Andean Adventure
By: Mary Roach
San Fransico Examiner, August 2, 1998

The journey is the reward when you're on your feet or pushing two wheels up a grade in the Venezuelan Andes...

The package tour is a package I've never wished to open. I'm used to traveling on my own. I don't want somebody telling me what time to get up in the morning and what shoes to wear and that the northern hemisphere's third-longest suspension bridge is coming up on my left. You would pretty much have to kill me first.

Here's the odd thing. I find myself on a package tour. I haven't been killed. But I may be, very soon. I'm sitting on the rooftop bike rack of a Land Cruiser, taking hairpin turns on a one-lane mountain road outside Merida, Venezuela. To my right are several inches of car roof, directly followed by a ravine some 900 feet deep. To my left are two mountain bikes and my nearest and dearest, Ed. If we make it to the top, we will then risk our necks making it to the bottom, this time on a dirt trail.

This is a package tour of a different stripe. It's not called a package tour, but an adventure travel - or ecotravel - vacation. You don't ride around in sightseeing buses. Anything but: mountain bikes, Rollerblades, dog sleds, sea kayaks, camels, river rafts, your own two booted-and-blistered feet. Rather than staying in hotels, you stay in tents or simple village lodgings. Some outfitters combine two or three activities in a single package. Ours, Lost World Adventures out of Decatur, Georgia, offers both multi- and single-activity tours. Single-activity trips tend to venture deeper into the wilds, for the simple reason that you're not hauling rafts and mountain bikes along with you. We're on Day One of a five-day multi-activity package: hiking, mountain biking, horseback riding and para-sailing in the Venezuelan Andes. Our tour group is uncharacteristically small: just us and two guides. Normally, there are at least six or eight people.

The business of adventure travel is a thundering success. "In 1950, only 500 people had rafted the Grand Canyon," says Jerry Mallett, president of the Englewood, Colorado-based Adventure Travel Society. "Now they close it at 15,000 per season." At last count, some 10,000 U.S. outfitters were competing for your vacation dollars. The East Bay is home to some of the industry's oldest and finest - Berkeley's Wilderness Travel and, in El Cerrito, Mountain Travel Sobek and the Adventure Center. In the 20 years since Wilderness Travel opened its doors, the area has seen a heady proliferation of adventure-tour specialists.

The boom began as a quiet rumble in the years following World War II. "In 1945, we ended up with a lot of toys," Mallett says. Rubber rafts, 4-wheel-drive jeeps, scuba gear, tents, sleeping bags and backpacks were all invented for the military. In the '60s, with the creation of national parkland and the birth of the environmental movement, an awareness of the outdoors as something other than a place to grill chops began to grow. At the same time, notions of work and leisure were shifting. "The early tourist industry was geared toward people who'd been working in the factory or the field all day: They just wanted to go sit on the beach somewhere," Mallett says. "Now, with people sitting in front of computers all day, it's, "Let's go play, let's get some exercise.' "

Our mountain-biking guide is a 42-year-old Venezuelan named Luis Zambrano. Luis owns a candy factory in Merida but his heart isn't in it. His heart belongs to mountain-biking and pretty young women - not always in that order. Luis speaks some English, enough to let you know the trail isn't all downhill ( "some small pushing" ), but not quite enough to explain the workings of a 4-lever, 40-speed (OK, I'm exaggerating, here) mountain bike.

"Small one, left. Large, back here. Uphill pressing here, si? More, and big here."

I am, yes, the last person on Earth to have never ridden a mountain bike. In my case, it turns out to be very simple. As long as we go downhill, I don't have to worry about shifting because my hands are clamped to the brakes.

Eventually, the pain in my fingers outweighs the fear of falling, and I let myself go a little. A farmer on a mule waves at me. He thinks I'm having the time of my life. He thinks I'm saying "Wheeeee!" to myself. I'm not. I'm thinking, "Stupid, stupid sport. Travel all this way to see the Andes, and you don't see a damn thing because your eyes are nailed to the trail." My memories of this particular peak go like this: dirt, loose rocks, sand, burro dung, big rock, mud, mud, gravel, dirt.

However, I can't complain, for two miles behind me is the Lost World Adventures' "support vehicle," a.k.a. the Land Cruiser. Whenever we tire of biking, we can pull over and wait to be picked up. Driving the Land Cruiser is our other guide for this week, Emma Maestres. We love Emma. Emma knows all. She gives us lessons in Venezuelan cuss words and shows us how to make arepas, a thick flat bread somewhere between a tortilla and a mouse pad.

"Hola, Emma! Give us a beer and put us on the roof!"

Adventure travel is something of a misnomer. True adventure entails exhaustion and filthy clothing and regular brushes with death. There is no support vehicle to carry your sweater and your cookies and your ice-cold beer. However, once you set aside your pride, it is possible to love the adventure-travel vacation. You are pampered but not slothful; safe and comfortable and well-fed, but not bored. This is luxury, roughed up a bit and tossed outside.

In Venezuela, some of the most adventurous things you do happen long before you get on the trail. The local airline buys up used planes (as is evident from the Arabic lettering on the tray tables). Stopping at red lights in Caracas, our driver told us, barreling through at 40 mph, is optional. The city of Merida has its own unique traffic laws: cars driving North or South have the right of way, though nowhere on any sign does it indicate which way is north, or that this is indeed even the practice. In hotels, simply getting the shower to function can be an adventure. At the Sheraton Macuto, things break down with such regularity that the staff provides a Repairs You Wish to Have Made checklist to hang on your doorknob alongside the Do Not Disturb sign.

Day 2, 2 p.m. It takes three hours to hike to the village of Tos Tos, and about 40 seconds to pass through it. Downtown consists of six adobe houses and a church (but no priest). We have stopped at the house of a friend of Luis'. A woman is leaning above a primitive adobe oven, blowing through a bamboo pipe to fan the flames. In a corner, an old man sits on a stool, fashioning a broom from shrubbery. I was mistaken. I am not the last person on Earth who doesn't know how to ride a mountain bike.

But, as remote as this place is, we are clearly not the first gringos to visit. The woman's shirt, unbelievably, says GAP DENIM. (It's mind-boggling what turns up where. Yesterday in a village that got electricity only five years ago, I saw a toddler point to a trading card cartoon of a leering cat and say "Stimpy!" ).

Emma is outside, leaning on a fence with a man of perhaps 30. For unclear reasons, this man has no teeth. For even foggier reasons, he is holding a toothbrush. Ed asks Emma what the man "does." Emma translates the question. The man thinks for a while and then points at a field. Emma turns to Ed. "He says they grew potatoes once." Several minutes pass. The man speaks again. "They've been thinking about planting some carrots."

Having crammed mountain-biking, hiking, a walking tour of Merida, a cockfight and, shortly, tandem para-sailing into a 36-hour period, I can see the appeal of time spent thinking about carrots. In fact, I could see my way clear to a nap right about now. Ed wants to hike some more. Under normal circumstances, we would have the makings of a friendly little row. This is one thing I like about guided tours: Someone else makes the decisions. Provided the decisions do not entail trips to the National Wheat Museum or tours of hydroponic coffee plantations, this can be a wonderful thing. The last time I traveled with a man, it went like this: 8 a.m.: Get up, argue about where to eat breakfast. 8:30 a.m.: Eat breakfast, argue about whether the place down the street would have been better. 9 a.m.: Stop by market, argue about how much to spend on gaudy carving of toucan and whether less expensive gaudy toucan carvings can be had in the neighboring town. 11 a.m.: Argue about where to eat lunch.

A nap is not on the itinerary. Nor is more hiking. The itinerary says: Para-sailing. A para-sail, for those of you sensible enough not to know, is the bastard child of a parachute and a hang-glider. Rather than dropping straight down, you prolong the terror by flying around in circles for half an hour.

Ed is suddenly gripped by an overwhelming need to return to the hotel and write postcards. "You never send postcards," I tell him.

"I send them more often than I run off cliffs."

5 p.m. Lost World Adventures' staff para-sailer, Gustavo Garcia-Quinttana, is walking toward us with what appears to be a colossal jellyfish slung over one shoulder. This is the para-sail, a colorful bundle of nylon and string separating life and death. Ed smiles weakly. Emma hands him a Jesus novena card.

My pilot is a local named Raul Pensa. Raul points to the cliff edge. "Just keep running till you run in the air." And that's it. You're flying. I ask Raul how likely it is that we're going to lose our wind and para-plummet into the side of the mountain. "All is possible," replies Raul, as though I might actually have wanted a truthful answer. Then I ask him how many people have died while tandem para-sailing. Raul decides that it's time to shut me up, which he does by executing "radical spirals." The spiral is an advanced para-sailing maneuver that causes the horizon to pinwheel in front of your eyes, and your stomach to take leave of its moorings. Mine is doing the hokey-pokey somewhere in the vicinity of my earlobes. Centrifugal force has me flattened against an invisible wall, or floor or ceiling, who can say. I am laundry in the spin cycle. I am plotting Raul's death.

Do you think I want to eat Venezuelan Chinese food after this? You're wrong. But that's where we're going. But first, a celebratory beer. And next, a quick stop at a jam shop. And after dinner, an hour drive to the hotel. (To call Hotel Sevillana "the hotel" is like calling the space shuttle a plane. It's gardens and butterflies and fountains and amazing breakfasts, way up high on a hill on the outskirts of Merida.) We arrive at 10:30 p.m., dazed and limp. Emma suggests we go stargazing, followed by a nightcap by the fireplace. Emma runs on high-test. We go to our room. Ed gets in the shower with his glasses on. I fall asleep in my boots.

Day 5, 11 a.m. The itinerary lies. It says we're taking mules from the mountain village of Los Nevados 5,000 feet up a steep trail to the Alto de la Cruz peak. Luis doesn't like mules. He thinks we can hike it. Villagers do it all the time, to get to the teleferico, the aerial tramway, which they then ride back down the other side of the mountain to Merida. This is the world's only aerial tram designed for potato farmers, not skiers. The walk from Los Nevados over the mountains to Merida has gone from upwards of 12 hours, which is a very long time to spend with a sack of potatoes, to about 5.

It is, admittedly, a grand day for hiking. Flowering cacti line the sides of the road, as though waiting for a parade. Six cows stand in a pasture, spread out like outfielders. The blue of the sky seems concentrated, purer, as though someone took a Midwest afternoon sky and boiled it down till there was no trace of haze or cloud, only a blue so dense you could sink a nail in it. The Andes on a clear day is one of those rare landscapes that don't look prettier through your Ray-Bans.

Halfway there, we stop at a tiny roadside store, run by a smiling greasy-haired man who would look like James Dean if he stopped smiling and got his fly fixed. James ushers us outside to the porch, points to a roll of barbed wire and grins. "Tourist chair." I didn't need this. I already have the sense, as I tromp through people's living rooms, snapping pictures and tracking mud, that behind their smiles is a disdain just shy of loathing. Here you are, spending more on Kodacolor than they earn in a year. Here you are, paying someone else to carry your day pack when they regularly walk 12 miles (OK, 5), with a sack of potatoes. I buy a package of WaferJet cookies because I want James Dean to like me and because a product named WaferJet deserves instant and lifelong devotion. (We never saw it anywhere else.)

Back on the trail, Emma directs our attention to a stream that runs along the side of the trail. This is the local water supply. Rather than lay a pipe, they simply dig trenches off of the river. "Natural," says Emma.

"Dirty," says Ed.

Our support vehicle today is a single mule, being led by a local farmer who has earned my deep and abiding respect by hiking a murderously steep five-mile mountain trail in a pair of rubber boots. To keep his mule in motion, the man makes loud, constant kissy noises. Along with our backpacks, the mule is loaded with several burlap sacks and a large plastic jug, no doubt used to carry the saliva required for making kissy noises for six and a half hours.

Three hours pass. The kissy noises are being joined by a series of moans and incorrectly pronounced Venezuelan cuss words. Conio! Madre Dios! Too much uphill! Emma and I take turns holding onto the mule's tail, letting him pull us up the hills. Sensing mutiny, Luis secures a second and third mule from a boy we pass on the trail.

It's all for the best. Had we not suffered three hours of uphill torture, we could never have appreciated the mules the way we do now. This is unmitigated bliss. As we pass 9,000 feet, lima bean green frailejones, a sort of fuzz-coated agave on a fat stem, are everywhere. They are named for a certain Friar John who was said to resemble the plants when he kneeled. I love Venezuelan vernacular. Speed bumps are polizei acostado - "lying-down policemen." A tree with shiny leaves that look white against the neighboring greenery is las canas de las montanas, "grey hair of the Andes." A cup of black coffee with a lot of milk - "having a lot of milk" is slang for being lucky - is an "O.J. Simpson."

7 p.m. Dinner is well-earned, which is good, because we're going to eat a lot of it. We're eating at El Alto del Frio, a rustic wood-beam and adobe restaurant in the little town of Mucuchachi. It alone is worth a trip to the Andes (if you're filthy rich and enjoy long plane flights). The carne and pollo are fire-tenderized and basted with complicated, staggeringly good salsas. The owner is Nelson Dara, the best chef in Venezuela, perhaps the entire world. (Can you tell I'm really hungry?) The dessert, some light-as-clouds almond thing, is garnished with berries and flowers from the garden outside. If you could eat happiness, it would taste like Nelson Dara's cooking.

As we're leaving, we stop to talk to the woman who prepared the dessert. I tell her we even ate the flowers. She replies that the little purple ones are not, in fact, for eating. Ed is convinced that his face is going numb. "Poison?" I ask her, trying to sound casual. She consults with Nelson and returns with the verdict. "No danger." She pats my arm. "You are not going to die."

Not, anyway, before I go on another 10 package tours.

Mary Roach has written about her travels for Salon, Islands, Conde Nast Traveler, Health and Vogue. She lives in San Francisco with her husband, Ed, and their three pieces of luggage.

Whom you choose depends on what you like to do. Many outfitters specialize in a particular sport or activity. Check the back of an appropriate special-interest magazine for ads: "Climb" for rock climbing, "Paddle" for canoeing and kayaking, etc. The back of Outside magazine has a good cross-section of ads for outfitters for a wide range of activities. (That's how we found Lost World.) Another useful resource is the on-line Specialty Travel Index (www.spectrav.com), which cross-indexes activities and locations, so it's possible to search for, say, an outfitter who offers horseback riding in Mongolia or heli-rafting in Patagonia. Once you find a few outfitters, call and talk to them. Ask questions, ask prices, get to know them a bit. One is sure to stand out from the others.