We have carried out so several bone head moves traveling and have had so many close calls in potentially dangerous scenarios, that I had to add a component two to our list.  So here are some much more ridiculous scenarios that could have gone bad, but luckily did not and now we can laugh about them.
five Getting semi automatics (perhaps they had been totally automatic, I don’t know my guns, but they had been enormous!) pointed at us as we cycled by way of the Sudan.  Sure these guys had been there to guard, us but when a truck full of militia pulls up in front of you with a high powered gun mounted in the box, it can be a small nerve racking.  They got a kick out of these crazy cyclist riding in the desert and they would drive in front of us forever with their guns aimed.  The excellent news is they had massive smiles and had been always waving.  We just prayed that their finger did not slip.

four Running out of gas on the autobahn. We rented a fabulous little vehicle known as a Twingo, it went forever on a tank of gas and we had no dilemma pushing it to the limit.  Gas is expensive in Europe and we created positive to use my sister’s military coupons to give us a nice discount. She now works for NATO (sorry- just had to put that in, it’s a cool job.)  Regrettably we could only use our coupons in Germany and Belgium. We are notoriously low cost, and actually thought we could make it last. So right after driving from Germany to Vimy Ridge, Calais, Paris and back we had been running extremely low on gas.  We had been on empty for several kms and now the highway had gone down to 1 lane in rush hour.  We couldn’t see and exit in sight and we were sweating bullets.  I am not exaggerating when I say that we went at least yet another 30km (my memory tells me 60, but it has probably gotten inflated over the years in my mind) on empty and still didn’t run out of gas! We were positive that we had been going to stall in this construction zone.  Concrete barricades were on either side of us and we wondered how a tow truck would even get to us.  Stupid Canadian tourists that we had been.  I seriously have to tell you that we had a severe panic attack, but we eventually produced it to a cut off and luckily a gas station was not far down the road.

3 Practically being left behind in the sand dunes of Mui Ne in Vietnam since I had the nerve to complain about the service of our tour. We had been in the middle of nowhere, the sun was going down and I complained that we weren’t going sand boarding when that was the portion of the trip that our guide had sold us on. I learned the challenging way not to ever make a Vietnamese man lose face in public.  Luckily an NGO was in our group that lived in Vietnam and spoke the language. He smoothed points over after many heated discussions and threats. I had to apologize in a grand gesture in front of everybody and he finally agreed to take me back to the bungalow. Thank God, it was late and he was going to leave me behind in the desert.  Wow, I had in no way observed such anger in a man’s face prior to in my life.  The NGO mentioned offhandedly that I was lucky we had been in Vietnam and not Cambodia. He mentioned that they just would have shot me in Cambodia.  Luckily they have severe penalties in Vietnam, Woah, thank God I couldn’t comprehend what they were saying.  He must have been infuriated with me. I was pretty uncomfortable staying there the next couple of days, considering that he was the manager of my guest residence.

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2 Getting eaten by fire ants in Honduras.  Dave was getting a great Samaritan helping to take everyone’s back packs off our local bus in Honduras.  He put his down and continued to heave luggage handed to him out the window.  It was getting dark and once he had completed, he threw on his pack.  It all happened so quickly, I did not know what had happened.  All I saw was Dave dancing around like a maniac slapping at his body.  Suddenly his white shirt turned black as thousands of Ants swarmed.  Luckily a quick thinking fellow traveler grabbed some medical gloves from out of nowhere and started brushing off the bugs.  I was busy searching for the bug spray in my back pack (correct as if that would have done any very good) and was no aid whatsoever.  As the nearby folks laughed, our nicely ready buddy swiped all of them away with little damage to himself. Where he pulled those medical gloves out of, I’ll by no means know. But I am certain glad that he was there. Dave didn’t have a reaction  to the ant bites luckily, but he has definitely developed a phobia of Ants.

1 Motorcycle accident in Thailand. It was our very first trip to Thailand and we had been newbie adventure travelers.  We had just got off the ferry in Ko Samui and during our tuk tuk ride, we noticed that a number of individuals had bandages on their faces, legs and arms.  We thought that there need to be a coral break that men and women had been surfing on or one thing and in no way thought something of it.  The subsequent day we rented a motorbike to tour the island and had a fantastic day.  That is until we turned a corner and lost it on some loose gravel.  We wiped out and both suffered 2nd degree burns on our calf and thigh.  Dave on the muffler and I on the back tire. Dave’s was far worse than mine and each our legs ultimately became infected considering that we didn’t go to the hospital appropriate away.  We produced our way to the hospital after a lot of good individuals tried to help us by giving us aloe and putting iodine on them, but they only got worse in the heat and humidity. We thought that we would go and get some nice discomfort killers and be all greater at the hospital, but instead and they proceeded to clean Dave’s wound with a razor blade as he bit on a towel. To add insult to injury, they poured pure iodine on the wound after the truth.  I had it a little less complicated, mine wasn’t quite as bad, so they just peeled away the skin with a large cotton swab.  It was poor, it might as nicely have been a razor blad.  That cotton swab on a fresh burn felt like fire. We had to maintain going back for 3 days to have them alter the bandages. And every time was really painful because each day our skin would get stuck in the dressings. We hobbled back and forth from our hotel to the hospital in bandages like the rest of the tourists on the island. And locals laughed  at us yelling, Motorcycle? Motorcycle?  When we got back to Canada we went to the doctors and he said that they did an amazing job cleaning the wounds.  It is 10 years later and neither of us have scars.  So, if you ever burn your self, just grab a straight razor and scrape away at the burnt flesh until nice new bright red skin is showing. Just make positive that you have a towel to bite on.

Oh. PS Getting typical Dave and Deb we had been more worried about what we would have to pay for the damages to the bike rather than worrying about our legs.  Luckily we crashed close to a repair shop and they hammered out the pedal for us and straightened out a couple of other points.  We had a few scrapes in the paint, but they didn’t notice when we returned it, thank God. Can you think, here we are with burns as huge as my whole calf and daves entire inner thigh and instead we are busy at the shop fixing the bike.  Ridiculous.

Honorable Mentions.

3 Knee infection in Africa.  Several have read and heard about my knee infection, I have written about it in detail in Tanzania, but it really was 1 of the scariest travel experiences we have had. My tiny cut in Tanzania, turned into a significant case of cellulitus.  Infection spread from my ankle to my hip and it was impossible to walk or even move.  The discomfort was unbearable and antibiotics refused to function.  I went to two diverse hospitals, my leg swelled up so a lot that the doctor thought that I broke my tibia, and I was worried I was going to have to go property, that is if I could get a ride somewhere to civilization.  The most excruciating discomfort of my life, but 10 days it cleared up sufficient to let me continue riding down the continent.  Now I cannot even remember the discomfort.

2 Climbing in Thailand. We were standing on the beach waiting for our subsequent climb, when out of the blue a body falls proper beside us.  He jumps up and shakes it off, but seriously, he could have died. Apparantly they ran out of rope and the end wasn’t tied off, so it just slipped by way of the gri gri leaving the climber in a free fall.  These guides had our lives in their hands, so we had been a small nervous.  We then proceeded to do our 1st multipitch climb with a figure 8 descender rather of a gri gri which I am employed to. Needless to say, I was white knuckled the whole climb.

1 Driving in a van from Vientianne to Vang Vieng in Laos .   Armed bandits tried to wave us down as we passed.  It is recognized to be a hazardous highway and when we were there anyway, it was not uncommon for tourists to be shot.  Luckily our driver did not quit.