Aït Benhaddou is a thousand year-old kasbah or fortified village on the ancient trade route from the Sahara to Marrakech in Morocco. It’s constructed entirely of rammed earth, adobe, and wood.

Remember the famous scene in Gladiator where Maximus shouts “Are you not entertained?!” to the bloodthirsty crowd? It was filmed here, as were scenes in many other movies such as “The Jewel of the Nile,” and “The Mummy,” or the series ”The Game of Thrones.”

Yet this is no location set – people live here, scores of families, as they have for a millennium. You’re welcome to come here to see how they live for real – as here Hollywood is far, far away. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #181 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

There is a series of stepping-stone lakes in a hidden valley in Tajikistan known as The Seven Pearls of Shing. This is the fourth, taken at dawn’s early light with the lake a mirror reflecting the sky and surrounding mountains. Each Pearl are of different colors, each of uniquely mesmerizing allure. It is one of the many wonders – natural, cultural, historical – we’ll experience in our next  exploration of all Five Stans of Hidden Central Asia this coming September. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #52 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Many centuries ago, a tiger was plaguing the Naxi people who live in the mountains where the Yangtse River cascades off the plateau of Tibet. He was eating the goats the Naxi needed to feed themselves. So Naxi hunters chased the tiger into a deep narrow gorge of the Yangtse where they were sure they had him trapped. Suddenly, the tiger sprang onto a large rock in the center of the raging river and from there leapt to the other side and escaped, never to be seen again.

Ever since, where this took place has been known as Tiger Leaping Gorge. Here you see Tiger Leaping Rock. I was first here in July 2002 on our overland expedition across eastern Tibet. Last time 2015. Maybe again? (Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

In a remote valley between the northern escarpment of the Tibetan Plateau and the Gobi Desert of Inner Mongolia, you find these magic painted mountains of red sandstone created by Himalayan uplift and millions of years of erosion.  It’s at the sunrise light of early dawn that the colors are most apparent before they get sunwashed in the bright of day.  It takes quite a hike in pre-dawn darkness to get to the right viewpoints at the right time, but certainly worth it. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #261 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Between Sicily and Tunisia in the Mediterranean lies a secret hideaway of Europe’s rich and famous – the small Italian island of Pantelleria. Peaceful and quiet, the opposite of glitzy places like Ibiza, wealthy elite retreat here in luxurious yet very understated villas to get away from it all. It helps that the shoreline is all volcanic rock cliffs, which dissuades hordes of African “migrants” attempted to claim “asylum” in the EU welfare state by landing here.

The most beautiful spot on Pantelleria is this volcano crater lake known as “The Mirror of Venus” – of such magic color that, the legend goes, the goddess Venus would admire herself in its reflection. Come here for a tranquil escape of your own. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #164 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

The small black mountain in front of you is a volcano called Tavurvur on the island of New Britain in Papua New Guinea. In 1994, Tavurvur erupted, covering New Britain’s beautiful capital Rabaul in ash.  The entire area is volcanic, including the hot springs where I’m standing to take this picture.Tavurvur is very much alive and smoking today – starkly beautiful and dangerous.

History can be like this – beautiful and peaceful, then without warning it explodes in violent destruction.  The lesson then is how to overcome, rebuild, and avert its repetition.

It’s an obvious lesson to learn right now, with the theft of the presidency in 2020 becoming blindingly obvious, and the coming attempted theft of our entire electoral system by the Democrats with millions of illegals they imported for voter fraud.  We must overcome these twin evils, and we must make extremely sure that we never allow such travesties to threaten our country ever again.

You can climb to the rocky rim of Tavurvur to stare down into its smoking caldera.  There’s fabulous scuba-diving along the coral reefs offshore of Rabaul, and upon sunken Japanese battleships from World War II.  It’s a worthwhile experience to come here as you learn the Lesson of Rabaul. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #97 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

When my son Brandon was a cadet at Virginia Military Academy, his professor teaching Modern Military History gave a lecture on the 1980s War in Afghanistan fought by Afghan Mujahaddin against the Soviet Red Army occupation of their country. One of the pictures he showed was the one above of “three typical Mujahaddin fighters.”

Brandon raised his hand. “Yes, Cadet Wheeler,” the professor called on him. “Actually, Professor,” Brandon said, “only the man in the center with the white beard is one. The man on the right is United States Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, while the man on the left is my father.”

The professor was stunned while the rest of the class stifled laughter. “Are you quite sure of that, Cadet Wheeler?” stammered the professor. “Oh, yes sir,” Brandon replied. “I recognize my own father. That photo is framed in my father’s study. It was taken in November 1988. The Afghan Commander’s name is Moli Shakur. I have known Congressman Rohrabacher all my life.”

The cadets all applauded in appreciation. To this day, this remains one of Brandon’s fondest college memories. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #145 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

My wife Rebel and I love this uniquely picturesque ancient Berber village in Morocco where everything is painted in shades of blue. Suffused in soothing blue, there’s no more relaxed place than just about anywhere. Everyone is welcome from the wealthy staying in sumptuous boutique hotels to backpackers in hostels. There are no “tourist spots,” for every café and bar is where the locals go themselves. (It’s pronounced shef-shah-win, by the way.)

Berbers – “Amazigh” (Unconquered) in their language, are the original people of Morocco having lived there for over 12,000 years. They are directly related to the reindeer-herding Lapps of Lapland in northern Scandinavia (they share the same mitochondrial DNA haplogroup U5b1b). Both are descended from the same stock of Cro-Magnon Ice Age hunters in Western Europe that split in two 15,000 years ago – one moving far north, the other south crossing the Gibraltar Strait to Africa.

One more reason why Morocco is so magical. Would you like to experience the Magic of Morocco with us next year? (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #21 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

The Salar de Uyuni, 12,000 feet high in the Altiplano of Bolivia, is a 4,000 square mile expanse of salt so flat it is used to calibrate the altimeters of NASA observation satellites of the earth. After a rain, it becomes the world’s largest mirror, 80 miles across. The incredible reflective surface extends to the horizon in every direction – it is both hallucinatingly disorienting and makes for amazing mirror-to-horizon photos (especially at sunrise/sunset).

The brine underneath the salt crust contains 70% of the world’s lithium – critical to our battery-fueled global economy – produced in evaporation pools that are a kaleidoscope of colors.

You can stay here in relative luxury at one of the world’s most unique hotels – the Palacio de Sal, built entirely of salt: walls, floors, ceilings, furniture, sculptures. Being here is one of South America’s more astounding experiences. Let me know if you want a Wheeler Expedition to take you there! (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #39 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

In a remote corner of the Pacific Ocean, off the island of Pohnpei in Micronesia lies one of the world’s great archaeological mysteries: the only ancient stone city built on a coral reef. No one knows who built it or how.

Micronesians say their ancestors called it Soun Nan-leng, The Reef of Heaven. Their name for it today is Nan Madol, the City of Ghosts.

On artificial islets connected by a series of canals are massive walls up to 25 feet high enclosing temples, tombs, ritual centers, and platforms for thatch homes – all made of giant columnar basalt stone. Eons ago, lava flows on Pohnpei cooled into vertical pillars. Over a thousand years ago, ancient Micronesians began hauling these basalt logs miles away to build this stone city. With an average weight of 5 tons, 10,000 pounds – and some up to 25 tons, 50,000 pounds each – how they did this remains unexplained. It lies deserted today, abandoned and lost for centuries.

Paddling a kayak through the canal maze of Nan Madol to clamber over these monumental stone complexes in solitary silence – for visitors are rarely here – leaves you in a state of unforgettable awe. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #6 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

The Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan is sandwiched between India and Chinese-Occupied Tibet, with a culture so unique it is beyond exotic, almost surrealistically so.  Smaller than West Virginia with only three-quarters of a million people, it has managed to avoid getting swallowed up by its giant neighbors and preserve its sovereignty, freedom, and culture, remaining true to its ancient identity.  There is no place like Bhutan anywhere else on our planet.  Rebel and I will be there again this coming November.  Let me know if you’d like to be with us: jack@wheelerexpeditions.com. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #314 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Rebel and I, along with our friends with us, always have a great time in Albania. Here’s a pic she took of me with a stein of delicious Birra Tirana lager. You’re sure to have so much fun yourself by joining us and your fellow TTPers on our Albania Wonderland experience this April. See you in Tirana. The beer’s on me! (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #284 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Rebel and I, along with our friends with us, always have a great time in Albania. Here’s a pic she took of me with a stein of delicious Birra Tirana lager. You’re sure to have so much fun yourself by joining us and your fellow TTPers on our Albania Wonderland experience this April. See you in Tirana. The beer’s on me! (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #284 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

The Himbas are a tribe of nomadic cattle herders in far northern Namibia. Himba women make a paste of butter fat and red ochre clay called “otjize,” to protect their skin from the burning African sun and braid their hair for beautification.

The Himbas’ exotic practices are not for tourists. This is the way they live as one of Africa’s most genuinely traditional peoples. Living on the move in remote roadless regions, it takes an effort to find them. But when you do, coming with an attitude of respect, you will be welcomed with smiles and hospitality in return. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #66 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

The Himbas are a tribe of nomadic cattle herders in far northern Namibia. Himba women make a paste of butter fat and red ochre clay called “otjize,” to protect their skin from the burning African sun and braid their hair for beautification.

The Himbas’ exotic practices are not for tourists. This is the way they live as one of Africa’s most genuinely traditional peoples. Living on the move in remote roadless regions, it takes an effort to find them. But when you do, coming with an attitude of respect, you will be welcomed with smiles and hospitality in return. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #66 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)***

Have you ever seen the ocean turn day-glo pink? It does here naturally during a sunset (this is not photoshopped). Between Samoa and Tonga in the South Pacific is a raised coral atoll, 100 square miles of old limestone between 60 and 200 feet high: the island of Niue (new-way), and it’s is uniquely fabulous.

With no silty river runoff, the water is incredibly clear – visibility can reach over 200 feet. There are a multitude of chasms through which you clamber to these out-of-a-movie tidal pools perfect for snorkeling surrounded by colorful reef fish. The limestone cliffs encircling the coast are riddled with caves with multi-colored stalactites and stalagmites.

You can snorkel or dive with spinner dolphins and humpback whales. The big game fishing is world class – within a few hundred yards off shore. The Niueans are unfailingly friendly and welcoming, the beautiful Matavai Resort is the best bargain in the Pacific, the food and beer is inexpensive, the weather is balmy. It’s a Polynesian paradise you never heard of. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #48 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Have you ever seen the ocean turn day-glo pink? It does here naturally during a sunset (this is not photoshopped). Between Samoa and Tonga in the South Pacific is a raised coral atoll, 100 square miles of old limestone between 60 and 200 feet high: the island of Niue (new-way), and it’s is uniquely fabulous.

With no silty river runoff, the water is incredibly clear – visibility can reach over 200 feet. There are a multitude of chasms through which you clamber to these out-of-a-movie tidal pools perfect for snorkeling surrounded by colorful reef fish. The limestone cliffs encircling the coast are riddled with caves with multi-colored stalactites and stalagmites.

You can snorkel or dive with spinner dolphins and humpback whales. The big game fishing is world class – within a few hundred yards off shore. The Niueans are unfailingly friendly and welcoming, the beautiful Matavai Resort is the best bargain in the Pacific, the food and beer is inexpensive, the weather is balmy. It’s a Polynesian paradise you never heard of. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #48 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Here we are at the real Atlantis in Knossos, Crete. More nonsense has been invented about Plato’s myth of Atlantis – mentioned briefly in his Timaeus and Critias and not by anyone else in antiquity – than any other legend you care to name.

Yet like many myths, it was constructed out of something that really existed. Atlantis is the Minoan Civilization of Crete, Europe’s oldest. By 2,000 BC, the Minoans had created the world’s first peaceful capitalist empire, based not on military might and conquest but on trade, with trade routes across the entire Mediterranean. They became immensely wealthy, building fabulous palaces and villas – but their cities were not fortified. Europe’s original civilization was the most peaceful in European history.

Around 1450 BC, the Minoan island of Santorini 60 miles north of Crete – known to the Greeks as Thera – suffered a colossal volcanic explosion with the resultant mega-tsunami wiping the Minoans out on Crete. It was “The wave that destroyed Atlantis.” Yet you can see for Atlantis for yourself, its excavated villas with fabulous preserved frescoes, and step back into a period of inspiring history. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #68 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Here we are at the real Atlantis in Knossos, Crete. More nonsense has been invented about Plato’s myth of Atlantis – mentioned briefly in his Timaeus and Critias and not by anyone else in antiquity – than any other legend you care to name.

Yet like many myths, it was constructed out of something that really existed. Atlantis is the Minoan Civilization of Crete, Europe’s oldest. By 2,000 BC, the Minoans had created the world’s first peaceful capitalist empire, based not on military might and conquest but on trade, with trade routes across the entire Mediterranean. They became immensely wealthy, building fabulous palaces and villas – but their cities were not fortified. Europe’s original civilization was the most peaceful in European history.

Around 1450 BC, the Minoan island of Santorini 60 miles north of Crete – known to the Greeks as Thera – suffered a colossal volcanic explosion with the resultant mega-tsunami wiping the Minoans out on Crete. It was “The wave that destroyed Atlantis.” Yet you can see for Atlantis for yourself, its excavated villas with fabulous preserved frescoes, and step back into a period of inspiring history. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #68 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Astana, Kazakhstan.  In a small park in the capital city of Kazakhstan, you find this tribute in bronze to The Beatles.  It turns out the Fab Four are immensely popular here in Central Asia.  Young and old, they sing and dance to Beatle music.  The Beatles may be ancient history for American kids, but Beatlemania is very much alive for Kazakh, Kyrgyz, and Uzbek kids in what us for us a remote world.  (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #313 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Astana, Kazakhstan.  In a small park in the capital city of Kazakhstan, you find this tribute in bronze to The Beatles.  It turns out the Fab Four are immensely popular here in Central Asia.  Young and old, they sing and dance to Beatle music.  The Beatles may be ancient history for American kids, but Beatlemania is very much alive for Kazakh, Kyrgyz, and Uzbek kids in what us for us a remote world.  (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #313 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

My 1952 K2 Allard

When you get to be as old as I am, you’ve had a number of cars. I’ve had many over the years – but only one I really loved was this 1952 K2 Allard.

Sydney Allard (1910-1966) was a famous English race car driver in 1930s, and founded the Allard Motor Car company in London in 1945. His most famous race car was the J2 which finished third in Le Mans in 1950. The K2 was the roadster version of the J2 with those amazing swooping fenders.

Allards were always powered by an American V-8 – mine had a big block Chevy. I had drag races in it right out of American Graffitti or the Beach Boys’ Shut Down, and once hit 160 on a long empty stretch of highway out in the California desert racing a supercharged Porsche.

I asked Rebel to marry me in my K2 driving along the Pacific Coast Highway – best decision I ever made. So many memories in this car. But that was long ago. A car like that won’t last in East Coast winters, so I sold it when we moved to Washington long ago.

Have I ever thought of getting another K2? Sure – but I know at my age driving a car like that (and knowing how I’d drive it!) is not wise. Better stick with the memories. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #258 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

This is St. Paul’s Natural Pool on Pitcairn Island, where in 1790 Fletcher Christian and his mutineers of the Mutiny on the Bounty settled, and where their descendants live to this day. They were awed by the uninhabited island’s lush beauty, with huge banyan trees rising above them like giant cathedrals, and thought it a Garden of Eden where anything grew, coconuts, bananas, taro, breadfruit, mangoes, guavas, passion fruit, yams and sweet potatoes in the rich volcanic soil.

Pitcairn has no beaches, though, so this was their swimming hole – and still is for Pitcairners today. They are happy to take you here, and to the island’s colorfully named spots, like Where Dick Fall, Oh Dear, Break Im Hip, Down the Hole – and to Fletcher Christian’s Cave, his lookout for British warships hunting them (they failed for 25 years) .

It’s not easy to get here – fly to Tahiti, then remote Mangareva from where you sail for two days on a supply ship. But you’ll be so welcome upon arrival. You stay in one of their homes in Adamstown and be treated like family. It’s a travel experience like none other. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #63 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

The Kayan tribal people live in a remote roadless valley in the Shan Hills of Burma. Kayan women practice their tradition of beauty starting at age five. The young girls have a few brass coils placed around their necks, adding to them progressively as they grow until in older adulthood they are wearing as many as two dozen – becoming what the world knows them as Giraffe women. (The Shan people call them "Padaung" meaning "long-necked," but they call themselves Kayan.)

We are not here to gawk. We are here to make friends, treat them respectfully, and learn about their traditions. It is an intensely memorable experience to meet these ladies. We’ll be here again in early March next year. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #58 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

In the vast valley of Pasargadae there stands this simple tomb with nothing around it for miles and miles. It has been like this for many centuries, for it entombs the founder of Persia, Cyrus the Great (600-530BC). Revered as the liberator of the Jews from their Babylonian captivity in 539 BC, hailed by Herodotus for his humanity and wisdom, this small structure symbolizes the humility of an extraordinary man. Yet the tomb is a structure of engineering genius, the oldest built on principles of base-isolation withstanding the countless earthquakes Persia has suffered for the last 2500 years.

I was first here in 1973 when Persia (renamed Iran in 1933) flourished under the Shah. Here I am in 2014, when everyone I met expressed admiration for America and their contempt for the mullah tyranny they endured. I hope to return once more when the Land of Cyrus will be free again. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #146 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

My 1952 K2 Allard

When you get to be as old as I am, you’ve had a number of cars. I’ve had many over the years – but only one I really loved was this 1952 K2 Allard.

Sydney Allard (1910-1966) was a famous English race car driver in 1930s, and founded the Allard Motor Car company in London in 1945. His most famous race car was the J2 which finished third in Le Mans in 1950. The K2 was the roadster version of the J2 with those amazing swooping fenders.

Allards were always powered by an American V-8 – mine had a big block Chevy. I had drag races in it right out of American Graffitti or the Beach Boys’ Shut Down, and once hit 160 on a long empty stretch of highway out in the California desert racing a supercharged Porsche.

I asked Rebel to marry me in my K2 driving along the Pacific Coast Highway – best decision I ever made. So many memories in this car. But that was long ago. A car like that won’t last in East Coast winters, so I sold it when we moved to Washington long ago.

Have I ever thought of getting another K2? Sure – but I know at my age driving a car like that (and knowing how I’d drive it!) is not wise. Better stick with the memories. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #258 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

This is one of the truly great mountain sights on earth yet never seen – except for professional mountaineers and those on our Himalaya Helicopter Expeditions. Kanchenjunga at 28,169 feet (8,586 meters) is the world’s 3rd highest mountain (after Everest and K2), with a drop from summit (the peak on the left in front of the cloud) to the glacier at it base of 12,000 feet straight down.

You can be awed by such a picture, but to actually physically be here, to witness this magnificence personally so that it is forever a part of your life, is to feel a depth of awe that has to be experienced to be understood. Kanchenjunga is part of the Himalayas, now on the border of Nepal and Sikkim, once an independent kingdom now absorbed into India. We fly right up the North Face, and into the Amphitheatre of the Southwest Face as well.

We’ll be here once again in late October. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #31 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Bamian, Afghanistan 1973. I spent some time in the Bamian Valley north of Kabul 50 years ago. What you see is the largest of the Bamian Buddhas carved into to sandstone cliffs in 600 AD by a Central Asian people who revered Buddha and called themselves Ebodai. It stands 180 feet tall. The Bamian Valley was a Buddhist pilgrimage site, with thousands of monks in monasteries and temples from roughly 100 AD until 800 AD, the time of the Moslem conquest of Afghanistan.

It was left untouched until the Moslem Emperor of India, Aurangzeb (son of Shah Jehan, builder of the Taj Mahal), blew off the statue’s legs with artillery in 1700. Then in 1890, the Moslem Afghan King of Afghanistan, Abdur Rahman Khan, ordered the Buddha’s face above the nose sliced off. The same Islamic practice of literal de-facing conducted upon ancient Egyptian statues including the Sphinx.

It was in 2001 that the Afghan Taliban blew up the entire statue you see here along with others as anti-Islamic “idols.” I consider myself immensely fortunate to witness this extraordinary work of historic art while it still existed.

(Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #260 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

©2019 Jack Wheeler

You know the adage about the “800-pound gorilla” going wherever he wants to – such as five feet from you in the Virunga Mountains of Rwanda. It is one of the world’s great thrills to be this close to these giants and feel at ease doing so. They are “habituated” to small groups of people whom they ignore. You of course are very quiet and do nothing to alarm them, just observing the little ones playing, mothers nursing, young ones climbing trees, huge male silverbacks watching over their families.

Gorillas are vegetarians, males eating up to 75 pounds of vegetation a day – thus they spend most of their waking hours chewing! The biggest silverbacks never get anywhere near 800 pounds by the way – 450 to 500 pounds at most (like the fellow in the photo). Big enough, believe me.

Rwanda is one of the best-run countries in all Africa. President Paul Kagame deserves the Nobel Peace Prize for healing his nation after the genocidal horrors of the 1990s. That’s far in the past now in this beautiful, peaceful land. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #93 photo ©Jack Wheeler)