My 12 year-old son was in tackling distance and would therefore be subjected to my discovery; the root cause of my magnificent gravitational pull toward Web 2.0. Imperceptible for too long; the transformation of Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 was now clearly analogous to crossing from DC (Direct Current) to AC (Alternating Current)…life would never be the same.

A world of exploration, while connected to others, was now possible across this highly connected, highly engaged virtual world. Friends and family across the globe are now part of my community and interacting every day, be it through a comment on a blog, a tweet, a facebook remark, a game or linked to Skype.

Despite living in New Zealand once I enter the World Wide Web 2.0 I move to a sphere without boundaries and limitations. All human beings, with access to the internet, have been ordained as global citizens (perhaps with the exception of China and Bhutan) without travel restrictions and visiting hours. I certainly won’t have the same experience as I did in the jungles of Africa or in the mountains of South America nor will I be moved by the aroma of Indian Chai, but I will be able to explore new cultural phenomenons and connect with people real-time across the world like never before. I am a traveller once again.

In addition, the consciousness of the human species will almost certainly be lifted by the advent of Web 2.0 as transparency will move to the fore. If you do something dastardly, dishonest or despicable big brother will simply snap you with his cell phone, load your digitised behaviour to this open platform and forever more you will reside in the annals for posterity with all those other indiscretions … come to think of it I’m glad I’m not a digital native.

The kids were very excited about the goats and ponies running amongst the terraced olive trees, but due to my born again meat-eater disposition I acknowledged I would not be able to join them on the terraces due to my carnivorous desires.

The landscaped garden is flowing with colorfully manicured flowers, one passage leading to an aviary on the backside of this 18th century three-story stone house.  Haunted by my presence in Hong Kong when the SARS epidemic broke out I had lost my affinity with birds, so I informed the kids that I would not be hanging out with them in the cages.

I admit, I’m not a big animal guy.

Every morning I drove down the winding hills, above Grasse to fetch our daily supply of baked goods from the house of Pain (bread).  The freshly baked croissants and pan au chocolat were heavenly.

Walking past the window of an estate agent I noticed pictures of exquisite homes, similar to my mother-in-law’s.  A caption under one particular photo grabbed my attention, “The annex of the stone house was built in 1734.”

The USA and NZ weren’t even embryonic states when this gorgeous pile of stone took shape. We are such young countries, with only a modern development of sociology.

Beyond fine cuisine the French have a strong reputation for being well educated and imbued with egalitarian principles.  They also have the shortest work week (35 hours) in the industrialised world and despite criticism, research has validated high levels of productivity.

With pastry in hand I went to pick up a newspaper, but there weren’t any available due to the French workers striking at the production facility.  Within this culture there is a tolerance for such behaviour.  I asked, “Why?”  The answer, ‘Because they are French.’ I have heard these words on many occasions when listening to an explanation of their cryptic behaviour.

I, as well, was most accepting until a gaunt Frenchman trained in animal husbandry, named Michele said to me, “Zee French has beaten zee All Blacks.” In rugby I had come to expect this outcome.  Why? ‘Because they are French.’

The South American Family Adventure is no different and when the question popped I found myself drifting back in time vividly rolling through recollections.  Standing with my family at the top of a volcano in Chile was exhilarating; The occasion I was dwarfed by a massive glacier in Argentina with the surround sound of booming echos would garner votes;  Gazing up at Iguazu waterfalls between Argentina and Brazil was spectacularly memorable;  Riding horses across the boarder of Chile into Patagonia (Argentina) or the daily horseback riding excursions at the Hacienda in Uruguay were both voted amongst our top five activities.  The six-day trekking and camping experience in Chile’s Torres Del Paine will never be forgotten.

How does one rank Santiago, Bueno Aries, Montevideo and Rio de Janeiro?  So rich with visuals and the indelible taste of life on the road, I simply can not choose just one.

I spent three years travelling continuously through Asia and Africa and upon my return I was challenged by the same dilemma. I naturally looked for the answer; Vietnam moved me, witnessing an enchanting country with a forgiving populous who willingly embraced me as an American; In the heat of Africa there was an oasis known as Zimbabwe, the birthplace of my first child with a surprisingly great infrastructure that availed the beauty of Victoria Falls and Chimanimani National Park; India, despite being soiled by wretched poverty is a spiritual sanctum filled with dreamy eyes of hopefulness.  How can I choose just one?

Could the answer be my sanguine mental state.  Although this destination is isolated and buried beneath hard core societal dogma, it has been the unraveling and detachment from a way of being for the last 13 years that has allowed me to consider this State as a contender.

If there has to be just one ‘best place’ then I will go with a State called mind.  Often referred to as the State of Mind.  I feel at peace and awake to the possibilities that exist, completely present to the life around me.

This State is made up of reinforced strands, interwoven by the South American experiences that continues to exist in the present with a high level of attentiveness.  In this euphoric State of Mind I can see the most amazing landscape of endless possibilities.

You may be thinking, ‘That’s a straight answer’ as you quietly place this response in the category labeled, ‘freak’.  Don’t worry, it’s all good as human nature will enable me to unconsciously adapt to the environment around me. Without ever realising a transformation will occur, powered by an underlying persuasiveness of mainstream society and once again I will have enlisted as a loyal troop. Believe!

None of these thoughts had anything to do with my actual answer.  Listening to my response on the phone was a big swinging executive from an American multi-national.  I sat in a noisy internet cafe, using Skype, blocking out the sounds of a garrulous child at the adjacent computer and the barking of dogs just beyond the open doors.

A dear friend recommended me for a wonderful opportunity as country lead for a role in NZ.  Although I made the short-list, I was informed that I would not be selected due to my lack of ‘underdog’ experience and the fact that my 30-60-90 day plan was too high level.

With four interviews conducted in South America over Skype from Australia, I’m not sure the interviewing parties ever really related to my state of play.

My preparation was lacking, but I chose my circumstances, fully engulfed in my best ever 30-60-90-day run, initiated in Brazil.  I’m certain I would never have got as far as I had in the selection process if they’d seen my current non-corporate bohemian look.

While on security detail at Brazilian bus terminals I composed a friendly game to pass the time.  As my wife ventured off to purchase tickets I stayed with the kids, outwardly focused in order to protect our booty, playing our game.

I’m simply not at liberty to disclose the rules of the game, due to the rigid content review process of this blog. The best analogy is akin to watching an episode of The Simpsons with younger children…it’s funny from both perspectives.

I have always admired the way the French take care of themselves. Just recently, my family and I learned that the French have some of the slimmest bodies in the world.  The experts attribute these tidy figures to the small portions they eat and the fact that while eating they often partake in conversation, slowing their consumption.  Upon discovery of this information, my family and I looked around the table at one another, smiled and with a tacit knowing we collectively shook our heads with “not a chance” glances and continued to eat in silence.

The French appear to take very good care of themselves in this Mediterranean region, but I still don’t get what’s up with the dog fetish.

The miniature dog thing is such a foreign concept to me, perhaps it’s my lower socio-economic status that breeds such strong polarisation.  A suave looking chap, kitted out in the latest GQ gear walked through the arrival gate and then suddenly froze. The abruptness of his action caught my attention. He then calmly reached down for his two dogs, ostensibly shrunk by the X-Ray machine, and started smothering them with loving kisses.  All too familiar with the stories about loving Frenchmen, but as my daughter would say, “OMG”.

Perhaps this is an example of why the Frenchies do so well with the ladies, but I thought the tender dog-love intimacy thing was simply wrong. Try this mess in New Zealand or USA and a brother could get shot. I looked at the dude and lip-synced, “Man-up, man-up,” but I’m certain it was futile.

Despite all the beauty around me some of these Mediterranean ‘ladies of comfort’ are over-baked.  A woman, desperately struggling to limit the impact of aging had; died hair, dark med-tan, regenerated boobs, botox lips, saran-wrap face and two miniature whippets (Italian Greyhound) connected to orange leads, one in each hand. I looked at my wife, stating what she had obviously been thinking, ‘Think she has a coloured leash for each outfit?’ “Why don’t you go and ask her?” my wife, flippantly dared me.

As I stood up, I thought, why not?  It was time for me to leverage my natural ‘older-lady’ charm from the 80′s.  Even without my old-school Clark Gable moustache I was confident of awakening my skills with the aged.

Approaching this 60-80 something-year-old former Diva, I shot her a ‘how ya doing’ smile and broke out with a classic ice breaker, “That’s a beautiful dog, what kind is it?”  At least her brain hadn’t been botoxed as she clearly articulated her answer, “It’s like a whippet, but from Italy…but be careful where you buy them, they have very weak front legs.”

With rapport firmly established I asked, “Tell me, is it just a coincidence that your orange dog leads match your orange shirt and shoes?”  In a posh British accent, betrayed by an occasional French vowel, she said, “In fact I have a great variety of leads.  They always match the colour of my outfit and to be truthful the dogs are usually wearing jewellery, but since I have been robbed at this airport five times in the last two years they are not wearing any of their customary jewellery and neither am I.” She extended her bare hands to substantiate the remark.

Suddenly I was missing  the security of all of those armed guards in Rio.  This Nice place may not be so nice after all.

Our British Airways flight encountered little turbulence despite retracing the air route of Air France, flight 447. Upon descent to Heathrow Airport, Nigel the Pilot opened the microphone and with a plum in his mouth apologised for the weather, “I’m sorry but we seem to be coming into terribly British weather. Bit of a gloomy day which is a real shame as the last two weeks have been quite pleasant.  The temperature has staggered up to 13 degrees.  We will be knocking about…”

The next announcement was with regard to all that loose change people donate on flights.  UNICEF in conjunction with One World airline group have been able to raise over £25 million and as I watched people dropping their excess change into plastic bags I nostalgically thought of South American street panhandlers, wondering if they had organised themselves, could they have collected a portion of this coinage!

We existed the airplane, thankful our transit from London was to the Mediterranean sunshine of the French Riviera, forever grateful that my mother-in-law decided to retire to the hills above Cannes, France rather than the UK. We snapped a picture of the BA airplane for posterity and made our way through the magnificently pristine Terminal 5.

We had completely forgotten about the Swine Flu pandemic until we spotted a small group of Asians with doctor’s masks strapped over their mouths. The world’s busiest airport is an effective conduit for the rapid dissemination of disease so maybe these Asians were exercising good judgement.  Once I discovered they were Japanese I mollified the kids anxiety informing them that in Japan it is customary for people to wear masks when they have common colds, in order to prevent the spread.

Despite the magnificent gulf between the wealthy and the deprived, it has been said that the city of Rio de Janeiro has one of the most harmoniously integrated class systems in the world. 

Upon first impression one could take issue with such an outlandish proclamation as most scenic perspectives contain a favela (Shantytown) somewhere in the periphery.

Favelas can be found strikingly juxtaposed against luxurious apartment buildings.  Perhaps it is the very positioning of these neighborhoods that has infused the Carioca (Rio residents) with such a strong sense of community.

Brazil is world famous for Carnival, and the story is that this wonderful celebration originated in the favela.  With over one million people living in these racially mixed barrios, there is little time for racism and therefore a higher threshold for ethnic tolerance.

The inhabitants, in many of these slums, are only a short walk from the stunning beaches, utilised by the rich and famous.  Some of these shantytowns scramble up rocky hills with spectacular million-dollar views and are home to holidaying football stars; Adriano, one of Brazil’s most popular football players recently spent three days in a favela to reconnect with his people.

With people displacements, gentrification and contemporary greed I wondered how these underprivileged, uneducated, street survivors have managed to hold on to their invaluable real estate.  

In my quest to understand I discovered that one in five Carioca live in these settlements and that a significant number of families have been domiciled on this turf for several generations.  Secondly, the middle and upper classes rely on the poor servile rank to do their domesticated labour and really don’t want them going anywhere.  Nevertheless, in an era of greed and in a country of ‘renown corruption’ this simple rationale for land retention does not seem plausible. 

There are aspects of the city that remind me of Hong Kong minus the beach culture and vitality of the people.  Hong Kong is a frenetic metropolis with hundred of skyscrapers built into mountains and hills with spectacular views from the brow of vertical peaks.  The densely populated city shadows ocean waters where the rich and poor share the same streets, but you won’t find a favela occupying precious urban real estate.

Fundamentally, Hong Kong has a different approach to class stratification and based on my experience I never found any links that enabled the people to commune across the demarcation of rich and poor.  This was my impression both prior to 1997 and post colonial rule.

Makeshift shantytowns are ubiquitous and can be seen the world over, Africa (Tsotsi – academy award winner, best foreign film), South America (City of God or The Incredible Hulk) and India (Slum dog millionaire – Academy Award winner, best picture) and like the Carioca the poor Indians often exhibit a fire in the eye, but nowhere during my world journeys have I discovered such a sublime coexistence between rich and poor as that of Rio de Janeiro.

Abject poverty is a disturbing mark against mankind’s claim to greatness, yet in some splendorous way Rio seems to have pulled off a unification where the flavela is an integral part of what makes this city shine.

We have been unplugged from mainstream news for the better part of five months, but on the Monday morning of June 1st, from the comforts of a fully furnished Rio De Janeiro apartment we awoke to a television broadcasting tragic news of an Air France plane mysteriously plunging into the Atlantic Ocean. 

The route from Rio to Europe was very similar to our flight plan.  With our departure only days away my family sympathetically talked about some of the backpackers who we had recently met on the getaway island of Ilha Grande.  We were most concerned for the well-being of an affable Frenchman who was planning to return to Paris on the Sunday evening.

One of my children asked me if I had ever known anyone who died tragically.  There was a long pause, filled with empty enumerations until a name emerged, ironically it was that of a young Frenchman.

During my independent journey through Pakistan I resolved to never cross the boarder of this Muslim state with a woman; Pakistan breeds sexism like love stirs irrational behaviour.  Love induced with a fluttering heart I found myself in Islamabad for the second time on my extended journey and despite my better judgment I was there with my beloved female companion.  She had fallen ill and as I was playing nurse a compassionate Frenchman, who I had recently befriended, ran errands, procuring medicine and fresh oranges.

This English speaking Frenchman was exceptionally tall (200cm) with a powerful frame and a very handsome face. His jet-black hair, chiseled jaw, bold smile and warm disposition combined to create an epical allure.  And when this gentle giant lowered his guitar and began to strum the chords he would levitate the spirit of all. I was in awe of this inspiring 23 year-old. 

Unfortunately, even heroes have imperfections.  I discovered a minor character defect in my French comrade and his flaw stood out incongruously with his philanthropic goodwill, as he choose to ignore diplomacy and the need to assimilate.

As a traveller in the developing world I believe it is imperative that one generates a strategy and adopts a persona to deal with poverty, offers of assistance, space intrusion, touching, begging, busking and general confrontation.

The art of negotiating is an inveterate tradition in Pakistan.  The polemic is as common today as he would have been when passing along this primary route of the great Silk Road 3,000 years ago.

After services were rendered I observed my friend bargain with a local auto rickshaw (three-wheeled motorised taxi) driver and unlike the local protocol of ‘haggling’ he reverted to a one-dimensional indifference.  The Frenchman truculently offered a ‘take-it-or-leave-it’ figure.  The driver declined and without paying the hulking figure turned and walked away from the rabid Pakistani.

I saw snippets of this behaviour on more than one occasion and became disconcerted with my French amigo as this insidious approach was bound to cause him anguish.

From Pakistan the benevolent Frenchman flew to Bangkok where he was found murdered, shortly thereafter. In my lifetime, I have met few people with such a natural capacity to infuse warmth and happiness. 

Amongst his recovered belongings was a journal with names, numbers and miscellaneous information.  His father, looking for closure, contacted me in an attempt to gather evidence and trace the last steps of his son’s life.  

The possibility that we may have known fellow backpackers on flight 447 exists, but due to the lack of salvageable debris recovered we will not be receiving any phone calls from grieving parents. Nevertheless, our warmth and thoughts are with the families and all those who have been affected by this tragedy.

We were snugly tucked away on the 13th floor of a lookout tower just outside of Copacabana.  Our friend’s Rio de Janeiro apartment has spectacular views of Sugarloaf Mountain and the Yacht Harbour.

People flock to Rio because of these stunning views and the magnetic pulse that vibrates through the city. There is the thumping and bumping sway of Rio’s night life which we experienced vicariously and an array of spellbinding activities. 

Keen to absorb the hypnotic potency of Rio we bounced out onto the streets of discovery.  Our first destination was an early morning Sunday mass, to listen to Gregorian chanting.  The kids were surprisingly supportive until twenty minutes elapsed and my son tugged on my sleeve, softly whispering in my ear, “This is more boring than assembly.” Not sure how many of you remember school assembly, but this is a big statement and despite my affinity for Gregorian the boy had a point.

On a quiet Sunday morning the kids released their bottled up energy by balancing on walls, swinging on poles and running through the abandoned streets of downtown Rio, like any other major metropolitan business district on any given Sunday.

Other than a few sloppy peddlers there were only security guards, passing time. It was a bit eerie, as it was more or less just them and us.  `Are we suppose to be here?` I thought. 

With all the hubbub about ‘dangerous Rio’ there was a faint expectation that we would be mugged. The Lonely Planet anted-up with cautionary words, “Do take care as muggings are not uncommon both day and night.”  There were guards at the front of the church, in the parking lot, next to ATMs, at the entrance of the Metro, on the cable car, in the supermarket and a large local presence from the police force. As a precautionary measure we left all of our valuables back at the pad. 

I did remind my children that safety is such a relative state of mind as this environment is nowhere near as threatening as it was travelling through Africa, Asia or the Middle East or maybe we have simply been lucky.

Nothing could deter us from our game of tag as I made a swooping tap and then dashed across a convenient escape route, a patch of freshly cut green grass, alluding the pursuit of a determined child.  No sooner was I admonished by several grumpy old security guards who spoke with their flailing arms.  I had no idea of my transgression until my wife said, “You are not allowed on the lawns.”  “I didn’t know, how was I to know?”  I replied incredulously.  “It’s a rule in Rio,” she said knowingly. I was going to challenge this logic as there were no signs and I had never heard of this before.  After five months I have learned the futility of challenging South American logic so like a good lad I smiled and graciously skipped off the lawn.

To the car, for a local tour from our Carioca (Rio resident) friend.  He showed us the famous beaches, historic buildings, museums, different suburbs and lookout points.  Wherever we seemed to go the mother of all icons and a perennial man-made wonder of the world, Christ the Redeemer stood atop Cocovado mountain beckoning us to pay our respects and make our pilgrimage to the top.  This impressive angelic figure, synonymous with Rio, arms extended, was as reassuring as a mothers caress. We have been enjoying the strokes of Rio!

Jumping off the boat into the transparent green waters of Ilha Grande, Brazil for one last snorkel brought a sudden realisation that we are close to the end of our nomadic exploration.

We acknowledged my wife for her planning and adventure laden itinerary as we skated across the tranquil waters of coastal Brazil.

As I enjoyed the lush jungle, warm ocean water and white sand beaches, the ominous rain clouds that had appeared in the horizon were a tangible sign of imminent change just as the stack of airline tickets in my bag is a reminder that Rio De Janeiro is the end.

In one weeks time we will again be putting toilet paper in the toilet, turning on the sink tap for a drink of water, accepting the published price as the actual price and eating meals without freelancing entertainers busking for loose change.

The lazy walks filled with inconsequential banter will soon be usurped by mainstream commitments and the novelty of work and school. The question is when will we next attempt to figure out the derivative and origin of the word ‘cockpit’.