NEIGHBORS / SHORT TAKES : Travel Fever : Debra Ostergren of Ojai started a business offering educational trips abroad after seeing South American rain forest destruction.

Ojai’s Debra Ostergren was working for Xerox Corp. in Santiago, Chile, in the mid-1980s when the idea for an educational travel company took root. It was one event in particular that got her mind working.

“I was flying on a business trip from Chile to Venezuela,” she said. “We were flying over the Amazon at night. I looked down below the plane and saw an incredible river of fire. I realized that I was witnessing the destruction of the rain forest.” It was then that she decided to see the rain forest up close. She was soon adventuring into the Amazon and up to the Andes.

Back at Xerox, she became something of a rain forest travel agent for visiting executives looking for ways to spend their leisure time. “They would want to do something out of the ordinary,” Ostergren said. “Everybody in the office would say, ‘Go talk to the gringa . She knows more about this country than we do.’ ”

Ostergren took those experiences home with her and began The Nature Institute--a business through which she takes the public on educational trips abroad. In 1992 she set up two-week rain forest trips through Costa Rica. In 1993 she expects to add visits to the barrier reef off Belize to study marine biology.

“For most (participants), it’s their vacation time. If you’re looking for leisure or a superficial sightseeing tour, this is not appropriate for you,” she said. “It is relaxing, but it’s not lying on the beach and drinking pina coladas relaxing. . . . You need to be in a frame of mind where you want to explore.” The average trip, Ostergren said, costs about $150 per day.

If you want to find out more, call The Nature Institute at 646-2400.

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Let’s take a break from travel stuff for a moment to wish a slightly belated happy birthday to Ventura’s Lillian Walley, who has turned 94.

Walley, a former resident of the Ventura TowneHouse retirement home, celebrated her birthday at the facility last Sunday and at the same time held her first art exhibit.

It was an appropriate site for her premiere show because Walley didn’t learn to paint until about 10 years ago while she was living at the TowneHouse.

“She’s not a great artist, but it’s quite something to start in her 80s and do what she’s done,” said Walley’s daughter, Margaret Dunn. “She mostly does landscape type of things. She’s done some flowers and vases. She’s not a Grandma Moses--it’s just kind of a fun thing.”

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And now, back to our travels.

Ventura College photography instructor William Hendricks and his wife, Laura, plan to leave today for New Orleans. From there they will head for the Bahamas.

Sound pretty exciting? Oh, there’s more.

On Jan. 9 the couple will leave the Bahamas to travel to Puerto Rico, which is to be followed by stops in Trinidad, Aruba, Brazil, Kenya, China, Japan and 11 other countries. The trip is part of the 124-day “Semester at Sea” college program run by the University of Pittsburgh.

Hendricks, who will teach an intermediate photography course during the semester, will join other teachers and students from around the country aboard the 564-foot S.S. Universe. Hendricks said the focus of his class will be “the future of the world.” Sounds simple enough.

“As we’re walking through Kenya or South America, the students will look at the present,” Hendricks said. “They will try to look ahead at what the future is going to be, and try to create an image from that.”

Hendricks said his classes aboard ship will be similar to those he teaches at Ventura College but somewhat more flexible. “If we’re in class and there’s a bunch of whales breaching beside the ship,” he said, “we’re not going to be in class (for long).”