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Stories

Humorous, adventurous, interesting and amazing stories from readers, our archives and famous adventures from around the world. If you'd like to share one of your own stories, please send an email (with your story attached) to stories@intrepid-optimist.com.


The Taste of Memories

Ernest Hemingway, in the Green Hills of Africa recalls how beer played a part in his adventurous life and in the book he briefly reminisces about his beer drinking in various countries. At a more modest level I have also had the good fortune to have quaffed beer and slurped cocktails in their place of origin.

Jungle Life

As we made our way down to the rocky bank of the Ramganga river, our intention was to just relax and soak in all the freshness and tranquility nature could offer us.

A Sojourn to St. Helena (Part II)

We had arrived on a solitary rock shrouded in cloud in the middle of the South Atlantic. The island of St. Helena.

A Sojourn to St. Helena (Part I)

Some years ago I had the pleasure of a sojourn to the island of St. Helena, a barren rock in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean. The East India Company, having been granted a charter to govern the island by Oliver Cromwell, decided in 1658 to fortify St. Helena and colonise it with planters.

An amateur hero

It had become something of a joke over the years among the residents on Blue Ridge Drive, a swath of manicured suburbia carved into the scrub-brush brown canyons of Yorba Linda, California.

A Sojourn in Libya

Some years ago I had the pleasure of a sojourn in Libya. It was during the heady days of embargo following the Lockerbie bombing.

At that time there were two ways into the country, by boat or by low-level drop across the southern border with Chad. At that particular time I chose the former.

Kill or Cure: a session with el Brujo

 

I enjoyed reading  Josh Gerak’s recent story in I-O , of his meeting with a ‘Curandero in Guatemala’ and it brought to mind the time I visited an Ecuadorian witchdoctor and I wasn’t even sick.

Rincon de la Vieja adventure

I got to Rincon de Viejo just as the last moments of light were disappearing. The 20km drive from the Pan American Highway was interesting. The soil and rock structure created by ancient lava flows made the drive like no other I had experienced in Costa Rica.
 

Controversial Palm oil

It is blamed for everything from deforestation to threatening the extinction of the orangutan, but palm oil is a vital source of income for many developing countries, the crop's producers say.

In Indonesia, the world's largest palm oil producer, where the plant provides work for three million people, the government is keen to promote the benefits of the crop.

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Over 50's on the move

Record numbers of the over-55s want to move abroad because they are fed up with Britain's soaring crime rates, its creaking economy and the rotten weather.

Research by the Foreign Office has revealed that just over four in ten of those approaching retirement are considering moving abroad.

Others are simply fed up with crime rates and are keen to flee the violence and antisocial behaviour which plague our streets.

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DNA test diet predictor

A simple DNA test may predict whether someone is more likely to lose weight on a low fat or a low carbohydrate diet, say US researchers.

The results from the small preliminary study of 101 women showed those on the best diet for their genes lost two to three times more weight than the rest.

The results are being presented at an American Heart Association conference.

Experts said the findings tied in with previous studies, but further work should be carried out.

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Talk deep, be happy

Having a profound conversation can boost happiness levels, but trivial chatter can be depressing, scientists say.

Psychologists investigated whether happy and unhappy people differed because of the types of conversations they engaged in.
 
Volunteers wore an unobtrusive recording device to monitor conversations with friends and colleagues for four days.

Researchers then listened to the recordings and identified them as trivial small talk or substantive discussions.

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