earth as a mattress and found it comfortable, take an inch-thick pad of foam rubber to put under a sleeping bag. You’ll still be roughing it, but your case won’t seem terminal. My week of camping out in the Grand Canyon would have been less grand without that cushion.

Part of the joy in adventure travel is the hand-in-hand exuberance of summer camp. Tensions fade as high-powered adults focus on birds or volcanoes. Members of gourmet food societies get caught comparing creamy peanut butter with chunky.

Once, on a Mexican island near San Martin, I watched a male elephant seal haul his gleaming 7,000-pound body out of the sea and onto the beach. Round, firm females, weighing a ton apiece, rolled aside.

I admired their grace as I finished another chocolate-chip cookie. Maybe, I mused in the noonday sun, just maybe, Charles Darwin was wrong. Maybe he meant survival of the fattest .