Being Adventurous.

Early this year one of my friends climbed a mountain in Kathmandu, another one did trekking in Italy, a third one went drumming in the Sahara, and this local woman who is the first from the middle east to climb mount Everest also attracted my attention, and so on; my most adventure is to set by the beach or walk around rivers and lakes, very safe, very cushy, nothing extravagant, no snake bites or insect bites, nothing that will put me in a hospital for a long time to treat poison or allergies. I shouldn’t forget the camp that I attended with my daughter, or the eco tourism holiday in Stewart Island, these were on the light side when one talks about being adventurous. Food is another subject, when it comes to food, I like to eat anything, but not anything edible (once a Nigerian friend of mine was asking me if I tried that famous turtle soup and potato bread??!! Yak, the last sentence about eating anything edible was hers and she said it to me in 1979, my memory is perfect for my age guys). Some people eat frogs, snakes, insects and other things that I wouldn’t care to mention, as I dont want to threw up; I would eat meats, but if I see blood coming out of it when I prick it with the fork, I would leave the table, and even sweets I love sweets, this is my only sin, but even when it comes to sweets or deserts, it has to be obvious, and the ingredients should be known, otherwise they will not pass through this big mouth.

I asked my children, who are not children any more, if they were adventurous with all the sense of the word? they have all done bungee jumping, Para gliding, mountain climbing, skiing, ice skating, roller skating, and skate boarding and they do not mind going sky diving, zorbing (where you are placed inside a transparent ball and rolled down hill). I almost fainted, as they know me, I am only told after they do these things. I did take them to learn stuff to do with ice or snow, but never actually wanted to learn myself. I dont know if I am advphob (adventure phobia) or just sheer laziness, but having reached 55 without noticing that I am missing something, then it is not to say that my life was complete? I do have things missing unfortunately, but I need time to do some soul searching to arrive at what is missing, if it is on the adventure side then you might find me rolling inside a ZORB!

I am collating my bucket list as we speak, I can swear that sky diving is not among them (if you saw the movie the Bucket List, you will know what I mean). One of the items is to preach to people that they have to experience things, and learn about them, life is too short to be scared or phobic. This would be the main subject of our next book, watch this space.