MEJDI staff, including Scott Cooper and National Geographic Emerging Explorer Aziz Abu Sarah, meet with United Nations World Tourism Organization Secretary General Taleb Rifai.
National Geographic Expeditions’ partner for the Society’s new Holy Land: Past, Present, and Future expedition, MEJDI (Middle East Justice and Development Initiative), has taken first place in the inaugural Intercultural Innovation Awards. The prize, awarded by the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations and BMW Group, recognizes “brave initiatives that dare to think outside the box, rethinking intercultural work and making an important use of new methods to promote intercultural understanding and cooperation.” The award includes a year of mentorship by the United Nations World Tourism Organization to help MEJDI scale up its operations and offer educational tours in new regions.
National Geographic Emerging Explorer Aziz Abu Sarah—a founder, owner and operator of MEJDI, and National Geographic Expert for several departures of the Holy Land expedition—traveled to Doha, Qatar to collect the award last month.
“We were thrilled to get this award,” Aziz told me. “The UN World Tourism Organization will help us grow our business, develop our business plan. We spent last week in Madrid working with the UNWTO’s Secretary General, Taleb Rifai, making a plan for the coming year.
“The plan will include getting to new regions. We’re already running trips in March and April to Egypt. They’ll help set up meetings for us there with government officials. We spoke about Jordan, where we’re also running trips now, and about South Africa, about Northern Ireland, about Turkey.
“In Israel with National Geographic,” Aziz continued, “we present a ‘Dual Narrative’ tour, looking at everything through the eyes of a Jewish and a Palestinian guide. In Egypt, we’ll be looking at Christian and Muslim perspectives, secular and religious, as well as the history and archaeology you’d see on a typical tour. In Turkey, there are Greeks, Kurds, and Turks, and the issues surrounding them. We’re hoping to do a trip where we can combine Turkey, Kurdistan, and Iraq together.
“Our narratives aren’t focused on conflict, but on peace, on building understanding between peoples. That’s our specialty.”
Book your passage on The Holy Land: Past, Present, and Future.
View “From Revenge to Reconciliation,” Aziz Abu Sarah’s discussion of his experiences in an NG Live program at National Geographic headquarters.
Guests and expedition staff aboard the National Geographic Explorer were treated to a rare sighting of this nearly all-white leucistic Chinstrap penguin January 9, 2012. It’s not quite an albino since it has pigmented eyes and a washed-out version of a Chinstrap penguin’s coloring pattern.
Photo by David Stephens
Naturalist David Stephens snapped this photo as the penguin waddled its way through the Aitcho Islands in Antarctica. Penguins’ two-tone black-and-white coloring offers camouflage while diving for fish, and this color is so fundamental to their success in catching fish that variations are seldom seen. “Many wondered about this unusual bird’s chances of success,” Stephens said. “While odd coloration may make fishing a bit more difficult, leucistic birds are regularly found breeding normally.”
Check out some of the more common sights aboard the National Geographic Explorer on our Journey to Antarctica expedition in this photo gallery.
By Sharon Grainger
Sharon Grainger is a naturalist who leads many departures of our Alaska’s Inside Passage expedition. Below, she recounts an incredible whale sighting on a voyage this past summer.
An hour and a half after sunrise, the National Geographic Sea Lion was cruising slowly north on Chatham Strait, searching for marine mammals. This body of water is the longest and deepest fjord in North America, extending over 150 miles and reaching depths of over 2,000 feet in several places. These rich waters attract myriad different animals in the long days of summer.
Our plans for this morning were to search for marine mammals, enjoy the fantastic weather, and see what southeast Alaska offered up from her treasure chest of natural beauty. As if on cue, humpback whales appeared in the distance. Soon the ship’s bow was filled, our guests poised with their binoculars facing north.
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Making a beignet at Café du Monde
The Big Easy’s historic French Quarter presents just one tough challenge to the weekend photographer: Deciding when to sleep. Good thing they’re brewing fresh coffee and popping beignets in the fryer 24-7 at Café du Monde.
Photojournalist and National Geographic contributing photographer Tyrone Turner kicked off NG Expeditions’ Weekend Photography Workshop in his native New Orleans with an invitation to stay up late (yes, Bourbon Street’s going all night) and get up early (how ’bout that great morning light?). Tyrone has traveled from Brazil to Baghdad on assignment, and also shot National Geographic features on New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina, and the Louisiana bayou.
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Former Solidarity leader and Polish President Lech Walesa dances with National Geographic Expeditions traveler Ethel Scully.
Lech Walesa, former Solidarity leader and President of Poland, and Mikhail Gorbachev, former President of the Soviet Union, meet with National Geographic Expeditions travelers on the Society’s “Exploring the Baltic’s Historic Waterways” expedition. On a recent departure, Walesa swept guest Ethel Scully off her feet—not just with his insights on history, but also with his deft dance moves. I spoke with her about the experience.
Tell me about your Baltic expedition.
It was wonderful. I like to travel to learn and to grow, and am always looking for enriching experiences. This expedition really did that for me. It took a horizontal slice through history. We spent a lot of time looking at the Hanseatic League, then focused on the fall of the Soviet Union across all the Baltic republics, Poland, and so on. The entire experience was so enriching, not just in terms of the countries we visited, but the other travelers as well.
You met Mikhail Gorbachav and Lech Walesa, both momentous figures in 20th-century history and the unraveling of the Soviet Union. What was that like?
It was tremendously exciting. Here were two Nobel-Peace-Prize-winning men who had tremendous roles in changing the course of history. They were both philosophical.
In the case of Lech Walesa, he spoke of course about his Solidarity movement. It didn’t just mean labor unions, he explained, it meant everyone working together. He spoke of the impact Pope John Paul II had in encouraging the Polish people to stand up for themselves against the Soviets. He spoke of European integration and how it’s working today.
Walesa was thoughtful, and his sense of humor shone through. He seemed warm, down-to-Earth, and engaging. He said he liked to address difficult issues in a light-hearted way. He spoke about not wanting to be the President of Poland after the Soviet Union fell, but feeling that if he didn’t step up, the Poles risked losing so many of the advances that the country had made. And he gave credit to lots of other people. He also spent a lot of his time looking forward and speaking about the future.
Gorbachev also spoke about many things: He spoke of Glasnost and about nuclear disarmament. (He said he was proud of what he’d done to advance that cause.) He spoke about his relationship with U.S. President Ronald Reagan, said his first impression was that Reagan was a dinosaur. As he got to know him better, that assessment changed. Gorbachev said Reagan would ultimately confide to him that his first impression was that Gorbachev was an old-school socialist. Gorbachev said they ultimately grew to have great respect for one another.
Gorbachev also spoke of an environmental organization he founded, Green Cross International. Both Walesa and Gorbachev spoke about the environment being a global issue, something people need to cooperate on a lot more than we currently do. I hadn’t thought so much about the environmental consciousness of Russia, but it’s a priority for him, and he spoke about it.
Someone asked Gorbachev what he would like his epitaph to be. A simple one, he answered: “He tried.” He spoke of how his current health issues are holding him back. I was literally only about 12 feet from the man! I was struck with how warm, real, and down-to-Earth he came across.
Lech Walesa spoke to us aboard ship, in the lounge. He leaned back on the bar and spoke from the heart. I got the impression they were both speaking from the heart. This is what I look for in travel: I want to learn something from the places I see, and want to be enriched by them.
So how did you end up dancing with Walesa?
At the end of his talk, Walesa was gracious and invited people to come up and take photos with him. He’d posed with about a dozen people before I got up with him. I was by myself, just smiling and happy to be there. And instead of a stiff photo, he broke into dance!
The world wants to know: Is Lech Walesa a good dancer?
Oh, yes! He’s a polka aficionado, and he’s quite good.
Did the Baltic expedition change your outlook on the places you visited?
It did, forever. And it made my Christmas Card: “Polka With Peace-Prize-Winning Polish President!”
Over the course of my life, I’ve measured experiences by asking “Is this a National Geographic moment?” I’ve had many figurative National Geographic moments, but this was my first literal National Geographic moment. It was lots of fun, and very memorable. This experience will always stay special for me.
Schedule your brush with history: Explore the Baltic’s Historic Waterways in 2012 with National Geographic Expeditions.
National Geographic photographer and Italy expert Massimo Bassano journeyed to Siena last month on the Society’s Tuscany Family Adventure. While there, he and his fellow travelers witnessed the Palio—the famed twice-annual horse race in the town’s Piazza del Campo that dates back centuries. I spoke to Massimo about this mad, colorful scramble, and what it means to the people of Siena.
Q: The Palio is anything but your typical horse race. What sets it apart?
A: Everything!
Siena is a small medieval village compared to the big cities of Italy, about 25,000 people downtown, maybe 45,000 overall. It has a long, long tradition in history, and it’s filled with architectural riches: monuments, palaces, bell towers, churches, statues. Even the private homes are ancient here—500-years old and more in many cases.
Every year for centuries, Siena has held what’s called the Palio. This annual pair of horse races involves the entire town and everyone in it, and they’ve earned this little village renown throughout the world.
The horses run right in the town. They close a square that’s normally open to the people, the Piazza del Campo, bring in sand, and the horses race on it. The “square” is actually shaped like a shell—like a coquille St. Jacques if you know those cookies. There’s a high side and a low side, so the horses must climb one side and race down the other, with two dramatic curves that are quite difficult for the horses and riders to navigate.
Originally (more than 200 years ago), they used to run the horses through the entire town and the race may have lasted about ten minutes. Now the race is confined to the piazza and it takes just 90 seconds. (The record is less than 80 seconds, but it’s typically about 90 seconds for three laps around the square.)
There are 17 contrade, or districts, in Siena, and all of them compete. 17 horses at once is too many in this tiny square, so this is why they hold two races each year: the Palio di Provenzano on July 2 and the Palio dell’Assunta on August 16. A horse and rider from each contrade competes at least once every year, and three contrade—selected by lottery—get to compete in both races.
Q: The Palio has prompted fierce rivalries between competing contrade over the years, correct?
A: Absolutely! It’s a very aggressive race. Winning’s always good, but if anything, it’s even more important that your rival or “enemy” contrada does not win. You might have a chance to win the Palio if you have an excellent horse, a very good jockey, and lots of friendly contrade in the same race. But if your contrada is isolated—few of your friends are running at the same time—and if your arch-rival has a good horse and good friends in the race, well, that’s the worst.
Q: I know plenty of baseball fans here in the U.S. who cheer for the Red Sox and against the Yankees, and vice versa, so I think I get the idea. And some of the rivalries between Siena’s contrade date back nearly as long as the Palio itself?
A: They date way, way back. People in Siena don’t care about soccer’s World Cup and Team Italy as much as they care about the Palio. Palio is the first priority. And they invest in it, too, with donations to their neighborhoods to hire the right jockey and train him and his horse to be ready for the race—if possible to win, and if not, to help other friendly contrade and stop their rivals.
Jockeys ride bareback, not in saddles. And the start isn’t typical. The horses come to a rope and get in position. Once they’re all in position, then the race starts. It’s highly unpredictable. The jockeys try to disturb each other to make the start more difficult for rivals, and to make the other horses perspire. (It’s difficult to ride bareback on a horse when the horse is drenched because it’s been sweating.) When they rush downhill on the first dramatic curve, several jockeys typically slip or fly off their horses.
Q: I know the Palio’s a highlight of our Tuscany Family Adventure. Where does it fall in the expedition?
A: Right in the middle—it’s the centerpiece. We had several days in advance to enjoy Tuscany and learn in depth about the Palio. It’s important to get immersed beforehand, since it’s not just a race, it’s so much more important than that. You can appreciate the flavor and excitement and emotions of this event best if you have time to think about it and develop a relationship with several of the contrade beforehand.
Q: You’ve witnessed the Palio many times before, but for this running, you were actually on the course with your camera. What was that like?
A: Thanks to my work with National Geographic, I had a press pass that allowed me to get right on the course, just beside and in front of the starting line. The horses began the race directly in front of me, just a few feet away. So I was privileged to get some extraordinary photographs, and tremendously exciting. At the same time, it’s wonderful to be up in the crowd with all the cheering people, as I have been many times before. There’s no bad vantage for the race.
Book a National Geographic Expedition or Photography Workshop with Massimo Bassano, or treat your kids to a National Geographic Family Expedition.
Photos by Massimo Bassano
For this month’s National Geographic Traveler article “The Towns Italy Forgot,” writer Miriam Murphy and photographer Massimo Bassano set out for Italy’s overlooked villages to investigate an innovative new concept in travel: the albergo diffuso. These so-called “scattered hotels” are abandoned dwellings—from farmhouses to cottages and even caves—that have been transformed into boutique hotels, preserving the unique authenticity of structures that might otherwise be forgotten.
Beginning in April 2012, National Geographic travelers will be able to experience one of these architectural gems on our exciting new trip, Southern Italy and the Amalfi Coast, which was inspired by the NG Traveler article. Massimo himself will join us at the helm of this special expedition, bringing his insider perspective as both the article’s photographer and a native of Southern Italy.
In the mountainous region of Basilicata, our home base will be the extraordinary Le Grotte della Civita, one of the article’s featured properties. It is stunningly set within the ancient caves of the Matera, which have been declared a UNESCO World Heritage site. It is, as writer Murphy describes, “the one-of-a-kind hotel that recast grotto quarters into some of Europe’s more unusual accommodations.”
Le Grotte della Civita is just one highlight of what promises to be an unforgettable journey through the rugged landscapes and olive groves of southern Italy. In picturesque Puglia, we’ll settle into a beautiful masseria, or fortified farmhouse, and discover the fairy-tale-like trulli stone dwellings scattered across Italy’s “heel.” Then we head west to explore the sun-drenched Amalfi Coast and delve into the legacy of the Romans, from the temples of Paestum to the haunting ruins of Pompeii.
Want to learn more? Read the September NG Traveler article and check out the itinerary for our Southern Italy and the Amalfi Coast expedition.
For the first time in years, National Geographic Expeditions will take travelers from the U.S. to Cuba beginning this fall. Prize-winning writer and photographer Christopher Baker, author of National Geographic Traveler: Cuba and one of the world’s leading authorities on Cuban travel and culture, will accompany a number of departures as the Society’s expert. He reflects on the new expedition (Cuba: Discovering Its People and Culture) and describes what travelers will experience when they join him.
Q: You helped National Geographic craft the itinerary for our newplain expeditions to Cuba, and you’ll be traveling along as the expert guide on many of the trips. What excites you about this expedition?
A: I’m particularly thrilled to be working with National Geographic. This expedition is something that I have been excited about ever since I started engaging with the Geographic several years ago. I’ve waited with great anticipation for the day when this would become possible, not least because I love Cuba, I come alive in Cuba, and I’m always thrilled to share what’s unique about Cuba with the people I take there.
There is such pent-up energy among Americans going there. The groups that I’ve been with in Cuba are different in many ways from those I’ve traveled with elsewhere. There is a tremendous desire to understand a place that has been off limits for so long and that remains a mystery for so many.
There are very few people that go to Cuba who don’t return emotionally impacted and with an incredible desire to get back there as soon as possible. There’s a tremendous energy about the place, an enigmatic quality that’s absolutely unique. And that’s what I love to share.
Q: We are offering these trips with what’s called a people-to-people license. Could you explain what that means and give a few examples?
A: The people-to-people license demands that individuals participating with the group connect on a face-to-face level with Cubans while they’re there. This is fantastic, because it gives us an opportunity to learn and understand on a one-to-one basis the intricacies of life for individual Cubans.
We have to remember that we’re going to a communist nation where the social, political, and economic structures differ 180 degrees from those of the USA. U.S. participants in these groups bring their own perspectives about cultural and political norms to a country that operates on a very different plane. For example, we know that in this communist nation, self-employment and employing people have pretty much been banned for five decades under Fidel and now Raul Castro. New openings under Raul are allowing a greater number of previously limited categories of self-employed people to make their own livelihoods. We are arriving at a particularly interesting point, because Cuba is beginning to open up.
In terms of Cuba’s recent history, we’re seeing some remarkable changes, most recently an announcement that people will be able to buy and sell real estate. That’s been banned for five decades. We’ll be able to engage with people and learn how it’s been possible to live in a society where, to use a U.S. dollar equivalent, the average monthly salary of a Cuban is $18. How do you get by in a country where people have traditionally relied on rations provided by the government, and now they’re cutting those out, talking about deleting them entirely?
We’ll be meeting with people such as my friend Julio Muñoz in Trinidad. Julio comes from a well-noted and wealthy family that lost much of their property after the revolution. He lives in a wonderful 18th-century house that’s been featured in National Geographic magazine. He currently makes his living by letting out rooms. Until last year, it was illegal for Cubans to operate two businesses, so he could never be a licensed guide, for example, while he was renting out his rooms.
One of the changes Raul introduced allows Cuban entrepreneurs to operate multiple businesses. So last year, Julio—who’s always had a horse living at the back of the house in a stable that’s built into the courtyard, and who’s a horse lover—got together with other Cuban horse owners and now offers tours on horseback. And he also offers an equine health program to educate Cubans on how to care for their horses.
We’ll get together with Julio. We’ll go to his home. We’ll learn face-to-face from him and his wife, Rosa, what it means to be able to rent out rooms and engage with travelers on a daily basis. We’ll meet interesting characters such as a Santería priest. And we’ll also learn something about how Julio is engaging fellow Cubans regarding equine care.
Q: Do you get a sense of walking back in time, back into the middle of the 20th century, when you travel through Cuba?
A: Even further than that. It’s one of the great qualities of traveling to Cuba—you’re stepping into a time warp, and not just a time warp. Because of some of the parameters of life in Cuba, I often say that it’s like stepping into C.S. Lewis’s Narnia, or if you’re a fan of Alice in Wonderland, then going down the rabbit hole. It’s a place full of eccentricity, eroticism, and great enigma.
A Hollywood-stage-set quality is a paramount part of the time warp. It hits immediately when you arrive at the airport. You step outside the doors, and there’s a whole stream of 1950s and older American cars. Of course, Cuba has modern taxis for tourists, French Peugeots and modern Japanese models. But just behind them you’ll see a stream of taxis waiting for the Cubans who don’t have the dollars to ride in modern cars, and what are they? They’re old Chevrolets, Oldsmobiles, and (primarily) Cadillacs. Havana had more Cadillacs per capita than anywhere else in the world, including the USA, and many of them are still running. So you walk out the doors of the airport and you go “Wow!”
Many of us are familiar with the number of 1950s vehicles still chugging down the road in Cuba, but you don’t have to get far to understand that you’re stepping back in time in another perspective. Sure, we’ll be going through Old Havana, which was founded in the 16th century and is one of the most remarkable enclaves of colonial architecture in the new world. But when we leave Havana and head out to Viñales, we’re stepping into another world, a rural environment where the ox-drawn plow and ox carts trundling down the road are still the norm. These villages that we pass through and the larger towns take us back two or three hundred years.
Viñales sits out in Pinar del Río no more than about two hours’ drive west of Havana. It’s a beautiful village with an incredible physical setting set in a valley surrounded by karst limestone formations called magotes. This colonial-era village still operates much as it would have done two centuries ago. The typical mode of transport there is the ox cart. Cowboys are everywhere riding horses, and still dressed very much as they would have been 200 years ago with their hats of straw.
We’ll also go to Trinidad. The city of Trinidad is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in its entirety. It was a thriving city during the great sugar boom of the 18th and 19th centuries, but in the late 19th century it was passed by for various reasons. Today, it’s ‘pickled in aspic.’ Trinidad was featured in a 1999 story in National Geographic magazine. David Harvey photographed a wonderful piece that profiles this unique town.
It’s a town where there are still cobbles in the streets, no cars except those owned by locals allowed within its inner perimeter. It’s a lived-in museum where no modern houses have been erected within the city core, which has been restored for the most part. So we’ll be traveling back to the 18th century as we visit Trinidad and visit my friend Julio and other individuals, getting to know what it’s like for the Cubans living in a city that’s changed very little in hundreds of years.
Q: Is there anything else you’d like to share about this expedition?
A: Yes. It’s important for people who go to Cuba to understand that they’re going to be moved emotionally, and in two ways. We’re only 90 miles from the shores of Florida, but we’re traveling to a place that during five decades of communism has been set back economically. So you’re going to be moved by the relative poverty of Cuba. But you’re also going to be moved in a very positive and passionate way by the spirit of community that the average Cuban displays.
Cuba has been a communist nation for more than 50 years, and while we as Americans—speaking as an English guy who’s now a U.S. citizen—focus on the negatives of communism, there are positives also. The community spirit, the real sense of what community means, and the import it has for people living in a communist society is not something that’s readily understood by Americans. It’s a very positive quality—and that’s true whatever you think about the human rights issues, whatever you think about the economic disaster that communism is. You bring away some tremendous positives (and this is a great benefit of people-to-people) when you actually meet Cubans and talk to them.
Book your passage on National Geographic’s Cuba: Discovering Its People and Culture expedition or learn more about Cuba from the Geographic.
Genographic Project director and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Spencer Wells
Geneticist and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Spencer Wells directs the Society’s Genographic Project, a landmark study of human migratory history based on information recorded in our DNA. Spencer will trace many of our species’ migratory pathways and meet some of the indigenous peoples who have contributed to the study during his next Journey of Man expedition in March and April of 2012. I spoke with Spencer in his office at the Geographic’s Washington, D.C. headquarters.
By Ford Cochran
Q: Could you describe, in brief, the Genographic Project?
A: In a phrase, what we’re trying to do is answer a very basic human question: Where do we come from? It verges on philosophical. It’s something people have grappled with for a long time. Religions and philosophies have thought about this and argued over various models.
It turns out that we can use the tools of modern science to actually get answers to these questions, questions such as “How closely related are we as a species? Do we share a common origin? How recently? Where was that? And how did we migrate all over the world? Can we explain the patterns of human diversity that we see?”
We use something we inherit from our parents and grandparents, our DNA, to do that. Your DNA is in effect a history book. It gives us information about your immediate past—who your parents were and grandparents and so on—but also people who lived thousands of generations ago.
It connects everybody all over the world into this kind of genetic web, with little genetic threads connecting people all over the planet. It tells a story of these great migrations of our species. In essence, that’s what we’re trying to piece together, that big story.
Q: I got a Genographic Test Kit and learned that I live a long way from where my predecessors 10, 12, 15 generations back lived. But there are still people on Earth today who live in the places where their ancestors have lived for many generations, and living largely as they have lived for hundreds or thousands of years. These are some of the places that you’ll visit on the Journey of Man expedition, correct?
A: Yes, that’s right. How do we do this kind of mapping of genetic characteristics, genetic markers we call them, the things that you inherit as ancestral baggage from your ancestors from many years ago? How do we do that mapping onto a globe so we can piece together the story of how we populated the world? We do that by working with indigenous and traditional peoples.
As you said, these are peoples who’ve lived in the same location for a long period of time—hundreds of years, but even thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands in the case of Africa. It’s by looking at these groups who retain that genetic link back to their ancestors, back to their past, back to the geographic location where they’re living today that we can map all of these ancient journeys.
We can test your DNA and compare that to this atlas that we’ve developed working with indigenous groups. That’s the key to the work we do. So what we spend a lot of our time doing is working out in the field with indigenous and traditional groups. They’re really the people who’ve allowed us to piece together this story. All of us are carrying a piece of it, but they’re the ones who really provide the context that allow us to make these inferences.
What we’re doing on the Journey of Man jet trip is going out and meeting some of these people who’ve given us these glimpses of our shared genetic history. The idea is that everybody alive is connected, as I said before. When you meet these people, you’ll learn about how you are directly connected to them genetically, how you share some ancestor in the past who connects you to them today. You’ve inherited shared genetic characteristics from those individuals in the past. You literally are cousins, if you will, of all of these people we’ll be meeting on the journey.
Q: Because humanity’s migrations out of Africa and across the globe have branched many times, you’ll travel to many places on this expedition, four continents in all. What are some of the key peoples you’ll meet along the way and places that you’ll go?
A: This is the third time we’ve organized a Journey of Man journey with National Geographic Expeditions. In the past, we’ve focused more on inland populations. I felt very strongly that this time we needed to look in detail at one of the great migrations of our species, the Polynesian expansion out into the Pacific. If you think about when this occurred—it started about 3,500 years go in earnest, this great migration east of the big islands in southeast Asia—these were people who had no form of writing, they didn’t have compasses, they didn’t have sextants as we know them although they probably had star charts.
What they were doing is setting out, effectively, to find a new planet and colonize it. They brought with them breeding pairs of pigs and dogs and air-layered breadfruit. (You’ll learn about what that is on the trip.) They brought all of these things to recreate their way of life, and they literally set sail to populate a new place for the very first time. They had a lot of faith in what they were doing, but also a lot of amazing skills. We’re going to learn something about what skills they needed to make these incredible journeys across thousands of miles of open ocean.
We’re starting off in Hawaii, and we’re going to meet some of the native Hawaiians and explore the Bishop Museum, which is the best existing museum of Polynesian (or actually Oceanian culture in a broader sense) in the world.
From there, we’re going to trace it in reverse, and go back to a place that’s kind of the point where the Melanesian culture of southeast Asia and the Polynesian culture further north and east really meet, and they mix, on Fiji. We’re going to meet some of the native Fijians, learn something about their way of life, learn about the various migrations that have come through. It’s actually quite complex, not a simple instance of one group of people hopping from one island to another and never turning back. In fact, there was a lot of migration back and forth in trade, and we’re going to learn something about that.
And then we go back to the source in Melanesia itself, to New Guinea. That’s actually a place where agriculture developed separately. A lot of the crops that the Polynesians carried out into the open ocean actually came from the highlands of New Guinea—banana, and taro, and some of the other yams.
We’re going to learn about that migration. It’s a great little self-contained story, but it’s seen in the broader context of global migrations. The trip continues on beyond that, and we go to Australia, and we go to southeast Asia, and we learn about the mixing that occurred in those two places. We go to India and learn how that is a melting pot as well, and the origin of Indo-European languages.
Q: Could you talk a bit about where the project is going?
A: We’re in an amazing position at this point. We’ve been sampling people all over the world for the last five and a half years. By the end of this year, we’ll have about 80,000 indigenous samples. 410,000 people have purchased kits. We’re pretty close to half a million people. That’s a lot of data, and it’s a very exciting position to be in scientifically, to start to mine that data, and that’s what we’re in the process of doing right now. We’ve got a lot of really exciting papers that I’ll be able to talk about on the trip, including unpublished ones, that are relevant to all of these regions that we’ll be visiting.
A sample collection of this size allows us the luxury of going back, looking at what we know about the genetic patterns from the initial work we’ve done, and asking if there are other genetic markers elsewhere in the genome, off of the y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA, other markers we could look at that could also be informative and perhaps answer questions that we can’t answer with the Y and the mitochondrial DNA. That’s the direction that we’re going with the project.
Q: Is there anything else you’d like to share about the journey or about your work?
A: People should prepare to be amazed. I travel a lot. I’m very lucky—I’ve been to 80 countries in the course of my career and I’m only 42 years old. That’s a lot of travel! Typically, when we go to these places, we spend a few days to a few weeks on an expedition actually living and working with the people. You really learn what makes that culture tick.
On the Journey of Man trip, we don’t get to spend quite as long in each place, but you get to make these spot comparisons among cultures around the world, which is an amazing thing to be able to do. You start to see similarities and differences, but really it’s the similarities that you notice between these different groups. You begin to see how the story pieces together.
The genetic story actually comes alive. You start to see, ah, this is why people were moving from point A to point B at that point in time, and you figure out how the people would have survived in these different areas: what skills they needed to make that journey into the Pacific, or to live in the great sandy desert of Australia, or to hunt in Tanzania.
That’s the sort of stuff travelers piece together on this trip. If you keep an open mind and mull it over at the end of every day, the human story really starts to make sense to you. I think that’s a huge value of doing this trip: It puts it all in context.
Book your passage with Spencer on the Journey of Man expedition, visit the Genographic Project website, read Spencer Wells’s book Deep Ancestry: Inside the Genographic Project, or order the Society’s film about the project, The Human Family Tree.
Photograph by David Evans
A self-portrait of photographer Tyrone Turner, reflected in a parade-goer's shiny beads.
A native of New Orleans, Tyrone Turner has shot images of New Orleans and the Louisiana Bayou for several National Geographic magazine articles. As the leader of our New Orleans Weekend Photography Workshops, we asked Tyrone to tell what makes New Orleans such a great city to photograph.
History drips off of the wrought iron balconies of the French Quarter like bougainvillea. You meet characters on the street that call you ‘sugar’ and ‘baby’—they would be disappointed if you didn’t ask to photograph them. New Orleans is my hometown and I have been photographing the city since my days as a staff photographer with the local newspaper. In recent years, unfortunate events like Hurricane Katrina and the Gulf oil spill have brought me back to New Orleans often to shoot on assignment for National Geographic. I am continually discovering something new about the city and the people, and I love sharing that with the students.
My favorite part of the workshop is when we start editing the students’ photos. The gems pop out, and the students start to learn about their vision and their own process of seeing and making photographs. The magic happens when they take this knowledge and go out and make better pictures the next day.
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