There’s plenty of action and adventure in this month’s Perceptive Travel webzine with articles from three distinct corners of the world by three regular PT writers.

First up is Tony Robinson-Smith’s account of the many obstacles to be found while hiking the Long Range Traverse in Newfoundland.

On the other side of the world, Tim Brookes discovers that 104 Percent Humidity in Bangladesh means everything is wet irregardless of whether you are inside or out.

And in Central America, Luke Armstrong discovers the only way of  Surviving Loco in Guatemala is to climb up the rafters in his hostel.

The monthly  eclectic collection of world music reviews and travel book reviews provides ideas on what to add to your Christmas wish list.

And this month’s giveaway something that pretty much every traveler could use: a pair of pants!

But not just any pair of pants: it’s the Granite Creek pants from convertible pants with zip-off legs. If a woman wins it’s the regular lightweight travel pants version.

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By Graham Reid

It’s not hard to find stretches of wilderness in Australia, but venturing past where the road ends can also lead to a watering hole with adult beverages, a two-day drive from the closest traffic light.

We are about 20 miles south of coastal Cooktown in the far north of Australia when we pull off the main highway onto a side road. I glance at my map and notice a place name further down this less traveled route: The Jump Up, just past Wajul Wajul.

I have to ask.

Dean laughs.

“You’ll know why when we get there. Anywhere out here where to road goes up to another level really quickly is a jump up. This one has about a one-to-three gradient.”

I’m doing the picture in my head of what that might look like—scary is my first thought—when the sealed road ends and our massive 4WD Oka hits the dusty ruts and we rattle sideway.

“Oh yeah, and of course it isn’t sealed,” says Dean with a dry laugh.

Thank God we’re stopping at a pub first. And not just any pub.

Remote parts of Australia have become my passion in recent years. Driving the long way between Alice Springs and Uluru—off the sealed roads and into lost canyons—and flying low over hundreds of miles of red desert where animal trails between waterholes create odd abstract patterns have been particularly memorable experiences. And usually quite solitary ones.

Despite the seeming emptiness, the desert is rich with life and seasonal changes turn dry creeks into raging deep torrents of roiling water.

And the Far North of Queensland (the pointy bit up to Cape York known as York Peninsula) where we are traveling now in the sturdy Oka—a region almost three quarters the area of Britain with cattle stations the size of Belgium—is yet another eye-opener.

Standing at the remote tip where a sign in the rocks proclaims we are the most northern point of the Australian continent I ask Dean Nulty, guide and driver to our group of five, where the nearest traffic lights might be.

About 650 miles, unless you turn right about halfway down the Peninsula and head to the bauxite town of Weipa on the west coast.

Australia Without the Australians

This is a vast country and you can drive a long way without seeing another car or people once you leave the small settlements. You do however see a lot of termite towers. We haul over to photograph one that stands 30 feet high. Every now and again we see a kangaroo, emu, wallaby, dingo, or strange bird and, near rivers and inlets, enormous crocodiles. We’re advised not to walk along riverbanks or too close to the edge of deep creeks. We don’t.

Out here the landscape constantly changes and there are 22 different kinds of tropical savannah, dense rainforest near the coast further south, areas of vast flat dry desert. Near the Archer River Roadhouse there’s a crude hand-painted sign by the muddy creek nailed up a tree which reads “We were here in a boat 14th March 2003″. The river had risen 48 feet, and that’s why they call it “the Wet Season”.

In our five day drive from the tip back to the city of Cairns on the coast we have been to a deserted, croc-infested beach which was once going to be a city to rival Singapore. We’ve photographed the skeletons of planes which crashed here during World War Two and walked where 19th century explorers trekked in search of water, a route, and fame (many achieving only a lonely and thirsty death).

We have chatted with Aboriginal people in small communities dotted about, seeing their rock art dating back thousands of years and looked at petroglyphs which are even more ancient.

And of course we have stopped at pubs.

Continue to Page 2 – Far North Queensland

By Lisa TE Sonne

At hang gliding school in Chattanooga, the biggest barrier to flying through the air on man-made wings can be the resistance from the voices inside your head.

© Chattanooga Area Convention and Visitors Bureau

“You feel just like a bird!”

“Oh man, it’s the best high there is!”

“Awesome!”

Those are the “exclamation-point” voices I hear once I get to the biggest hang gliding school in the country, but they are the voices of strangers.

They compete with some of the comma, question mark, double dash and period voices I hear in my head:

“You have nothing to prove—play it safe, and just photograph the others…”

“No, overcome your fears you bawk-bawk chicken—push your limits.”

“Are you nuts? There is nothing between you and the ground. Aren’t there hundreds of things that could go wrong and kill you? Remember that white-knuckled, knot-pinching fear-fest you used to feel on roller coasters?”

The voice of a friend also replays in my soundtrack. “Oh, for heaven sakes,” he said on the verge of rolling eyeballs, “You have already crawled through caves with vampire bats, gone weightless with astronauts, and swum with great white sharks. Just do it. What are you afraid of?”

Good question. I am re-pondering an answer when a woman nudges a clipboard at me and her voice chimes in: “The people who are most afraid often have the best time, and you can always change your mind before you strap in. If you don’t fill out these forms, though, you won’t have a choice.”

My Choice to Glide Through the Air

She had said the magic word: choice. Isn’t that a key force of push and pull in travel—making choices and learning from them? I don’t want to miss an opportunity. Hang-gliding is something I’ve never done before. “And you’ve never hammered a nail into your foot either,” countered a peevish internal voice thinking of all the good galleries and bakeries I could have been exploring in Chattanooga, Tennessee just ten miles away.

Instead curiosity compelled me to choose to be at Lookout Mountain Flight Park. The online brochure says it’s “the largest and most popular full time hang gliding school and resort in the United States.” So far my wonder was overcoming my worry.

Filling out the forms, we are told, “This is not a ride. You are joining USHPA (United States Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association) as a student and this is a lesson.” That provides a gravitas of purpose beyond a gratuitous adrenaline rush, and a sense there will be a modicum of control in this human experiment of how to fall thousands of feet and land safely.

Okay, so it isn’t a scientific expedition to map a cave or to find extremophile life—motivations that have carried me through niggling fear before. It isn’t a mission to chronicle a new way to explore the oceans, either. But, I rationalize, it is “a lesson.” Hadn’t DaVinci long dreamed of strapping on wings and being a bird? Do I really want to live in a time when such flying is possible and not know what it is like?

I start to read the liability waiver on the clipboard. I stop when the word “death” appears. Someone jokes that at least this is a good way to die. A bit premature, I hope. I am feeling nauseous and prayerful when I remember that this is supposed to be fun. I can still opt out. I still have my precious “choice,” so I sign.

Preparing to Die—or Grin

The people around me seem to have the anticipatory excitement of little kids before unwrapping a big birthday present. I focus on their enthusiasm as we are fitted for crash helmets and a harness, and I try to block out the unwelcome words that move across my brain like a neon ticker tape: death, fate, destiny, idiot.

I meet Dan Zink, the glider-pilot who will have my life in his hands while I have my hands around his body. We will need to move in unison to make the aerial dance work well.

© Chattanooga Area Convention and Visitors Bureau

His handshake is firm and reassuring. He manifests no suicidal tendencies or kamikaze instincts. We will be tandem flying, he explains. Both of us will wear harnesses that hold us parallel to the ground with our hands lightly gripping a bar in front of us. Zink has many years of hang gliding experience and a good reputation. Me? I jumped off the roof as a kid without some cardboard flaps for wings (and without injuring myself). I have previously savored rides in glider planes, dirigibles, helicopters, acrobatic planes, and hot air balloons. But none of that counts right now.

Continue to Page 2 of Chattanooga Hang Gliding

Story & photos by Richard McColl

A notorious region of Colombia that once served as both a jungle prison camp and center of coke production makes for a great adventure destination, well off the beaten path.

“Sometimes, you reach a place so beautiful and breathtaking that once you leave, such as returning to the city, you’ll find yourself as if sleep-walking, transported back to that unforgettable location,” says Toribio of the Huitoto tribe.

Father of 18 children and now one of our guides to navigate us through this impenetrable tangle of green, Toribio’s words may well ring true. Before he had spoken, I had remained solely focused on sticking to the path and my eyes had met mainly with the deep yet soft bed of fallen leaves that is so prevalent on the rainforest floor of the Amazon.

Just four days previously we had arrived in Araracuara to the airport with no name, following the one-time route of many prisoners as they came to be interned here in the country’s outer limits where the river Caquetá divides the department of the same name from the Amazon. Ours was to be an expedition of discovery, not a penal sojourn, and thus far it had delivered on every front. Almost from the word go, this area that used to be known as Tranquilandia, for the uninterrupted production of cocaine that was performed here in the jungles of Caquetá for the Medellin cartel, began to reveal its secrets.

We had been invited here by Marceliano Guerrero, an elder of the Huitoto tribe, and sitting here in his house perched neatly on stilts up on the hillside upon arrival we discussed what we could see and what we should do. Adventures to far off and barely visited places such as the National Park at Chiribiquete were mooted. Marceliano’s family pitched in too with their thoughts on the logistics of each excursion.

Key to everything here is finding the correct guide, procuring enough gasoline, which at 15,000 pesos per gallon was frighteningly expensive, negotiating hard and then probing various sources of information for clues about water levels, timescales, food and of course security.

Very Far, but Very Beautiful

Erroneously we believed that Marceliano and his wife Graciela and their sons and daughters might be able to furnish us with some ideas.

Each conversation was littered with “Esta lejos” in the chirpy accent employed when the Huitoto speak Castellano, thrusting an arm skywards as if indicating that far off point, and then as if allaying our fears would add: “pero muy lindo”. (But very beautiful.)

And with each affirmation of the untold natural beauty of the region we felt as if we were privy to unrivalled local knowledge straight from the bosom of a well-connected family. Finally the information for the journey to Chiribiquete ranged from 11 hours to several days depending on who you listened to. But this paucity of knowledge was not limited only to the Guerrero family as our boat driver Chayan and guide Adán were also way off. First we had to get to where they were.

From Puerto Santander, the municipality directly in front of Araracuara, motoring powerfully on the river Caquetá, we saw no further souls for the two days it took us to battle against the current along the Yari River and then the Pesai River and then for the full day return journey. This journey, that took us all the way up to the waterfall at Chiribiquete that measured some 430m across, was littered with conversation and comments about Tranquilandia, the airstrips that could still be found nearby for the illicit shipments and makeshift prisons that the rebels ran here. Ingrid Betancourt, a former senator and presidential candidate, was held in a camp near here for three days before being moved further away and up into Guaviare. She was held hostage for six and a half years before being rescued in a government operation.

Continue to Page 2 of Tranquilandia

Sometimes it’s hard to peer through the “vlog” (volcano fog) and the eye becomes numb after seeing miles of the same endless black lava, but there is still something strikingly beautiful about walking across some of the newest earth on Earth in Volcanoes National Park on the Big Island of Hawai’i.

I was going to post about 23 seconds of video that demonstrates the weird sound you hear when walking across a lava field;  the crackling, crunchy sound of cinder-like hardened magma blobs that were born miles below your feet.  There were a couple of photos that had to get thrown in there, though, and a bit of music seemed appropriate, but the video below is still only about a minute.

It’s otherworldly, this new world being created as we watch it….but never remove any of the lava rocks, or goddess of fire Madame Pele will be very angry….

Direct link to the lava video on YouTube.

(Disclosure: I was on the Big Island courtesy of a Hawai’i Tourism Authority press trip. The guide they provided our group was Warren Costa of Native Guide Hawai’i – he was a treasure trove of history and stories.)

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