I first saw Charles sitting on his backpack, snuggled between a bunch of Nepalese peasants in the back of an old, beat up, Indian-made truck. He looked out of place with his creamy white skin and in his sparkling white shirt, his leopard-skin silk scarf, his designer, button-down jeans and his brown felt fedora.
John and I were leaving the cemetery in Cienfuego, Cuba when the cemetery attendant told us that the 55-year-old trade embargo against the Cubans had just been buried by the Americans. The attendant rejoiced, as did many locals who dealt with tourists because tourists brought in the much-needed foreign currency. But many locals we came across that day were pensive, concerned that they’d lose some of the social privileges they had fought so hard for as a nation.
We booked with 
The Vampire Peaks. The Ragged Range. The Cirque of the Unclimbables. These place names indicate the response of early visitors to the Logan Range of the Mackenzie Mountains.
Fifteen years ago, a team of six people, me included, hiked from the abandoned mining town of Tungsten into the Cirque of the Unclimbables, which, at that time was not part of the 
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,