Nam Ky Khoi Nghia - Asialife HCMC

American chiropractor Wade Brackenbury has traversed the globe’s least
explored regions—guerrilla-occupied Guatemalan jungles, the inner
mountains of Tibet, the Congo’s depths—all in a quest to find meaning.
Beth Young speaks to Brackenbury about his extraordinary journeys.
A conversation with American
expatriate Dr Wade Brackenbury
is peppered with exciting
anecdotes about his vast travels—from
an encounter with
an angry Melanesian giant in
Papua New Guinea, to a search
for archaeological treasures
in Central America aboard a
handmade raft.
The chiropractor-cumadventurer,
it would seem, is
as comfortable in the outdoors
as he is adjusting a problem
back or administering Korean
acupuncture.
What’s most unique about
Brackenbury though is his
inability to give up. While his
expeditions have been far from
easy, this atypical traveller sees
his plans out from beginning
to end—regardless of what
obstacles may arise.
Early Adventures
Brackenbury’s wanderlust began
as a teenager. Growing up
in a small country town with a
population of just 400 spurred
him to see the world, and living
close to the earth—his parents
owned a ranch—piqued his
interest in societies that rely
totally on nature.
His first trip was a plan
hatched with a close high
school friend. The two fledgling
explorers had just watched an
Indiana Jones film and were
inspired by the archaeologist’s
exploits. Though they knew
little about the country, they
decided to walk across Australia.
It was a feat they quickly
realized would be difficult.
“We got this map out of Australia
and both said ‘Oh look at
all that desert. That might be
tough!’ But we decided to go
anyway,” he laughs.
The pair amended their
itinerary, but only slightly. They
hitchhiked across New Zealand
and Australia for three months,
before Brackenbury travelled
alone to Papua New Guinea.
There, he spent four months
hiking to the tip of the highlands
that separate the country
from Indonesia Papua.
Even this first trip was anything
but smooth. Brackenbury
flew a mail plane into the country’s
interior and directly into
a feudal war—a hiccup that
didn’t faze him in the slightest.
What finally sent him home
was a run in with a drunken
local man that left Brackenbury
and his female companion
beaten to a pulp.
He still had the travel bug
though. Back in America he
studied for a few years before
setting off on another journey,
this time to Guatemala.
His companion was a young
woman who was studying Mayan
culture. Together they rode
a motorbike from Mexico City
to Guatemala, then all the way
to the head of the Pasion River,
where a group of Mennonite
missionaries helped them build
a raft.
They floated the raft for a
month looking for undiscovered
ruins. “We were hoping
to find some Mayan gold. We
had some amazing adventures
instead,” says Brackenbury.
At the time, the country was
embroiled in a civil war, and at
night when the pair stopped to
camp in the jungle, Guatemalan
guerrillas would often stop by
to investigate. “It was worrisome,
but nothing bad ever
happened,” says Brackenbury.
Next Stop
Brackenbury’s later voyages
were more purposeful. His
skills as a kayaker and mountaineer
made him an invaluable
asset for an anthropological
trek through Western Africa
in 1997, and he was hired as a
paramedic.
The expedition’s goal was
to gauge how Eboli outbreaks
in the region had affected the
local people. However, the tour
leader had a nervous breakdown
and abandoned the expedition
early on. Everyone was
expected to return home, but
Brackenbury stayed on. “We
didn’t want to go home and
fail. There was a lot of pressure
to quit though,” he says.
A 17-year-old American boy
also remained, and the two
travelled through the Nadoki
Swamp across the Congo,
where they lived with a pygmy
tribe for two months. Brackenbury
admired the pygmies’
respect for nature and their
gratitude to the Earth. As such,
Brackenbury and his companion
emulated the pygmies. “I’d
read one book and then I’d give
it to him to read. When he was
finished he’d cut the pages out
to build a fire.”
A trip to innermost Tibet is
Brackenbury’s most memorable
and meaningful adventure
though—perhaps because it
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