The accidental tourist

For 30 days every four years – as predictably and as reliably as the legendary Atomic Clock itself – Jeff Sellers transmogrifies himself. From an active get-up-and-go man brimming with verve and vinegar into a true couch potato.

Whose only connection to vinegar (and salt) and real potatoes during this slothful phase comes when we prepare genuine fish and chips after a British team’s victory in the great festival celebrating what most of the world calls ‘football’.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, soccer fanatics or not, as I pen these words for posterity the entire Sellers household is enveloped in World Cup fever. And you did read this correctly, I do mean the entire Sellers household, including me.

Not that we wear team colours or paint our faces, or, as seems fashionable this time around, cut our hair in the Native American style with a purple streak down the middle. Although reading this back it might brighten things up considerably on a rainy, winter afternoon.

But that apart as Jeff sits glued watching minnows like Senegal topple the favourites and true giants like Brazil toy with the toddlers, I get out our well-thumbed World Atlas and go on a month-long world tour. Revisiting all the places we’ve had the great fortune to see, remembering some of the fine friends we’ve made in the process, and yes, that too, re-living moments of outstandingly-great passion so far away from home.

As an illustration let one story suffice involving – quite coincidentally – three countries challenging for the 2002 World Cup, Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay.

Some 13 years ago in remotest South America where these three countries meet at the magnificent Iguaçu Falls, Jeff Sellers was arrested and incarcerated. For allegedly illegally photographing border activity between two of the countries which, to prevent unpleasant repercussions, will remain nameless. (He was simply photographing me through our bus window as we waited to clear customs. Honest.)

Anyway, how I did it is far less interesting than the fact that I did it, but I managed to get him freed. After four hours in a dank cell without light, air, food or a mutually-common language.

And within minutes after his release we were in a splendid Argentine hotel experiencing a true Errol Flynn and Rita Hayworth Kodak moment on the terrace overlooking the thundering waterfalls.

And if Senegal reaches the semifinals I’ll tell you what equally-unbelievably happened there too.