http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rZ5NdhbT6Y

Reinhold Messner was the first person to climb all fourteen eight-thousanders in the world, referring to the fourteen mountains whose summits are at least eight thousand feet above sea level. He did all of these climbs without the help of supplemental oxygen. On his first climb of an eight-thousander, Nanga Parbat, Reinhold’s brother, Gunther, who was climbing with him, died. Recalling this expedition, Reinhold remembers how his prior training of climbing without food saved his life: “I was very lucky I had this training because otherwise on Nanga Parbat I would have no chance to survive, because we were forced for days, on the end for five days in my case, to live without any food. There wasn’t food. And more difficult was the fact that we had to live for days without water.” His final climb of the fourteen, Lhotse, was completed on October 16, 1986.

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Reinhold Messner On Summiting The “Eight-Thousanders” appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7EbQ_mRSjg

In 1994, Jason Lewis and his friend Steve Smith decided to attempt a human-powered trek around the globe. They expected to complete the trek in two years, however about a year into the journey, Lewis suffers two severely broken legs after being hit by a drunk driver in Colorado. It would take a couple of years before Lewis and Smith could resume their trek, with Smith dropping out of the adventure when the pair reached Hawaii. From coups to problems fundraising, Lewis’s trip never lacked for challenges. Thirteen years after setting out, Jason Lewis arrived home in England.

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Jason Lewis’s Incredible Human-Powered Circumnavigation appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pghz6gUDBPE

Three months after the death of wildlife expert Steve Irwin, known worldwide as “The Crocodile Hunter,” his wife Terri Raines, and daughter, Bindi Irwin, are interviewed on their lives following his tragic passing. They discuss what they most miss about him and how they are both helping each other process the grief. Bindi shares how seeing her father on television helps her feel like “he’s still there” and keeps his memory alive. She also optimistically says of the grief: “It’s really bumpy…it’s a hard time that we are going through but all bad things must come to an end.” Irwin passed away on September 4, 2006 after being pierced by a stingray in the chest.

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Wife & Daughter on Missing Steve Irwin & Preserving His Legacy appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHhmtDQOoXc

Dr. Robert Ballard recalls his excitement on the day he found the wreckage of the RMS Titanic in 1985 during a joint French-American expedition led by Jean-Louis Michel of Institut français de recherche pour l’exploitation de la mer (IFREMER) and his crew from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Ballard on what the Titanic looked like underwater: “It’s somewhat like going to a haunted house…” He explains how the discovery was a somewhat accidental one for Ballard was originally sent by the U.S. Navy for a separate mission–to map nuclear submarines lost in the Atlantic during the Cold War. Ballard and his crew’s excitement towards their discovery quickly dissipated when they realized they should not “be dancing on someone’s grave.” During his famous career, Ballard has also found other well-known ships such as the German battleship, Bismarck, and the PT-109.

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Robert Ballard on His Roundabout Titanic Discovery appeared first on Witnify.

“I entered the untouched forest beyond, and suddenly found myself in a maze of beautiful granite houses!…”

Hiram Bingham at his desk. Source: Library of Congress.

In 1911, Hiram Bingham, an American explorer adventuring in Peru, uncovered the now famous Incan ruins of Machu Picchu. Though locals were aware of its presence, the Incan settlement had gone unnoticed by the rest of the world until Bingham made public its existence. In “Inca Land: Explorations in the Highlands of Peru,” Bingham’s firsthand account of his explorations, he details his adventures that led to the exposure of one of the world’s most treasured historical sites. Below is his chapter on Machu Picchu:

Chapter XVII: Machu Picchu

It was in July, 1911, that we first entered that marvelous canyon of the Urubamba, where the river escapes from the cold regions near Cuzco by tearing its way through gigantic mountains of granite. From Torontoy to Colpani the road runs through a land of matchless charm. It has the majestic grandeur of the Canadian Rockies, as well as the startling beauty of the Nuuanu Pali near Honolulu, and the enchanting vistas of the Koolau Ditch Trail on Maul. In the variety of its charms and the power of its spell, I know of no place in the world which can compare with it. Not only has it great snow peaks looming above the clouds more than two miles overhead; gigantic precipices of many-colored granite rising sheer for thousands of feet above the foaming, glistening, roaring rapids; it has also, in striking contrast, orchids and tree ferns, the delectable beauty of luxurious vegetation, and the mysterious witchery of the jungle. One is drawn irresistibly onward by ever-recurring surprises through a deep, winding gorge, turning and twisting past overhanging cliffs of incredible height. Above all, there is the fascination of finding here and there under the swaying vines, or perched on top of a beetling crag, the rugged masonry of a bygone race; and of trying to understand the bewildering romance of the ancient builders who ages ago sought refuge in a region which appears to have been expressly designed by Nature as a sanctuary for the oppressed, a place where they might fearlessly and patiently give expression to their passion for walls of enduring beauty. Space forbids any attempt to describe in detail the constantly changing panorama, the rank tropical foliage, the countless terraces, the towering cliffs, the glaciers peeping out between the clouds.

We had camped at a place near the river, called Mandor Pampa. Melchor Arteaga, proprietor of the neighboring farm, had told us of ruins at Machu Picchu, as was related in Chapter X.

The morning of July 24th dawned in a cold drizzle. Arteaga shivered and seemed inclined to stay in his hut. I offered to pay him well if he would show me the ruins. He demurred and said it was too hard a climb for such a wet day. When he found that we were willing to pay him a sol, three or four times the ordinary daily wage in this vicinity, he finally agreed to guide us to the ruins. No one supposed that they would be particularly interesting. Accompanied by Sergeant Carrasco I left camp at ten o’clock and went some distance upstream. On the road we passed a venomous snake which recently had been killed. This region has an unpleasant notoriety for being the favorite haunt of “vipers.” The lance-headed or yellow viper, commonly known as the fer-de-lance, a very venomous serpent capable of making considerable springs when in pursuit of its prey, is common hereabouts. Later two of our mules died from snake-bite.

After a walk of three quarters of an hour the guide left the main road and plunged down through the jungle to the bank of the river. Here there was a primitive “bridge” which crossed the roaring rapids at its narrowest part, where the stream was forced to flow between two great boulders. The bridge was made of half a dozen very slender logs, some of which were not long enough to span the distance between the boulders. They had been spliced and lashed together with vines. Arteaga and Carrasco took off their shoes and crept gingerly across, using their somewhat prehensile toes to keep from slipping. It was obvious that no one could have lived for an instant in the rapids, but would immediately have been dashed to pieces against granite boulders. I am frank to confess that I got down on hands and knees and crawled across, six inches at a time. Even after we reached the other side I could not help wondering what would happen to the “bridge” if a particularly heavy shower should fall in the valley above. A light rain had fallen during the night. The river had risen so that the bridge was already threatened by the foaming rapids. It would not take much more rain to wash away the bridge entirely. If this should happen during the day it might be very awkward. As a matter of fact, it did happen a few days later and the next explorers to attempt to cross the river at this point found only one slender log remaining.

Machu Picchu, 1912. Source: Hiram Bingham.

Leaving the stream, we struggled up the bank through a dense jungle, and in a few minutes reached the bottom of a precipitous slope. For an hour and twenty minutes we had a hard climb. A good part of the distance we went on all fours, sometimes hanging on by the tips of our fingers. Here and there, a primitive ladder made from the roughly hewn trunk of a small tree was placed in such a way as to help one over what might otherwise have proved to be an impassable cliff. In another place the slope was covered with slippery grass where it was hard to find either handholds or footholds. The guide said that there were lots of snakes here. The humidity was great, the heat was excessive, and we were not in training.

Shortly after noon we reached a little grass-covered hut where several good-natured Indians, pleasantly surprised at our unexpected arrival, welcomed us with dripping gourds full of cool, delicious water. Then they set before us a few cooked sweet potatoes, called herecumara, a Quichua word identical with the Polynesian kumala, as has been pointed out by Mr. Cook.

Apart from the wonderful view of the canyon, all we could see from our cool shelter was a couple of small grass huts and a few ancient stone-faced terraces. Two pleasant Indian farmers, Richarte and Alvarez, had chosen this eagle’s nest for their home. They said they had found plenty of terraces here on which to grow their crops and they were usually free from undesirable visitors. They did not speak Spanish, but through Sergeant Carrasco I learned that there were more ruins “a little farther along.” In this country one never can tell whether such a report is worthy of credence. “He may have been lying” is a good footnote to affix to all hearsay evidence. Accordingly, I was not unduly excited, nor in a great hurry to move. The heat was still great, the water from the Indian’s spring was cool and delicious, and the rustic wooden bench, hospitably covered immediately after my arrival with a soft, woolen poncho, seemed most comfortable. Furthermore, the view was simply enchanting. Tremendous green precipices fell away to the white rapids of the Urubamba below. Immediately in front, on the north side of the valley, was a great granite cliff rising 2000 feet sheer. To the left was the solitary peak of Huayna Picchu, surrounded by seemingly inaccessible precipices. On all sides were rocky cliffs. Beyond them cloud-capped mountains rose thousands of feet above us.

Hiram Bingham at his tent door near Machu Picchu.

The Indians said there were two paths to the outside world. Of one we had already had a taste; the other, they said, was more difficult—a perilous path down the face of a rocky precipice on the other side of the ridge. It was their only means of egress in the wet season, when the bridge over which we had come could not be maintained. I was not surprised to learn that they went away from home only “about once a month.”

Richarte told us that they had been living here four years. It seems probable that, owing to its inaccessibility, the canyon had been unoccupied for several centuries, but with the completion of the new government road settlers began once more to occupy this region. In time somebody clambered up the precipices and found on the slopes of Machu Picchu, at an elevation of 9000 feet above the sea, an abundance of rich soil conveniently situated on artificial terraces, in a fine climate. Here the Indians had finally cleared off some ruins, burned over a few terraces, and planted crops of maize, sweet and white potatoes, sugar cane, beans, peppers, tree tomatoes, and gooseberries. At first they appropriated some of the ancient houses and replaced the roofs of wood and thatch. They found, however, that there were neither springs nor wells near the ancient buildings. An ancient aqueduct which had once brought a tiny stream to the citadel had long since disappeared beneath the forest, filled with earth washed from the upper terraces. So, abandoning the shelter of the ruins, the Indians were now enjoying the convenience of living near some springs in roughly built thatched huts of their own design.

Without the slightest expectation of finding anything more interesting than the stone-faced terraces of which I already had a glimpse, and the ruins of two or three stone houses such as we had encountered at various places on the road between Ollantaytambo and Torontoy, I finally left the cool shade of the pleasant little hut and climbed farther up the ridge and around a slight promontory. Arteaga had “been here once before,” and decided to rest and gossip with Richarte and Alvarez in the hut. They sent a small boy with me as a guide.

Hardly had we rounded the promontory when the character of the stonework began to improve. A flight of beautifully constructed terraces, each two hundred yards long and ten feet high, had then recently rescued from the jungle by the Indians. A forest of large trees had been chopped down and burned over to make a clearing for agricultural purposes. Crossing these terraces, I entered the untouched forest beyond, and suddenly found myself in a maze of beautiful granite houses! They were covered with trees and moss and the growth of centuries, but in the dense shadow, hiding in bamboo thickets and tangled vines, could be seen, here and there, walls of white granite ashlars most carefully cut and exquisitely fitted together. Buildings with windows were frequent. Here at least was a “place far from town and conspicuous for its windows.”

Flashlight view of Interior of Cave, Machu Picchu.

Under a carved rock the little boy showed me a cave beautifully lined with the finest cut stone. It was evidently intended to be a Royal Mausoleum. On top of this particular boulder a semicircular building had been constructed. The wall followed the natural curvature of the rock and was keyed to it by one of the finest examples of masonry I have ever seen. This beautiful wall, made of carefully matched ashlars of pure white granite, especially selected for its fine grain, was the work of a master artist. The interior surface of the wall was broken by niches and square stone-pegs. The exterior surface was perfectly simple and unadorned. The lower courses, of particularly large ashlars, gave it a look of solidity. The upper courses, diminishing in size toward the top, lent grace and delicacy to the structure. The flowing lines, the symmetrical arrangement of the ashlars, and the gradual gradation of the courses, combined to produce a wonderful effect, softer and more pleasing than that of the marble temples of the Old World. Owing to the absence of mortar, there are no ugly spaces between the rocks. They might have grown together.

The elusive beauty of this chaste, undecorated surface seems to me to be due to the fact that the wall was built under the eye of a master mason who knew not the straight edge, the plumb rule, or the square. He had no instruments of precision, so he had to depend on his eye. He had a good eye, an artistic eye, an eye for symmetry and beauty of form. His product received none of the harshness of mechanical and mathematical accuracy. The apparently rectangular blocks are not really rectangular. The apparently straight lines of the courses are not actually straight in the exact sense of that term.

To my astonishment I saw that this wall and its adjoining semicircular temple over the cave were as fine as the finest stonework in the far-famed Temple of the Sun in Cuzco. Surprise followed surprise in bewildering succession. I climbed a marvelous great stairway of large granite blocks, walked along a pampa where the Indians had a small vegetable garden, and came into a little clearing. Here were the ruins of two of the finest structures I have ever seen in Peru. Not only were they made of selected blocks of beautifully grained white granite; their walls contained ashlars of Cyclopean size, ten feet in length, and higher than a man. The sight held me spellbound.

Each building had only three walls and was entirely open on the side toward the clearing. The principal temple was lined with exquisitely made niches, five high up at each end, and seven on the back wall. There were seven courses of ashlars in the end walls. Under the seven rear niches was a rectangular block fourteen feet long, probably a sacrificial altar. The building did not look as though it had ever had a roof. The top course of beautifully smooth ashlars was not intended to be covered.

The other temple is on the east side of the pampa. I called it the Temple of the Three Windows. Like its neighbor, it is unique among Inca ruins. Its eastern wall, overlooking the citadel, is a massive stone framework for three conspicuously large windows, obviously too large to serve any useful purpose, yet most beautifully made with the greatest care and solidity. This was clearly a ceremonial edifice of peculiar significance. Nowhere else in Peru, so far as I know, is there a similar structure conspicuous as “a masonry wall with three windows.”

Detail of Principal Temple Machu Picchu

These ruins have no other name than that of the mountain on the slopes of which they are located. Had this place been occupied uninterruptedly, like Cuzco and Ollantaytambo, Machu Picchu would have retained its ancient name, but during the centuries when it was abandoned, its name was lost. Examination showed that it was essentially a fortified place, a remote fastness protected by natural bulwarks, of which man took advantage to create the most impregnable stronghold in the Andes. Our subsequent excavations and the clearing made in 1912, to be described in a subsequent volume, has shown that this was the chief place in Uilcapampa.

It did not take an expert to realize, from the glimpse of Machu Picchu on that rainy day in July, 1911, when Sergeant Carrasco and I first saw it, that here were most extraordinary and interesting ruins. Although the ridge had been partly cleared by the Indians for their fields of maize, so much of it was still underneath a thick jungle growth—some walls were actually supporting trees ten and twelve inches in diameter—that it was impossible to determine just what would be found here. As soon as I could get hold of Mr. Tucker, who was assisting Mr. Hendriksen, and Mr. Lanius, who had gone down the Urubamba with Dr. Bowman, I asked them to make a map of the ruins. I knew it would be a difficult undertaking and that it was essential for Mr. Tucker to join me in Arequipa not later than the first of October for the ascent of Coropuna. With the hearty aid of Richarte and Alvarez, the surveyors did better than I expected. In the ten days while they were at the ruins they were able to secure data from which Mr. Tucker afterwards prepared a map which told better than could any words of mine the importance of this site and the necessity for further investigation.

With the possible exception of one mining prospector, no one in Cuzco had seen the ruins of Machu Picchu or appreciated their importance. No one had any realization of what an extraordinary place lay on top of the ridge. It had never been visited by any of the planters of the lower Urubamba Valley who annually passed over the road which winds through the canyon two thousand feet below.

It seems incredible that this citadel, less than three days’ journey from Cuzco, should have remained so long undescribed by travelers and comparatively unknown even to the Peruvians themselves. If the conquistadores ever saw this wonderful place, some reference to it surely would have been made; yet nothing can be found which clearly refers to the ruins of Machu Picchu. Just when it was first seen by a Spanish-speaking person is uncertain. When the Count de Sartiges was at Huadquiña in 1834 he was looking for ruins; yet, although so near, he heard of none here. From a crude scrawl on the walls of one of the finest buildings, we learned that the ruins were visited in 1902 by Lizarraga, lessee of the lands immediately below the bridge of San Miguel. This is the earliest local record. Yet some one must have visited Machu Picchu long before that; because in 1875, as has been said, the French explorer Charles Wiener heard in Ollantaytambo of there being ruins at “Huaina-Picchu or Matcho-Picchu.” He tried to find them. That he failed was due to there being no road through the canyon of Torontoy and the necessity of making a wide detour through the pass of Panticalla and the Lucumayo Valley, a route which brought him to the Urubamba River at the bridge of Chuquichaca, twenty-five miles below Machu Picchu.

Detail of Exterior of Temple of the Three Windows, Machu Picchu

It was not until 1890 that the Peruvian Government, recognizing the needs of the enterprising planters who were opening up the lower valley of the Urubamba, decided to construct a mule trail along the banks of the river through the grand canyon to enable the much-desired coca and aguardiente to be shipped from Huadquiña, Maranura, and Santa Ann to Cuzco more quickly and cheaply than formerly. This road avoids the necessity of carrying the precious cargoes over the dangerous snowy passes of Mt. Veronica and Mt. Salcantay, so vividly described by Raimondi, de Sartiges, and others. The road, however, was very expensive, took years to build, and still requires frequent repair. In fact, even to-day travel over it is often suspended for several days or weeks at a time, following some tremendous avalanche. Yet it was this new road which had led Melchor Arteaga to build his hut near the arable land at Mandor Pampa, where he could raise food for his family and offer rough shelter to passing travelers. It was this new road which brought Richarte, Alvarez, and their enterprising friends into this little-known region, gave them the opportunity of occupying the ancient terraces of Machu Picchu, which had lain fallow for centuries, encouraged them to keep open a passable trail over the precipices, and made it feasible for us to reach the ruins. It was this new road which offered us in 1911 a virgin field between Ollantaytambo and Huadquiña and enabled us to learn that the Incas, or their predecessors, had once lived here in the remote fastnesses of the Andes, and had left stone witnesses of the magnificence and beauty of their ancient civilization, more interesting and extensive than any which have been found since the days of the Spanish Conquest of Peru.

Read “Inca Land” by Hiram Bingham 

The post Hiram Bingham III
Inca Land: Hiram Bingham Documents His Machu Picchu Discovery appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gdgw8wyh24I

In 1911, American explorer Hiram Bingham III made public the knowledge of the Incan ruins at Machu Picchu and since then, the world has enjoyed the well-preserved and beautiful 15th century ruins located in Peru. Known to locals but gone unnoticed by the greater world until Bingham’s exploratory efforts in the 20th century, the Incan estate remained untouched by the Spanish invasion and serves as a beautiful artifact of the ancient culture. In this National Geographic special, historian Christopher Heaney, describes Bingham’s work and legacy.

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Story of Yale’s ‘Indiana Jones’ Hiram Bingham & Machu Picchu appeared first on Witnify.

Author: Victor Englebert

“‘Say your payers for you’re going to die,’ and with that he dropped the stick, pulled a revolver from his belt, and came around the jeep to put it to my head…”

Map Detailing the Eritrean War of Independence. Source: Berkaysnklf of Wikimedia.

In 1967, Ras (Prince) Mengesha, son-in-law of Ethiopia’s emperor Haile Selassie, wrote to National Geographic that a French-Italian geological expedition would soon arrive in Ethiopia to study continental drift in his country’s Danakil Depression—how Africa and Arabia are slipping apart there, giving birth to a new ocean. He begged them to send someone to cover the expedition.

National Geographic, at the time a non-profit organization, did not think twice about throwing money at something that might not work in the end. And they offered me the assignment. I had already lived some African adventures for them, and they knew few other people would be as keen as I to go spend a season in Hell.

Indeed, the Danakil Depression is a fantastic land of active volcanoes, boundless black lava fields, boiling sulfurous sources, merciless desert, rocks, and dried salt lakes. At more than 200 feet below the Red Sea level, it is the world’s hottest region, one which, in 1928, the explorer L.M. Nesbitt famously called the “Hellhole of Creation”-—as in the birth of a planet. Still, to the photographer that I am, it’s hauntingly beautiful.

I was to meet the geologists in Makalé, in the Tigré highlands. But they had not arrived. Their vehicles and heavy equipment were blocked in the Suez Canal by the Six-Day War, a pre-emptive war by Israel against Syria, Jordan, and Egypt, which Israel suspected were preparing to attack it.

Rather than wait at the hotel, an ancient castle managed by a remarkable Indian lady, I embarked on a salt caravan. Traveling with it down the escarpment to Karum salt lake, it would give me a first look at the Danakil Depression, which I could not wait to start photographing.

When, on my return to Makalé, I still found no geologists, I decided to go photograph the Danakil nomads. They were fierce warriors about whom I had read dreadful things. To guarantee the survival of a family in such an inhumane region, a Danakil man who wanted a wife had to kill and emasculate another man and offer this trophy to his future wife. I was uneasy about going and not looking for trouble but could not see how I could avoid it. Waiting for the geologists at the hotel was not an option. I ended up getting my pictures of the nomads, but not before nearly losing my life, one dark night, at the hands of a nasty young gang.

Finally, the geologists arrived and I spent a few equally eventful weeks photographing them working. This time we were under the protection of a few Ethiopian soldiers. Ras Mengesha, a wonderful man, shared our experience the whole time, roughing it up, sharing our laughs, and going as far as giving a geologist a haircut.

After the geologists’ departure back to Europe, I found myself alone again. My work was done. But National Geographic paid me generously, besides giving me the chance to live the life of my choice. That was well worth an additional effort.

And I felt sad to leave this stunning inferno.

The Red Sea coast and its Danakil shark fishermen intrigued me. They caught sharks for their fins, oriental delicacies that found their way to China via Aden, in South Yemen.

In Asmara, today the capital of Eritrea, but then part of Ethiopia, I rented a jeep with a driver, a young Eritrean named Abdallah. My plan was to travel down the Ethiopian escarpment to Massawa, then down the coast to Assab, and back up the escarpment to Addis Ababa, from where I would fly home to New York.

From the day I landed in Ethiopia I had been told incessantly to stay away from Eritrean shiftas, or bandits. They were not actually bandits but rebels who fought for their country’s independence (they would achieve it only in 1991).

British missionaries in Thio, a village where I spent a day at sea photographing Danakil fishing sharks, were the last to strongly recommend that I turn back. But since I was not part of the conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia, and knew of no white men involved in it, I did not see what reasons the rebels would have to treat me as an enemy.

Shortly after leaving Thio, our narrow dirt road petered out into the bush and we lost our way. But we went on, zigzagging around thorn trees and hoping to somehow reach the coast eventually. Oppressed by the inhuman heat we lapsed into a stupor.

When Abdallah suddenly put the brakes on, my first thought was that he had fallen asleep and hit a tree. But almost as soon after, I heard him whisper, “Shiftas.”

Running from tree to low thorn tree with rifles and machine guns aimed at the jeep, they looked insistently behind us as if fearing the arrival of more vehicles.

I stepped out smiling, ready for presentations. But I was brutally thrown down to the ground and ordered by signs to put my hands on my head. A madman who had pulled Abdallah from his seat savagely beat him with a stick on the face and head. “Donkey!” he insulted him in English so I might understand him. “Donkey!”

“Stop this,” I shouted. “This man is an Eritrean like you.”

“Of course he is. Which is why I won’t kill him. But you, you f***ing Israeli spy, say your payers for you’re going to die,” and with that he dropped the stick, pulled a revolver from his belt, and came around the jeep to put it to my head.

I wanted to speak, but for a few seconds, unable to make sense of what was happening, I could not get the words out. I had closed my eyes and waited for the bullet that would end my wonderful life. And then the words came out at last.

“Wait, I’m Belgian. Let me show you my passport.”

“I know Belgium,” he screamed, “Any idiot can get a Belgian passport.”

Meanwhile, the other men had gone through my luggage and found no weapons other than a big knife, which they confiscated. The madman relaxed and lowered his revolver. “Show me your passport,” he now said. He found two Algerian visa entries in it.

“They saved your life,” he declared. “As an Israeli you would not have been allowed into Algeria, an Arab country. But get back inside your vehicle, and don’t get out or you’ll be shot.”

By three o’clock the heat in the stranded jeep was almost unbearable, and poor Abdallah, his face swollen and bloody, moaned heartbreakingly.

“Do you realize,” he asked, “that this is Sunday, and I could be dancing in Asmara?” I agreed it was stupid of me to have brought this situation upon us. I apologized, but he protested.

“You, presumptuous Christian, don’t you understand that you had nothing to do with this? That this was the will of Allah?” We spent a difficult night together.

What no one had explained to me, and what I would learn much later, was that Israel supported the Ethiopians while Egypt stood behind Eritrea. And as I was spending eight months of the year in jungles, deserts, and high mountains, thousands of miles from the nearest newspaper kiosk, I had not read the news.

At dawn, the guerrillas hoisted a flag on a rifle, presented arms, and went to sit in the ragged shade of a thorn tree 100 meters away, leaving us in the jeep in dreadful suspense. And the sun rose and with it the infernal heat. By ten, we had started roasting  chickens. I called out to the guerrillas for permission to get out, but they did not respond. Struggling against Abdallah, who would not let me open the jeep’s door, I got out in the sun and, hands up, started walking slowly toward our tormentors, calling them out as I did. At last, the leader got up and came to meet me. He handed me my knife.

“You may go,” he said. “But tell the Belgians that we are not shiftas. Haile Selassie is the shifta. He robbed our country.”

He showed us the way to the coast and, an hour later, at a fishing village, an armed guerrilla stopped us again and led us to a large tent. Inside, four men sat behind a long table. Abdallah told them their colleagues had let us through, and they waved us on.

Our next destination was Ed, a big fishing village. As our jeep arrived in plain view of the village, though still quite far away, some 25 soldiers of the Ethiopian army came rushing out of their barracks to throw themselves on their bellies and aim their weapons at us.

“Jump!” Abdallah cried as he hit the brakes. But I was already out in the sun, hands up. “Don’t move!” a voice shouted. And a soldier came running towards us to check us for weapons and to take us to an English-speaking captain. He was stunned to see us, but greeted us warmly.

“You jumped in the nick of time,” he declared gravely. “A second later and we would have made a sieve out of your jeep. We haven’t seen a vehicle in more than three years. No wonder you couldn’t find a road. Nature reclaimed it. But what will you do next? From here to Assab is much longer than from where you came. And the mountains you will have to cross will swarm with shiftas. Your only alternative is to wait for a dhow, an Arab sailboat. But you will have to abandon the jeep.”

In spite of his terror of being forcibly enrolled into the Eritrean guerrilla, Abdallah seemed even more frightened to face his Italian boss in Asmara without the Jeep. He said he had to bring it back, and so he would continue. Naturally, his fate was not in his hands but in those of Allah. Being responsible for this mess, I could not decently let him go on alone, and so I put my own fate into Allah’s hands and stuck with him.

The way to Assab was heart-stopping. Every now and then Abdallah’s feverish imagination saw shiftas hiding behind rocks and in anguish suddenly hit the brakes. However, Allah was compassionate and raised no more real troubles.

Curiously, perhaps through our Ethiopian captain, the story of our adventures preceded us in Addis Ababa, where lunch invitations awaited me at the Belgian and American embassies with people who wanted to hear my story. National Geographic published the story I wrote on my adventure in its January 1970 issue.

Victor Englebert is a photojournalist exploring world cultures. He has appeared in magazines including National Geographic and Smithsonian Magazine. Learn more about his work on his blog and website.

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Facing Guerillas, Soldiers & Death During the Eritrean War appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDyICjWWKFM

Did you dream of becoming an astronaut growing up? This video footage captures the launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis on July 8, 2011 from inside the shuttle. The mission, known as STS 135, was the last of Atlantis’s 33 missions and the final mission of the United States Space Shuttle Program. Listen to the astronauts communicate with the flight deck and watch their excited reactions.

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Experience Atlantis Launch as the Astronauts Did appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikA-5hAiOKQ

Mountaineer Peter Habeler explains how he first met climbing partner Reinhold Messner and recalls what it was like to climb Mount Everest on May 8, 1978 without supplemental oxygen.

The post Mount Everest
Peter Habeler on Ascending Everest Without Oxygen appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOVDL0m2SbY

Mountaineer Reinhold Messner discusses the climbing career that led to his supplemental oxygen free climb of Mount Everest on May 8, 1978 and recalls what the experience was like for him and climbing partner, Peter Habeler. Messner also comments on other mountains he ascended and the future of mountain climbing as a sport.

The post Mount Everest
Reinhold Messner Reflects on His Mountain Climbing Career appeared first on Witnify.