It’s difficult to say for certain, but if you look closely at the illustration immediately to the left, you might conclude that it is a rendering of a man, in silhouette, bent over and having just vomited (and quite possibly standing in the results). That man is me. The fact that this is an apt illustration for the story to which it is attached is unlikely to encourage you to read the story. But so it is.
A while back, Outside GO magazine asked me if I had any travel philosophy that I might spin into an essay for their “Ready to Go” column. It turns out that I do have one, of sorts, and you can read about it in their Spring 2009 issue, or online here. To be honest I hadn’t grandiloquently referred to it as the One Great Thing(tm) philosophy before, and I often wondered whether it was driven more by laziness than wisdom. But I do practice it, and it works for me.
Lost in the editing was my disclaimer/hedge that while I have been on some rough trips, I haven’t been to any truly horrible places nor witnessed truly horrible things. I’m not, for instance, a war reporter. So take my travel wisdom, such as it is, as the musings of only a pseudo-professional journeyman.
Posted at 5:02 pm | Filed under Outside, Travel |
Comments
2 Responses to “On becoming violently ill in a foreign land, and other joys”
Leave a Reply
An interesting essay.
I think you’ll find a lot of people share your approach. And one doesn’t have to travel far afield to enjoy it.
I remember one time in a head at a campsite in Missouri, I ran into a guy who started telling me about his days in the service when he encountered Henry Kissenger, who, at the time, was some up and comer in Army intelligence. At least, that was how I understood it. He went on and on about how the guy struck him (this was some 30 years after the fact; Kissenger didn’t make any more of an impression on the guy than his accent, his relatively low rank and his duties implied) and how he had followed the good doctor’s career in the three decades that followed.
My conversation with that guy in that john occurred more than 25 years ago. It was part of a vacation with many pleasurable moments. But I remember than one in particular.
don’t confuse a great moment with a happy one, grasshoppah. the cameroon trip would have been great even without the black-sand beach. nice piece.