It's a big, big world we live in

I hear so often that as technology advances the world gets smaller and smaller- meaning that the world seems smaller because of our ability to communicate and travel further and quicker and more easily around the world. It seems quite the contrary to me. What I have come to realize recently is that the more time I spend on the internet the larger the world seems to be. Technology has provided me nothing more than the means to explore more easily.

I wrote an article in february, on my mountain biking website, about biking in africa where I musingly mention that the thought of mountain biking in africa had never crossed my mind. Not that I wouldn't be interested, only that I never put the two together. I imagine myself riding, drenched in sweat, sun beating down- pealing my skin away one layer at a time and a lion jumping from the bushes leaving me with one desire- not to be the slowest rider! Africa seemed like a different world to me growing up. Childhood recollections of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom episodes surface, with images of lions taking down antelopes or Marlin Perkins holding some wild cat. My own short sighted impression of africa's landscape is made up of, what must be, thousands of pictures I've seen with dry, dusty, barren, almost waterless deserts where the incredibly hot temperatures make even the smallest task a great effort. It took me till I was 40 to realize that Africa has wide open plains, majestic mountains, deep ravines, arid semi-deserts, indigenous forests, spectacular coastlines and flourishing vineyards.

I've spent endless hours exploring Google Maps and Google Earth only to realize how askew my image of the world was. Countries weren't quite where I remembered them being. I didn't realize that Egypt was actually in Africa. What I find so amazing is that you can zoom down into any country in the world and find some place you have never heard of.

We get so comfortable in our every day life that we forget that there are places in the world that are very different from ours.