Next Week:

Back in the mid-'90's, I had a chance to visit those same caves Bernice Notenboom described to us in her piece this week. I was host of a series of television documentaries on the big cats of the world. We had been to Africa for the lion, leopard, and cheetah, India for the snow leopard and tiger, and we went to Belize to see the elusive and magnificent jaguar. One thing I remember about that trip just as clearly as the jaguar was the Mayan guide walking us through the jungle and stopping at virtually every plant to tell us the medicinal use. He would point to one leaf and say that that was used to relieve headaches. Then another leaf was specifically to relieve menstrual cramp pain. It was a wealth of indigenous knowledge you would never come across playing Scrabble at a luxury beach resort.

Tell me about a trip when you were the gung-ho, get involved type. Have you immersed yourself in the lifestyle of the locals? Or do you usually prefer the isolated, uninvolved, enclave sort of vacation? Or maybe you fall somewhere in between. No judgements here, by the way. I'm just curious as to what type of trips turn you on?

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