We were out of luck in the seat department, so I sat in the back of the bus with Don standing next to me. About forty-five minutes into the trip, I casually looked up at him. “So, where did you put the passports?” A slight look of alarm crossed his face. “I thought you got them back from the hotel front desk.” Panic ensued. We tried to get off the bus, but someone who spoke English persuaded us not to do so. He promised to call the hotel at the next rest stop as we still had the receipt with name and number. Our savior said that they could just put them on the next bus. We endured the hot crowded bus, and I tried to keep my breakfast down as many others lost theirs. We also had the worry of two missing US passports and the wild ideas of who might steal them.

At the end of the bus trip, we went to the next cheap hotel and persuaded them that we actually had passports and that they were expected momentarily at the bus station. Don undertook the many trips to the station asking any bus that arrived if the driver or ticket taker had our passports. The next day, still no documents, so we found a travel agent who promised to help. He explained that the phone lines had been down for 24 hours, but were currently up and running again. Our savior from the day before couldn’t have contacted the hotel. By that time, we had lost the receipt for the hotel and couldn’t remember the name. “But it’s right across the street from the station!” The agent also said that because of the rivalry between bus companies, only the company whose bus we had been on would be willing to help. That meant that asking every bus that had arrived would be useless. We went to the market and bought a watermelon, putting it into the fridge in the lounge to cool. We went to the beach. Too hot. Back to our room. Too hot. Eat watermelon. Someone had stolen it. We went back to the travel agency. Someone else was there and knew nothing about passports.

By the next day, we were making plans to go to Ankara and visit the American Embassy. We fretted, Don went to the station and met yet more busses. After dinner, he said he was heading out again. “By now, they all know me and want to have conversations. Do you know what kind of men hang around bus stations? One asked me, ‘In America, is it true? That a man can go with a woman – for FREE?” I locked the door behind him. A loud banging woke me after midnight. Don grinned as he held up two green passports with eagles on them. “The bus was two hours late and everyone was snappish. I waited until everyone got off the bus, then leaned in to ask the driver, ‘Passports?’ He took one look at the red beard and reached forward, picking up the passports that had been sitting on the dashboard. He opened one, then the other. He handed them to me.”

The casualness of the loss, and return, of these vital documents has had a lasting effect on me. Ask me and I can put my hand on my passport within ten seconds, whether out and about or at home. I can be positively paranoid about separation from this little pamphlet. I’ve never let my passport expire and have saved every one I have gotten, except the first one. That was kept by the US Government when I was issued with my next one. And of course, they don’t belong to you, they are the property of the government.

But the idea is older than mankind. Animals explore, sniffing and padding and climbing and flying where they have no knowledge. This leads me to think that exploring is innate, part of animal and human make-up.

But surely, exploring for humans must be different than that for animals, which rely on instinct and training more than conscious cognition. Can we say that dogs dig under a fence to escape and explore their environments? It is more likely to be hunger or the age-old sex drive that motivate animals to break out and explore the world.

Humans are, in soul and spirit, animals. We ignore instinct and primal urges at our peril. To pretend we have no animal nature deprives us of the strong pull and push for basic survival. Some of us are willing to risk our lives for the thrill or pull of exploration, whereas others are more cautious. I do not think culture or upbringing has as much to do with the urge of exploration as those personality traits that exert influence towards striking out into the unknown.

I have often been struck by the bragging rights that some will go to say, “I was the first.” The desire to be the first seems to be a motivator that often overcomes the reality that one may be the first to perish on the selected exploration. Mountaineers, deep sea divers, and extreme sports enthusiasts say they acknowledge the dangers, but believe they will never become a casualty. Or if a friend or family member dies on the mountains or the trek, they can shrug and say, “He died doing what he wanted to do.”

In India once, I met a man who introduced himself as ‘Number Thirteen.’ He had been the thirteenth Indian to succeed in climbing Everest and this was forever to be his claim to fame. As he was a policeman, perhaps it helped him his career, or later as a businessman, he would sell more of whatever by advertising his product using his unique claim to notoriety. He survived where others perished, or perhaps worse, failed.

We can claim that bravado or lust for adventure is a young person’s mindset. But Shackleton was forty when he set out on his ill-fated attempt in Antarctica. Hadn’t he had enough adventure, and failures, in his life so far? Sven Hedin was dashing about the Takla Makan desert when he approached 70. And he often pushed himself and his companions, to risk their health and lives to make just one more bid, one more attempt, to cross just one more sand dune. He had made mistakes in his youth and often miscalculated as a mature man. But he ignored warnings and common sense to push on.

Why? Why do we risk, why do we search, why do we ignore warnings, why do we think we will succeed where others failed? Ida Pfeiffer said she needed money from her next book to live, so she pursued ever more exciting and dangerous adventures. The conquistadores in South America were motivated by greed, for gold or for favor from the king. Many had little to lose, but much to gain. The sailors who signed up to explore oceans beyond their knowledge or experience, most likely had little to lose. After all, we all die, eventually, and perhaps fate, or God, has it all planned out.

I am not sure I would call myself an explorer; I don’t think I have ever been ‘the first’ anywhere, but I am fascinated with those who have. I eagerly follow the news of those who bicycle, walk, fly and explore beyond their lives and knowledge. I may think they are crazy, but I eagerly await their stories and follow along their paths of exploration.