How to Make Friends with Strangers Travel is one long introduction to the broadest of humanity. We aren’t perfect, but most members of our species are worth knowing. To meet those neighbors, follow these simple rules. If I was crammed on a bus for 12 hours with Hitler, I could probably make friends with him. I’m [Continue Reading]
Outside Magazine
The Real Rebels of Timbuktu
Tuareg nomads have stormed out of the desert again, threatening a return to culture war in the Sahara’s legendary lost city. Patrick Symmes on the rebel alliance, and the fire next time. Photographer: Marco Di Lauro/Reportage by Getty Images People dress like kings and queens in the capital of Mali, even in the dirt streets [Continue Reading]
Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
Leaving Haiti in a 21’ boat with the Caribbean’s bravest sailors.
Off the Deep End
I followed Hannah as she swam over the sand and then up the gently sloping mountain of coral in front of us. I could feel the pressure subsiding—ninety feet, then seventy, sixty, forty—until we came to the top of the reef, at about thirty-five feet. There were green needlefish hovering here, a blue-tinged Caribbean spiny lobster jammed into a crevice, and waves of lettuce coral and gorgonian fans. A four-foot barracuda paid no attention to us, which is what you want from a barracuda. Decompressing in a motionless float, I shared the current with bright, tiny fairy basslets and a pair of gray angelfish that moved in devoted tandem. The reef was a vibrant collage of soft and hard coral thick with fish. Long barrel sponges gave shelter to a balloonfish, a school of mackerel whipped by, there was a black grouper, and an eagle ray fanned past on its way to the shallows.
The Sweetest Villains
The Sweetest Villains: In Prewar Syria, a farewell tour for archaeology, peace, and dictators.
The Beautiful Game: Soccer Violence
The singing builds, the flags wave, and for a while we are inside the joyous machine of a fan club, exactly where I always dreaded, a stomping, jeering, cheering, and drunken band of warriors. The enemy—the Brazilian team Fluminense—takes the field amid a deafening chorus of 40,000 boos. When Boca comes out, the stadium explodes into a wall of bass drums and chanting: Dale, dale, Bo! Dale, dale, Bo! Dale, dale, Bo! Bo-ca! Let’s go, Boca!
The visiting team gives the stadium a scare: two quick attacks on goal. La Doce only sings louder, draining the atmosphere with a version of “Volare” for 20,000 voices.
Sand Storm: Yemen on the Brink
In the wilds of Yemen, the Arab revolution changes everything.
Immersion Therapy—Interview with Anderson Cooper
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Rafting the Yangtze River, China
The world’s greatest Communist supereconomy needs all the power it can get. The devil’s choice: Keep burning dirty coal, or tap into Yunnan’s crashing rivers for clean, cheap electricity. With dams rising up all around, PATRICK SYMMES joins a team of Chinese and American rafters as they outrun the concrete on a wild descent of [Continue Reading]
Unnatural Disaster
Hundreds of wilderness experts rushed to Ground Zero—and found a maddening, hellish new frontier. At the corner of Nassau and John Streets, five blocks from the New York Stock Exchange, the usual look is pinstripes or pearls, not tan canvas shirts, evergreen pants, and lug soles with aggressive treads. But there was Phil Musgrove, a [Continue Reading]
The Cabin of My Dreams
Ever fantasized about building a restful escape, with your bare hands, in some untrammeled back of beyond—and it all coming together just as you’d planned? Moron. Comedy is tragedy plus time, and I’m telling you, not enough time has passed. Two years now and my friends automatically start cracking up when anyone says, “How’s your [Continue Reading]
