Wild by Nature (eBook)

Sarah Marquis (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2017 | 1. Auflage
272 Seiten
Atlantic Books (Verlag)
978-1-952534-18-8 (ISBN)

Infos

In 2010, Sarah Marquis embarked on a perilous journey: alone and on foot, she walked ten thousand miles across the Gobi Desert, from Siberia, through Thailand, to the Australian outback. Relying on hunting and her own wits, she traversed fever-haunted jungles and scorching deserts, braved harassment from drug dealers, the Mafia, and camp raids from thieves on horseback. Surviving dehydration, dengue fever delirium and crippling infection, Sarah experienced a raw and spiritual communion after three years of walking at the base of a tree in the plains of Australia. Through an inspirational journey, Wild by Nature explores what it is to adventure as a woman in the most dangerous of circumstances, and what it is to be truly alone in the wild.

Born in Switzerland, Sarah Marquis has travelled the world alone and on foot for twenty-three years, crossing the United States, Australia and South America. She has given more than three hundred talks in French and English, including talks for TEDand the Geographical Societyand has been profiled in The New York Times Magazine. National Geographic named Sarah an 'Explorer of 2014'.

Textauszug

2. Mongolia, My Beginning

I’M FORCED TO STOP, THE TEMPERATURE HAS AGAIN reached 104°F. My body has been reacting badly since the beginning and I need to listen attentively to what it has to tell me. I slow down and moderate my efforts.

On this day, I decide to walk to the thicket of trees I see from on top of a hill. It will take me more than an hour to reach this little zone of shade. Once there, I close my eyes and collapse, my head in my hands. It feels like there’s a little monkey in my head, banging on metal cups. I know exactly what’s happening to me, since it’s what always happens to me at the beginning of an expedition. I’ve gotten sunstroke again, and yet, not an inch of my skin is exposed to the sun.

The next morning, I begin my day with my head looking like a slowly roasted pear. The morning light hurts my eyes, but I’m happy, the sunstroke has passed. At least that’s over with!

I walk slowly, pushing my cart along the uneven terrain. This takes a lot of effort, but I know that without the cart, I wouldn’t be able to travel these long distances where there’s nothing, not a single village where I can resupply. I have with me two weeks’ worth of limited food rations and over twenty liters of water reserves. After just ten short minutes, I come upon the other side of the hill.

What an unexpected discovery! I take off my sunglasses to be sure I’m seeing clearly. Before me is a valley full of real trees, a forest dense with birch, and at their feet a carpet of green ferns. The place is magical, and I’m so astounded by its beauty that I get out my video camera. It’s as though I’ve been transported to another country, far from the typical, bare steppe.

Video camera in hand, I film this woodland scene straight out of a fairy tale. Suddenly, I catch my breath, my elbows squeezed against my body to keep from moving. Something brown has appeared in the frame. My eyes widen as the thing comes closer. My God, I don’t think he sees me! Without taking my eyes off him, I check to see that the little red “record” dot is lit up on the screen.

He moves forward again—this morning’s light breeze is blowing in the opposite direction—I’m lucky. He continues with prudent steps, as though he senses danger without being able to discern what it is. But his desire to follow his path wins out. Just then he rushes forward, a few yards from my camera. I stand silently in disbelief, bubbling over on the inside. Then he bounds away between the ferns into the woods. For a moment more I can make out his bouncing hindquarters before disappearing deep into the forest.

It was a magnificent buck just a few years old, given that his antlers weren’t very big. I’m left speechless. His caramel garb and big, black eyes are still floating before me and I have to blink to come back to my senses. The encounter leaves me awestruck and full of energy. It erases all the little corporeal memories, sending nonstop signals of pain. I push my cart, suddenly light as a feather, up the slope. I thank the vagabond of the woods, the cause of the sudden lightness.

While my body walks, pushes, carries my movable house, my spirit smiles and slips away into another forest during the summer of 2002 in the United States. I was walking the 2,650 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail, a path that goes from the Canadian border to the Mexican border.

It’s the end of a long day of walking. I find myself in a forest of dark, humid pines, where a sense of chaos reigns. Trunks covered in green moss blanket the ground, others remain halfway suspended. A large granite rock that seems to come out of nowhere catches my eye. I move toward it and joyfully put down my pack.

At my feet, a deep stream with no current, opaquely black, imprisons the big rock that I saw from far away. I undress and slip into the cold water. If you move into water slowly, the body adapts and the sensation of cold is diminished. Without moving, I sink little by little until just my head is above water. It’s a simple experience of abandon; I feel like I’m nothing more than a head at the surface of this black water; my body has disappeared, the cold water has put it to sleep. Suddenly, a movement draws my attention to the other side of the stream. My eyes open wide, I can’t believe it! It’s a magnificent stag! He moves forward slowly, freezes, listens, then, after a long moment, bounds ahead elegantly and soundlessly. He swims, a procedure at which he demonstrates astonishing mastery. I still haven’t moved, the top of the water is a true mirror. These majestic woods seem to shift themselves to the surface without a body beneath them. The black, stagnant water accentuates this impression. With no fear, the stag passes right next to me. He reaches the bank just a few steps from my dry clothes, then disappears, bounding elegantly into the dark and humid forest.

Back in Mongolia, my shoulders are untouchable because they hurt so much. Just about every one of my muscles is swollen. Since my departure, my body has creaked into motion like an old steam locomotive slowly taking off.

I started training a year ago, but didn’t push myself as much as I did for the previous expeditions. I was short on time, as the size of the project didn’t leave me much time to spare.

So I promised myself I would be careful at first, and find my rhythm. I move forward slowly but surely, as pushing a 110-pound cart and carrying a 40-pound pack on my back requires some effort. Since the ground is uneven, progress is difficult.

I find myself on the summit of one of the hills that I’d seen to the north, bare but green. The air is very heavy. Moving my tongue across my lips reveals the tension in my body. I’m sweating. Salt is everywhere, the temperature is holding steady at 104°F and there’s not a single tree or bush around to provide shade.

From this small height, I carefully observe the curves of the countryside. I need to find water, which has been an incredibly difficult task up to this point. My long career as a water hunter spares me the anguish that most people would normally feel in this kind of situation. Over the years, I’ve used and acquired different techniques for gathering water. Here are a few of them:

• Dig a hole in the earth and cover the opening with a plastic bag. Place a small stone in the middle (on the plastic). The temperature difference between day and night will create a condensation effect and water will collect.

• Another technique is to wrap a branch covered with as many leaves as possible in an air-tight plastic bag. It’s best to use this technique when the sun is at its height. The leaves will begin to sweat (a sauna effect) and after a few hours you’ll be able to collect the condensation at the bottom of the bag.

• The third technique is ancestral and is also used by animals. In the dried-up bed of a sandy stream, you can sometimes find water beneath the soft surface. First, picture the streambed before you filled with water. Then look for a curve, or an obstacle like a big rock. This may be the place where the water was slowed down before the stream dried up. Once you’ve found such a spot, and you’re sure that it’s worth it to spend your energy and your sweat to dig a hole at least three feet deep, then start digging. Once you’ve accomplished your mission, take a nap. When you open your eyes, if you guessed right, you’ll find a small quantity of water at the bottom of your hole.

There are lots of other techniques, but none of them result in the collection of more than a couple of ounces. It’s imperative, though, to ask yourself the right questions before you start and to evaluate the quantity of water that will leave your body during the process of digging or setting the condensation trap.

Above all, I think it’s not the technique that counts as much as your ability to read the landscape. All the clues are there, but you must empty your spirit of preconceptions, of theories. In 2006, I experienced an event that marked me forever and that helped me not only in my life as an explorer, but also in my life in general.

Water, where are you?

I was in South America on my Path of the Andes expedition, eight months of hiking on the cordillera. I was climbing a stony, difficult valley. Rough, grey rock dominated as far as my eyes could see. The wind, above all, was constant and wearing. I scanned the horizon looking for water, but in all this grey there was nothing that resembled life. I thought that if there was water, it would be accompanied by some form of life, logically vegetation. So I searched for green, or even just a simple change of color in the landscape, but there was nothing.

According to my topo map, a good-sized stream came in from the west and trickled into the valley that I was climbing going north. It wasn’t the first time that my map announced streams that had turned into rock beds. I decided to stop and eat something. I knew that I would have to walk that day until I found water, and that I would need some energy. After a quick snack and a short nap, I decided to climb the sixteen-foot pile of rocks a few yards away. (Usually, I make it a point to get past any immediate obstacles before stopping or eating.) I put on my backpack and pushed to the summit, giving attention to the synchronization of my hands and feet. When I lifted my head, the spectacle before me took my breath away: a mountain stream, not very deep, but wide (just as it is on the map) was flowing vigorously. The lesson that I received that day is worth all of the lessons of survival. Why hadn’t I seen this stream as I searched the horizon? I’d asked my spirit to look for...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 1.1.2017
• Zusatzinfo: 1 x 16pp colour photos
• Verlagsort: London
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Gesundheit / Leben / Psychologie ► Esoterik / Spiritualität
• Themenwelt: Reisen ► Reiseberichte
• Themenwelt: Reisen ► Reiseführer
• Schlagworte: Cheryl Strayed • Into the wild • journey • Nature • Tracks • Trekking • Wild • Wilderness
• ISBN-10: 1-952534-18-6 / 1952534186
• ISBN-13: 978-1-952534-18-8 / 9781952534188