Expect Simple Meals Most of the food explorers need has to be carried with them during a trip. Fresh foods don’t stay fresh for long. It’s also a challenge to prepare meals. Cooking a hot meal means building a fire. Don’t look for a microwave oven in the rain forest. Food is really important, though.
Explorers use a lot of energy. T ey need food that’s filling. When she’s in the field, “I eat a lot of plain rice,” Cooke says. Rice can give you energy, but it isn’t very exciting. Most explorers have a “fantasy meal.”
It’s what they want to eat when they return home. Cooke says that midway through a trip, she starts thinking about this meal. For her, that means cheeseburgers. But there are no cheeseburgers in the
rain forest. If you’re lucky, “you might eat a little chicken, sometimes,” she says. Burgers will have to wait.
Keep Your Cool Explorers must keep their wits about them. Cooke learned this lesson the hard way. She was exploring trails near a remote
research station in the Amazon. She lost the trail and didn’t know where she was. Suddenly, she heard a crashing sound.
A tapir came charging out of the rain forest. Cooke froze. Tapirs are large, pig-like animals. T ey
are very powerful and can run very fast. T ey generally don’t like visitors. “T ese animals are very secretive and hard to spot,” says Cooke. “It was incredibly frightening, but I knew how lucky I was to be seeing it.” T e tapir ran past her and disappeared.
Cooke felt a sense of awe and relief. Yet she was still lost. If she was to get back to safety, there was only one course of action. “I had to retrace my steps,” Cooke says.
At last, she found her trail. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so relieved in my life.”
14 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC EXPLORER
Remember, You’re the Guest T e rain forest is not your home. Yet it is the home of many other creatures. Cooke was reminded of this on one particular trip. She learned she was sharing her hut with cockroaches. “I knew that hut didn’t belong to me, but I didn’t really see it that way at the time,” Cooke says. T e cockroaches were everywhere. She
found them in her sleeping bag, in her gear, in her clothes. T en one day, they found her toothbrush. Cooke was not happy to find them crawling all over it. Tucking her toothbrush away solved that
problem. Yet it reminded Cooke that she was the visitor. Her job was to observe and not disturb. Clearly, her toothbrush was in the cockroaches’ way!
Listen to Your Teammates Recently, Cooke traveled to South America. She was looking for the world’s most toxic frog. “T is frog has enough poison to kill 10 or 15 men,” Cooke says. Making contact with the poison is deadly. “You have to wear gloves, or you’d be dead in three minutes.” For more than a year, Cooke and her
team carefully planned for this five-day trip. “For 25 years, I have wanted to see this creature,” Cooke says. When she finally did, “I burst into tears.” “I went to wipe away my tears,” Cooke
says, “when my entire team yelled ‘STOP!’” Her gloved hand was coated in the frog’s poison. One touch to her face could have been fatal! Being an explorer is a tough job. T e
food is bad. T e fashion is terrible. T ere are cockroaches that stomp all over your toothbrush. For Cooke, it’s all worth it. Her trips have allowed her to spread the word about the dangers frogs face. Cooke doesn’t mind roughing it, just as long as she remembers her explorer’s lessons.
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