My idea of an outdoor adventure is being approached by an off-leash poodle at the park near my house. Don’t get me wrong—I love the outdoors. I’m glad it’s there. I just don’t feel the need to commune much with its poison oaks and ivies and lyme disease-bearing ticks.
But when I was contacted about an adventure trip to Brazil I was morbidly fascinated. Here was a trip in exact opposition to everything I knew and stood for. I signed up!
My astounded friends began receiving anxiety-ridden emails like, “What’s a headlamp?” Some said this adventure trip sounded like fun; others assumed I was going through a midlife crisis. Several weeks later, I was on a southbound plane to Brazil. My port of entry would be a place called Florianopolis (great name), which I had to look up on a map.
“It’s like MTV’s Real World!” We five women joked, all strangers arranging ourselves and our luggage in a two-room suite in a modest pousada. But what unfolded over the next week wasn’t the real world at all. It was better. I would come to wish the real world were like this as these strangers cheered me on through every horrific endeavor. Wouldn’t it be great in my daily life to have people in my office shouting, “Come on, Stephanie, just one more paragraph—you can do it!”
I bade civilization a sad ciao. Over the next few days, I would do such things as repel down a sheer cliff face. I was very repelled by repelling. When I crept up to the cliff's edge, peeked down, and realized what I was supposed to do, I became suspicious that our guide didn’t have all his carabineers quite attached, if you know what I mean. Basically I was to experience every horror of outdoor recreation in a concentrated four day period. It got to the point where I would say, “Oh, it wouldn’t be Friday without a near death experience!”
Our other catch phrase was Ficca a vontajee—do as you like! Which was a joke because had I really been doing as I liked, we would all be sipping champagne at the Florianopolis Ritz Carlton (no, there’s not one but this is my fantasy, okay?) getting our nails filed, not obliterated, clawing at slippery rocks under waterfalls.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch (quite literally), we’d saddle up every morning and beat a hasty retreat from one life threatening feat to the next. Our resident botanist/tour guide was a biology professor who had worked on his dissertation in the area and our local support staff were really his old friends. His descriptions of our days sounded something like this: “First, we’ll jump off this cliff into a bubbling pool of molten lava. Then, we’ll battle fire-breathing dragons in the center of the earth. If any of you make it out alive, you’ll still have to contend with a hoard of psychotic trolls on the way back. Then we’ll eat.”
I was Afraid. AFRAID. I hadn’t even known I HAD a fear of jumping off a cliff clinging to a rope strung up across a river. It has never come up. The falls were on my left and above me the top of the canyon and its sweet, sweet safety. Anthony whispered patient encouragements in my ear, and beautiful, mermaid-like women were splayed on the rocks across the river clapping for me. It was one of those moments, me crouching on the edge of a cliff gripping the crude rope handles tightly. Would they hold? Would I die? Everyone had already gone, some twice.
I was so sick of being afraid, but I just stayed there scared out of my mind, and the waiting made it worse. I didn’t want to let everyone down, and I didn’t want to let myself down. I didn’t want to go home without doing this. Doing this was why I was here. My guide asked quietly, “Would it help if I jumped with you?” For some reason, it would. Like when people commit suicide and take their pets with them. So I took a deep breath and we jumped together, me clutching the rope and him free falling through the air.
It was marvelous.
Somehow the rope kicked in just before terminal velocity and I soared gently above the water. I let go of the rope and plunged into the visceral blue. Cheers filled my ears until water did.
And sometimes adventure travel is frustrating. I’m convinced that our guide waited to start the hike back down a certain hill until it got dark just to give the situation that extra edge. Like it needed it! Sometimes I wondered why adventure travel had to be so adventurous—wouldn’t it be just as nice to pass the cloven-foot cachaça bottle around a cozy dinner table? I took a huge gulp as it came back my way, flicked on my headlamp and trudged down, muttering all the way about how I was probably going to trip and break my neck. The flocks of moths attracted to my headlamp didn’t improve my mood. Because I was scared. Yet again. Or still.
I can seriously say that I am now a changed woman. Hiking high above Petra on another sheer cliff face, my boyfriend was shocked that I didn't freeze once, not even on the insanely dicey parts; I just kept following the Bedouin women. I was sure of myself, and sure that yielding at a fear crossing would only make things worse.
Why does adventure travel change us forever? A few days, a rope, and two carabineers. A raging river. What does this have to do with one’s soul? One’s essence? How does jumping off cliffs eleven times a day fortify one’s character? That is one question I simply can’t answer, like why the sky is blue. All I can tell you is that it does. Through adventure travel, I learned that there’s no place like me.
Photo courtesy of Tango Diva