The first rule of an expedition is that everyone should stick together.

A man who embarks on a journey must know when to end it.

A journey, I reflected, is of no merit unless it has tested you.

The Occident has never found it easy to grasp the strange netherworld of spirits that followers of Islam universally believe exist in a realm overlaid our own.

Back at the guest house I tried to acclimatise. A travel-worn adventurer had once told me that leaning with one’s head dangling over the end of a bed was the best way to achieve this. It was while I was in this position, the blood rushing to my temples, that the door swung open.

To be selfless, you would give charity anonymously, walj softly on the earth, and look out for others-even total strangers-before you look out for yourself. For the Arab mind, the self is an obstacle, an impediment, in humanity’s quest foe real progress.

Any man who has ever led an army, an expedition, or a group of Boy Scouts has sadism in his bones.

Close your senses and the imagination comes alive. It’s inside us al, dulled by endless television reruns and by a society that reins in fantasy as something not to be trusted, something to be purged. But it’s in there, deep inside, a spark waiting to set a touch-paper alight.

Enlightenment, and the death which comes before it, is the primary business of Varanasi.

I was no longer troubled when he pulled out a machete in a crowded bar, tried to pick up schoolgirls, or threatened to scalp us, then rip off our heads and scoop out our brains.

In any case, a little danger is a small price to pay for ridding a place of tourists.

The situation was different in the jungle. Every inch of ground had to be earned, and was done so through much exertion with the blade.

Exploration is a dirty game.

Settling into a new country is like getting used to a new pair of shoes. At first they pinch a little, but you like the way they look, so you carry on. The longer you have them, the more comfortable they become. Until one day without realizing it you reach a glorious plateau. Wearing those...

I struggled to think pure thoughts, as Hector sucked out my psyche with his eyes.

I believe that Marrakech ought to be earned as a destination. The journey is the preparation for the experience. Reaching it too fast derides it, makes it a little less easy to understand.

Lured by the wilderness, and by the chance of spotting rare desert elephants, a few intrepid tourists make their way to the Skeleton Coast each year. It’s just about as remote as any tourist destination on earth, but one that pays fabulous dividends.

In Morocco,” said Osman, “word spreads like a fire tearing through the depths of Hell.

There’s nothing quite like a good quest for getting your blood pumping.

The idea of my heart dancing with delight was far too good to pass up.

If hot food is they key to maintaining an expedition’s stamina, then low grade gut-rot alcohol is the key to sustaining its sense of pleasure.

Explorers like to pretend that they are a select breed of people with iron nerve and an ability to endure terrible hardship.

The forest did not tolerate frailty of body or mind. Show your weakness, and it would consume you without hesitation.

There is nothing like a train journey for reflection.

Nothing is what it seems. Favoured Pashtu proverb of Jan Fishan Khan.

I felt sure we could gain the upper hand by putting ourselves in the mindset of the Incas.

The ants are bad” The Bear”the ants?”Tahir”Do not be fooled. They look very small, so harm you don’t think of then at all. Then years. Then one day you wake up, and your home has fallen down.” Osman.

But in Africa bureaucrats are usually too proud to accept a bribe, something I admire when I’m not the one being arrested.

My journey to the land of the Shuar tribe had taught me the importance of practical gifts.

Only a man who has his health, a full stomach and wears clean clothes would ever entertain the notion of tracking down the greatest lost city on Earth.

On a hard jungle journey nothing is so important as having a team you can trust.

In India an explanation is often more confusing than what prompted it.

[T]hrough bitter experience I have learned that it is best to promise little and then to reward hard work with generosity.

Osman and Prideep had been in my employment for some weeks. Every Friday I would take the to lunch. It was the high point of their calender. During the meal I would harangue them as a reminder of what they had been hired for: but my orations never seemed to increase their output. I realised...

I am all for curses and superstition, but there’s a point at which they start getting in the way. That point had arrived.

These days no one challenges us,’ he said. ‘And because there is no challenge, there is no reason to work hard. And with no reason to work hard, we have all become lazy.

In India everything has a use and a value.

For me, nature is something you watch on the Discovery Channel, or on the evening news — as you learn how much more of it’s been savaged to make way for the Blackberry realm that is my home

Stories are not like the real world; they aren’t held back by what we know is false or true. What’s important is how a story makes you feel inside.

Through a strange kind of geographic arrogance, Europeans like to think that the world was a silent, dark, unknown place until they trooped out and discovered it.

As the head of an expedition, you can’t pussyfoot around being polite to everyone. You have to show your teeth once in a while; a little growling goes a long way.

A journey of observation must leave as much as possible to chance. Random movement is the best plan for maximum observation

As anyone who’s ever taken an Ethiopian bus knows, there is an unwritten rule that the windows must remain firmly closed.

As far as I was concerned, a little danger of head-shrinking is a small price to pay in return for a people who have remained true to an ancient code.

Because there is no challenge, there is no reason to work hard. And with no reason to work hard, we all have become lazy. Lazy people are like cancer. They spread. Before you know it, the entire country is destroyed.

When I am about to embark on a difficult journey, I comfort myself by reading the accounts of the great nineteenth-century travellers, men like Stanley, Burton, Speke, Burckhardt and Barth.

As a travel writer I’ve specialized in gritty, fearful destinations, the kind of places that make a reader’s hair stick on end.

In the world of the Machiguenga, sadness could be equated with anger, and anger was a perilous emotion, by which a foreigner could lose his life.

To Succeed, you must reach for the stars, and let your imagination find its own path

The last thing we wanted was for the Machiguenga to be sad again. Sadness appeared to bring out their violence.