The sun flirts with a Tanzanian horizon. (marcveraart / flickr) http://www.flickr.com/photos/marcveraart/ / CC BY 2.0
On the threshold of adventure
God, I do love this job so
-Jimmy Buffett
I have two friends bound for Tanzania this month, and as I sit here looking out at small snow piles in the yards of a suburban neighborhood, I think about how they’re caught up in the anticipation what awaits half a world away. One thing that ties us to the ancient Polynesians, Lewis and Clark, Charles Lindbergh and all the explorers of the past is that electrifying emotion of anticipation before a soul fulfilling trip.
Sometimes as I page through the abundance of travel magazines in the bookstore and examine the glossy photos, I wonder what’s left to discover in the world.
I saw one magazine tout the “NEW ADVENTURES FOR 2010,” and their list included a trip to Machu Picchu. I’ve also read about Panama so much that I think I’ll pass on seeing it because, well, I feel like I’ve been there already since a year ago Panama was hailed and overexposed as the next off-the-beaten path travel location. The “Where Next?” issues of just about every travel magazine will inevitably in 2010 include an abundance of places discovered centuries ago, and so I shake my head.
Perhaps what’s left to discover isn’t the farthest reaches of a continent because Google Earth has that pretty much covered. Perhaps in our modern age, it’s people we have to discover.
I was once in Key West having some drinks on Duval Street, a place long derided as being overrun by cruise ship travelers and losing its authenticity in favor of tacky tourists. And there I sat in a bar with a friend and a doctor, who had just walked off one of those behemoths, and we talked and drank and shared laughs. Around that same time, I was in the Dominican Republic covering a humanitarian mission, and I met a young Dominican woman who learned to speak English by watching Friends and despite poverty strove for good grades and a better life.
My point is – the places of the world may have been seen and written about over and over again, but it’s people that remain to be discovered.
And so I think about my friends heading for Tanzania. They’ve never been there. They’re going to Tanzania to help those who struggle to help themselves. And you know what? You can read every Lonely Planet guide cover to cover and stare at satellite photos on Google Earth, but that feeling deep down in your gut is the soul-affirming anticipation that no guidebook can give you – the unforgettable sensation of being where you’ve never been and meeting compelling people with their own stories to tell.
