Explorer Mikael Strandberg

There´s many reaons I like Humph, one is that he is a cyclist, which I think is by far the most demanding way to explore.

My next guest writer, Alastair Humphreys, is by far one of the most active young explorers on earth.  He tweets, blogs, lectures, takes photos and am part of many bigger or smaller Expeditions. He is genuinely fantastic. On top of that he isn´t as many within adventure, daft. He wrote this piece especially for me and my blog and thoughts around the subject of exploration:

We were born too late to be explorers. To be real explorers. To be one of the hard men (for they were always men back then) fired by such curiosity, such desperate yearning to cross the next horizon, that they were willing to set off for years on end with slim chance of returning, with absolutely no contact with Home. To sail out into a sea risked falling off the edge of the world. To seek new lands meant encounters with dragons, if the only maps available were to be believed.
With the honourable exceptions of deep oceans and caves, the odd jungle or desert, and the vastness of space, there is little chance of encountering dragons on today’s expeditions. Almost everywhere has been mapped. So we are not really explorers, at least not in the traditional sense of marking new territory for Queen and Country.
Some modern explorers are exploring what it is physically possible to achieve. They are effectively elite athletes, highly skilled professionals pushing the limits of what is possible. I put a lot of climbers in this category, those who seek out ever more arduous, contorted routes up ever steeper, increasingly dangerous rock faces or peaks.
You can even get chocolate ice cream at the South Pole, and yet ever greater numbers of people are pitting themselves against the poles, chasing speed records, doing journeys faster and faster. The record breakers are exceptional people in their niches; stronger, fitter, faster, and more determined than the others.

I too call myself an Explorer or an Adventurer though I am not particularly comfortable with either word. But I am not pitting myself against the world, questing to tread where no man has trod before. Nor am I breaking records. I am no athlete. I have never won a race in my life, let alone notched a ‘World First’ on my bedpost. So what do I do, and what do I have to say that may be of interest if I am so vociferously average?

When I was at university I became very conscious that life was passing me by. Days and weeks and months were building towards years. Years that I could ill afford to allow to drift by. And so I decided to start using my days, wringing them dry, squeezing every drop from them. The medium I chose for that was travel and adventure. Others may turn to music, or to poetry, or to algebra. It does not matter. All that matters is that you find your passion and feast on it greedily.

Alastair in Siberia....

I humoured my parents and remained at university until I graduated. But then I was off! In the last few years I have cycled 72,000km through 60 countries, a journey that took in extremes such as a Siberian winter and a Turkmenistan summer. I have sailed oceans, run through the Sahara, walked across India and rowed to France with a paralysed soldier. I feel truly fortunate to have had so many adventures and to be busily planning more all the time – to Iceland, the South Pole, the Empty Quarter… I have done so much. But that is not a boast. For I really believe that absolutely anybody could do the things that I have done. And if everyone can do it then it is nothing much to shout about.
So why am I shouting about it?

I have done things that seem extraordinary to ME. I have accomplishedd things that seemed beyond ME. I have pushed MY physical and mental limits and I have continually surprised myself at what I am able to achieve. I am aware now, more than I ever was before I began my challenges, that I am capable of so much and that life can be so full.
I have nothing really to offer except my average-ness. I am a very ordinary person. And that means that if you are an ordinary person then you too could do all that I have done and will do, if only you choose to do so and then begin doing it.

Most people who become professional adventurers specialise. They develop a passion for one aspect of adventure, be that sailing, climbing, caving etc. But I am deliberately steering away from that model. I am not very good at any one thing, and I don’t care. What excites me is to try new things, to learn new skills, and to work hard to become competent at them. I do not have a particular favourite country or continent. I am not drawn to deserts more than jungles. I love crazy third world cities as much as empty mountain tops. I see myself as a curious person. I try to remind myself to gaze at the world with the puzzled fascination babies give every new experience. I am interested in any expedition that is physically, mentally or culturally challenging. I veer towards non-mechanised, low budget projects, either solo or with one companion. I relish periods of time when I see no other human or sign of life, yet the greatest, most lasting travel experiences invariably arise through the people you meet on your journeys. You learn a lot about yourself and your own life when you are by yourself; you learn a lot about the world and about life in general when you spend time with people in very different environments to your own home town.

Africa.....

If I was a millionaire I would spend far more time away on expeditions. But I would not spend all my time away, for I enjoy “normal life” too, and you need doses of that to help you appreciate how fortunate you are when you get away on an adventure. But I am not a millionaire. Or at least, not yet! So I devote a lot of my time to earning money and saving up for the next project. I write books, articles, and a regular blog. But most of my income is generated through giving talks, to school children and to businesses. I share my experiences so that people can travel vicariously through me. I try to convey the lessons I have learned – that the world is an essentially good place, that the only hard thing I have ever done is having the guts to begin doing what I loved doing, and that adventure is only a state of mind.

Read his impressive CV at http://www.alastairhumphreys.com/about-2/
Alastair Humphreys
www.alastairhumphreys.com

Charles Darwins book about his 5-year trip around the world on the Beagle changed the way we see life.....

I have pretty much finished one of the best Christmas meals and evenings I have had for years. Pamela is a great chef and has made roast chicken,  pumpkin pie, her own special empanadas, roasted potatoes…all finished off with lots of chocolate ice cream. We have watched a lot of movies during the day, relaxed and generally felt as good as two human beings can feel together. Finally, just a little bit of a break of all the worries involved in getting the Expedition on its feet. Just a bit. It does, the well-being of the Expedition, occupy a major part of my thoughts and dreams, day and night, and I am quite worried right now. Life has taken a drastic turn. In the long run, maybe for the better. Time will show. I will write at length once I can get outdoors and buy a new cable to the camera to download photos to the laptop…because…snow is pouring down where we  are located and we can´t get out of our room!!!

Anyway, the Christmas break is a perfect time to read. To contemplate and maybe, this is the occasion when one suddenly finds a book which will  inspire to leave the settled life for an adventure or Expedition of a life time! And, about a year ago I had a question from Geographical to pick the 5 best Travel books I´ve ever come across. Well,  just to inspire all of you, I have picked the 10 most inspiring books I have read so far in my life. And if they can´t inspire you, there´s not much I can do to make your life better…here they are:

1. Annapurna by Maurice Herzog. This is the way real climbs, real exploration should be done. Before you had set routes and ropes fixed to the mountain. This book presents the enthralling account, by the leader of the French expedition, of the first conquest of Annapurna – at that time, and at more than 8000 metres, the highest mountain ever climbed. It is a story of breathtaking courage and determination against appalling odds. In records of mountaineering, in tales of human endeavour, there is nothing so unforgettable as the account of the descent by the triumphant but frost-bitten men, after the monsoon had broken, through the flooded valleys of Nepal.

Many think this is the best adventure book ever written.....

2. The worst journey in the world by Aspley Cherry-Garrard. This book gave me and Johan Ivarsson great insights into the cold during our Siberian Expedition. One of the youngest members of Scott’s team, Apsley Cherry-Garrard was later part of the rescue party that eventually found the frozen bodies of Scott and three men who had accompanied him on the final push to the Pole. This is his account of an expedition that had gone disastrously wrong. No episode in the history of human endeavour reads more harrowingly than Scott’s last expedition to Antarctica. Scott reached the South Pole in January 1911 to find Roald Amundsen had beaten him to it; then perished with his companions on the way home. ‘Yet, “tragedy”‘, Apsley Cherry-Garrard was to write a decade later, ‘was not our business.’ Cherry-Garrard was just 24, the youngest but one of the team when he joined Scott. Left behind for the final leg, in accordance with Scott’s original plan for a four-man advance, it fell to Cherry-Garrard eight months later to be a member of the search party which discovered their frozen bodies. The experience permanently damaged his mental health. For the rest of his life he was haunted by the fear that, but for what he perceived as an error of judgement on his part, they might have survived. Yet this book, his story of that and earlier expeditions, is in no way self-indulgent or sensationalist. Despite his name, aristocratic birth and classics degree from Oxford, Cherry-Garrard was no arrogant nobleman. Rather, this not especially robust but intelligent man well understood that polar exploration requires a singular fortitude pushing beyond brute strength to what Ranulph Fiennes was later to term mind over matter. Cherry-Garrard’s descriptions of the conditions suffered are rendered all the more diabolical by prose as stark as the landscape traversed. As for hyperbole, the ‘Worst Journey’ of the title in fact refers to an earlier expedition investigating nesting sites of the Emperor penguin. A work of supreme dimension, this masterpiece remains as compelling today as when it was first published 80 years ago.

3. The Heart of the Hunter by Laurens Van der Post. A beautiful book about travels among the Bushmen. In this stirring sequel to “The Lost World” of the Kalahari Laurens van der Post records everything he has learned of the life and lore of Africa’s first inhabitants. He explores the very sources of the Bushmen’s spirit and imagination – their dreams and stories, the legends that guide them and inspire them in their daily battles with that harshest of environments, the Kalahari.

CuChullaine O´Reilly on his famous ride!

4. Arctic dreams by Barry Lopez. An amazingly inspiring account from the northern part of the globe. The European picture of the Arctic is usually of snow and ice: the inhospitability of the terrain and the frigid wastes of the tundra contribute to our incapacity to imagine ordinary life there. In this magisterial book Barry Lopez draws on this hazy understanding of the far north to provide a compelling account of the land and its hold upon the psyche.It is a book which could be compared to Chatwin for its combination of travelogue and poetic vision. Yet the beauty of the prose and the thought-provoking evocations of modern culture’s shifting relationship with the environment are in a league of their own. Here are sparkling descriptions of the lives of caribou, muskoxen, polar bears and narwhals, and extraordinarily moving passages which meditate on the nature of our relationship with the world, the inter-dependence of ideas, desire and science and the possibility of dignity and compassion in the contemporary world.It is a measure of the respect which Lopez has for his subject that his book exemplifies the supreme importance which he ascribes to the ethics of respect in the face of all existential paradox:”There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of a leaning into the light”.

5. Khyber Knights by CuChullaine O´Reilly. A very good friend of mine. It is an account of perilous adventure and forbidden romance in the depths of mystic Asia. A real modern day tale! It is also a book of insights to the human soul. It has everything an adventure book should have!

6. Scott and Amundsen by Roland Huntford. The best book about the race to the South Pole between Roald Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott. It is not much liked by many British, but as somebody who is brought up in snow and cold, and know a bit about polar exploration, I think it is very accurate. Roald Amundsen should have been give much more acclaim for his fantastic life and discoveries. It is a very dramatic book,but gives a very good background on both of them.

Courtesy Robin Davidson. Probably the best account of an adventure I have read written by a female explorer.

7. Tracks by Robyn Davidson. Even though most of my recommended books are about males, most likely because they are described and written in a way that appeals to me and my way to explore, I think that books about adventure and exploration written by women, generally are better as a whole. Women are more honest, lie and brag about themselves much less and are much more emotional. This book as excellent. In every way and should be read by everyone who is thinking about doing adventures and Expeditions. It is a bout her 1700 mile trek with camels across the Western desert of Australia.

8. The voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin. I had no idea that Charles Darwin was such a good writer. The book is a must in many ways, since quite a few of his ideas regarding the evolution of mankind began developing here, but it is also a great travel book full of adventures and insights into all these countries that the Beagle passed on its 5 years journey.

Annapurna - Maurice Herzog classical account of the first 8000 meter mountain to be climbed.

9. The incredible voyage by Tristan Jones. Amazing book by an amazing fella. His passage with his boat through South-America is just unbelievable. He is a very good writer and this will be a classic in the future. With a singleness of purpose as ferocious as any hazard he encountered, Tristan Jones would not give up – even after dodging snipers on the Red Sea, capsizing off the Cape of Good Hope, starving on the Amazon, struggling for 3,000 miles against the mightiest sea current in the world, and hauling his boat over the rugged Andes three miles above sea level to find at last the legendary Island of the Sun. And beyond lay the most awesome challenge of all – the tortuous trek through 6,000 miles of uncharted rivers to find his way back to the ocean.

10  Arabian Sands by Wilfried Thesiger. By now, I have read the book many times. It is part poetry, part the meaning of life, but most a great read about his amazing explorations in the Arabian desert, and most of all, in Rub Al-Khali. Thesiger himself sums it up himself, by saying in his foreword:

No man can live this life and emerge unchanged. He will carry, however faint, the imprint of the desert, the brand which marks the nomad; and he will have within him the yearning to return, weak or insistent according to his nature. For this cruel land can cast a spell which no temperate clime can hope to match.