Delve into the heart of the high Pyrenees, making your way through a network of canyons and waterways. After a crash course in rope skills, you’ll start in the French mountains, laced with rivers roaring with the run-off from melted snowcaps.
Abseil vertical canyons and hurtle down water chutes and waterfalls, then dry out in a sunlit gully beyond the Spanish border. Here you can dive into warm, blue swimming holes, scale rock faces and unwind with a bottle of local wine or two. Feel your heart in your mouth with a final, 150-metre free-hanging abseil down the Foratata Canyon.
A comet is about to strike Finland and will wipe out humankind. But you know how to stop it. Be the hero in your very own movie with The Hollywood Experience and create the ultimate travelogue of your Nordic adventures. High-end Finnish tour company Luxury Action has teamed up with Studio Jones to offer film-lovers the chance to star in a personal blockbuster.
Car chase? Can do. Journey to Narnia? Check. Sole survivor of a zombie apocalypse? Tick. Share your action dreams with the team and they’ll twist and tweak a storyboard to your liking. Once the narrative is complete, zip to location and work your magic in front of the camera. The catch? Holidaying like a movie star requires an income to match – the cost of scriptwriting alone starts at about US$11,500. That’s before the camera even starts rolling.
You might think that getting punched repeatedly in the face by an opponent would be detrimental to your concentration levels and overall cerebral fitness – and generally speaking you’d be correct – but chessboxing gives participants the chance to show off both brains and brawn. The hybrid sport sees appropriately weight-matched opponents swinging haymakers in the boxing ring then glaring across a chessboard at each other in alternating rounds. A knockout or checkmate move decides the contest. The concept was conceived 35 years ago, and was once seen as part novelty sport, part joke – we dare you, however, to laugh in the face of Nikolay Sazhin, a world champion in two heavyweight divisions, or Ruthie Wright, a school teacher who became the women’s flyweight champ.
The burgeoning sport now attracts big crowds at venues in London’s Kings Cross, Berlin and Kolkata in India. We’d like to see Kasparov go toe to toe with Deep Blue in the ring, or watch as Tyson chews over the intricacies of the Ruy Lopez strategy. Intrigued? You can try out a class yourself at the Islington Boxing Club or get along to the Chess Boxing Championship in London.
Forget bungie lines and safety ropes as you drop unencumbered towards the ground at Tivoli Friheden, a theme park in Aarhus that operates Europe’s only SCAD (suspended catch air device) tower. Strapped into a padded harness and helmet, you might feel secure as you take in the gorgeous sight of the bay, but all bravado will leach away as you dangle at the mercy of an operator and a distant net. Basically, you’ll be dropped to plunge 30 metres to your bouncing lifesaver below in just three seconds. If hitting 4G forces while falling at 90 kilometres an hour doesn’t sound terrifying, learning that researchers use these structures to simulate near-death experiences should be enough to shake you.
Give your zip-lining mates the look. You know, the one that says, “That is seriously lame.” While they spend their days zooming horizontally across the lush tropical canopy near Monteverde, you can get in on the original King of the Jungle act.
Beat your chest, grab the rope (alright, we know you’re wearing a harness) and fling yourself off the platform built 45 metres above the jungle. There’s no dismounting on the next tree though; modern-day Tarzans (and Janes) make like a human pendulum, swinging 150 metres before being deposited softly on the ground.
Shy, elusive and shrouded in mystery, the enchanting white bears that roam the pristine river valleys of British Columbia are a rare genetic anomaly. Spirit bears – also known as the kermode bear or moskgm’ol (white bear) – are relatives of the black bear, but a single recessive gene causes one in 10 to be born with a white coat. Embark on a spirit bear tour during September when a banquet of salmon leaps from the water in a frenzied surge upstream.
Travelling by boat to the Great Bear Rainforest, you’ll traverse lush valleys and bubbling rivers on foot so your guide can bring you within a stone’s throw of these magnificent animals. Watch with wonder as they forage for berries or gorge on freshly caught fish. The bears are protected by the Kitasoo Spirit Bear Conservancy – the only conservancy of its kind in the world – and the local Kitasoo Xaixais people have a vast knowledge of the species dating back thousands of years. Lean on their expertise for a once-in-a-lifetime encounter with these fur balls you’ll want to cuddle but definitely shouldn’t.
Pedal beyond Old Montreal and get a feel for neighbourhood life in one of the hippest cities around on a tour with Fitz & Follwell Co. Get in touch with the bohemian side of town from Mile End to Outremont and Little Italy, exploring some of the town’s trendiest laneways and cafe-lined boulevards off the tourist track.
Enjoy a thick espresso with the locals, discover art galleries, and learn what makes each borough tick. Munch on fresh bagels and gather a picnic lunch from the Jean-Talon Market. Your guides have so many pearls to share they often lose track of time, so leave yourself plenty so you don’t miss out on the gems.
There aren’t many animals that can render a caiman lifeless with one crushing bite that punctures the brain and pulverises bones. Jaguars can. Distinguished by their rosette-shaped black spots, these fierce yet graceful predators of the jungle are the third-largest of the big cats, after lions and tigers. Once found roaming across large swathes of the Americas, today jaguars are an almost threatened species.
If you want to see these majestic beasts in the wild, one of the best places is Brazil’s Pantanal, the world’s largest wetland and home to one of the densest concentrations of wildlife on the planet. July is the dry season in these parts, when the jaguar’s prey clusters around shrinking waterways, luring the cats close. During a boat safari through the Meeting of the Waters State Park, also known as the Jaguar Zone, you’ll get within a whisker of these water-happy felines. If you’re lucky, you might even witness these killer cats in action as they lunge at deer, caiman and tapir.
A NYE party in Rio is a no-brainer, but head out to the beach for a bit of calm and to pay homage to Iemanja, the Macumba deity of the sea. As the sun sets, crowds gather at the shore to leave flowers and cast off small boats filled with offerings to the goddess, in the hope that she’ll fulfil their wishes for the coming year. But make sure the tides are in your favour – if the waves bring back your gift, it’s believed that Iemanja has rejected your wish.
If you thought polo was reserved for the British aristocracy, think again. Argentina is the planet’s polo powerhouse, producing more champions than every other nation combined. At Estancia El Venado, about two hours’ drive south of Buenos Aires, you can get in the saddle and have a go at whacking a ball with a mallet at a polo school located on a working cattle ranch. Be trained by the pros, take to the field for a game and learn about the ranch’s horse-breeding program.
You don’t need any prior riding experience to participate, but if thundering down the field chasing a ball on horseback rattles your nerves, there are plenty of tamer activities on hand. Take part in a cattle muster with a real-life gaucho (cowboy), swing under the treetops in a hammock, kayak the Salado River, or just soak up the surroundings of the ranch, which has been kept in the family for four generations.
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