Mike Waller describes the appeal of visiting wild places. And he should know. He’s travelled down the Amazon in a dug-out canoe, trekked around the Andes, completed the Cape to Rio yacht race and sailed extensively in the Caribbean. And in January he begins a six-month sailing voyage down the East African coast on a traditional Arab dhow.

Yet Waller isn’t a professional adventurer — he’s an accountant.

It’s a career path he set upon to give him the necessary grounding for, ultimately, running his own business.

But now that he’s qualified, the 26-year-old can’t see a future for himself in the faceless world of suits and ties.

“In the corporate job I have at the moment I tend to neglect the other part of my personality” he says.

And that other part, the sense of adventure, has always been with him. “I have memories of wading through the reeds at Zeekoevlei, where I grew up, looking for hippos.”

He also recalls learning to sail at an equally early age (“My father threw me into a sailing dinghy”) and being taken to the Cedarberg on family holidays.

It was also around this time that his dream of travelling down the Amazon was born.

“Ever since read I read that adventure story ‘Amazon Adventure’ as a boy I had a burning desire to do it.”

And do it he did. Convincing his girlfriend Liz Girdwood to tag along (“She’s a brave spirit, she’s up for everything”) they trekked around the Acongate Massif in Peru on donkeys before spending a week paddling down the Samiria River in the Amazon Basin.

“It was absolutely incredible. The river was only about 10 metres wide so we were surrounded by these amazing forests.”

He fondly remembers the river dolphins and catching piranhas for supper, but for all its rugged beauty “it was the most uncomfortable place I’ve ever been”.

“The only haven from the swarms of mosquitoes and fire ants was our tiny tent,” he explains.

Comfort is maybe the only thing Waller misses when he’s out in the bundu. “I don’t miss much really, maybe a soft bed,” he laughs.

“I go to a place because I want to be there,” he adds.

Which is how the dhow trip came about.

Disenchanted with the world of spreadsheets and income statements, “I came up with my ultimate fantasy lifestyle,” he recalls.

“I made a very conscious decision to incorporate all that I wanted to do into this trip.”

The result is a sailing adventure that will take Waller, Girdwood and their friend Kevin Blignaut from Mombasa in Kenya down the coast to Mozambique, taking in several rivers and stopping off at tiny villages along the way.

They hope to experience the foreign cultures, sampling their food, learning Kiswahili and meeting local people while visiting places Waller has long wanted to see — like Lamu.

“I’ve heard stories about elephants plodding along coral reef from one island to another, with just their heads sticking out of the water,” he says, the sense of wonder clear in his voice.

But he doesn’t expect it to be easy. Apart from contending with the possibility of an angry girlfriend there are the dangers of malaria, hurricanes, crocodile and hippo infested rivers and theft. Oh, and the minor detail of writing articles for some ten magazines, compiling a book on the area’s historical spice routes for Robertsons and making a video documentary.

Film-making is one of Waller’s free time interests, along with “making my own plonk”, collecting aloes, playing cricket and typically adventurous pursuits like running on the mountain, windsurfing and kite boarding.

The latter is something he does on family getaways at the Breede River — the closest Waller gets to taking a ‘boring’ holiday.

As for his future adventures, Waller hopes to return to the Amazon and has dreams of travelling the full length of the Orange River.

That career in accounting looks less certain, though, as he dreams of starting his own company in the travel, adventure or film production fields.

“I just want to do something that excites me,” he says.