We have been lucky and we are quite well to do. However, I have spent a lot of time in the world's underbelly. I grew up on the Pine Ridge Rez, usually considered the poorest place in America. My wife and I have stayed in the best hotels in Europe but not often. We much prefer the poorer places with real people. We've spent a lot of time with poor Cossacks in the Russian Steppes. I really do like them. They are among the toughest people I've ever known and some of the best horsemen. [I am a horse nut and have been since I was a child.] We have traveled the old Silk Road and done much of it on horseback. [My son and his wife did almost 1000 miles of it on camels.] They taught me to lop the heads off straw dummies with a sword from the back of a horse at a full gallop. We have crossed Africa from West to East and stayed in a number of grass hut villages with the natives. I've hiked, climbed and ridden horses through a huge portion of the Himalayas and one of my favorite places in the world is one of the poorest -- the Tien Shien spur of the Himalayas in Kyrgyzstan. [My son married one of the world's most beautiful women in Kyrgyzstan. Her father had been a KGB agent during the days of the Soviet Union and they were one of the few families who were not poor.] On two occasions, I have seen the elusive snow leopard in Kyrgyzstan. Most of the "Stan" countries that we favor are very poor -- Uzbekistan, etc. We've been all through China [8 times] and western China through Tibet is stunningly beautiful. Last fall we stayed in a hotel in Tibet for a wekk where the warmest it ever got, INSIDE THE HOTEL, was 40 degrees F.
We've run whitewater in Central and South America and there aren't any "luxury" accomodations anywhere near the best white water. Last summer we took the kids and our grandson into some of the roughest jungles and villages in the Dominican Republic for several days so we could kayak those jungle rivers with the snakes and the crocs.
In my family, we are all adrenaline junkies, including my 5 year old grandson. [Our grandson is already on a quest for the toughest roller coaster in the world.] We were in a hotel in Moscow when it was bombed by terrorists, we were in a hotel in Bishkek that was attacked by terrorists, and my little sister was in a hotel in Indonesia when it was completely destroyed by a terrorist bomb [she escaped in tact]. I've seen people die of disease and starvation in Africa.
We don't go to the tourist places very often. They tend to be dull and lifeless. My wife of more that 40 years is now well known to the western China wildlife officials as one of the best Panda Bear trackers they have ever found.
I love the USA but I also love the rest of the world. It's full of real men and women from the Cossacks, to the Pashtun warriors, to the Mongols, to the 40 tribes of Manas, etc. Some day, I am going to ride a horse over the Khyber Pass from Afghanistan to Pakistan although, at the moment, my wife draws the line there.
