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In films made you the viewer and I, or I in these and other adventures,

      

have ridden the windblown pampas; leapt the night through with the Dinka,

arms high as the horns of cattle; 

soared with Condors above the Andes; run with wolves in the Rockies;  

sled-hauled to the North Pole; 

made pilgrimage to the temples of Badrinath, Kedarnath and Gangotri.

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have attacked at dawn with the Gurkhas, artillery whispering overhead;

slept under a spray of stars with the Touareg, camels gurgling in the dark;

descended with the monks of Ganden to Lhosar in Lhasa;

debated with turbaned Afghans by lamplight beyond the Hindu Kush;

threaded up steamy rivers in the Amazon; 

passed through the dividing pardha at prayers in the Great Mosque of Isfahan;

descended the Niger to Timbuktu;

meditated on the Ghats of Benares;

dived to the Titanic; swum with 'mermaids';

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have heard the moan of whales in the Sound; the howl of monkeys;

the cry of loons; the breath of wolves;

seen the Gaumukh calve;

found the Maya, the Lost Dragon, Gilbert White, the Coast Wolf; 

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have been awed by the chant of the Rais as the sea turned red with blood; 

by the dread Ogungun as the night throbbed with drums;

by the roar of Harriers lifting above the canopy;

by the sweep of the Himalayas hanging above the clouds;

by the shimmering desert; by the tumbled sea ice; 

have hissed through snow tunnels in the slipstream of dogs;

dozed to the crackle of small arms in Jolo;

surveyed with the Iranian general the flotsam of battles on the searing frontier;

looked down the barrel of a gun in Ixil.

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have felt the tundra lift; the earth quake; the ice groan;

have seen ghost bears fish; tundra wolves white as ghosts;

the impress of angels in the snow; sundogs glare;

the aurora ripple like jellyfish petticoats.

have acknowledged Chairman Mao; hushed in the presence of the Queen;

white-scarfed the Dalai Lama; laughed with the President;

idled the time away with Amazon and Altiplano Indians,

 with Rendille, Baluchi, Hunzakut, Inuit, Sioux, Lacondon, Wodaabe;

have climbed the futtock shrouds; 

looked down from Kilimanjaro; up at Everest; across the Yangtze;

through The Hole in the Wall; into the the Lost Civilisation of Tibet;

have darted man-eaters in the African night;

whirred low through the bush to chainsaw rhino;

swayed on elephants; lolled in hammocks

followed in the wake of the Pinta, of Mendana

and many adventures and emotions more.

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This is work and play.