Is There No Excitement Left?

I guess some folks just cant get enough of a thrill from 'normal' adventures.  They just _have_ to push the limits and are always looking for the next big rush!  After reading about the trouble that a band of trekkers got into recently, I have to wonder how the trip got planned in the first place.

"I'm bored with this stunt helicopter flying job.  You feel like doing something fun this weekend?"


"Well, my lion taming gig got canceled, something about the owner going missing, and the lion putting on some weight.  Anyway, I'm free.  What do you have in mind?"

"I dunno, but it's got to be something new, I really need a good rush."

"Since we did nude skydiving last week, how about a hike up in bear territory?"

"Nah, that's lame.  Remember how we played keep-away with a salmon one time?  Man, that grizzly was getting pissed.  Say, how did that pelt come out?"

"It looks nice as a rug in my trophy room.  The fur feels great to lay on when my girlfriend is over too."


"Your girlfriend?  Which one, the model or the stunt woman?"

"No, the other one, the Olympic swimmer."

"I swear, I don't know how you keep 'em straight!"

"It's a good mental exercise.  Speaking of which, how about we just go cave diving, blind, from memory?"

"Will there be glow-in-the-dark sharks and flesh-eating water bats?"

"Uh, no.  Hmm.... oh, hey... ok, I got it!"

"Shoot."

"Let's go somewhere where we can hike rugged terrain, without a map, without a guide, where we don't speak the language, in a war zone, without bodyguards, 10,000 miles from our home country, on the border of a hostile paranoid theocracy that will probably be nuked by Israel any minute!"

"Dude, I'm in!"

---

"In Iraq’s Kurdish region ... tourism promoters boast not a single foreigner has been killed or kidnapped since 2003.

Still, in a region without a well-marked border, going off the beaten path in Kurdistan is very risky —- as the three Americans discovered after they apparently wandered down the wrong side of a mountain last week and were taken into custody by Iranian border guards."
http://www.ajc.com/
"...an Iranian lawmaker said authorities were deciding whether to accuse them of spying.

The U.S. State Department rejected the allegation, and relatives and Kurdish officials said they were merely hikers who got lost. The case is the latest source of friction with Washington as Iran is in a political crisis.
...
Kurdish police say the three went hiking without interpreters or bodyguards and were warned not to get too close to the border."

Y'know, within the USofA we have plenty of towering waterfalls, craggy mountains, raging rivers, sheer cliffs, deadly fauna, extreme deserts, snowy peaks, earthquakes, tsunamis, undercooked chicken, jealous husbands, and rush-hour traffic - and that's just California on a Tuesday.  I simply can't imagine running out of exotic adventures much closer to home, where the money is green and passports are blue.