Think Bigg

In October, Brian and I are taking off for a 4-day desert camel trek in Morocco with my favorite adventure travel specialist, Mountain Travel Sobek. This two-week vacation won’t be quite as selfless as the prior trip to India, I’m afraid, but it turns out I can’t blame that on the tour company!

Mountain Travel Sobek has just published two new tours — both led by one of the original company founders — for folks who want to combine their adventure vacation with a unique opportunity to do some good.

The first is an exciting trip through Egypt:

It’s a fascinating journey exploring the Nile through the lens of Sobek (yes, our Sobek!), the crocodile god that influenced so much of dynastic Egypt, and of the crocodile itself, which through poaching, pollution, and the blockage from the Aswan Dam has disappeared from the Egyptian Nile. Traveling to temples and active dig sites not included on any other itineraries, you’ll witness the art and architecture influenced by the great god Sobek, as well as many other great icons of Egypt. And, you’ll “make a difference” by taking one of the many live poached crocodiles at Aswan and releasing it back into the waters of the Nile, where through efforts like this it might one day thrive and reclaim its place as “Lord of the Nile.”

The second trip is through the north and south islands of New Zealand:

If you’re the kind of person who likes to get the most out of your vacation, you’ll love this trip! The itinerary is very similar to the one Mountain Travel Sobek co-founder Richard Bangs designed for the PBS series Adventures with Purpose, and it’s an action-packed discovery of both the South and North Islands of New Zealand. Go canyoneering in the spectacular canyons of the Matukituki Valley; try your hand at ice climbing at the Fox Glacier; swim with dolphins; sea kayak on a vast crater lake (with volcanoes looming on the horizon); and ever so much more, including meeting a Maori elder who will share his people’s perspective on history and natural geography. And, you’ll make a difference, by spending time on volunteer community projects that benefit New Zealand’s people and their stunning environment. More than just a vacation, this is an adventure with purpose.

I traveled with a MT Sobek group a few years ago on a sea kayaking expedition in Baja California and had an amazing time. The guides were fabulous and the other people on the tour were interesting and friendly. If we weren’t already on our way to North Africa, I just might be convinced to change my plans!

Why not check out the tours and clear your calendars!

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In case you missed it, the newest environmental bogeyman is not your gas-guzzling car or your kid’s disposable diapers: it’s your bottled water!

Whether you go for high-priced status symbols like Voss, or you’re a more mainstream fan of Pepsi’s Aquafina or Coke’s Dasani, you’re contributing your share to what is now a multi-billion dollar worldwide industry.

Last year, we spent more on Poland Spring, Fiji Water, Evian, Aquafina, and Dasani than we spent on iPods or movie tickets–$15 billion. It will be $16 billion this year. Source

According to a recent article in the NY Times,

The argument centers not on water, but oil. It takes 1.5 million barrels a year just to make the plastic water bottles Americans use, according to the Earth Policy Institute in Washington, plus countless barrels to transport it from as far as Fiji and refrigerate it.

FastCompany’s frank editorial is what initially got me thinking:

A chilled plastic bottle of water in the convenience-store cooler is the perfect symbol of this moment in American commerce and culture. It acknowledges our demand for instant gratification, our vanity, our token concern for health. Its packaging and transport depend entirely on cheap fossil fuel. Yes, it’s just a bottle of water–modest compared with the indulgence of driving a Hummer. But when a whole industry grows up around supplying us with something we don’t need–when a whole industry is built on the packaging and the presentation–it’s worth asking how that happened, and what the impact is.

While I was in India, we each had one 1L disposable water bottle that we used and re-used for an entire week. It wasn’t ideal from a sanitary standpoint, or from a durability standpoint for that matter, but it definitely made us conscious of how much trash we generate in the course of an average day, and how much of it is truly unnecessary.

When we’re blessed to live in a country where safe, clean water comes right out of the tap whenever we want it, and then we proceed to spend $16 billion a year to purchase something that we could ultimately drink for free, what does that say about us as a society?

According to Forbes,

In 2004, the U.S. budget for international assistance programs around the world was $17 billion, less than 1% of the federal budget overall. Now the U.S. may spend more than that on a single country. The current U.S. budget allocates $4.4 billion of the $17 billion to what the Office of Management and Budget calls “foreign military financing.” The second-largest line item is “economic support,” which comes to $2.5 billion.

So the total amount we spent drinking water out of fancy bottles last year was at least $1 billion more than we spent in foreign aid in 2004 (and $3.6 more if you don’t count the money we spent to provide military assistance).

Bottom line? I’m loving my new Nalgene bottle.

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Here’s a fun Friday quiz from the folks at National Geographic!

We all know that Jay Leno gets a lot of mileage out of the stupidity of the average American. Why not prove him wrong and try your hand at National Geographic’s geography quiz?

Even if you don’t know which city has the world’s densest population, you’ll learn an awful lot of useful trivia to impress your friends at cocktail parties!

Have a great weekend, everyone!

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Ever wondered where old traffic lights go to die?

Apparently at least a few of them make their way into some really cool light fixtures, thanks to the folks at Greenlight Concepts!

According to their website,

At Greenlight Concepts we create retro-modern lighting fixtures using glass lenses recycled from discarded traffic lights. Across the United States, giant truckloads of red, yellow, and green lenses are tossed into land-fills as cities upgrade to more efficient lighting technology. We’re reclaiming these glass artifacts to create “Stoplights,” our new line of lighting fixtures.

They’re cool and they’re green! What more could you ask for?

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Fellow blogger, Yianni Garcia (a.k.a., the “Social Media Guy“) recently asked me to do my part to raise awareness about a horrible, but little known illness called “Chagas disease.” Knowing nothing about it before I started researching for this post, it appears to be, sadly, yet another disease of the poor that will be largely ignored until it migrates its way into the lives of the wealthy.

Chagas disease exists primarily in Latin America, where it has infected an estimated 16 million people and causes about 50,000 deaths each year, according to the NY Times. There is no vaccine, and response to treatment decreases with age.

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The disease was first identified in 1909 by a Brazilian doctor named Carlos Chagas, and for the most of modern history it has been a predominantly rural affliction. Globalization, however, is bringing the disease into larger urban areas.

The parasitic infection usually is transmitted through the bite of the mosquito-like insect pictured below. The otherwise harmless insect lives in poor housing conditions, such as the cracks and holes of trodden earth floors, adobe walls and thatched roofs, where it bites people, often on the face, while they sleep, giving it the name the “kissing bug.” Occasionally, Chagas’ is transmitted through infected food sources, blood transfusions, organ transplants and from mother to child at birth. Source

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According to Doctors Without Borders,

Chagas is a “forgotten” disease. Why? Because it is the illness of the poor people. Chagas is practically “invisible” because in most cases its effects are only manifested up to ten years after infection by the transmitting insect, which makes it difficult for the health staff to diagnose the disease.

On the other hand, Chagas has been very much neglected by the pharmaceutical industry. No new medication has been developed in the last thirty years. Chagas patients must take obsolete, highly ineffective treatment with many side effects.

There unfortunately appear to be very few resources or services dedicated to help the victims of this horrible disease. But to read more about Chagas disease or the efforts of Doctors Without Borders to fight the illness, click here.

Thanks for the education, Yianni!

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