Leave No Trace لا تترك اثر!

“The notion that [outdoor] recreation has no environmental impacts is no longer tenable.”—Curtis H. Flather and H. Ken Cordell,Wildlife and Recreationists

Great tit tired of seeing our acts :)

People enjoy the outdoors in myriad ways. We explore on foot, 4X4, and mountain bicycles. There are more of us pushing our sports to greater extremes and into more remote parts of the natural world every day. Our experiences are personally satisfying, but they can be costly to the places we visit and the animals we observe. (LNT Desert and Canyon booklet)

يستمتع الناس بالمناطق البرية بالعديد من الطرق، فنحن نستكشف هذه المناطق سيرا على الاقدام، 4X4، او بالدراجات الجبلية. المزيد منا يقومون بتخطي الحدود و الوصول لمناطق لطالما كانت بعيدة المنال. تجربتنا في هذه المناطق عادة ما تتركنا مستمتعين و راضين عن إنجازاتها، ولكن ماذا عن اثر هذه التجربة على ألاماكن التي نزورها؟ و الحياة البرية التي نراها.

Hike like a Martian

The Martian Film, Jordan, Wadi Rum.

In the outdoors I have been falling between two schools. Adventure and challenge school, where we hike, walk, run, or ride from A to B with the fastest time possible, a physical challenge for ourselves, body and mind, a way to cross the barriers in our minds that keep telling us we can’t, because this is how it has been programmed to protect us, and this is what it does all the time.

We tend to challenge our physical abilities. Go out to do a sport and have a healthier life style. The natural terrain makes it even more challenging. There in the nature we feel how we are small part of a bigger planet, an infinite universe. We keep searching for new heights, pushing toward new limits to prove the capability of the amazing human machine! (Just to mention Ueli Steck’s with his fascinating 82, 4000m Summit in 80 days project). We Human are setting new limits of speed and challenge for the outdoors. (READ MORE

King of the Jungle

There are no words to describe the feeling when you stand in front of a wild animal when you are in a Walking Safari, what if this animal was the king of the Jungle?

I still remember the first time I did so in my course in South Africa. There is nothing between us we stood there and looked each other on the eyes.

The whole feeling differs when you are the guide! Here you have to be aware of everything around you, every single move, not only that you have to be ready for the worst, if thee lion decided to attach –which not supposed to happen if you know what you are doing-, and above all give your client the chance to satisfy their lifetime dream.

Little Things in Life

A little Gecko

It is the little things in life that make the difference, the finest details what make the experience. Paying attention to these small details what makes the perfection. It is agreed that everyone will see the beauty of a flower, but it is hard to see the beauty of the ordinary things we face every day in our life, the beauty hidden in every corner.

When I used to guide the people on Safari, everyone wanted to see the big five, they all wanted to encounter a kill, but only few stopped next to line of solder ants going back of their battle carrying their winnings back. It was our job as guides to show them this beauty.

The Art of Tracking - Make The Nature an Open Book-

fresh Spotted Hyena Spoor -South Africa, Wet Land

I always was interested in the art of tracking, lately I was reading an interesting book called " The Art of Tracking, The Origin of Science" by Louis Liebenberg, a free book that you can download from the library section in the Resources & Forum section in the website - www.explorejordan.c.la - . The book discus the evolution of the hunting methods and the use of Tracking and who it was the way we could develop our thinking toward the modern since.

But I want to share with you here some citation from the introduction of this interesting book.