Have you ever had a real adventure?

Question

not something that you paid for like skydiving but a real adventure like the movie "harold and kumar go to white castle". if you say you went on a road trip and the most interesting thing you did was go to tourist attractions i'm not talking about that either. it has to be a real adventure/quest where you encountered real problems that where not planed and experienced wacky situations. tell me about it. only serious answers please.

Answer 1

Yes, I went on an archaeological excavation in the far-flung Amazon two years ago for six months.

After two weeks I wandered off away from the camp into the forest as I needed the bathroom and didn't want to disturb any of the team. BIG mistake! I was soon lost, and after eight hours of wandering in totally the wrong direction, I ended up stumbling on a small village in a secluded clearing. The children there walked tarantulas on leads, as if they were dogs!

I managed to find an old man who spoke a little English, and I established that I had indeed managed to get quite a long way through the jungle in the wrong direction. He told me that his grandson would accompany me to a nearby track, which would take me to within half a mile of our camp. So we set off, with only the supplies we could carry on our backs. It was not going to be a long trip, but the weather in that part of the world can change instantly. The boy was good company, even though we did not share a common tongue, and we made good time until the skies closed in and it began to pour down with rain.

The situation soon grew sinister as darkness came, and the track dissolved into deep, sucking mud. The two of us holed up in what looked to be an ancient, overgrown bomb crater and spent a sleepness night under the living canopy, emerging with the dawn covered in mosquito bites. We set off again in the direction of the camp, but were soon stopped by a raging torrent crossing our path; floodwater, as fierce and deep as a river.

After pausing for food, we slowly began to ford the flow, which reached up to our nipples and ruined the little water we had left. When we emerged, the boy had been bitten by something and quickly fell ill. I was not a first-aider, and so all I could do was keep him calm and hoist him up on to my back.

The going was incredibly slow, as I am not too strong, and I was getting bitten by mosquitos at an alarming rate. The boy had fallen silent and the oppressive heat was beginning to weaken me to the point I could no longer walk, and both of us collapsed on the side of the narrow track.

I was, right then, ready to die. I had nothing left, and was stuck in my own idea of h**l. Everything in the Amazon is hot, green, damp and alive. I was covered in bumps, bites and bruises, and the boy beside me seemed to have slipped into a coma. My clothes were sodden and mud-smeared, and we had nothing to eat or drink.

I don't know how long passed with the two of us just lying there, but I remember being roused by a millipede scuttling across my leg. Dusk was beginning to crowd us in again, and to top it off I heard the approaching growl of distant thunder. I knew neither of us would not live to see the dawn; the boy was too ill, and I was too exhausted. I crawled up into a ball as the thunder arrived, and a flash of lightning nearly blinded me.

Then I heard a call! A voice, in accented English! The thunder I could hear was the grumble of a pick-up engine, and the lightning was it's spotlights! The big vehicle was bulldozing it's way through the undergrowth, with half of my team riding in the back- and they spotted us- we were saved!

Three days later I was out of hospital and on my way back to England. I never knew what had bitten the boy in that river, but whatever it was, he was dead when we got picked up by the 4x4. That was two years ago and the whole experience changed me immeasurably, in too much detail to write down here. But those two days are never far from my thoughts.

So yes, I have had what you might call a 'real' adventure- it's just such a shame it was at the expense of another life.    

Answer 2

I had some time off during Christmas in 1990, so I decided to go visit my wife's folks in the Northern Philippines.  We took a bus north for a day to Santiago.  While looking for a jeep to go further, my wife ran into her older brother.  We ended up taking a dump truck, riding in the back, with a bunch of other holiday travelers.  near dark, about two miles from my brother-in-laws house, the truck bogged down in the muddy road, and we had to hike the rest of the way.  I was carrying a huge backpack, and dying trying to keep up with my brother-in-law, who took off like an antelope.

At the time there was no electricity in Paracelis, so I was guided by a single coleman lantern at the door of his house, at the top of a muddy hill.

We spent the next day, Christmas eve, there, and they butchered a pig in my honor.  I helped go purchase the pig and carry it back, but they didn't like it when I helped carry the pig because my stride was so much longer.  We were drinking white San Miguel gin, and eating little cubes of fried pig flesh marinated in vinegar and white hot silit peppers.  Yummy!

The next day, Christmas, we hiked in to Madukayan, where my wife grew up.  It was 12 miles, with mud sometimes up to my knees, sometimes through rice fields, and sometimes up sheer hillsides.  I was carrying a 45 lb pack.  My brother in law told my wife not to let me carry it, it was too heavy, but I'm a lot bigger than he, and the pack is the advanced frame that distributes the weight, and I was in REALLY good shape.  We got there near dark.  My Sister-in-laws house is on stilts, so I handed my pack up before I sat to take my jungle boots off.  When I got tot he top of the landing, all the men were crowded around, lifting my pack and commenting on how strong I must be.

My mother-in-law is a wized old woman, mother of 10, without a word of english.  My father-in-law was a headhunter in his early years (I'm not joking!), and fought guerilla actions against the Japanese in the war.  The next day we visited him in the fields up a side valley, where he stayed because he disliked the noise of the children in the village.

I had brought an inflateable globe with me, and one of my brothers was very interested in it.  My mother in law expressed disbelief that the world was round.

The village was and still is without lights or running water.  The people there are subsistence farmers.  Water is brought by hand a half mile up a very steep climb from the river.  Clothes are washed in the river, and I've taken many baths there in the years since.  Today the road comes within a couple of miles in the dry season.

There is so much more to this adventure, there's no room or time to detail it all here.  Write me if you want the full story, I'll be happy to send it to you.