Germans love to jump. They will jump in groups (above). They will jump solo (below).
And they will also travel specifically to get pictures of themselves jumping. Like Tobias – a 31 year old German computer engineer who liked to travel to “dangerous places and take pictures of myself jumping on famous things!”
I met Tobias when I went to Iraq – he was part of a motley crew of people who all decided to vacation in a semi-war zone. More on Tobias the jumper and my theory on Germans vs. The Samburu Warriors after the jump:
It takes a special kind of crazy to sign on to a bus tour of what is still, for all intents and purposes, a war zone. Most preferred to travel alone but as there are currently no single tourist visas being granted, a nine or 16 day group tour run by Hinterland Travels, is the only way to see the wonders of the Fertile Crescent. Among the group of mostly middle-aged tourists was Niall, a 76 year old Irish man who traveled alone as his wife of 60 years “wasn’t into this sort of thing.” (She sadly died a few months later). Last year he’d walked across Afghanistan by himself. Bithi, a 74 year old from Calcutta who’d been traversing the world ever since her husband died in 1974. “I could have remarried but I chose to be happy instead!”; Marie, a Belgian woman on the tour to visit the grave of her Iraqi lover who’d been assassinated two years earlier; Margaret, a retired British PR director for a merchant bank; John, a retired botanist who was obsessed with ancient trees and would constantly stop to sketch and document anything popping out of the ground; Peter, a Welsh librarian who insisted on hyperbolically doling out not so fun facts; Heimo, an Austrian doctor with wanderlust, Julian who loved all things associated with dictators and destruction (“I’ve been to Chernobyl – twice!”); Naomi, a 24 year old Australian archeology student in the midst of a nine month tour of the Middle East; Stephen, a gay librarian from West Hollywood who once “accidentally” got stuck in Somalia for a week; and of course, Tobias.
Wherever we went, I’d see Tobias out of the corner of my eye jumping – on the Ziggurat of Ur, Babylon, you name it. He’d do it over and over until the person he’d harangued into taking his picture mid air got it it just right. It made me laugh.
But then I wondered… “Why? What’s with the jumping? WHY SO MUCH DAMN JUMPING?” And then it hit me. It was a virility thang. You see, in Kenya, the Maasai and Samburu tribesmen will have jumping contests. Whoever can jump the highest is the most virile and sexually desirable. (no, really – I don’t get it either). As in: higher jump = bigger dick. And maybe the Germans were just doing it subliminally! [Ed Note: Weak thesis, I know, but the two remind me of each other and its a chance to show case my super sweet video of some Samburu Warriors jumping. Either way, I’ve never met people so obsessed with jumping. So, yeah. Just check out the cool video].
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