Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 27 July 1952 — Page 70

BY HOWARD BENNETT : . ; as told to SID ROSS Hi ; : & 3

My thumb 160k me by ahd, sea and air to Cape Horn and back J... All

NEW YORK. to exp ‘THE FIRST five months of 1952, I hitch- Spani hiked from my New York home to Cape Fins Horn, off the tip of South America, and days, back. I covered 30,000 miles in 12 coun- ventu tries by car, plane, boat, train, truck, the, in taxi—and foot. : On Some people called my first hitchhiking trip 3 tiptoe to Alaska (PARADE, Oct. 5, 1951) fabulous. to my They'd call this one fantastic. subwa 1 slept on a cargo of bananas, under a street- Afte light in the deserted outskirts of Buenaven- the it tura, Colombia, beside an overturned bus on ‘airpor the Pan-American highway in Peru, and in a memb fabulous Chinese palace in Ecuador. hours I hobnobbed with everybody from beautiful Whi Chilean girls to roughneck American adven- ~ Miami turers. . : us a b And I can tell you one thing now: most ~~ and gl travel books about South America are danger- about ously antiseptic. They don’t tell you anything girl ar about the hard practicalities of life. get su There's no civilization outside of the few : cities there. It was madly fantastic—-the heat, ] # the climate, the crawling things, the flying things, the climbing things, the itching things. US’ It was terrible, terrible! The reality was often gt a nightmare—a rank, dank, stinking jungle n hell. got a | But let’s begin at the beginning... pile of I was taking graduate work at City College quilla, of New York and Columbia University. But I the pl was fed up with the way the world was going. Iar Besides, I had always wanted to try another ning. ] hitchhiking adventure. So I decided: why not- lishm: shove off? sick, w I rounded up equipment — camera, para- 1 an aw trooper boots, two khaki shirts, two pairs of - trip. I khaki pants, three sets of nylon underwear, tura, ( six pairs of nylon socks. I added a pair of Neit moccasin-type shoes, toothbrush and paste, field, razor and blades, after-shave lotion, three Ea

pairs of glasses (I'm near-sighted), Eskimo gloves and an Army field jacket.

All in 22 Pounds

VERYTHING I didn’t wear fitted into a knapsack weighing 22 pounds. I also equipped myself with a long pole made from a broomstick. On top I attached a United Nations flag I had found loose on the radiator of a diplomat’s car parked at UN headquarters. On the bottom I put an ice pick blade. I wanted something to lean on between rides. ’ Then I got my visas, my shots, pills and Here's how | looked. The pole carries a UN flag and flags of countries | visited salves, and a letter in Spanish (composed by some Barnard College girl friends of mine)

on

6 parade JULY 27, 1952