Destination Truth: Memoirs of a Monster Hunter (18 page)

However, I can’t say to a surety that a yeti is responsible for the prints, either. To me, they look a bit, well . . . goofy. The bulbous, splayed toes and immense size make me want to smile more than recoil in terror.

Though the analysis of the find is extremely compelling, it’s also finite. There’s only so much information that can be gleaned from a footprint, and once the data has been collected, we’re left to figure out what to do with our plaster souvenir. The print makes its way back to our production office, where it sits patiently on a desk between Brad and me. “What are we going to do with this thing, Gates?” Brad asks. The answer presents itself six months later in Orlando.

To my parents’ dismay, I was born a Disney enthusiast. When I was a kid, we would go to Florida annually, at my insistence. Every February or April vacation, my poor mother and father would be reluctantly pulled through the turnstiles of Walt Disney World, suffer the indignity of endless cycles on It’s a Small World, and endure a few hundred voyages with the Pirates of the Caribbean. When I turned sixteen, my mother finally snapped. Mentally strained from years of helplessly looking on as animatronic buccaneers raped and pillaged that poor Caribbean town, she’d finally had enough. “No more!” she defiantly announced in her proper British accent. “I can’t take those bloody pirates anymore.” Before I could protest, she leveled a finger at me and decreed, “We’re not going back there until you give me a grandchild.” Well played, Mom. Well played.

My parents now spend four months of the year in Florida (in Sarasota, at a generous distance from Disney World). In the span of two years they’ve gone from hearty New Englanders to self-described “snowbirds.” Suddenly they eat dinner at 4:45 in the afternoon, play bocce, and drink Moxie soda.

My girlfriend and I have flown down to visit them. At six thirty one evening, we’re already back at their condo after dinner at the Outback Steakhouse, a restaurant that my mother is now referring to as “incredible.” Their nightly après-meal ritual involves my father watching television and yelling at Alex Trebek while my mother clips coupons for Subway sandwiches out of the Pelican Press. I remind her that the foot-long subs are literally five dollars to begin with. She just shakes her head and keeps on clipping. On the TV, Alex is squinting at the Double Jeopardy board, which sends my father round the bend. “Jesus. Put your glasses on, Trebek!” my father blurts out.

The next morning my girlfriend and I excuse ourselves from the breakneck pace of life in Sarasota and drive up to Orlando to visit Disney’s Animal Kingdom. I had originally intended to visit the park in 1999 during my senior spring break in college, but my vacation was derailed by a Big Mac extra-value meal at a Florida McDonald’s that caused my gallbladder to explode. True story.

Animal Kingdom is the largest Disney theme park in the world, sprawling over more than five hundred acres of lushly manicured grounds. One of the big draws is a roller coaster called Expedition Everest where riders evade the yeti on a high-speed runaway train. As we stroll into the Asia-themed section of the park, I’m blown away by how enormous and detailed the attraction is. I’m suddenly transported to the streets of Kathmandu, marveling at the backpacks and climbing gear hanging from the beautifully faked storefronts.

Like all popular Disney rides, the line is an attraction in its own right. Guests are gently corralled and then led on a labyrinthine journey with enough twists and turns that they never realize how long the queue is and consequently don’t go completely insane. We snake through the purposely disheveled booking office and then out past an ornately detailed wooden temple. Finally, we wind into a building with an overhanging sign that reads “Yeti Museum.” Inside, guests pass display cases containing news articles and relics from expeditions that have gone in search of the yeti. I call Brad on my cell phone. “Dude. I know where the yeti print belongs.”

The process of actually getting the appropriate rep from Disney on the phone is harder than expected. No matter who I call or how I phrase my pitch, I sound like a crazy person. “Hi. So. I’m a professional monster hunter who found a footprint in the Himalayas that might be from a yeti. I was wond—Hello? Hello?”

I’m bounced from Burbank to Hong Kong, Orlando to Paris. Everyone hands me off to another department. Finally, on a last-ditch call to a publicist in Tokyo, I’m told, “You need to talk to Joe Rohde.”

“Who’s Joe Rohde?” I ask.

The silence on the other end of the line is deafening.

“Joe Rohde is the guy you need to talk to,” the voice finally says matter-of-factly.

“Okay. Joe Rohde. Got it. Do you have a num—Hello? Hello?”

It doesn’t take much digging to realize that yes, Joe Rohde is in fact,
the
guy. He is a senior vice president and an executive designer for Walt Disney Imagineering. As a first impression, know this: more than twenty years ago, when he and his small team were trying to sell Disney executives on the idea of an environmentally focused theme park (long before going green was chic), the question was raised as to whether live animals would be exciting enough for Disney’s over-stimulated guests. To rebuff his doubters, Rohde paraded a 400-pound Bengal tiger into a board meeting. Needless to say, the terrified executives scrambled into a corner, and the question was dropped. He continued as the lead designer and developer for Animal Kingdom and was the driving creative force behind the Expedition Everest attraction.

If anyone is going to make this happen, it’s him.

I contact Rohde’s office and have the good fortune to not be hung up on by his lovely associate, Jennifer Gerstin, who either believes my story or is so bored at work that she’s at least willing to listen to it. I tell her that we’d like to donate the print to the Yeti Museum at Animal Kingdom. She says she’ll talk to Joe about it. I hang up, assuming that I’ve finally hit a dead end.

Jennifer calls back in fifteen minutes and says that Joe is interested. He hops on the phone, an unbridled bundle of energy coursing through the wire. “Where did you find the print?” he asks.

“In Nepal. In the Himalayas,” I answer.

“Right. But where?” he wants to know.

“Oh. A few days’ hike from Everest base camp.”

“Where
exactly
?” he presses. He starts mentioning specific valleys and villages. I’m amazed. It turns out that Joe Rohde knows a lot of shit. We have a twenty-minute phone conversation that concludes with his offer to fly me to Florida so that I can deliver the print to him in person. And just like that, I’m going back to Disney World.

Meeting Joe Rohde in person is like meeting a lightning bolt. He’s one of those magnetic iconoclasts who’s probably a little bit crazy but in just the right way. When I’m introduced to him, he’s wearing a bright Hawaiian shirt and a cowboy hat. Hanging from his left ear is a collection of strange earrings and charms of such substantial weight that his entire lobe is now stretched out to accommodate them. Walking around Animal Kingdom by his side is a trip. Despite the fact that he’s genial to everyone we meet, Disney cast members are falling all over themselves in his presence. He’s traveling with a bizarre entourage of individuals, among them a Kenyan safari guide who has been flown in for a meeting. Not only has the man never seen a theme park, but this is his first trip outside of Kenya. In the African-themed section of Animal Kingdom, I watch with delight as his eyes pop out of his head.

We arrive at Expedition Everest and pose for publicity photos where I hand the plaster footprint off to Joe. And then, with the formalities out of the way, we all ride the roller coaster. The Kenyan guy doesn’t even know what a roller coaster is and spends the entire ride screaming with laughter. He loves it.

On the flight back to Los Angeles, I happen to be seated next to Joe. We spend the five hours talking about everything from exotic foods to ancient weapons. I just do my best to keep up. “How much do you know about the use of armored dogs in Colonial Spanish combat?” he asks me. Up until this moment my only knowledge of armored animals is that polar bear from
The
Golden Compass
. I decide not to mention this.

A month or so later, the footprint, a photo, and supporting materials are granted a thoughtful display located just before riders exit the Yeti Museum at Expedition Everest. I couldn’t be happier about this. If nothing else, the print is a tangible connection to an important oral tradition. It is a twenty-first-century footnote to a saga nearly as old as the Himalayas themselves. I’m so glad that people can see it firsthand in the context of an attraction that brings the legend to life.

I spent a childhood enthralled by the magic of Disney. Peter Pan’s ships carried me on my earliest flights, and my first expeditions unfolded on the exotic, albeit predictable, waters of the Jungle Cruise. This wanderlust of mine was surely conceived somewhere in the “world of yesterday, tomorrow, and fantasy.” That Joe Rohde has seen fit to add my modest relic to Animal Kingdom has reminded me that Disney World is, quite literally, the place where dreams come true.

14: The Tourist Empire

Machu Picchu, Peru, 2009

It’s as picture-perfect a moment as any traveler could hope for. A sun-dappled view of the cloud-framed plateau of Machu Picchu. Raising my camera, I hold my breath to steady my shot. Beams of light angle down through breaks in the sky; there’s even a llama in the foreground munching quietly on lime-green grass. I’m going to win a Pulitzer for this. And then, without warning, an enormously fat woman in a Planet Hollywood shirt spills into the frame. The llama, as startled as I am, moves along. The photo is lost. A momentary image of the mighty Inca Empire dissipates, the ancient mountain city freshly conquered by an insatiable, seemingly unstoppable new superpower: tourists.

There is a very real distinction between being a tourist and being a traveler, and we should all aspire to the latter. Being a traveler means being an enthusiast, a vessel eager to be filled with the exotic. Being a tourist means checking off a prescribed itinerary, behaving like a sheep, and generally resisting the influences of the unknown in favor of familiar comforts. Citizens, this is a plea for sanity—nay, a call to arms! It’s time for a revolution against the imperial forces of tacky travel. I submit to you that there is a better way.

When we travel, we don’t just go someplace else, we also bring with us the place we’re from. Whether we realize it, we are emblematic of our homeland. When we set foot in a foreign country, we inject our own presence into it, either adding flavor or poisoning the cultural water. And so I would like to humbly offer a little basic travel etiquette (and a tip or two on how to not be an international douchebag).

Let’s start with wardrobe. I’m not sure when it happened, but at a certain point in history people collectively decided that in order to travel somewhere, they ought to wear a costume. The issue is perhaps most painfully illuminated on any trip to Africa. From Cape Town to Casablanca, the continent is under siege by colonialist khaki pants, beige epaulets, and floppy safari hats. If I see one more pasty-skinned Brit in a fedora ogling animals through a pair of oversized binoculars, I’m going to start frothing at the mouth. Look, I’m all for wickable fabrics, and, sure, I own my fair share of cargo pants; but if you’re wearing a pith helmet or sporting a hunting vest covered in pockets, you better be able to take down a lion.

I’d also like to ask that, unless you’re going to the beach, you consider leaving your shorts at home, guys. Beyond the fact that it is the easiest way to distinguish yourself as a tourist (men almost never wear shorts in their own country), I don’t really want to look at your hairy legs. Not in a restaurant, never on a plane, and, for the love of God, never
ever
in a temple. Remember, you’re an ambassador for your country. Throw some pants on, buddy. And, ladies, cool it with the tube tops in downtown Dubai.

While we’re on the topic of sartorial choices, let’s put a worldwide moratorium on shirts that read, “I survived (insert something totally survivable).” Also, no more Joe’s Crab Shack logos at the Wailing Wall or Ed Hardy patterns distracting from Picasso paintings in El Prado. Crocs are hereby banned from restaurants worldwide, and finally, I’m sure you loved your last trip to Paris, lady, but that bedazzled Eiffel Tower shirt is really f-ing up my view of the Acropolis.

However, if there’s one touristic sin that makes me cringe above all others, it’s this: the travel wallet. You don’t carry a wallet around your neck at home, do you? No. You don’t. So stop doing it abroad. It’s the badge of an embarrassing paranoia and announces you as a complete maroon to every local you meet. You may as well be wearing a nametag that reads: “Hi. I’m not from here, and I think your country is full of criminals.” You also advertise to the few actual thieves in town that your money is hanging openly around your throat. Perfect for a late-afternoon neck shanking. It’s as simple as this: if you’re too scared to keep your money in your pocket, you really shouldn’t be out of the house.

Full disclosure: I’m terrible at foreign languages. Awful. After a combined eight years of Spanish classes in high school and college, I can barely order a burrito at Taco Bell. But even if you can’t speak the local lingo, your efforts are always appreciated. Really. Use your overseas flight to learn some basics and struggle through as best you can. Expecting people to speak English in another country is ugly. As a side note, when you do have to fall back on it, speaking louder or with an accent will not make locals understand you better. “I need to go to the Marriott. THE MAAARRRRIIOOOTTT.” The cabdriver is Greek, not retarded.

You cannot expect to eat the same way abroad that you do at home. Nor should you. In fact, the human palate was meant to stray beyond the confines of the local food court. Sadly, I’ve watched Americans happily sit down for dinner at a Sbarro in Moscow next door to an authentic Russian eatery. I’ve looked on in horror at people choosing a KFC in Tokyo instead of any of the six sushi restaurants on the block. The worst side effect to gastronomical laziness overseas is that it encourages American franchises to pop up in places where they fundamentally don’t belong. There’s now a McDonald’s across from the Pantheon in Rome. And it’s packed.