Thrashers’ Exelby still has some fight in him

Somewhere near Cairo lives a cab driver who almost certainly doesn’t appreciate how lucky he is.

He messed with Garnet Exelby and didn’t get punched in the face.

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Johnny Crawford/jcrawford@ajc.com

Defenseman Garnet Exelby is entering his sixth year with the Thrashers.

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Maybe it was because Exelby was on vacation, and with his girlfriend, and standing on the sands of Egypt instead of the ice of Philips Arena. Or maybe the cabbie just drove away too fast after depositing the Thrashers defenseman and his girlfriend a horseback ride away from the pyramids.

Regardless, Exelby didn’t wind up in the penalty box for five minutes for fighting. Instead, he ended up on horseback, and lighter in the wallet, after the cabbie deliberately took them to the wrong place.

“On top of all this,” Exelby said, “it’s 110 degrees outside.”

It’s almost funny now, just another tale from Exelby’s five-week summer odyssey to Dubai, Egypt, Italy and Croatia. He and Katie Hayes were looking for adventure and found it via an Amazing Race-style journey during which they made the majority of their travel arrangements on the fly. They traveled mostly by train and ferry, stayed at budget hotels and hostels and sought new experiences wherever they went.

In Dubai, Exelby skied down a 15-story indoor ski hill.

“It’s bigger than you think,” he said. “I grew up in Manitoba; the most they had was a landfill covered with snow.”

They visited souks and spice markets, where you have to haggle for everything. They went to beaches where, instead of wearing swimsuits, the locals were covered from head to toe. That and other sights were eye-openers for Exelby, whose only previous excursions off the North American continent had been to Hawaii and the Caribbean.

They journeyed to Luxor, Aswan and south to the Sudan border. Then they headed for Italy — Rome, Florence, Pisa, Venice — and then to Croatia.

“Croatia was probably my favorite country,” Exelby said. “The pizza was actually better in Croatia [than in Italy].”

Croatia is where, on a dare, he ate some black ink octopus risotto. A photo proves he did it.

“It looks like I’m eating tar,” he said. “It’s got quite a strong fish taste to it.”

He loved the food in Italy, too, and ate some excellent gelato.

And he learned the great works of art you hear about really can live up to their reputations. He waited four hours to see Michelangelo’s David and wasn’t disappointed.

“Just to see this sculpture was amazing,” Exelby said. “Even if you’re not an art fan, you see something like that and you’re, like, ‘Wow!’ “

Now that he has become a world traveler, Exelby doesn’t plan to stop. For 2009? Perhaps a trip to Australia, where his sister will be teaching. There’s one catch, though. She’s coming back in May, before the end of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

“Hopefully,” Exelby said, “we won’t be able to make it there.”