My publishing company made the decision to promote me as an "International Adventurer." I ultimately agreed but had reservations. Personally, I've never regarded myself as an adventurer, international or otherwise.

Just like most other folks, I simply like to do things. The thing I especially like to do is hunting and it's taken me to some interesting places, a few of which I've had a hard time getting myself out of.

Therefore, I've traveled the world with gun and camera—Spain, England, Sweden, Russia, Mongolia, coastal Siberia, Kazahkstan [met Borat], British Columbia, Newfoundland, Alaska, Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Ethiopia, Namibia, South Africa, Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, Zambia and many of the states of the continental U.S. In so doing, I've hunted—and taken—everything from doves to elephants, from bluegill to marlin. I've also experienced a couple of interesting tropical disorders—African Tick Bite Fever and Q-Fever—that I'm still paying for.

Still, despite considerable "down time," I would do it all again. As a matter of fact, I don't know that I could have done otherwise…there's just something about the smell of African night. There's also something about a flight of teal whistling into decoys, the flash of a yellowfin tuna slashing into bait and the truly weird feeling—hair standing up on the back of your neck—as you approach a beast capable of tearing you apart.

My most interesting trip was, arguably, to Ethiopia—an troubled land then ruled over by the Stalinist tyrant, Haile Mariam Mengistu. Anti-Mengistu forces—Eritrean and Tigrean rebels—were closing on the capital and I was concerned as to whether they would regard me, and my friend, Jim Maddux, as allies or foemen. I remember talking to Jim and discussing our chances of walking from Addis Ababa to the Kenyan border. Fortunately, it didn't come to that and, after penetrating three cordons of troops surrounding the airport, we managed to fly out of the country. U.S. Embassy staff were getting out, too, and most of them were scared pea-green.

The return flight was in a Lufthansa aircraft and, on it, was a German-language newspaper stating that the Wall had fallen. I couldn't believe it and got excited. I told Jim that, because he was sick and had lost weight, he needed to go home but I was going to Berlin to take a few whacks at the Goddamn Wall. Jim refused to leave me because, as I've heard recently, he reckoned that I was too sick to go on alone. As a matter of fact, a doctor friend told me that Jim said I was "like to die." Now I don't remember it that way but I wouldn't leave Jim, either, because I thought he needed serious medical help. Therefore, I didn't get to knock pieces off the Wall and I've regretted it ever since.

Here is Mark—before Iraq.

A shot of Erich with the King's Royal Deer.