- Stuart

Nathan

       It was a normal night at Sea Side Farms in Homer, Alaska; the participants had gone to bed, while the drivers and the junior leaders sat around telling jokes. None of us expected anything out of the evening other than a few good laughs, but that changed when a man with an Australian accent walked into camp.
            Nathan Hammer left his small town of just 5,000 in western Australia two years and seven years ago. He flew to Sydney where he got a flight to Easter Island. On his way to Easter Island he found out that his plane had to stop in Tahiti. After a week in Tahiti he spent several weeks in Easter Island, “And that was just mind blowing” said Nathan.
            After Easter Island he made his way to Chili where he surfed all along the coast. Nathan eventually made his way to Patagonia where he hitch hiked and got on boats and made his way around got down to Argentina and eventually back to chili. “I hitch hiked around Peru and did this massive walk for two weeks, during which I went down the deepest valley in the world.” During his travels in Peru he stayed in a small village where he helped cut corn, and pick avocado.
            Nathan continued his adventure with a trip up to Bolivia, where he enjoyed experiencing how the people in third world countries lived and that they appreciated what they have. “Experience the third world and how they live and how happy they are still, and as none materialistic as the third world is, its pretty amazing, sort of how we all should live.” Said Nathan.
            After Bolivia he traveled to Ecuador, and then through Columbia. Nathan caught a sailboat to Guatemala, where he sailed around all the islands for six weeks. He then returned to Guatemala where he went into the mountains and stayed in a village for a month. Whilst there he helped plant and harvest corn, and stayed with a family there. His next stop was in Mexico where he spent three months surfing. His original plan was to stay in south and Central America, “I started all the way down there and I thought I can’t stop.” Said Nathan.
            Nathan walked, drove, and sailed is way up through California, and eventually into Canada. Once in Canada he stayed with friends he had met along the way. He spent an entire snowboarding season in Canada, going snowboarding every day for almost four months. From Canada Nathan traveled to Alaska where we met him.
            As the night carried on we all sat around the fire and exchanged stories of our adventures throughout the world. We discovered that Nathan plans on continuing his adventures in the eastern United States and eventually into Europe.
             “Alaska its just one of these places.” Nathan said “and you don’t really even associate it with America.”  Nathan has hiked all over the area. “There is so much adventure out there, you know so much wilderness,” he said. Nathan and his friends hiked fourteen hours several days ago. When they arrived at their camp cite it was low tide so they walked to a small island where they set up camp.
            Adventure is waiting everywhere, all you have to do is go and find it. You can do the most amazing things, and meet the most amazing people. The hardest part is walking out the door, after that you just have go. I think lots of times we are afraid to meet new people, and we are afraid to experience new cultures. And I think that is a fun mental flaw in our culture that we expect that everyone will be similar to us, and that’s not the way the world is. There are many different cultures and kinds of people in the world and if we don’t learn to deal with them.