Cornelia's forthcoming attractions

Kilimanjaro and Zanzibar

"A Quiet life?! Why don't you just have yourself embalmed!!!" - Nikki

Last year (1997) I started training to climb Kilimanjaro in December. A South African team approached me with the idea and I jumped at the opportunity. I have had quite a change in lifestyle - eat very healthily and train 5 days a week. Then just as I got into the swing of things, paid the deposit and started getting really fit, my team expressed deep concern over my heart condition - particularily considering the altitude we'll be reaching. Despite my passing tests with two different cardiologists, they were not willing to take responsibility for my life on the mountain.

Needless to say I was very disappointed... and frustrated with the whole issue of having this condition. But I have found peace with this set back. It actually works out for the best, since the options open to me now are better. I will still be doing the climb, but next year. However, insead of being an outsider, I will be climbing with a group of my own friends who could not make this December to climb.

Doug will be one of them, which thrills me. He and a couple of the others are experienced mountain climbers - having done climbs like Mt. Kenya. The whole climb is being planned around the consideration that my heart will probably need about a day more to adjust to the lack of oxygen on the summit. It's gonna be loads more fun with a group of friends and the loving support of Doug, because it sure is going to be a challenge.

What I've learn't from this is that "the greatest assassin of life is not haste, but the desire to reach things before the right time" - Juan Ramon Jiminez. We're looking at doing it in about October 1997, as the weather will be best then. But we will be doing most of the bookings by the beginning of the year. If any of you are interested in joining us for the adventure of a life time, drop me an email at fullmoon@icon.co.za. After doing Kilimanjaro we will probably spend a week in Zanzibar to chill out.

[Climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro] [Zanzibar]

Dog Mushing in Alaska

"I live with fear everyday... but sometimes she lets me race."

I was planning on going down the Amazon in 1999. But since speaking to a friend who is going to Alaska in March 1998 to do dog mushing, I've changed my mind. This sounds like the kind of adventure that would do my soul so much good. Besides it being an exciting, active vacation, I believe it will to be very cathartic... out in the solitude and silence of a white wilderness. Stunning mountain scenery, light shows courtesy of the Aurora Borealis, operas by 60 happy huskies with guest vocalizations by Canis lupis, the wild Alaskan wolf...

Six to nine day, lodge-based mushing expeditions are on offer between February and early April. No previous experience in dog mushing is required and each person gets their own team of our experienced huskies.

Accompanied by professional guides, each expedition member can drive his or her own team of 7 to 9 spirited sled dogs on wilderness trails through Denali National Park and Preserve. Sounds fabulous, doesn't it. And why do I rush around the planet doing all these exotic things? Well, it was so well put by Henry David Furrow:

"I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life. To put to raft all that was not life and not when I had come to die, discover that I had not lived."

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