The guy you’re sharing a drink with at the bar is smoking a cigarette complaining about how smoky it is. How passive smoke is not only ghastly, but that it can create very real long-term health problems for those who breathe it, including cancer. “They’re killing everyone in here with their bloody smoking,” he blasts. As he takes another drag on his cigarette he derides the chain smoker over in the corner, the group of ladies at the bar who light up together as one of them passes round a packet for the others to share. Then there is the cigar smoker, who creates twice the cloud without even inhaling. He says he should give up himself, but somehow his smoking isn’t as harmful to him or others… perhaps because he smokes lights, or that he ... read more

To die a backpacker death allows you to exit your body, to float up and see yourself from above, from the outside, to look down on what you have become from afar. This new perspective allows you to evaluate what you have become, what you have learned and where you wish to go. New perspectives are why I began my journey all those years ago. Location: Opunohu Bay, Moorea, French Polynesia. Time: Sunrise. Weather: Fine. Speed: Cruising. Mood: Elation. I’m at the bow of this huge ship some ten stories from the ocean beneath, as it glides into this outlandishly exotic harbor (see panorama above). I don’t feel it at the time, but as I write it now, it seems like the finale to some cheesy chick flick adventure. The scene dwarfs me, the ship and ... read more

All that fresh air must have had some weird homeopathic affect on our AC Unit because the minute we departed Yosemite National Park it all but lost its mojo. Even though we would be selling the car within a month, we only seriously pondered the option of living without AC for about five minutes before we were once again beholden to civilizations accesses and had it repaired; meaning we were able to retain the essence of Yosemite’s breeze whilst charging though the scorching heat of southern California. Jennifer took it to a mechanic in Merced who topped it up with Freon™, which for those of you who aren’t in the business, or nerdy enough to have researched it, is the long time brand name of something called chlorofluorocarbon (CFC). Meanwhile, whilst this flagrant act of wanton ... read more

I’d like to offer an opinion about Seattle. Only problem is I am at a loss to do so. A few months before embarking on this trip I had the opportunity to attend a conference there. I rejected this out of hand since it was February, which meant it was cold where I was, and doubtless be cold, and wet, in Seattle. Anyway, one of my student comrades did go, and beforehand he and another quasi-intellectual-beer-drinking-archaeologist type brainstormed what we thought Seattle was renowned for. We came up with the big needle thing, but then we thought, they have one of those in Calgary and Toronto and any number of cities. It must be famous for something other than that… - Grunge maybe? We drew a blank. “Good Coffee,” my wife suggested, although she’d only been ... read more

Sarah: “They say they have an intact culture, but they have volleyball, toothpaste, plumbing and I saw a guy with an Abercrombie and Fitch pullover.” Zoe: “Yeah, the guide has a Lacoste T-shirt!” Tony: “No culture is completely untouched.” Sarah: “…oh yeah, I know; it was alright though.” Indigenous people who fail to live up to the tourists’ expectations of authenticity run the risk of being labeled illegitimate and faux. The construct that equates indigenous authenticity with lack of Western goods lives on in contemporary public attitudes and was emphasized in this conversation between three tourists, as we drove back from a tour having just visited the local museum. Here we see Sarah insinuating dishonesty, by highlighting obvious cultural in-authenticities. She implies the Saraguro are fakes; their culture cannot be “intact” despite what... read more