On two boats people were staking out turf, slinging hammocks from the beams of the roof that protected the open air deck from the heavy Amazonian rains. “If they could do it…” I thought. But these people were of this place, this was their life, they used this transport to get to work, to return to their family. I was on a lark. But I had set out from home in a conscious endeavor to get away from my comfort, to experience things I didn’t in my daily lIfe, to go farther. I knew I could never do this. I turned to leave. Then I saw the small, whitewashed shed. “Just go a little farther,” I said to myself. I approached the stout man behind the counter, his face was deeply creased. He told me it cost only a few reais for the journey down river. “I could spare a few bucks,” I thought. “Just buy a ticket, it can’t hurt.”
ANDREW MCCARTHY is a director, an award-winning travel writer, and— of course—an actor. Andrew served as an editor-at-large with National Geographic Traveler magazine, and has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and many others. He wrote this story for us on his iPhone while hiking the 500-mile Camino de Santiago, and filed it exactly on deadline, which absolutely illustrates ‘going farther.’ And he will be going farther still—Andrew heads south to Antarctica with us this season. Follow him on Instagram @andrewtmccarthy.
What happens? Read on at expeditions.com/farther
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