LIFE CHANGING MOMENTS

by

Brian J. Leitten

There are a few moments in everyone’s life that can change a person in astounding ways. Some are moments of accomplishment, some of greatness and some that can totally clarify one’s life in an instant.

ACCOMPLISHMENT

My first moment of accomplishment came when I earned the Eagle Scout award in the Boy Scouts of America. I was 18 years old.

Copyright Tony Hoare

GREATNESS

When I was 22, it was a moment of greatness. I became financially independent from my parents.

CLARITY

Earlier this year, I experienced a life-changing moment of clarity.

In February, I found myself in the Patagonian wilderness of Chile, stuck on a mountaintop, four people crammed into a two-person tent, waiting out a torrential downpour that had been following my group for the last four days.

As mid-morning crept upon us, the clouds began to clear, revealing a majestic landscape of icy blue fjords and luscious green mountains. A rainbow graced the spine of a mountain range as some of the world’s top endurance athletes raced against time to reach the checkpoint where my group had camped for the night.

That was when it hit me. This is what I want to do with the rest of my life.

I wasn’t actually out in the wilderness racing. I was there documenting the athletes as they competed in the toughest competition known to man, the Wenger Patagonian Expedition Race. Last December I sent an email to the race, hoping to be chosen as a volunteer during the competition. I figured I would end up setting up tents in the wilderness or cooking food for the competitors as they passed through checkpoints.

Through a series of follow-up emails, I went from being a volunteer to a cameraman to a director and finally to the executive producer.  I’ve been in television production for close to a decade and this would be my first project as an executive producer.

I’ve had some challenging assignments in the past. Filming in Alaska while kayaking and backpacking, having music celebrities back out of appearances minutes before their tape time and the toughest by far, filming with a dance crew of 13 teenagers. Producing a documentary in the middle of the wilderness would prove to be the most difficult assignment of my life. Let’s play the numbers game:

4 Weeks – That’s how long I had to prepare for the filming, from 10,000 miles away.

10 Cameramen – I had never met any of them before. They had varying experience levels in filming and wilderness expertise.

7 Editors – Only 4, including myself, worked on the entire film. We had two who returned to the US, one who didn’t speak any English, two who spoke only broken English and one who became my translator.

600 kilometers – The distance of open wilderness the racers and the film crew had to traverse, using boats, trucks, helicopters, mountain bikes and our own two feet. 2 wild cameramen trekked with the first place team for 30 hours.

6 Nights – That’s how long I went with less than 2 hours of sleep while we were filming. 3 of those were with no sleep.

30 Days – We worked for 30 straight days editing the documentary together. Most of those days were 18 hours long.

Filming in the wilderness can get tricky — do you have enough battery power, memory and light? A lot of thought must go into the pre-production. No matter how thorough I try to be, I always leave something behind. This time I thought of everything, 4 cameras (10 batteries), 13 memory cards, a camera light and headlamp, a tripod and monopod a Costco size package of AA batteries, and that was just my equipment.

The crew started filming before I even got there. I had an edit to finish in New York and initial interviews had to happen while I was on a plane. In some cases it took two days to get to certain checkpoints, so I had to send cameramen into the wilderness before the race even began.

Copyright Scott Clark

The race started at Hotel Las Torres in Torres Del Paine and we had seven cameras ready to roll, more cameras then cameramen. As the racers jumped on their mountain bikes, we spent the first 60 kilometers of the race alternating between the back of two pickup trucks and leapfrogging the teams to film them pass us by. At one point 100-mile per hour winds attempted to stop the racers, the perfect moment for story. Also the perfect moment to ruin your camera. Putting a clear filter on my camera saved me when a small pebble struck the lense, cracking the filter. The race took to the water and so did half the crew, in small zodiac boats. The other half followed the river by truck, jumping out to film the two-dozen kayaks as they passed through canyons. I was dropped on an island and had the chance to film wild horses that lived there as the racers paddled past.

The first place team, ADIDAS TERREX PRUNESCO (England), was so fast they arrived at the next checkpoint before the film crew; I leapt out of the boat to film with them as they were transitioning to the first hiking portion of the race. I ran for about 10 minutes with them, and a 15-pound camera, as they raced into the dusk with the closest team 20 minutes behind. As I navigated my way back to the checkpoint, two more teams were coming out of the checkpoint and my stamina was put to the test again.

The next two days were a blur as my crew worked without sleep to edit together a newsreel that would be transmitted around the world. I send a camera crew back into the wilderness after just two hours of sleep.  And the rest of our crew had to take a seven-hour boat ride to get to the next major checkpoint. We can now say, that we have filmed in places that no human has ever been before.

We were moving on to the end of the trekking section and I spent the night on the beach waiting for teams to arrive in the darkness. None did.  As the rain started and the next day passed, only the lead team came into the checkpoint and was able to start the kayaking section. That night I saw a dozen headlamps on the mountainside and climbed as quickly as possible to film them coming down in the darkness. When I reached an intersection I knew the teams would pass, I waited…and waited. After an hour I guessed the teams had bedded down for the night, so I climbed back down to the checkpoint. The next day each team confirmed my guess. Their reason — it was too dangerous at night to climb down the mountain I had gone up and back down!

Teams went from kayaking beside stunning glaciers to trekking through an insanely dense forest. Two of the cameramen went out to film with the teams during the 191-kilometer section. The rest of the crew was on their way to the end of the trekking section, while I made my way to the mountaintop checkpoint I spoke about earlier. Luckily my trip was by helicopter. This was my first time filming from a helicopter and the first time I had ever flown in one. I had seen some amazing scenery up to this point but Patagonia from the air is breathtaking.

Only 7 of the 14 teams made it to that checkpoint and they described that trek as being the toughest trek in Adventure Racing history. One team member from EASTWIND (Japan) had been hiking for two days with broken ribs. Once they finished trekking, the remaining teams completed the course on mountain bike and the film crews were back to filming from the pickup trucks.

As teams completed the race in the volcanic park, Pali Aike, I felt like I was crossing the finish line with them. Completing the filming process, sleep deprived, with an unknown crew and in a country I had never stepped foot in before was a major accomplishment. But I still had to edit the raw footage into a documentary.

I lived in Punta Arenas for the next five weeks while we pieced the documentary together. I called on friends from New York City and Los Angeles to help with graphics, music and narration. There were two editors from Santiago who volunteered their time to edit the film and in the end I was astonished and incredibly proud of what we accomplished in such a short amount of time.

But it wasn’t all work and no play. One day while we were editing, we took a day-trip to Antarctica. We were there for a total of three hours and saw two operational bases, a Russian church, rusted tanks and a family of penguins. During the last week in Chile, I travelled to Parque Nacional Torres Del Paine with two volunteers from the race staff. It was amazing. We tackled the well-known W Trail, experiencing every possible weather scenario during out four-day trip. The first night we hiked through a monsoon. The next morning we awoke to sunny skies and the crumbling sounds from Glacier Grey. On our final day of the hike, we ascended to the towers hoping to watch the sunrise. Ten minutes after the start we were hiking in a blizzard. The skies opened for a perfect photo opportunity at sunrise but quickly closed again and continued snowing for the rest of our descent back to Hotel Las Torres. The entire trip was full of perfect picture moments. Turns out after all my preparation, I did leave something behind. Unfortunately I lost my camera on the bus back to Punta Arenas.

A day later I returned back to hustle and bustle of New York City, wondering what the next step in my life would be. I spent the next month getting reacclimated to the city where I had spent the last nine years of my life. I approached Outside Television in the US, they picked up the documentary and I started submitting to film festivals.

The Killarney Adventure Film Festival was my first submission. I went to Ireland with high hopes and left with my first festival win. Best Adventure Sport Film! From there we racked up two Best Environmental Film awards from the Colorado Film Festival and the Yosemite Film Festival, as well as a Best of the Fest award from the Vanka Regule Adventure Film Festival.

After that, I partnered with the Gold Rush Mother Lode Adventure Race in Northern California. I got lucky in this case — two of the cameramen from Patagonia came on board to help document the race. We filmed an amazing race with quite the finish. Keep your eye our for another great documentary, details to come…

2011 has been an incredible year, my “Year of Adventure”. I’ve gotten to do some amazing things and document some truly epic stories. I have even taken up Adventure Racing, with three races under my belt, including a second place finish at the last one. My racing partner was one of the producers from Patagonia. I already have my mind set on racing full tilt and filming in three new countries in the next six months and I’m working with two adventurers I met in Ireland to launch our own adventure race next year.

The Last Wild Race, the documentary about the Wenger Patagonian Expedition Race, is now available at https://prescreen.com/movie/The-Last-Wild-Race.

Brian is a multi award-winning producer and director that built his reputation working extensively with MTV and the music industry. In January, Brian started his own production company, Hyperion XIII Productions and has spent the past year focusing on adventure programming, filming in the Alaskan wilderness, Chilean Patagonia and Antarctica. He executive produced and directed The Last Wild Race, a documentary on the 2011 Wenger Patagonian Expedition Race, which world premiered at the Killarney Adventure Film Festival in April 2011 and walked away winner of the Adventure Sport category. He is currently producing for Fuse TV, VEVO.com and is creating a series on the Gold Rush Adventure Race in Northern California.

Border Madness

by

Lorraine Chittock

Underneath the floor of my Chevy van is a whole chicken, lamb meat, as well as fruit and vegetables. The vehicle was once used as a surveillance vehicle for the Arizona police department and a long metal box hidden underneath the floor once held four batteries used to power a periscope and other electronic spying gizmos. Normally, I use the space to store valuables such as money, a laptop and paperwork for myself, Dog and Bruiser. A bitter cold winter in the Altiplano is making me leave Bolivia for Chile sooner than I’d planned, and I’m using the compartment to stash enough food to feed me and the dogs for a week.

In LaPaz, Bolivia’s capital, I’d met a German couple traveling in a huge Mercedes RV. “Chilean customs have very strict rules for bringing in agricultural products, almost unheard of in the rest of Latin America. When we were at the border, I pretended we only had a couple of tomatoes,” the woman had said. “I wasn’t going to let the custom officials know how much we were really carrying…”

Earlier in the day, I’d removed all the food from the fridge, and prominently displayed a tangerine, leftover milk and half a lemon—just as the woman had advised. Dog, Bruiser and I navigate through the Bolivian border formalities with lightening speed before driving through a stretch of land uninhabited by people from any country. At over 13,000 feet, the mountain pass is stark, cold and windy.

We roll up to Chile’s immaculate border and are greeted by three sniffer dogs and their handlers. My stash of hidden food… A year before, I’d done a story about the largest police dog facility in Bogota, Colombia. The words of their veterinarian, Dr. Nancy Lopez, rings in my head. “The Labradors are perfect as food trainers, as they have mucho appetites. The only time these dogs eat is during their daily training sessions.”

If I open the sliding side door, the Labs will get a huge whiff of my illegal goods. Before I even have time to contemplate the consequences of my contraband being discovered, an official greets me.

“You’ll need to get your passport stamped over there,” the man says, pointing to a line of people inside. “After that, fill out these forms for your dogs.”

The man escorts me inside, making it difficult to slow a chain of events which could result in a heavy fine or worse. Meanwhile, Dog and Bruiser lean out the open window and bark furiously at the Labs. The furry creatures pant happily, oblivious to the onslaught of fury they’ve unleashed, and to the role they could play in my future. But wait. Could the sniffer hounds be so sidetracked by Dog and Bruiser that their scent glands are deterred from the pounds of hidden meat? “Food is the motivation for Labradors,” Dr. Nancy had said. It’s likely the minds of these mutts are already focused on my smuggled goods.

While my passport gets stamped and a uniformed official looks at the rabies vaccinations, a smile from a portrait of Chile’s first woman president, Michelle Bachelet, a sash draped over her cream colored tunic, soothes my fears.

“This rabies vaccination is good for three years?” the man asks suspiciously of the jabs received in California. “The inoculations in Chile are only good for one year. I’m not sure if we can accept these…”  I feign disappointment while my heart leaps at the possibility of being turned away from the border without further incident. “And where’s the certificate from a vet?” he asks, shuffling through the stack of documents. “And proof they don’t have worms? And we need a form from SAG.” Servicio Agricola y Ganadero is the Bolivian governmental agricultural office which deals with livestock and other animals. I have none of these documents. Most borders I’ve crossed since leaving America have barely acknowledged the existence of my two canine companions and I’d erroneously assumed this one would be no different. “I’m sorry, if you want your dogs to enter Chile you’ll have to return to Bolivia and get the correct documentation.”

After five days, we head towards Oruro, with the intent of completing the veterinary paperwork for Dog and Bruiser. Before hitting town we take a dusty track leading to low hills which I hope will provide a sheltered place to camp for the night. Dust gives way to a white surface. A salt lake! Not the famous Salar de Uyuni, the largest and highest salt lake in the world. This one is more like a large pond, but does have five flamingos, and the dogs and I walk around the perimeter until we find a perfect spot to camp.

“Time to move the van,” I say, following tire tracks across the lake while Bruiser runs alongside, mouth agape in joy. Suddenly the back tires, low on tread and needing to be replaced, begin spinning into the salty surface until hitting dark mud. The van comes to a halt. “I guess we’re camping right here tonight. It’s too late and I’m too tired to deal with it now.” I hope the back tires and mud dry out when the sun rises in the morning.

The next day, it’s impossible to tell where salt ends and frost from the frigid Altiplano night begins. Ice makes everything damp, and by the end of our morning walk my boots are caked with a few inches of spongy moss and salt. Dog is none too happy her paws are covered in the salty mess and tries to clean off a mixture which resembles cow dung without the smell on our bed.

The sun gets warmer and higher, but doesn’t shine on the back tire which is responsible for propelling the van forward. Bruiser follows me back and forth for the next three hours as I haul bucketloads of dirt and stones from higher ground to lay in the path of each tire, and then painstakingly edge the van forward. Ten yards from a firm patch of coarse grass at the edge of the lake, I hit another wet area. The tires sink deeper than before.

I hide in the van for an hour, cry a few tears, and hug Dog. The break gives my mind a chance to find an alternate solution. What if I lay out the van’s rubber floor mats in the path of each tire? After a half hour of shoveling underneath each tire and laying the rubber and a small piece of carpet underneath, I drive out of the muck and mire and onto hard soil. Bruiser runs after me, sharing in my victory. Free!

After a month camped on the outskirts of Oruro in an area, I have all the paperwork completed for the dogs, have bought two new tires, and finish recording the audio version of On a Mission from DOG. Time to head once again for Chile. I veto the idea of visiting the famed Salar de Uyuni, the largest and highest salt lake in the world at 7000 square miles, since the road to get there is horrific. But a trip to Bolivia wouldn’t be complete without at least visiting Salar de Coipasa, a substantially smaller salt lake at 1500 square miles, which is en route to a less frequented border than the previous one we attempted to cross.

Twenty miles past Oruro the raised and paved road turns first to gravel, then corrugation. Bruiser is alarmed by the body jarring motion and trembles. I speed up, then slow down, but the pounding doesn’t change. It quickly becomes apparent the trucks that pass this way leave the raised road during the dry season and create their own paths through powdery dust. I do the same. The van is immediately engulfed in a fine dust which enters every vent and crack in our aging conveyance, as well as coating the occupants fur and hair. The hours and miles pass slowly and the cold winter air receives extra reinforcements from the higher Andes mountains.

140 miles takes the better part of a day as I make sure there’s enough stops so the dogs are able to walk, pee and rest from the journey. At the small town of Sabaya we leave the main track and an hour later reach Villa Vitalina, where a long, horizontal drawing at the entrance to Salar de Coipasa serves as a guide for which mountains to aim for in order not to get lost on the deceptive expanse of white salt.

“Careful,” I think, remembering how easily I was stuck on the tiny lake. I negotiate the van hesitantly, but it’s quickly clear from the numerous tire tracks imbedded into the salt that this lake is frequented by far more traffic. The tires make crunching sounds and we pass several men mining the salt.

At 11,000 feet, the wind is sharp, and shafts of late afternoon light reflect off the salt like billions of crystals. I want to camp on the lake. I drive a mile, then pull away from the tracks and come to a stop.

“Here. We’ll stay here the night,” I announce, stepping down from the van and rushing quickly around to slide the door open for the dogs. I can’t wait to see how they’ll react to this new environment. In our five years of travel, we’ve experienced deserts, swamps, savanna and forest, but never a salt lake. Bruiser, wanting to be with me above all else, jumps out and licks the strange surface. Dog is more hesitant, and after only a few minutes on the hard and sometimes bubbly surface, decides she’s had enough and jumps back inside. I repeatedly try coercing her out for photos, but it’s clear she’s not interested. There are no smells to interest them, and I wonder if the salt burns their pads. Or do they sense that just beneath this hard surface is water and potential danger?

When the sun drops below the horizon, the air turns frigid. I close the doors against a world of sparkling lights which shine above, which are reflected on the hard surface below. Inside the van, the bed covers are sprinkled with pieces of salt. By morning, the dog’s opinion of Salar de Coipasa has not changed: this is their worst camping location ever. It seems pointless to stay if two-thirds of the pack are unhappy. We head back to Villa Vitalina, before continuing onto the Chilean border.

“Do you have meat, vegetables, fruit or dairy products?” the agricultural inspector asks. I’ve already thrown away or eaten the type of foods he’d be interested in, so I pull out some dry goods to give him something to do. I’d read that tea bags of every variety are forbidden, but when I offer mine, they’re ignored.

“Dog food?” he asks. The word no slips out of my mouth, as much a surprise to me as the question. Dry dog food had been difficult to find in Bolivia, and every time I found vendors who divided up huge bags to sell by the pound, I bought some. I now have over forty pounds of dog food stockpiled behind the driver’s seat.

I continue pulling out food items, when I notice the bright yellow plastic sack containing dog food is no longer concealed by my dirty laundry bag. Desperate it not be discovered, I abruptly yank open the passenger door and fling the seat up, thus hiding the yellow sacking.

Just then, four officials appear to check on my vehicle and like ants, they work their way through the van, poking at this, and prodding at that, one man even poking a screwdriver-like tool into the floor to ceiling carpet. Only once since leaving America has the vehicle been inspected.

“Give me sniffer dogs any day,” I mutter, remembering the first aborted crossing with some nostalgia.

I open my secret compartment with a flourish, and fling open the back doors, expecting the team to mutter about the fifteen gallons of gasoline I’m hoping to bring into Chile, where prices haven’t been under $5 a gallon for as long as anyone can remember. All they confiscate are wood chips I’ve been using to cushion two wine glasses.

Meanwhile, the veterinarian on duty is concerned about Dog and Bruiser.

“We have a problem,” he says. I had all the paperwork from a vet in Oruro, along with new rabies jabs, de-wormer and distemper. But somehow I’d forgotten about getting the correct paperwork from SAG. In addition, I don’t have an address in Chile. I bluff this by finding a hotel address in my guidebook, and agree to go there directly once I cross the border. The newest dilemma is that my letter from the vet in Oruro is only good for ten days. This is day twelve. And some of the shots were done after the letter was signed. The border vet has already examined Dog and Bruiser and found both to be in good health. We’ve been at the border two hours. I recognize that despite the ridiculous amount of time this is taking, this man is on our side, hoping to prevent me from having to return to Oruro on a road he knows to be hideous.

“The only way to get around this problem is for you to agree to keep your two dogs quarantined inside your vehicle for twenty-one days. Can you do that?”

“Of course,” I quickly agree.

“The dogs can’t mix with any local dogs, or with Chilean wildlife.”

The rule is ridiculous. Even America with all its laws, only quarantines pets if the animal displays symptoms of being ill, and then for only fourteen days. But quarantining Dog and Bruiser inside my van? For twenty-one days? I listen intently while the veterinarian makes sure I understand the gravity of the paper I’m about to sign. I nod seriously, grateful of acting classes in college.

It’s after six p.m. before all the paperwork is complete. “I’m sorry, so sorry! I couldn’t do anything to make the crossing go faster.” Dog licks my face while Bruiser whimpers in excitement. “I missed you too… Let’s get out of here,” I say, while waving good-bye to the officials and casually driving through the border. It’s freezing, the sun has set and the wind howling. I have grit in my ears, and my hair is matted and dirty. I long for a scalding hot shower, but the nearest one is over 100 miles away after a drop of over 10,000 feet in altitude.

When I see llama tracks in the dust I drive off the main road and park. Already ignoring the possibility we’ll run into local dogs, and less than five kilometers away from the border I fling open the door to the van and take Dog and Bruiser on a quick walk, all three of us ecstatic the ordeal has ended. A thick layer of dust coats the windshield and everything inside. I have no energy to clean out the mess. I’m chilled to the bone and need to eat, but there are no stores nearby. I light the stove, and the dogs and I share what little food we have: a can of mackerel, pasta, and for Dog and Bruiser, a very generous supply of dry dog food.

In 1991 Lorraine Chittock arrived in Egypt as a magazine photographer
and within months was researching the legendary Forty Days Road. A few
years later she crossed the Libyan Desert with 200 camels and eight
Sudanese men.
After twelve years living and traveling throughout Africa and the
Middle East, Lorraine decided to take her career and two Kenyan
ex-street dogs on the road. The pack of three touched down at San
Francisco Airport and began exploring North America in a Jeep
Wrangler. Two years, 30,000 miles, and twenty-two states later,
Lorraine tranferred her belongings to a $750 Chevy van once used as a
surveillance vehicle by the Arizona police and headed to Latin
America. The pack are now residing in a Chilean cabin overlooking the
Pacific Ocean.

Lorraine’s five travel books explore the world’s unique bond with
animals. DOGS BEYOND BORDERS – TALES AND TIPS FROM THE ROAD includes
interviews with fourteen human-dog packs, and how to bridge cultural
gaps while traveling with your dog. http://LorraineChittock.com

Also see The Long Riders Guild!

Please visit my sponsors Termo who are making it possible for me to write 2 blog reports per week. Just click the logo to find the best underwear on earth.

My Testament of Life, so far…

by

Mikael Strandberg

I just love life!

I wake up every morning thinking: “Yes!!! I have another privileged day ahead of me! Another day to try to change the world!  And I am still alive and kicking!”

The Explorers Club in London believes I am the best contemporary explorer in the world at the present. This is of course utterly wrong. Nevertheless I do feel honoured! But why does Barry Moss, the great chairman of the Club, believe this? Well, not only is he one of my very best friends, but he knows my life story. He knows that the real explorer is the one, who explores every moment and every day of his, or hers, life. Not only on an Expedition. An individual, who understands that joy and tragedy, are part of being a human and fully alive. You have to dare, even in every day life, to be able to live life to its fullest. If there’s one major lesson of life I have learned exploring, this is the one:

“Life is very short. This is the only opportunity you will get. Just take it!”

The Explorers Club in London believes I am the best contemporary explorer in the world at the present. This is of course utterly wrong. Nevertheless I do feel honoured! But why does Barry Moss, the great chairman of the Club, believe this? Well, not only is he one of my very best friends, but he knows my life story. He knows that the real explorer is the one, who explores every moment and every day of his, or hers, life. Not only on an Expedition. An individual, who understands that joy and tragedy, are part of being a human and fully alive. You have to dare, even in every day life, to be able to live life to its fullest. If there’s one major lesson of life I have learned exploring, this is the one:

“Life is very short. This is the only opportunity you will get. Just take it!”

I am really trying to do just that. Therefore, on paper, my life has been a series of near tragedies. I was born two months early, in a taxi, 48 years ago and nobody believed I would survive. I did, kicking and screaming more than most kids at the hospital. Seven years later I was rescued on a ferry from Sweden to England by a couple of sailors, who pulled me up from my place, where I was hanging on with only my hands gripping a rope on the outside of this gigantic ferry, ten metres up from the deadly sea. When they asked why I, as they saw it, tried to kill myself, whilst my mother was crying loud of anguish, I answered:

“I just had to see what it was like on the other side.”

When I was ten I discovered books. We had only three books at home, a picturesque house located in a tiny village surrounded by a lush Swedish countryside. My dad, a bricklayer, had stolen them from the local library, most likely so that we would look more intellectual and cultured than our working class neighbours. It was the Bible, White Fang by Jack London and the Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper. They opened the gates to the outside world and took me away, forever, from the safe harbour and a potential future rat race to be like everybody else. Since then I have tried to stay free from normality.

At the age of seventeen I hitch-hiked to India, inspired by Herman Hesse´s book “Siddharta”. It is kind of a story about Buddha himself and all the phases of existence he passes through to understand the meaning of life. Therefore, I wanted to become a Buddhist monk. But after ten days in a monastery I realized that being ad infinitum silent and scratching one’s bum in boredom, wasn’t my path to understanding.

Instead I cycled from Chile to Alaska. It made me understand that in order to live a full life, you have to venture outside the confinements of the safe harbour of the known. But, I also realized that I didn’t really understand anything and that I needed to continue cycling. Which I did. Another 5 years. From North-Cape in Norway to Cape of Agulhaes, South-Africa. And from New Zealand to Egypt through Asia. All together 90 000 km. During this time I had hundreds of punctures, too many diseases, some deadly one’s like malaria, I almost collided with a lion in Tanzania and a black bear in Alaska, but it was only an angered baboon in Congo which managed to injure me, I got robbed twice, attacked by Taliban’s in Baluchistan and I was one of the first in history to cross the Sahara by a bicycle and that piece of Jungle between Colombia and Panama called El Darién.

What was the most important lesson I learned cycling?

Two really. The most important, most human beings are extra ordinary and generous. Secondly, cycling is too fast to fully understand. So, I stopped cycling, went to Patagonia to follow my dream to live as a cowboy, bought 12 horses and during one year explored the unknown parts of this, one of the most spectacular places on earth.

Most of the time crossing the vast empty steppes of Patagonia I thought about human kind and become conscious at the end that I probably had to live with a people which was relatively untouched by modern civilisation. Because I understood a long time ago that we humans were a mere 150 000 years old as a species, and the last 5 000 years, we had lived in some kind of an organized society, but that we, in heart, still were simple beings. A species were the fire and freedom was essential parts of happiness.

With this in mind, I went to live with the il-purko clan of the Maasai and during a year I crossed the vast savannah to explore all sixteen groups which make up the Maasai tribe. It was a year dominated by drought, drinking nailanga (cows blood mixed with milk), lots of diarrhoea, living very close to the great wildlife of the African savannah and just getting very confused by a very restricted tribal life. Far from the freedom I was looking for. Suddenly I realised that I had to seek my roots, to understand. Four years later I went to Siberia.

Siberia changed my life completely. And it ruined it. It was the best time in my life. It had everything I have ever dreamt about. The enormous taiga and the extreme cold gave me and my partner Johan Ivarsson unlimited freedom. We hunted and fished to survive. We met the best people on earth, the native Siberians. It felt like I had finally understood. Also, I felt like it doesn’t matter one bit if I die now. I have seen all. Returning home was a disaster. It completely ruined my life for the next three years. A tragic divorce with the worst of consequences. I faced bitterness, hatred, shame and personal ruin. When I didn´t care anymore, I ended up in Yemen, with an idea to cross the two biggest desert on earth by camel. One of the reasons, as always, was to build bridges of understanding between cultures and peoples. Another one was personal; it would be my final pilgrimage. The goal was to find some rest for my battered soul. Instead I found one of the major reasons for better understanding the meaning of life. I met love in the shape of a young American woman, who a year later, well, 26 days ago, gave me a gift in the shape of a miracle. A beautiful and extremely calming baby daughter. Suddenly my soul calmed down dramatically. I found what I was looking for, even before leaving on a camel from Oman to Mauretania. The pilgrimage is now on hold. Because I know, that no matter how much control over life you think you have, it can end in a second and you find yourself back to wandering the streets of understanding.

So, what lessons of life can I share so far?

I think most important is, life is short. And we are here, only this time, why waste it not living to its full? Since I am privileged to try to motivate people to change their attitude to life and find some kind of contentness, because if people were content, they wouldn´t hire me as much as they do, I can say that the main question from the audience is:

How do we do it? How do we get a more exiting life?

There’s no real answer. Everyone has to reach their own stage at the crossroad of life, when they have to take a decision. What I know is that it can’t be a half hearted choice. Don’t worry what people think. Everyone will eventually end up in that cross road. Such are we thinking humans. We question. We want peace of mind. There’s no age to take the step. Everyone has its own time to take a decision. When I am starting to get to comfortable, I immediately think:

“Mikael, remember, and never forget, that life is to short. Get out there and live! Nobody is going to thank me for not doing it!”

No matter all the problems, near tragedies, real catastrophes and angst I have gone through in life, I don´t regret a second for choosing this life style. Most of it, however, has been a fantastic life, but one needs sorrow and tragedy to enjoy all aspects of life. So don’t give up if tragedy strikes! Just see it as an experience which makes you stronger, healthier, more humble and wiser. Just live!

One other reason is that this choice of life gives me a lot of self confidence when it comes to the future. No matter how bad things become, I only need a tent, an axe, a mattress, a few pots, and a fishing rod to survive and enjoy life. And I would than walk in to the forest somewhere on this earth, maybe the Siberian taiga, do a small, but warming fire after a few days of walking, not too big a fire to scare away the potential game, put on a pot of coffee, set a trap, feel the fresh air, shiver in the beginning winter cold, sense the total freedom and take out one of those cohibas I have saved for the occasion. Than I would smoke it, slowly, and look back at a very interesting life. And think:

“Yes, I have lived to its fullest capacity!”

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Gee, what a busy week! Early Tuesday morning last week I flew to Stockholm and the Travellers Club and their monthly black tie meeting. The speaker of the day was Elisabeth Tarras-Wahlberg, who spent a year working for the Emir of Qatar -Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani- to teach him and the Qatari royals how to be European Royals. She used to be the right hand of the Swedish King. Anyway, I always enjoy these meetings and I was primarily there to try to  hook the club up to a guided tour to Patagonia and the Eastern Island next year. I flew back to Malmö after the meeting and came back at 1 in the morning. I got up two hours later with the rest of the family to catch an early flight out of Copenhagen for Dublin and the 1st Killarney Adventure Film Festival. Once in Dublin, we took a rental and drove 5 hours across the island to possibly the new adventure hub of the world – Killarney and its wild and beautiful surroundings.

The organizers of the Festival, the Explore Foundation run by Tim Lavery and Ripley Davenport, set us up at the 5 star Killarney Park Inn Hotel and Pamela and myself had a feeling this would become a festival that we never would forget! I have been to quite a few festivals, annual dinners all over the world and such fancy things -which I like- and I just wondered how this one would differ. It was a festival like no other I have been too!

One thing I really like with the Irish is how genuinely helpful, down to earth and extremely relaxed they are. (So relaxed in many ways that the Jamaicans would be jealous!) And Tim especially, who was running the first film festival. Ripley, his partner, arrived to Ireland at the same time as us, with all of  his family of 4, to set up a new life on the island. They have left Denmark until the end of eternity. They have lived there the last 10 years, felt it was time to move to something more lively and challenging, so Ripley have set up a foundation together with the local wizard and hard man, Tim Lavery, for something very much needed in the exploration scene. Something genuine. Like Tim Lavery himself.

“I had an offer from a potential sponsor” , Tim told me, “if I brought a really big name over from Britain, one sponsor would underwrite the whole Festival, but after talking to this fella they wanted, a polar explorer from Britain, I realized that it was best for everyone involved he didn´t show up. He wanted big money to come and didn´t care who was there, what it was about or anything. Therefore, we decided not to invite climbers or south pole and north pole skiers, since they in most ways, have nothing to do with exploration, but is mainly adventures to fulfill personal dreams, but not for the good of the rest of the world.”

Tim told me this the next morning before I had a lecture at a local school for 13-14 years olds. I enjoyed it thoroughly and nothing makes me happier than when these people of the future have a lot of questions at the end and seem to enjoy every second of the talk, which is intended to inspire and is part of the Explore Foundation idea.

After the lecture we went off to meet the mayor of Killarney Cllr. Donal Grady. Therefore, the group who went to the Mayor was made up of two young, ambitious and hungry names in the adventure world, photographer and camel herder Jeremy Curl and the funny Belgian adventurer Louis Phillipe Loncke, plus the young, very gifted and very cool film maker Brian Leitten, my sponsor and good friend Steve Dutton from Termo, who signed up with Tim as a supplier and Ripley Davenport as an athlete. And me, who will never ski to any of the poles or climb Everest and call it an Expedition. I would call all three of them a holiday adventure just to possibly fulfill a personal ambition. Tim in his very courteous way lead us all to the mayors office. It turns out the the local government wasn´t only backing the Film Festival in every way, but they were as down to earth and nice to deal with as the rest of the adventurous one´s in the office!

My wife Pamela, the daughter Eva and me went over to visit Ripley Davenport and his family at their new home after lunch. I have been communicating with the Davenports since Ripleys great Mongolian Journey and his wife Laura wrote about the life as a wife of an explorer and I have admired them a lot. Keeping a family together isn´t easy for an explorer, but they have made it with their two great kids. Together, during possibly some of the worst times in the history of Ireland, due to their economical problems, the Davenports decide to move here and start a new life. That takes a lot of guts and of course they will succeed. It also turns out that they´re all even better humans than I had expected. What a fantastic family! Ripley feels like a half brother to me.

And what happened at the Film Festival?

Well, it was so relaxed I didn´t really know what was happening until the final evening, Saturday, when there were more explorers and adventurers than locals at the extremely relaxed award ceremony. Tim, this great and extremely kind and generous Irish fella, basically stood in the doorway and exit of the cinema and announced without too much detail and explanations that Ed Staffords film from his amazing Amazon walk had won in competition with about 200 other films. I had left my three films, but have no idea what happened, except since they were in a foreign tongue with no translations, it couldn´t be understood by the jury. Which was made up of Tim and Ripley.

Whilst the rest of this great and very enjoyable and funny lot of people went off to a bar with Irish music, we left for Dublin airport at 2.30 morning. I had saved 20 dollars by booking an early flight.

I am very happy to have been part of the 1st Killarney Adventure Festival!

Please visit my sponsors Termo who are making it possible for me to write 2 blog reports per week. Just click the logo to find the best underwear on earth.

I receive a lot of emails right now about my photos from Yemen.

Justin wrote:

Marianne Ahrne wrote:

I had no idea that you were a world-class photographer as well. Your photos are world class and they really makes me wanna go to Yemen. How long are you staying for?

Lots of praise and, of course, that makes life easier. However, do see the Yemeni photos here!

And I get a fair amount of questions if I have any more slide shows from my travels to show. And I do…..but it was in Yemen were I finally got back to my old passionate photography, which have been on holiday for three years. However, why not have a look at these series of slide shows: (Have in mind though they´re quite crappy in comparison.)

• Oman
• The Galapagos Islands, Peru and Ecuador
• Patagonia
• Rub Al-Khali
• Papua New Guinea

And why not finish off with a little slide show from The Kolyma Expedition in Siberia?

Go here!

PS. Photo from the Maasai Expedition from the year 2000. the year I actually had hair. And a big stomach. DS

For me, proper exploration today has to do with connecting cultures, opening up horizons in other peoples mind, with the help of a camera, written words with the all mighty pen and by simple and genuine travel, e.g. not using a motorised vehicle. If an explorer turns up in a motorised vehicle, he or she has closed a door before it is even on the way to open up another horizon. By that way you build a new wall, not a bridge over the existing one. A true explorer shows other human beings first of all, this is the way, for example, that the great people along the Kolyma River in Siberia live. Exploration is about building bridges between people, not that ridiculous male theme, I am strongest and I can do this and that. Very tiring indeed.

Another important issue of today’s exploration, is to try through science to open up other peoples eyes about the realities we live in. And help to put together this eternal puzzle, concerning the meaning of life, our globe and why are we here.

Hmmm, lost a bit of my train of thought there….what I want to write, is to tell you readers, that one of the most fulfilling aspects of having chosen this life, is all the great people you come across, not only whilst travelling, but people doing what you are doing, exploring!

Two of my best friends, even though I have so far never met them in person, is CuChullaine and Basha O´Reilly. (See photo)These are some of the most intelligent, warm hearted and generous people I have ever come across. Everything they do is to make this a better world to live in. Two grand personalities and human beings who run one of the most prestigious Societies in the world, The Long Riders Guild. I have communicated with them a lot the last two years and they have in many ways done my life a lot of good. Some of the most inspiring people I have ever come across and CuChullaine has also written one of the best books I have ever read. They´re ready for one of the most compelling challenges in history really, a four year global ride! See http://www.theworldride.org/

They are exactly what a world full of copies need, two original thinkers and genuine human beings! I am honoured in many ways to be part in their team of advisers.

Basha as asked me to quote her, because she has a very important job to do and need help:

“Because you have travelled from the Pampas of Patagonia to the frozen tundra of Siberia, we are urging all of your friends throughout the world to check the master breeds list on the World Ride website. If their horse’s breed is not represented, I would ask them to print off the DNA form, complete it and send it to The Long Riders’ Guild with some mane or tail hairs. In this way, everybody who contributes will become part of the largest collection of equine DNA in history. Horse owners are rushing to represent their favourite breed, including White River horses from Mongolia, Manga Largas from Brazil and Marawaris from India. Yet there are still hundreds left unaccounted for, and we particularly anxious to obtain DNA from the fabled horses of Yakutia.”

Mikael, here’s the link to the Breeds page: www.theworldride.org/breeds/breeds.htm

“Your plan sounds epic but I can see huge problems being allowed to travel through saudi and yemen is still incredibly unstable and potentially dangerous – even if you are travelling as and with the bedu.”
Now, this is where you mentally start to prepare for all the obstacles waiting, because it is alway the same story, every unique Expedition is full of obstacles mainly in the shape of bureaucracy, and of course, some physical hardships. But I know, from 25 years experience, especially in the situation I am facing and going through today, I have only one chance to turn things around, especially for myself, I just need to make an Expedition on the same scale as the Kolyma Expedition. Even though the Arabian Peninsula offers a very challenging and very difficult environment, it will not be on the same scale as the Kolyma. So, what then does a real explorer do? First of all, he asks himself, what is it that I want to do, more important than anything else?
Well, what I want to do, the foundation of the Expedition, the main reason, is to build a bridge between the Moslem East and the Western World. It is probably the most important mission I have ever had. I want the Arabs to tell their own story. Just as the Russians, Even, Evenk and Chukchi during the Kolyma Expedition. I want to put a face on the Arabs for the west, so that we can kill all this animosity which occurs at the moment. I want to make a film, a book, lectures and an Expedition to show the rest, very ignorant at times, of the world, this great part with some of the most fantastic people on the globe – Arabs and Arabia.
Secondly, you bring out the maps. Today on the Internet. Now, when you look up Arabia on the net and on the same time, check a map of the worlds deserts, we do get a different picture. And a different expedition. Woow! Now, when I as a professional explorer look at this new Expedition and evaluate it, the Kolyma Expedition looks like a warm up.
By the way, looking at the same map, I realise that I have actually passed through some of them on the ole push bike. The Thar Desert, Iranian Desert, The Sahara, The Atacama Desert, The Mojave and Sonoran Desert and also, on horse back, the Patagonian Desert. The photo is from the Sahara desert, which I crossed on a push bike in the 1989-90, the Tamanrasset Route. I did the most difficult part, the stretch between Tamanrasset in Algeria to Agadez in Niger together with two excellent chaps, Charlie, on te picture, and Mick James. I´ve lost touch with Charlie a long time ago, but I communicate with Mick on and off, who lives in Scotland. Now, what o you think about all that?

The lovely Larson couple who joined me to Ecuador, Peru and the Galapagos wrote:

“Hi Mikael! We just want to say thank you for your extraordinary way of guiding us during this spectacular journey! We will never forget your humble way to confront nature, people and life in itself. We have never met a captivating human being like you. You have experienced so much in your life and you told us just fragments of it. We will go to Patagonia next year, only if you will be the guide!

Marianne, on the Patagonian journey said this:

“This was the best journey I have done in my life. All thanks to your guiding. It was exiting all the time and very funny. I haven´t laughed like this in twenty years! “

The Lawrences wrote:

“You are not only an excellent guide, but a genuinely sincere and honest human being. We are sure that you will have a very rich and engaging life, no matter what path you follow. We admire your courage and enthusiasm.”

It is once again time for me to return back to Sweden. This time after six fantastic weeks as a guide in South-America. At the same time, last year, also after guiding a group through Patagonia, I felt the biggest worry of my life. I had no idea at all what was waiting for me back home. And the time that followed, turned out to be some of the worst moments of my life. This time however, even though I still don´t have an idea what life has in store for me, I look forward to whatever, a lot! I have healed well during these six weeks and a genuine return to life again, it is. Well, as healed a complicated personality like me can feel…..

I have once again had the privilege to return to Patagonia, so during the last three weeks, I have heard the thunder from the great Iguazu Falls, I´ve seen the gigantic southern right whale starring at me from a yards distance, been to the end of the world, had some great seafood in Ushuaia, ridden over the dry Patagonian Steppe with a great group of clients, but most of all, I have had the uttermost privilege to visit Rapa Nui, or Easter Island. This very mystic island located, really, in the middle of nowhere, so far from any other land, around 4000 km from the Chilean Mainland and as far away from Tahiti. Before arriving to the island, I´ve heard quite a few positive comments about the Island, but also, far more, negative comments about Rapa Nui. Man has really changed the face of the Island, there´s hardly any trees left on this piece of volcanic rock that once, before the arrival of man, was entirely covered by a native palmforest. Personally, after having been a professional explorer for the last 25 years, I thought I had seen pretty much everything. I was wrong. I wasn´t prepared at all for Rapa Nui. It is, no doubt, a highlight of my life. There´s definitely something very special with this odd island, surrounded by this vast ocean called the Pacific. It is a tiny spot in a vast ocean of blue. It is indeed the statues, or the Moais, as they´re called who has made me full of awe. They´re put there by the local Polynesians, facing the land and its people, with its backs towards the Ocean, so free of worry that other people would arrive, but they´re still doing what they were set there to do. To inspire people, to give people the strength of their forefathers. It is called mana in the local Polynesian tongue. And, even though, we, me and my group of 16 people, have encountered and experienced some of the most spectacular scenes made by nature on this trip, the Iguazu Falls, the glaciers and icebergs of southern Patagonia, still, we all feel knocked over by the sight of the moai. Maybe because they´re man made. However, personally, the most intriguing discovery is that these Polynesians who arrived here, forget the Heyerdahl theory, about 1200 years ago from, well, maybe as far away as New Zealand on the other side of the Pacific, they did start to navigate this gigantic part of the earth, around 40 000 years ago. Now, this is far before the arrival of man to the Americas…..It has given me ideas….

One of the things on my wishlist before leaving Sweden, was that these 6 weeks in South-America would pave the way for a new Expedition, since after doing the Kolyma expedition, well, I felt, what more can I do? It felt like an end, an enormous emptiness. Well, things are once again beginning to develop….

Another thing which I have had in my thoughts, is that I´ve spent a lot of time thinking about emigration. Patagonia in itself is made up of pioneers and emigrants, people who have left their countries of birth to begin a new life. It sounds like a great prospect. Something worth trying. I am getting fed up with the foreseeable.

Finally, being and working as a guide is pure joy. It seems that I am very lucky with just having great clients all the time. They teach me so much about life and things, and for me, to share my experience of life and my travels and perspective of life, well, it is an honor.