Traveling is always an adventure. Sometimes, adventures exceed your expectations. Occasionally, they turn ugly.
Since 1967, I have travelled to 38 countries on six continents. Most trips were routine, with the most exciting part being the conversations with fellow passengers or the crew. But some trips were adventurous in the true sense of the word.
Such was the case when we visited San Pedro de Atacama in Chile, located at an elevation of 2,400 meters. The goal was to witness the geysers at sunrise in the High Andes at El Tatio, at an elevation of 4,300 meters. We had to spend the night in Atacama getting acclimatized to the elevation. We took tea with coca leaves, as advised.
The guide and the driver arrived to pick us up an hour and a half before sunrise. The drive was uphill all the way, punctuated with sharp bends and turns. But for the full moon and Venus, the night was pitch black.
We arrived just before sunrise and were advised to walk slowly and not bend down to pick up anything. An oxygen tank was there in case someone felt dizzy and passed out. Thankfully, that did not happen.
It was very cold as we stepped out of the jeep. We could hear the geysers but only saw them when the rays of the rising sun hit the boiling water. We walked over to one of the geysers to take a closer look, but a sign stopped us. It read: “Go no further.
A couple of months later, we were in Japan and were horrified to learn that a Japanese tourist had fallen into the boiling water of the geysers and died. That killed our interest in returning to El Tatio.
In Brazil, we visited the Iguazu Falls, considered the world’s largest. We flew into town the day before, and headed toward the Falls the next morning. To see them, we had to take a Zodiac boat and slip on plastic coverings. Going upstream on the Iguazu River was an adventure.
The current in the river was strong, and the boat had to negotiate past huge boulders. Then, to our surprise, the pilot took us underneath the falls. The falling water hit us hard, but for just a moment or two. Then we witnessed the falls from the inside.
It was the ultimate experience, more adventurous than our tour of the Niagara Falls, where the boat did not go underneath the Falls. When we returned home from Brazil, we read that a Zodiac boat carrying tourists to the Iguazu Falls had hit a boulder and sunk in the swirling water. That killed our interest in doing another Zodiac boat ride.
On our trip to Turkey, we flew from Istanbul to Cappadocia, famous for its cave dwellings. We decided to see the famed countryside in a balloon, something we had never done before. The tour guide picked us up early in the morning and drove us to the balloon station. Because of my vertigo, I had hoped to ride in a big basket.
Unfortunately, the only available basket could only hold four passengers. As the balloon filled up, my heart began to beat fast. Then it rose, silently, into the sky. This was so different from an airplane. My apprehension disappeared.
Soon, as we sailed above the famed countryside, we saw the rising sun cast a surreal spell on the objects on the ground. I had put a zoom lens on my camera and realized I needed a wide-angle lens. But there was so little space in the basket that I could not bend to reach my bag.
When we returned home from Brazil, we read that a Zodiac boat carrying tourists to the Iguazu Falls had hit a boulder and sunk in the swirling water. That killed our interest in doing another Zodiac boat ride
Finally, it was time to land. As we were losing altitude, I asked, “Where will we land?” The pilot said "Wherever the wind takes us." On the ground, a van was following us, so that it could pick us up. Now we were approaching the treetops. I held my breath as it struck the treetops and finally hit the ground, with a thud. That had been quite an adventure!
I was in London a week later, wondering where we would do our next balloon ride, when I read that a balloon had crashed and burned in Cappadocia. There were no survivors. That killed my interest in doing a second balloon ride.
In Hawaii, we were on a helicopter ride over Oahu, the largest island in the archipelago. This was our third ride on a chopper; the prior ones had flown us over the islands of Kauai and Maui. This time we flew over a tall mountain that towers over Waikiki Beach and then we turned around and flew over the route which the Japanese Mitsubishi Zero fighters had taken to bomb Pearl Harbor. History and geography came to life.
A year later came the news that a helicopter owned by the same company had crashed into the waters near Honolulu harbour. Everyone survived, but our interest in doing a fourth ride in a chopper vanished.
Of course, to get to all these amazing places, we had to fly. Since I started flying in 1967, I have flown more than four million miles. I can’t imagine life without flying. That is even though several times the airliner had to deal with the fury of storms. I just close my eyes and meditate. I have been given oxygen twice because my sinuses were severely congested and I almost passed out once because I was severely dehydrated. But I kept on flying.
Yet what I remember the most about flying is based on an incident that took place before the plane took off. It was on the taxiway, headed toward the runway at Washington’s Dulles airport. Suddenly, it stopped, and the purser yelled: “Evacuate!” I sat next to the exit window and froze. A man a few rows ahead of me, maybe a federal agent in plain clothes, stood up, glared at me, and said: “Open the window.”
I opened the window and stepped out on the wing, expecting the chute would open and I would slide down. When it didn’t, I walked to the other end of the wing, hoping it would be closer to the ground, letting me jump off to the taxiway. But it was way too high. My heart rate jumped since I didn’t know whether the plane would explode. Thankfully, the slide opened near the window which I had opened. I rushed back toward it and slid off to the ground and was the first one off the plane.
Eventually, all the passengers slid off the plane and waited for someone to tell them why the plane was evacuated.
In the lounge, where we were all gathered, I discovered that an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the US, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, was among the passengers along with the Acting Secretary of Commerce. It was the week of September 11, and the control tower had seen flames darting off one of the engines. They had evacuated the plane out of an abundance of caution.
I took a later flight home, wondering what would happen to the plane, but nothing did. And so, it has been for years and years. When it comes to traveling, a Taoist principle comes to mind: “The yin comes with the yang.”