This real-life intrepid hero has many more chapters to add 

He was the first person to walk around the world unaided by motorised machines. He circled the Arctic during its sunless winter period, enduring temperatures below -35 degrees Celsius. He climbed to the mouth of the Amazon River and then travelled down its length until the Atlantic Ocean, doing many of these things solo.

Over the last 20 years, South African explorer Mike Horn has amassed a résumé of adventure so exemplary that it borders on the fictional exploits of a Clive Cussler-penned hero. Minus the mega-maniacal villain, of course. When meeting the man in person, his physical stature is rather imposing and upon shaking his hand – a vice-like grip that nearly destroyed the frail fingers of this pencil jockey – it becomes clear that you may just be dealing with a true-life superhero. But if his accomplishments and appearance come across as Wolverine, his demeanour is most definitely that of Clark Kent. Humble and soft-spoken, he nevertheless exudes a quiet self-assurance and respectful air that sets people at their ease. One can easily be lulled into thinking you have made a friend for life. Leadership spoke with the internationally renowned – though sadly mostly unknown in South Africa – explorer while he stopped off in Cape Town during his most recent around-the-world adventure, the Pangaea Expedition. What motivates one to simply get up and literally walk around the world? I think that we’re all made a little different, we all have different skills and different talents and once you find what you really want to do, you don’t really need motivation. It becomes natural. And to be able to live off adventure, to walk to the North Pole or the South Pole, or climbing mountains, or sailing across the oceans, it becomes a way of living. So it’s a lifestyle that I’ve chosen and this lifestyle makes me content with who I am and what I do. Obviously, there are many risks involved, but I try to explain the way that [adventurers] think: We know we can lose. We know that when we lose, we lose our life. But if you go out there and you’re afraid of losing, you’ll never win, because everything that you do will be to avoid losing. How do you measure success as an adventurer? If you die, you basically fail. And people sometimes think that success means you have to have a disaster and freeze your fingers so that the press can write about it, but in fact, success is if they can’t write about it, because everything went smoothly. You famously lost a finger during an expedition, not so? Yes, I famously lost a part of a finger and that’s when I had the most coverage in my entire life – simply because I made one stupid mistake. As we know, we run on this fine line. When we fall left, we die; we fall right, we die. We try and stay on the line like a tightrope walker and today, if you don’t have the knowledge, that road is very thin, but as you acquire the knowledge and the experience, that rope actually turns into a highway. We leave ourselves much margin for error, but the learning process is the most difficult thing about being an adventurer. During that learning process, I froze my fingers and then I went back with that knowledge and that experience and became not only the first person to walk to the North Pole, but to do it in the worst conditions ever. I survived the North Pole, which shows we have to learn from mistakes. Most people would have said, “Okay, well, I tried it. It’s too dangerous.” I agree with that and most people would say, “Okay, I’ve tried it and I’ve frozen a finger”. But it’s like the cowboy who wants to ride his horse – he has to get onto the horse straightaway once it has thrown him off. If you know what mistake you’ve made, it’s stupidity to make it twice. There are people who still go out to the Arctic for three or four years, one year after the other, and never get further than 10 metres. I call that stupidity simply because they should not be there. They’re there for the wrong reasons. You walked solo around the world and descended the Amazon on a hydrospeed; how do you deal with the loneliness of what you do? Loneliness is something that I felt sitting in a Cape Town bar with a hundred people around me, because I knew nobody. You can only feel lonely when you have people around you. I’m alone in my tent, but I’m not lonely in my tent. I don’t mind being alone, because if you can live alone, you can live with other people. And to be alone builds your character as the individual, because you have to entertain yourself. You’re not entertained by other people and the exciting thing about what I do, is you have so much to do that you actually don’t have time to feel alone. You have a wife and two daughters; don’t these two- to three-year long jaunts affect them? A journalist asked one of my daughters if she ever misses her father: her answer was quite simple. She said, “You know, my father loves me and I don’t have to see my father every day to know he cares for me. Sure, I miss him, but I know he loves me and that is more important.” It seems you have an excellent relationship with your family, then? My kids and my wife give me the freedom to do what I do. And sometimes they accompany me on expeditions. We live together like every other family. In a very small tent (laughs). Sleeping together, eating together, walking together for months on end – in a way, you have a better connection with your family there than if you lived in a home. Because each one has his/her own room, each one keeps in his/her own little corner and basically these days you don’t even eat together anymore. Imagine if you could spend so much quality time together with your family, you would get to know them very, very well. So your kids and wife go along on these adventures? Yes, my kids and my wife participate in small adventures. Our holiday is not going to Disneyland. Our holiday is going to the North Pole! So it has not affected your personal life in a negative way? I don’t spend enough time at home so that my wife can get angry. Do you still feel like a South African or do you feel like a citizen of the world? You spend so little time here and do not get much recognition from the country. When I sailed into Cape Town, my heart started beating just looking at the mountain. You’re South African by blood and you’re South African by culture. I still put my South African flag on the pole when I reach a summit. I was born here and I fought for this country and I lived in this country, I was educated in this country. This country gave me the opportunities that led to me doing what I do today. I don’t really care whether they support me or not, as long as I can continue doing what I do. But to have more South Africans becoming involved in projects such as Pangaea (see sidebar), which can really open doors for young South Africans to represent South Africa on a worldwide market, that would give me greater satisfaction. Is there anywhere in the world you have not been yet, where you would want to go? You have pretty much been everywhere. The world’s quite a small place, and what I find quite amazing about our planet is that you can always go somewhere where no one has been. What makes it a little difficult today is to cut through all the red tape. It’s becoming such a bureaucracy, you have to go through so much paperwork to get to the South Pole today that it’s basically not even worth going. Whereas before, explorers simply got up and went. You are still in amazing physical condition; can you keep up with younger adventurers? I think I’ve reached the age when I’m on the summit of what I can really do, because I’m 42 years old. At 42, you still have much stamina and a great deal of experience to apply. But your recovery time is longer as well. You have all these advantages, but then you say, “Okay, can I keep up with the younger generation today?” They’re running much faster and further than I do, but what makes me compete against them is that I have the experience they don’t. Do you consider yourself an environmentalist? Having done what you’ve done, you must have developed some kind of love for our natural world? I would like to think that I’m an explorer more than an environmentalist, but I know the planet and I’ve seen the planet and its different moods and I really care for nature. I care for the environment and I don’t know if that makes me an environmentalist or not. I’m still the guy who prefers to climb a mountain and sail the ocean and actively participate in this natural playground. I have taken so much from the earth in knowledge and experience; maybe I am an environmentalist. ▲ Zaid Kriel