If you鈥檙e looking for white-knuckle South American adventure, stop reading now. Uruguay isn鈥檛 Peru or Chile, and it isn鈥檛 trying to be. But if you want to lounge on an empty beach for hours, have the best sandwich on the continent, or surf little-known breaks, consider one of these off-the-beaten-path trips.

Play Gaucho

A good Uruguayan itinerary includes asados, plenty of wine, and wide-open country. El Galope, a 12-acre ranch near the town of Colonia del Sacramento, has all three鈥攁nd you won鈥檛 have to battle throngs of tourists to enjoy them. Just hop a from Buenos Aires (from $60) or a two-hour bus from Montevideo ($9 from the Tres Cruces terminal; El Galope will pick you up in Colonia del Sacramento). The ranch 颅offers five rustic guest rooms and hardy criollo horses that you can take galloping across the rolling hills. Save a day to ride the ranch鈥檚 beat-up (but safe) mountain bikes three miles to Colonia Suiza. The town is home to Carro Damole, a food truck that serves up a perfect $5 chivito, Uruguay鈥檚 national sandwich of ham, beef, fried eggs, olives, and pickled vegetables.

Ride Away

La Pedrera is a sleepy fishing village most of the year, but each winter its main street鈥攁 dirt road called Avenida Principal鈥攂ecomes a Coachella-like mecca for Uruguay鈥檚 hipsters. Stay in town at (doubles from $190), or bunk down in nearby Punta Rubia at the funky Parque Reserva, (doubles from $130). Rent a board from Punto Limite Surf Shop and hit El 颅Barco, a right break with waves typically over six feet, or grab a lesson with La Pedrera Surfing School ($30 per day; 011-598-9978-0887). Then take a siesta and head to the oceanside patio at farm-to-table Olinda for a big South American steak.
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Go Dark

Cabo Polonio is about as lo-fi as they come: there鈥檚 no cell service, and it鈥檚 entirely off the grid. The village (pop. 95) lies on Uruguay鈥檚 southeastern coast in a national park with no roads, piped water, or wired electricity. You have to take a 4×4 to get there ($8 round-trip from the edge of the preserve), but the hassle is worth it for the sweeping ocean vistas dotted with kaleido颅scopic wood, stucco, and glass beach shacks, which are occupied by the town鈥檚 hippie residents. Stay at 颅Hostel Rosa, a that also serves as the 颅local 颅library (doubles from $50). By day the town is idyllic: you can roam the coast in search of sea lions and penguins. At night it reverts to another century as candles and oil lamps 颅illuminate the buildings. Order the ultrafresh ceviche at Lo de Dani, then head to Joselo鈥檚, an open-air bar where you鈥檒l listen to acoustic sets and learn to drink like a local. Bring a headlamp: navigating the pitch-black dunes en route to your bed could get hairy.

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Human Weapon
HISTORY CHANNEL

PREMISE:
Cage fighter Jason Chambers and NFL tackle Bill Duff train with the world’s masters and then fight the local talent. Along the way, they absorb exotic scenery and culture.

PRE-FIGHT HYPE:
Duff is 6’4″, 280 pounds, and, according to his bio, “undefeated in bar fights.”

IN THE RING:
Training sessions are interspersed with historical vignettes, but CGI models illustrating the mechanics of fighting styles add a modern touch.

DECISION:
Winner!

Fight Quest
DISCOVERY CHANNEL

PREMISE:
Cage fighter Jimmy Smith and Iraq vet Doug Anderson train with the world’s masters and then fight the local talent. Along the way, they聴wait, this sounds familiar.

PRE-FIGHT HYPE:
Smith defeated Human Weapon host Chambers by heel hook in a 2006 cage match.

IN THE RING:
Smith whines a lot, and Anderson is a meathead, but the grueling training sessions are entertaining.

DECISION:
Still swinging. New episodes are in the works.

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We were hoping for something more Terminator-like, but the Department of Defense’s prototype cyborg looks like… well, is a moth. Government-contracted researchers at MIT have implanted the neural systems of Manduca sexta, or the Carolina sphinx, with microchips to control the creatures’ movements and collect and transmit data. This month will see the first test flights, during which researchers will gauge their ability to influence the moths’ speed and direction鈥攁nd override the instinct to take aim at the nearest streetlamp. They will also be fine-tuning sensors that can convert the insects’ vibrations into power for microcomputers. The plan is eventually to mount the bugs with surveillance equipment for use in reconnaissance missions in places too risky for human agents鈥攍ike Iran and the closets of civil libertarians.

Government Surveillance: Moths

Born for Supremacy. From egg to operative in one month.

1. Scientists harvest EGGS.

2. The still-innocent caterpillar feasts on a taxpayer-funded buffet of tobacco leaves.

3. Once the larva reaches PUPA stage, scientists implant a microchip into its thorax. This will function as the information hub for the moth’s directional controls and external surveillance gear.

4. A VIDEO CAMERA, GPS system, and air sampler (to detect and identify explosives signatures) are mounted on the adult moth.

5. The fully operational CYBORGS are controlled from up to half a mile away.

6. Possible oversights: BIRDS, bug zappers, and bonfires.

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EXERCISE ZEALOTS, spa lovers, organic-food junkies, and luxury seekers: Welcome home. Canyon Ranch, the Tucson, Arizona–based wellness resort known for seducing people into optimal health, is now spinning its popular get-fit vacation philosophy into the first-ever 眉r-healthy-living residential complex aimed at boomers with bling. Opening next spring in Miami Beach, Florida, Canyon Ranch Living will be the oceanfront health club you never have to leave—nor will you want to. The six-acre property will include 467 condominiums decked out with picture windows and private balconies off the ultraluxe nature-inspired rooms. “Our guests kept saying they loved their Canyon Ranch vacation but that when they went home, they wanted the same access to wellness,” says Kevin Kelly, Canyon Ranch Living’s CEO. Say no more. Wellness devotees can pick up a 720- to 3,000-square-foot CRL condo for $450,000 to $3 million. Of course, the price includes access to a 60,000-square-foot rooftop fitness center tricked out with a two-and-a-half-story climbing wall, private workout rooms, a spa, and the latest European whirlpools and other “wet-room” technology. When not working out or getting a spa treatment, residents and their guests can chill on 750 feet of white-sand beach frontage and refuel at CRL’s caf茅, which serves up fresh, chemical-free seafood, meats, and vegetables, dished out in perfectly balanced portions. Just visiting to check out property? Crash at CRL’s David Rockwell–designed hotel. 888-987-9876,

Fast Food Goes Fresh: Chipotle Mexican Grill

STEVE ELLIS IS ON A MISSION. He’s determined to feed you vegetarian-fed, antibiotic-free chicken, real lime juice, organic pinto beans, unprocessed pork, and other sustainable and whole foods. And he wants those ingredients to be as all-natural as possible. If you’re picturing a back-alley boho caf茅 in Berkeley, try again. Ells is the visionary behind, and CEO of, Chipotle Mexican Grill, arguably the first fast-food franchise to make fresh and natural a priority and still turn a profit. Inspired by taquerias he frequented in San Francisco’s Mission District while a chef at the famed restaurant Stars, Ells—who graduated from the Culinary Institute of America, in Hyde Park, New York—created Chipotle’s business model around the idea of wrapping nutritious meals in a tortilla and selling them cheap and quick. (A typical burrito is ready in less than one minute and sets you back about $6.) His original 20-seat shop, on East Evans Avenue, in Denver, has mushroomed into an 11,000-person, $480 million company with more than 400 restaurants in 22 states—and two new ones opening each week. Chipotle’s has been so successful, in fact, that it was purchased by McDonald’s seven years ago. While some might think that’s dealing with the devil when it comes to fresh fare, Ells assures that it isn’t. “Not once has McDonald’s asked us to buy cheaper ingredients,” says Ells. “As long as we’re successful, we’ll have full autonomy.”

Sugar Busting Is Back

IF 2004’s AXIS OF DIETARY EVIL rotated around bread, well, hold on to your bacon, dear consumer, because the packaged-foods industry is about to pull a bait-and-switch down at your local Piggly Wiggly. In the coming months, watch for the omnipresent low carb labels to quietly recede from store shelves as that fad finally, blessedly collapses under a mountain of celery sticks. In its place, expect the makers of everything from cereals to juice to pancake syrup to hit sedentary Americans with a new fast-fix stamp: low sugar. Wait, is this 1981? With that year’s FDA approval of aspartame, the whole country went on a sugar-free high that lasted until the fat-gram-counting craze of the nineties. But things will be different this time around, according to Bob Goldin, vice president of the Chicago-based food-biz consultancy Technomic. “There’s a new concern about the staggering amount of sugar we’re consuming, which has continued to escalate over the past 20 years,” he says. Low-carb mania has evolved to identify sugar—a carb—as the real devil in the details. Its alarming abundance, hidden in everything from soda to teriyaki sauce, has prompted a slew of new products that either cut that sugar content way down or swap it for a lower-impact substitute, like Splenda. Mind the sugar intake, but remember: Exercise works wonders, too.

Queen of Celeb Cuisine: Akasha Richmond

Akasha Richmond

Serving Tinseltown since 1980: Chef Akasha Richmond

WHEN A FAD SEIZES the American imagination, chances are it was born in Hollywood. And if eating well is now a national habit, give props to Akasha Richmond, healthy-food chef to the stars. When the native of Hollywood, Florida, landed on the West Coast in the early eighties, the glitterati were just adding words like cholesterol and organic to their lexicon. Richmond, working at the now defunct Golden Temple, in L.A., started serving up soy-based main courses and sugar-free desserts that convinced the Tinseltown vanguard that vegetarian food could be savory. When she left the restaurant in 1984, diners wept in their tempeh, but they soon clamored for her private service. She went on to become a personal chef to Carrie Fisher, Barbra Streisand, and others, and penned her first book, The Art of Tofu, in 1997. The beautiful people still line up for what Richmond modestly calls her “clean, organic, artisan, sustainable, and authentic” dishes, which rely on simple, fresh ingredients like organic ginger-honey syrup from a friend’s farm in Costa Rica and the best olive oil from Tuscany. The result: such wonders as crispy shiitake pot stickers and Billy Bob Thornton’s favorite, carrot cake made with spelt flour. One of Richmond’s latest creations was an African-style high tea for a benefit hosted by Pierce Brosnan. It was equal parts brilliant execution and kitchen confidential—which, along with her cooking, is what gives her staying power in this fickle city. “I don’t gossip to Star Magazine about my clients,” Richmond says. “Hollywood is too small a town.”

Al Fresco Extreme

Jim Denevan

Jim Denevan and assistant events coordinator Natalie Mock

Channing Daughters Winery

The evening’s selections, from Channing Daughters Winery

“WE WANT TO RATE our dinners like whitewater,” says Santa Cruz, California–based Jim Denevan, perhaps the nation’s leading extreme-dining impresario. “Class I, Class II, Class III.” No, this isn’t about snacking on spiders at the Explorers Club. Picture wild boar pit-roasted on a mountaintop or freshly caught salmon savored in a remote sea cave by candlelight. Or, in a dinner planned this spring for Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, a multicourse, ultra-gourmet, white-tablecloth “intertidal dinner” staged on tidal flats in the brief window before Puget Sound floods the party. Lifelong surfer Denevan, 43, is the executive chef of Santa Cruz’s Gabriella Caf茅. He is also the culinary brains and six-foot-four brawn behind Outstanding in the Field, a series of outdoor dinners now in its sixth year. Pairing fine wine and cuisine with rustic environs is not in itself novel: Rafting outfits, for example, routinely pamper clients with prime rib. But Denevan—with help from celebrity chefs like Dan Barber, of New York’s Blue Hill restaurant (see “,”), and Paul Kahan, of Chicago’s Blackbird—is proving that al fresco dining can be high adventure in its own right. To that end, a hundred guests recently forked over $130 each to follow Denevan on an intentionally confusing hike in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Once they were good and lost, Denevan led them to a well-laid table at the top-secret wild-mushroom site of local forager David Chambers. There, beneath the oaks and Monterey pines, Denevan served porcinis and chanterelles with local wild venison, wild sorrel greens brought out by the first rain, and mussels gathered by hand then poached in water first used to boil wild thistles. “So many restaurant menus try to tell a story these days,” he says. “They try to conjure the whole sensuous experience of a farm or where the beef was raised or where the fish was caught. We bring that story to life, so you can live it while you eat it.”

Slow Mojo: Organic Ingredients

Eat your broccoli: Demand for organic products is expected to surpass $30 billion by 2007.

IT’S 7:45 ON A CLOUDLESS SATURDAY morning in downtown San Francisco. Chef Chris Cosentino is swerving his Toyota Matrix through tight corners to get to the Ferry Plaza Farmers’ Market before his favorite vendor runs out of organic radicchio. He forgot to advance-order it. “What the hell are you doing, you friggin’ shavin’ monkey?!” he hollers to a car idling in front of his targeted parking spot. He careens into another space, runs his hand through his spiked half-chocolate, half-vanilla hair, bounds out of the car, and grabs a Peet’s triple espresso before sprinting for the veggie stands.


At first glance, Cosentino seems an unlikely—nay, alarming—ambassador of Slow Food, an 80,000-member international nonprofit with 800 chapters in 52 countries. When he’s not cooking, the 32-year-old head chef at Incanto, a critically hailed Italian eatery in the city’s Noe Valley area, races mountain bikes—he won the overall solo in the 2002 24 Hours of Tahoe. His sponsors include Clif Bar and Red Bull. Is this a guy who does anything slowly?


That question points to one of the big misconceptions about the not so slowly burgeoning Slow Food organization, whose American branch, Slow Food USA, was launched in New York in March 2000, just months before Eric Schlosser published his best-selling Fast Food Nation, and has already grown to 12,000 members. Before I met Cosentino, I had heard only a little about the group. I knew they had a rather precious little logo of a snail. I knew they promoted esoteric artisanal foods and traditional modes of food production: Save the shagbark hickory nut!—that sort of thing. I pictured a bunch of tweedy, goblet-tinking foodies arguing the fine points of lactobacillus use in the preparation of Bulgarian buttermilk.


While this image is not entirely wrong, slow food is actually a lot more fun—and a lot more radical. The movement was born in Italy 18 years ago, when journalist Carlo Petrini organized a group of locals armed with bowls of penne to protest the opening of a McDonald’s near Rome’s ancient Spanish Steps. The charismatic Petrini unleashed brilliant diatribes against the 20th century’s loss of small farms, of healthy eating, and—more viscerally—of taste itself, as staggering numbers of foods went extinct. The movement, he wrote in the Slow Food Manifesto, would be an antidote to “Fast Life, which disrupts our habits, pervades the privacy of our homes and forces us to eat Fast Foods…. Fast Life has changed our way of being and threatens our environment and our landscapes. So Slow Food is now the only truly progressive answer.”


This turning of the tables has been an easy sell on the other side of the Atlantic, where culinary traditions are deeply ingrained and where Petrini, still president of the international group, is one of the 30 most influential people on the Continent, according to a recent Time article. But what works on the Mediterranean doesn’t always translate here. Siesta? Nada. We’re the country that invented the TV dinner and the drive-through. We crave Hot Pockets and call ketchup a vegetable. Most of us don’t know a fusilli from a fusillade. Let’s face it: If we can’t do slow food, er, quickly, the movement has as much chance of survival as the Gal谩pagos snail.


Which is why it’s heartening, as well as appetizing, to watch Cosentino fly through the market. There’s no radicchio to be found, and he’s pissed. But then his sous-chef, Tracy McGillis, rings in on the polyphonic video cell phone and says she found some. Slow food, it turns out, isn’t about returning to the 19th century; it’s about thoughtfully participating in a marketplace for eccentric products, with the goal of getting people to consume them. Because if there’s one thing Americans are good at, it’s consuming.


“Slow Food is about two words: conviviality and sustainability,” says San Francisco chapter co-leader Carmen Tedesco, 54. To serve its “eco-gastronomic” mission, the organization essentially parties its way to enlightenment. Local chapters throw buyer-seller shindigs to introduce members to worthy crops and breeds and the eco-conscious farmers who raise them. The result: Those farmers stay in business, and the whole industry tilts a bit closer toward practices like organic production and more diverse cultivation.


By encouraging people to eat rare “heirloom” species, Slow Food keeps those species in domestication. Last year, the organization arranged 5,000 advance orders of rare and delicious Narragansett turkeys for Thanksgiving; the profits went to struggling farms, and the bird’s breeding population was doubled. Slow Food also aims to reconnect the masses to the food chain with initiatives like public-school gardening projects. “We’re not about gluttony and elitism,” says Erika Lesser, 30, the Brooklyn-based executive director of Slow Food USA. “We want people to have a viable alternative to industrial agriculture. We want to change the way people think about food.”


Given the explosion in farmers’ markets and a projected consumer demand for organic products that’s expected to surpass $30 billion by 2007, it’s a movement whose time has come.


Cosentino stops to chat up Clifford Hamada, of Hamada Farms. “When will you have Buddha’s hand citron?” he asks. (“It’s really ugly,” he says of the bitter-lemon-type fruit. “Looks like an octopus. I candy it or shave the fruit on a mandoline and sprinkle it raw on salads.”) This third-generation farmer, says Cosentino, sells dozens of kinds of peaches—dozens! Cosentino dashes off to check out some Braeburn apples, which he will use in a rutabaga-and-pasta dish.


“I seek out this food because it’s the best food,” says Cosentino, whose Incanto is a slow-foodie’s wet dream of hand-cranked pastas, house-cured salumi and mortadella, and a dazzling array of obscure Italian wines with impossibly long names. “But I also love these guys. It’s about relationships.”


Walking around the spectacular outdoor market, overlooking the Bay at the Embarcadero, I’m all over it. The conviviality! The healthfulness! The idealism! But then I remember that most of this pretty stuff has to be cooked, or at least prepared with some modicum of slicing, dicing, drizzling, and tossing. Can Americans actually be talked into putting aside those handy boxes and bags of processed foods?


“Look, you don’t have to do it all the time,” says Cosentino. “When I’m racing, I eat any old shit. But people can’t be afraid to cook. It’s easy—pick up fresh organic tomatoes, toss them with an incredible cheese, and put it on your pasta. Or buy a Crock-Pot, throw in some meat and fresh carrots in the morning, come home from work, and—boom!—it’s done.”

Mix Master: The Bosch Blender

Bosch blender

This is the mod whirl: Bosch’s badass blender

Call it the Boxster of blenders. The F.A. Porsche Designer Series, from German power-tool company Bosch, speedily purees the firmest frozen bananas, strawberries, and whatever you love in your smoothies. (Try our antioxidant-, protein-, and calcium-packed suggestions below, courtesy of sports nutritionist Monique Ryan.) Best of all, there’s beauty to this beast: The modernist-inspired brushed-aluminum housing keeps up kitchen appearances alongside your All-Clad saucepans and Viking range. $200; 866-442-6724,

The Saved-by-Chocolate Postworkout Smoothie
4 tablespoons sweetened cocoa 禄 12 ounces low-fat soy milk 禄 1/2 cup raspberries 禄 1 cup vanilla or chocolate yogurt

The Sunrise Smoothie
1 banana 禄 1 mango 禄 1/2 cup orange juice 禄 1 cup low-fat plain yogurt 禄 one cup crushed ice

Low-Glycemic Berries and Cream
1/2 cup blueberries 禄 1/2 cup strawberries 禄 12 ounces skim milk 禄 1/2 cup vanilla yogurt 禄 1 tablespoon honey 禄 2 teaspoons flaxseed oil

Grow Your Own

food guide

“Wait, can’t we talk about this?” A Stone Barns chicken on its way to the broiler

DAN BARBER WANTS TO KNOW what the pork he’s eating for dinner ate before his pork, you know… became dinner. And he thinks you should know, too. So last May, the 35-year-old chef, whose Blue Hill restaurant, in Greenwich Village, brings seasonal, unique food to the city, took his fresh-‘n’-local food philosophy one step further: He reversed the farm-to-restaurant cycle altogether. Blue Hill at Stone Barns, a cozy, Proven莽al-style eatery at the center of the 80-acre Stone Barns Food and Agricultural Complex, in Pocantico Hills, New York, serves dishes like chicken roulade with red ace beets and Crescent duck with a stew of Napoli carrots to well-heeled locals and urbanites who, judging by the monthlong wait for a dinner reservation, are happy to make the 30-mile trip from Manhattan for a good meal and a lesson in sustainable agriculture. At least half of the food Barber serves is grown on the premises: The Stone Barns team, backed by a $30 million investment from community-farming advocate David Rockefeller, raises fruits, vegetables, herbs, and a coterie of free-roaming livestock. (The Berkshire pigs root and snort around in the woods the way their wild ancestors did in Europe.) When diners are finished, meal scraps are toted to compost piles, where the cycle of life begins again under the pitchfork of head farmer Jack Algiere. “I feed Jack and Jack feeds me,” says Barber, who hopes people will leave his restaurant not just full but enlightened. “Stone Barns provides an opportunity to discuss issues like the power of food choice, and to draw people’s attention to the land around them. Our goal is to provide a consciousness of how decisions you make buying food have an effect on the world you live in.”

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Nothing beats summer sun: It brightens your backcountry playgrounds, kick-starts vitamin D production, and charges your brain with mood-elevating seratonin. All of which is great, but sunburns bite back hard; the American Cancer Society estimates 55,000 new cases of melanoma will be diagnosed in the United States this year. Stay calm, Man of Steel: We’ve got you covered with lotions and potions engineered for active sun lovers.

Sunscreen & Lotion Review

[1] Tested by climbers Pete Athans and Lynn Hill, PROTECH MOISTURIZING SUNSCREEN SPF 30+ is fragrance-free, water-resistant, and won’t sting if it gets in your eyes. ($15; 866-462-6599, )

[2] MAXWELL’S APOTHECARY LIP TREATMENT SPF 15 is a matte balm that blocks UV rays and contains moisturizing shea butter, vitamin E, and aloe for chapped lips. ($8; 800-430-8781, )

[3] After a day in the sun, a good lather with MOLTON BROWN‘s CASSIA ENERGY HAIR AND BODY WASH cools you down. Cinnamon, citrus, and rosemary extracts also helps stimulate circulation. ($23; , 212-691-1002)

[4] Peeling like an onion? Beat back the burn with a healthy dose of DR. HAUSCHKA‘s AFTER-SUN LOTION. It’s crammed with botanical extracts—like quince seeds, carrots, and calendula—to moisturize and heal sun-damaged skin. ($18; 800-247-9907, )

[5] Spritz NEUTROGENA‘s HEALTHY DEFENSE OIL-FREE SUNBLOCK SPRAY SPF 30 over your body and you’re good to go. The waterproof, sweat-proof formula also contains antioxidants to help repair sun-damaged skin. ($9; 800-582-4048, )

[6] Secure your coif against hair-frazzling sunshine, salt water, and pool chlorine with RENE FURTERER‘s SUN FLUID SPRAY conditioner. ($18; 800-522-8285, )

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We’ve barely begun our three-day trek through a wild region of Tibet, about a day’s drive southwest of Lhasa, and already the elevation has reduced me to a whimpering heap. Having eschewed the use of drugs like Diamox, I’m one of only two members on this 12-person tour (the youngest, and supposedly one of the fittest, of a group ranging in age from mid-twenties to mid-sixties) almost ready to turn back due to altitude sickness. We departed our tent camp at 15,000 feet just hours ago, and haven’t even come close to the high point, but we’re climbing through a snowy landscape, up a mountain pass that will top out at around 18,000 feet. “We” consists of a mostly high-spirited cadre of Westerners, porters, yaks, and me, riding a pony, because I don’t have the strength to walk. But technically I’m not even riding脗鈥擨’m being dragged along lead-line style by our doting Tibetan guide, Tenzin. The pony, whose name is something like “Blah” or “Duh,” is shying at every rock and shadow while marching determinedly uphill脗鈥攁 combination of movements that only exacerbate my pounding headache and urgent desire to hurl. Meanwhile, my friend Bridget is scampering alongside us, snapping photos and laughing hysterically at our unintentional parody of Mary and Joseph trudging toward Bethlehem.

Tibet, trekking, Asia

The author, with a pack yak

Tibet, trekking, Asia

A herder-nomad and his daughter

Tibet, trekking, Asia

A porter and his pack pony take a well-earned break

Tibet, trekking, Asia

A village boy smiles for the camera, while his shy friends turn away

This is the “weekend warrior’s” trek. Unlike many Himalayan expeditions, which involve endless slogs into the frigid backcountry and require a fair amount of training and preparation, this trip is designed for the working man who craves adventure yet doesn’t have months of vacation time to spend finding it.

A new venture devised by Allan Wright’s Zephyr 国产吃瓜黑料s (a tip-top American travel company that somewhat incongruously specializes in rollerblading tours of Europe), the trip begins with a 13-day jaunt through the cities of Lhasa, Shigatse, and Gyantse, before embarking on the trek itself. The winding route through Tibet’s three major cities increases steadily in elevation for acclimatization purposes, and offers an edifying glimpse of both the Tibetan culture and the ravaging Chinese military-industrial presence in the developing areas of this beautiful but woefully oppressed land.

Right now, we’re shuffling through a snowy landscape of rugged peaks, marshy riverbeds, and the stony remains of settlements that have moved to warmer locales for the winter. Here, only a few groups of nomads eek out a living with their herds of sheep and yaks, subsisting on the meat and milk of those animals, and fueling cooking fires with their dehydrated dung. Our porters carry large thermoses of hot tea, and stop us every now and then to make sure we’re still drinking and staying as warm as possible in the sub-zero temperatures.

Soon, we approach a small village, and I’m instructed to dismount while the pony is fed some hay. I sit down on a spare feedbag, and a cluster of local women gathers around me. We stare at each other for a few moments. They’re dressed in heavy wool skirts with head-scarves and colorful aprons, signifying that they’re married. Most of them have weather-beaten but unlined skin, which makes it hard to tell how old they are. One of the women motions for me to come closer. I stand up and walk toward her, and she continues to beckon me closer until our noses almost touch. Then I realize what it is that she wants: a good look at my pale blue eyes. Our group has entered one of the many regions of Tibet where foreigners are virtually never seen, and the villagers I’ve encountered don’t quite know what to make of me. Just to see what will happen, I pull back the hood of my parka and remove my winter hat to reveal a mop of wavy blond hair. The women gasp and leap away. “In Tibetan religion, there are creatures with white hair and white skin,” Tenzin tells me. “They are something like angels. That’s what these ladies think you are.” (Translation: They think you’re a freak.)

After recovering from their initial shock, the women shyly offer me some rancid-smelling yak-butter tea, which I politely refuse, to no avail (there’s a Tibetan custom to refuse hospitality three times before accepting it), knowing I’m too sick to keep it down. Eventually, Tenzin intervenes on my behalf by telling the women something in Tibetan about the weak constitutions of white people, and motions for me to get back on the pony. As we crest the mountain pass, I begin to feel somewhat better and Tenzin encourages me to get off and walk脗鈥攋ust in time, too, since the herders want to burden the pony with another woman on the tour who has become tired.

Later that evening, a brief white-out at dusk obscures the tracks of the hikers leading our group, and for a few heart-pounding minutes we stand in the blowing snow, turning this way and that, unable to find our way. Eventually, we regain our bearings and stumble, relieved, into our next camp. It’s a welcoming haven of oversized sleeping tents with cushy foam pads; a mess tent, a kitchen tent, and a bathroom tent脗鈥攁ll miraculously set up by the porters before our arrival. This is luxury camping: We sit around a long plastic dining table lit by candles as the cooks serve roasted yak meat, rice, and cucumbers in vinegar. I barely manage to eat any of the delicious food, since the altitude has obliterated my normally voracious appetite.

The next day, I wake to a cup of black tea and a bowl of steaming wash water, and I notice happily that the tumult in my belly has subsided somewhat. After a leisurely breakfast of porridge, we commence walking, making our way up and over a six-mile pass and down into a breathtaking valley where the sun flits between clouds and the sky glistens an unreal shade of sapphire. As we crest the top of the difficult pass, I stop cursing and gasping for a moment to take in the scenery脗鈥攂ut only after one of my fellow trekkers gently suggests, “The mountains are patient, take your time.” The group appreciates his sage advice, and we spend the better part of an hour lazing around in a huge meadow, telling stories and basking in the sunshine. Then we pick our way slowly toward camp脗鈥攁 few more downhill miles that bring us to a lower elevation zone where it’s warm enough to shed a layer of clothing. Eventually, we spot a quaint farming community peeking out of a rocky hillside. We sit down on the edge of a cliff overlooking the peaceful village, and watch as the residents thresh their crop of barley, singing all the while. In Tibet, Tenzin explains, there are prescribed songs for every occasion. When you are with your lover, you sing the love song. When you are praying, you sing the praying song. When you are working, you sing the working song, and so forth. But just then, a gang of children spots us sitting on the ridge and runs toward us singing a strangely familiar song: the “Ooh ee ooh ah ah” refrain from the “Witchdoctor Song”脗鈥攁 U.S. hit from the 1960s. I turn in astonishment to our fearless leader, Allan Wright. “That’s the song my girlfriend taught them when we came here last year,” he says, laughing. At that time, Allan, his girlfriend, and his guide, Jon Otto, were the only foreigners ever to have entered this village. A brief discussion with the villagers confirms that no other groups have visited them since. Last year, when questioned about their knowledge of America, the people of the community revealed to Allan and company that they had never heard of our country before. And, refreshingly, the names George Bush, Britney Spears, and Coca-Cola meant nothing to them.

We spend a pleasant hour or so spent visiting with the village children, who are eager to find out what treasures our daypacks hold. We entertain them with stickers and Polaroid photographs before continuing on the last half-mile or so to our next campsite. The sun is setting as we arrive at the tent camp, which is situated near the bank of a small river. In the distance, I see one of our porters coming toward the camp. He is leading the pony I rode when I was sick, but she barely resembles the frisky creature that marched so blithely up the mountain yesterday.

Her neck and flanks are lathered with sweat, and she’s favoring one of her hind legs. I ask Tenzin whether the porter would mind if I took the pony and helped her a little, to repay her for carrying me when I was so weak. He asks the porter, who shrugs and hands the reins over to me. I conjure up a bit of the horsemanship I learned in my youth, and feel down each of her back legs. The left one is hot and swollen around the fetlock, or ankle area, so I take her to stand in the river for a while, where cold water will reduce the swelling. I cover her with a wool blanket, to keep her from getting a chill, and when she’s cooled down I give her some grain mixed with hot water, a little sugar, and hefty dose of aspirin, “borrowed” from the expedition medical kit. That night, my appetite still eluding me, I skip dinner (and a rollicking conversation aided by a bottle of Tibetan barley wine, I later learn) and fall asleep easily in my tent脗鈥攁 relief after several nights of altitude-induced restlessness.

When I wake, I see that the pony is as good as new: perky, bright-eyed, and not limping at all. Our group packs up the camp, loads the yaks, and we set off on the last leg of the trek, a journey that we predict will take six to seven hours. But the hike is shorter than we’d expected. The route is a flat one that follows a shimmering river through red-rock canyons, and apparently it has changed course slightly since last year, uncovering a path that leads us easily past abandoned nomad villages with stone corrals and autumn-colored threshing fields.

We emerge from the canyon at our pre-determined pick-up spot in just under three hours, and with twinges of sadness that our excellent adventure is over, we thank our porters (and yaks, and pony), say goodbye, and pile into the three Land Rovers waiting to take us back to Lhasa.

Trip duration: 13 days total; including transportation days, visits to Lhasa, Shigatse, and Gyantse, and the trek itself (future treks will last four days instead of three).

Trek difficulty: Moderate. Twenty-four total miles of hiking over four days, with a few strenuous sections.

Price: $2,400; includes all meals, accommodations, and activities. Entry into Tibet is from Beijing, and Beijing to Lhasa airfare costs an additional $550 (flights are arranged by Zephyr 国产吃瓜黑料s).

Contact info: For 2004 itinerary and booking information, visit , or call 1-888-758-8687.

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Listen up, Casanova: With laid-back inns and well-appointed eco-resorts taking center stage on the U.S. vacation scene, a getaway with your honey need not be synonymous with adventure deprivation.

romantic adventure travel, Washington

Two harbor-side seats just waiting for a pair of loungers.

romantic adventure travel, Hawaii

The Sea Ranch Cottages

romantic adventure travel, St. John

Harmony Studios

Say goodbye to prim “romantic” B&Bs that look like your grandma’s parlor, and meet the love nests of the future鈥攃omplete with jaw-dropping scenery and dozens of options (both indoors and out) for getting your adrenaline pumping. From mountain biking, climbing, and scuba diving to hot-tubbing, spa treatments, and fine dining, these intimate havens offer pure bliss for the active tryst.

Friday Harbor House, San Juan Island, WA
Each luxurious room at Friday Harbor House, a 20-room boutique hotel situated on a bluff overlooking the San Juan Channel, comes with its own fireplace and oversized whirlpool tub for relaxing with your sweetheart.

When you come up for air, savor meals prepared with farm-fresh produce, herbs from the inn’s garden, and local seafood. The inn is in Friday Harbor, a cute town on San Juan Island, with breathtaking views of Mount Constitution on nearby Orcas Island. From the bald eagles soaring above to the orca pods breaching offshore, the 700 San Juan Islands are also prime spots for critter watching while kayaking, hiking, or cycling.
(Doubles from $150; 866-722-7356; ).

Hotel Hana-Maui, Maui, HI
When you get a load of the sea crashing practically right into this place, you won’t be surprised that scenes from Fantasy Island were shot on its sparkling 66-acre grounds. The resort’s 47 plantation-style cottages, all with ocean views (and surrounded by a 4,500-acre ranch), are situated near the little town of Hana on Maui’s east coast.

There are horses on site, hiking in , cycling along the winding coastal roads, and snorkeling nearby at Hamoa Beach, but after soaking in the stars and the ocean views from the hot tub on your room’s huge deck, you might not feel like doing much else.
(Doubles from $295; 800-321-4262; ). Harmony Studios, Maho Bay, St. John
It’s the picture-perfect Caribbean getaway and you don’t even need a passport. We challenge you not to fall in love with the sugar-white beaches and undeveloped green hills of 19-square-mile St. John, where you can snorkel, dive, sea kayak, and hike in the national park covering two-thirds of the island.

If going eco boosts your libido, check into Harmony Studios, which shares the same location as the legendary Maho Bay Camp of tent cottages, but its dozen rooms鈥攚ith cozy balconies and incredible views of Maho Bay鈥攁re more comfortable (a major plus for the intimate getaway). In keeping with the eco-theme, the studios are solar and wind powered and built almost entirely of recycled materials.
(Doubles from $110; 800-392-9004; ).

Alaska, Oregon, and California

romantic adventure travel, Alaska

Riversong Lodge

romantic adventure travel, Oregon

The gardens at Tu Tu’ Tun brim with greenery

romantic adventure travel, California

A tree house room at the Post Ranch Inn

Riversong Lodge, Lake Creek, AK
Run by husband and wife team Carl and Kirsten Dixon, this upscale log-cabin lodge on the banks of the Yentna River offers world-class fly fishing, gourmet cuisine, and the weird thrill of knowing a moose might be right outside your summer-by-the-lake-style cabin.

At $715 per person, minimum, a stay here doesn’t come cheap, but you do get a lot of bang for your buck. First, you swoop in by float-plane, and settle into a handsome room. Then seasoned guides boat you to remote fishing holes where you can test your fly rods against the local bears for massive king salmon, feisty arctic grayling, or whatever else is running. After each long day on the water, feast on hearty dishes such as Reindeer Ragout, before snuggling in for the night.
(Doubles from $715 per person, Prices include roundtrip float plane flight to Riversong, lodging, gourmet meals, guide service, and use of lodge equipment; 907-274-2710; ). Tu Tu’ Tun Lodge, Gold Beach, OR
All 20 of the rusti-swank wood and stone rooms of this bucolic hideaway overlook the Rogue River, and some come with fireplaces and springwater soaking tubs鈥攖he perfect ambiance for getting soulful with your soulmate.

If you can tear yourselves away from your room, hike the local trails, paddle one of the lodge’s sea kayaks, go fly fishing (guides available), navigate the Rogue’s, er, roguish rapids, slip into the heated swimming pool, or play horseshoes in the apple orchard. At night, cuddle up around the massive fireplace in the main lodge, and feast on salmon and other staples of Northwest cuisine.
(Doubles from $85; 800-864-6357; )

Post Ranch Inn, Big Sur, CA
This is the splurge to go for after you’ve memorized the Kama Sutra and perfected your tantrist vocabulary鈥攊f your mojo ain’t workin’ during a stay at this stunning celebration of organic architecture perched over the wave-spanked coastline of Big Sur, then it may be time to move on.

All 30 rooms have king-size beds, fireplaces, indoor spa tubs, and ocean or mountain views. You can hike through the redwood and oak forest on the 98-acre ranch, limber up in a yoga class, take a dip in one of the inn’s two pools, or indulge in a spa treatment or two. In the award-winning restaurant, you’ll find decadent dishes like Butternut Squash Ravioli with Chestnuts and Big Sur Chanterelle Mushrooms, and Roast Venison Loin with Sweet Potato Risotto and Huckleberry Jam.
(Doubles from $485; 800-527-2200; )

Florida, Alaska, and California

romantic adventure travel, Florida Keys

Off-shore view of enchanting Little Palm Island

romantic adventure travel, Alaska

Sculptures like this one, by Steve Brice, adorn the interior of the Aurora Ice Hotel

romantic adventure travel, California

The stately Ch芒teau, and its elegant grounds

Little Palm Island, Little Torch Key, FL
This chi-chi gem in the Florida Keys is only accessible by boat or seaplane鈥攁 sure bet for the ultra-private tryst. Once you’re on the island, make your way to one of 30 thatch-roofed luxury bungalows, handsomely appointed with British colonial furnishings, a gossamer-draped king-size bed, and a whirlpool tub made for two (some bungalows also have outdoor jacuzzis). The rooms have no TVs, telephones, or buzzing alarm clocks to interrupt the blissful hours you spend lounging on your ocean-view veranda or lathering up in your private outdoor shower.

国产吃瓜黑料 the sanctuary of your bungalow, pamper yourselves with a massage at the world-class spa, enjoy snorkeling or diving among pristine coral reefs, or go deep-sea fishing, sailing, or sea kayaking. Once you’ve worked up an appetite, dine on dishes like jumbo lump crab cakes with melted leeks, truffled asparagus, tomato salad, and saffron-chive buerre blanc.
(Doubles from $695, 1-800-3-GET-LOST, )

Aurora Ice Hotel, Chena Hot Springs Resort, AK
A (literally) freezing hotel room may not sound like the perfect environment for a sexy escapade, but think of it this way: what better excuse to cuddle close all night long?

This unique structure, constructed entirely of ice and snow, features six themed bedrooms (also made of the frozen stuff). One looks like a miniature igloo, and another contains a bed shaped like a giant polar bear lying on his back (you sleep on his belly). Yes, even the beds here are ice sculptures, packed with a “mattress” of snow, and then lined with reindeer hides and 20-degree sleeping bags for added comfort. Many of the chilly furnishings, which are illuminated from within, cast an ethereal, wintery glow. For the price of your stay in the ice edifice, you’re also given a complementary room in the Chena Hot Springs Resort’s “normal” hotel鈥攋ust in case you chicken out in the middle of the night.

During the day, take a dip in the 104-degree springs, go cross-country skiing, hiking, or snowmobiling, or鈥攐n the winter days when there isn’t much sunlight to speak of鈥攃heck out nature’s most spectacular light show: the Aurora Borealis. One warning: The ice hotel just opened December 31, 2003, and it remains to be seen how it will weather next summer’s days of 24-hour sunshine. But with 14,000 feet of tubing pumping hockey-rink coolant through the structure, resort representatives are hopeful that the hotel has a long life ahead of it.
(Doubles from $575, 1-800-478-4681, ) Ch芒teau du Sureau, Oakhurst, CA
She’ll play out all her princess fantasies at this posh estate hotel located 45 minutes from the south gate of . Surrounded by verdant landscaped gardens and breathtaking views of the Sierra Nevada, the Ch芒teau is the ultimate in romantic indulgence. Stay in one of the hotel’s ten rooms (with names like Lavender, Rosehip, Elderberry and Thyme), each furnished in elegant provincial French style, with fireplaces and views of the surrounding mountains and forests. The hotel also boasts a five-star restaurant, Erna’s Elderberry House, presided-over by renowned chef James Overbaugh.

To satisfy your adventure jones, let the Ch芒teau’s concierge set up an active outing like horseback riding, mountain biking, or Merced River rafting. Or take an adrenaline-filled day-trip from the fairy-tale estate for legendary climbs like the breathtaking 5.7 Via Aqua route from lower Yosemite Falls (the tallest waterfall in America). If you really want to burn off the previous night’s decadent dinner, try a hike up the demanding Cables Route on Yosemite’s Half Dome.
(Doubles from $350, 559-683-6860, )

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