OFF ROAD
TRAVEL'S MIXED SIGNALS
Some TV commercials are tapping
into the thrill of adventure travel these days. One
underscores the glamour with humor; another, the
possibilities with technology. Both mentioned here
suggest that you can drive anywhere you want, and you
probably can. Of course, reality gets in the way from
time-to-time.
First, the Land Rover commercial, Scene I: An aerial
view of sand dunes — mountainous sand dunes --
stretching into forever. The camera zooms in on what
appears to be miles of footprints in the sand, then
onto two men making those tracks in the sand as they
stagger over the dune and disappear into the desert.
They look like they've been walking for days.
Cut to: A Land Rover with a beautiful couple laughing
without a care in the world. Their Land Rover is
parked in the sand with towering sand dunes rising
around them.
Scene II: The two men walk past the couple in the Land
Rover, neither pair noticing the other, and one of the
fellows hoofing it says, "A Land Rover. And a smashing
woman giving caviar to that chap...Look, I see an
igloo ahead."
Clever play on the notion of mirages and being lost in
the desert certainly gets your attention. And one of
Jeep's commercials is equally impressive. Scene I: A
shiny red Jeep coming straight at the camera through a
splashing river or creek bed. A voice over informs the
viewer of all the neat features included with a Jeep.
Then the voice asks: "With all this new technology,
where do you go from here?"
Scene II: An aerial camera pans a spectacular canyon,
maybe the Grand Canyon, and presumably, the river at
the bottom that the Jeep just ran through. Then the
camera zooms in on what appears to be the same Jeep,
racing to the brink of a clouded cliff.
Voice over just before the Jeep launches into the
canyon: "Anywhere you want!"
Truth is; you really can go anywhere you want. Trouble
is; the effort to get there is more in keeping with
the guys walking in the desert than the couple
snacking on hors d'oeuvres there.
The United States and Europe are the only two
countries with lots of land that's fully connected
with pavement, which makes road travel comfortable for
all but the most serious naturalists who truly enjoy
pitching tents. Jeeping or Land Roving off into, say,
the Alaskan bush — even onto a US desert -- is highly
impractical. With all the asphault veins, you don't
need to cut across country to get from here to there.
And if you do, it's almost guaranteed to get a
traveler into trouble with someone.
Out West, cattle ranchers and cowboys on horseback are
going to war with the US Department of Interior
because their cows can't roam freely where the
buffaloes used to. So tell me: How realistic is luxury
Jeeping? Land Roving Bush Yuppies in Nevada's deserts
or canyons would be lucky to meet a ticket-swinging US
Forest Ranger instead of the bulldozer Nye County
rancher, Dick Carver, used to spearhead the rebellion
shaping up in that state.
Even in undeveloped countries where Jeeps and Land
Rovers come in handy, off road travel usually takes
place on washboard roads and pot holed trails that
serve up mouths’ full of red clay dust more readily
than caviar. Horseback riding in Belize's Maya
Mountains didn't give me as many aches and pains as
bumping and banging by Jeep across that country's
rutted-out Hummingbird Highway.
Of course, the Land Rover I rented in Ecuador came
equipped with a jump seat on the roof, which was an
exceptional way to view the 20,000-foot high Andean
volcanoes. It was nothing less than
panorama-in-the-round, without the need for
head-spinning exorcism. But, hey, in just one hour I
froze my buns off and that was the end of topside
travel in a swinging lawn chair of sorts.
Travel writer, Susan Hack, shares her experience with
an elephant back safari in Conde Nast Traveler's
December 1995 issue. During the trip through the
Okavango Delta in Botswana, Africa, Hack likens these
four-footed land rovers to Land Rovers with wheels,
and concludes that elephants are the best all-terrain
vehicles. (Elephant safari How To's are listed on page
105.)
But whether it's adventure travel by natural or
manmade carrier, it seems that mixed signals have
ruled the day even before TV got hold of what's
trendy: According to Webster's Seventh New Collegiate
Dictionary, an adventurer is "one that adventures; as
a: Soldier of Fortune." An adventuress is "a female
adventurer; esp: a woman who seeks position or
livelihood by questionable means." Ouch. That hurts
more than butt-blisters from elephants, or stiff necks
from Jeeps.
By Barbara Bowers © 1996
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