We dragged ourselves ever upwards and onwards, I thought my get up and go, with the help of Guarana and good whisky was still going strong; but rather than over the hill – I was finding it difficult too even get up this hill! My friends and I were on a steep walk that was just short of being able to be described as a climb – fifty minutes of mud steps, not cut out but worn into the so called path by travellers over the years, always at least eighteen inches in height. We climbed through a rising rain forest of trees and roots that would make their way up to a cold pool that was fed by a lovely waterfall, the highest of two that finally spilled their waters into the rushing river below. The roots would act as handholds or footholds as we dragged ourselves up from the 35ºC at the start to a comfortable 27ºC at the top. This was the sort of tough but pleasant tramp that would be banned by Heath and Safety committees in the UK, but with care, no problem for anyone at all, not even for me! My companions were two lady lawyers, a female translator and a fit young man, arrogant and confident, much as I must have been at his time of life.

My brother had recommended me to visit Boissucanga, locally known as ‘Boi’ and stay in a lovely rustic house owned by ‘Jenny’ not far from the beach in this yet as unspoilt resort, used by ‘Paulistas’ as a weekend escape from their large pulsating city that is the driving engine not only of Brazil but also of the whole of South America. Around three hours drive from Sao Paulo or about nine from Rio de Janeiro, Boi is to the south, just passed Ilha Bella, near Sao Antonio. Boi comes after the fashionable towns of the ‘Costa Verde’, therefore much cheaper to stay, much less crowded and practically no foreign tourists. There is always a place to stay, whatever the size of your budget – Extremely well designed 5* small Hotels (for example Juquey Praia Hotel – R$ 300 [with breakfast] R$ 390 [with breakfast and dinner] per day); Pousadas [Guest Houses] (various standards of simplicity, from R$ 100 to R$ 200 per day) as well as Jenny’s very reasonably priced rustic haven (self- contained houses at R$100 per day).

No crowds on very different beaches, some with waves and some calm and the three Islands just offshore, make this just the resort to take some time out! Not to say there is nothing to do!

The three islands provide perfect picnic beaches, not spoilt by vendors of any type. We took our own beer, sandwiches, prawns and fruit. We swam, went snorkelling and generally explored the small area but mostly wallowed in the warm clear water. A short, pleasant, forty minute boat ride from the mainland and costing only about £6-00 a head to taken there and then to be picked up again in the late afternoon. Two days of my visit I spent enjoying myself on these relaxing three Islands.

Boissuganga, itself a small simple town but with a bank I was able to draw money out of with my plastic from its electronic cashier (Bradesco Bank). A curved empty beach, calm water, excellent simple bars right down by the water side with marvellous fish, prawns meals straight out of the sea and on to your table -The sound of the sea lapping on the shore, mixing with the gentle playing of guitars at the start of sunset. The splash of yellow and gold of the sky, reflecting off the locals as well as the water and the sound of their clapping as the sun went down and day turned into night.

This was the signal for the waterside bar (Parati), to awaken and the sound of Brazilian Popular Music, to drift across the moonlit beach. Brazilians love to party and as usual many of them joined in the singing – Dancing is something you cannot stop them doing once they hear the sound of exciting music.

Two of the evenings I thought I would pop out for a dance and though a small town, there were always three or four places one could go to dance. Music of all different types in Bistro bars round the town where I could dance the night away or least until the early hours of the morning, after which I would stagger home, not drunk, just exhausted from having such a good time with my lovely companions.

As I gathered my thoughts together, sitting on the bus awaiting it to start my journey back to Rio de Janeiro. I had made sure it was taking the coast road and I was sitting on the seaside of the coach so that I could see this lovely coast line as I made my way back north up the ‘Costa Verde’

Every now and again I discover or hear of a gem of a place, still not exploited or spoilt and I pass them on to the Globetrotters Club via the e-news or GT Magazine. So guys, Boissucanga is another such place – Why not, just go for it!

Send Jenny an e-mail for more information. jennym@uol. com. br & boijmr@aol. com .

All photos © by Tony Annis.

Spotted by Frank in the US:

The Glass Bridge Construction of the began March of 2004 and is estimated to be completed by early 2006.

On completion, the Glass Bridge will be suspended 4,000 feet above the Colorado River on the very edge of the Grand Canyon.

On May 2005, the final test was conducted and the structure passed engineering requirements by 400 percent, enabling it to withstand the weight of 71 fully loaded Boeing 747 airplanes (more that 71 million pounds).

The bridge will be able to sustain winds in excess of 100 miles per hour from 8 different directions, as well as an 8.0 magnitude earthquake within 50 miles. More than one million pounds of steel will go into the construction of the Grand Canyon SkywalkGrand Canyon Skywalk

* Will accommodate 120 people comfortably (how comfortable would you be?) * Built with more than a million pounds of steel beams, and includes dampeners that minimize the structure’s vibration * Designed to hold 72 million pounds, withstand an 8.0 magnitude earthquake 50 miles away, and withstand winds in excess of 100 mph * The walkway has a glass bottom and sides…four inches thick

First Published: Dec 23, 2005

The Skywalk has now been completed see http://www.grandcanyonwest.com/skywalk.html

Sadly cameras are not allowed on the bridge.

“Personal belongings, including cameras are not allowed on the bridge. To protect from dropping any items into the canyon or onto the glass, you will be asked to store your items in the provided lockers. “

February 2007

Another month when there was standing room only in Covent Garden to hear two excellent talks. Bradt guide author David Atkinson showed us what there is to see and do in Bolivia, including the shack where Che Guevara died and to show us the Butch and Sundance trail. For those more into beautiful scenery we saw the Salar De Uyuni along with the “Salt Hotel”, the National parks along with the trekking opportunities and a death defying mountain bike descent. For more about David you can visit his website at www.atkinsondavid.co.uk

After the break Globies welcomed back Juliet Coombe, last year she talked to us about dropping everything to go to Sri Lanka and help in any way she could after the tsunami. Her talk this time was about how doing that has changed her life, including meeting her Sri Lankan husband and living in Galle. Juliet explained that Galle Fort actually survived the tsunami intact because it is built of ships ballast and coral. The cricket ground near the fort and other areas close by were decimated, but they are coming back to life. The tsunami has made some interesting possibilities for divers including seeing a fleet of buses and what is now an under water church. The railway that we saw pictures of has now been repaired and Juliet’s message is that Sri Lanka does not want charity, but it does want visitors to return for their holidays so that the people can rebuild their lives with dignity.

March 2007

This month Simon Banks showed us his cycling trip to China, showing us how it was in cities like Shanghai and how just a few years later they have become ultra modern, with neon lit skyscrapers. Shanghia now also boasts the world’s fastest train; the Maglev which delivers travellers from the airport to the city. Simon loves Chinese food and advised us to always ask for “Number 31” from the menu, saying it’s always different.

After the break Globies welcomed back Alistair Humphreys – Cycling the world. This was a humorous alphabetical talk, an A-Z dip into his 46,000 mile, 60 country trip around the Globe, taking in delights such as the Salt Hotel in Bolivia and trying to ride his bike with his eyes closed across the salt flats of Salar de Uyuni, just because he could! He also showed us abandoned towns in Russia and the town of Mullet in Albania. You can read more about Alistair’s travels at www.roundtheworldbybike.com

By Padmassana

Next Meeting: Saturday, 14th April

Jessica Boyd – The Zabbalen, Cairo’s rubbish collectors and recyclers – Jessica, with Bill Finnegan, spent three weeks with this indigenous Cairo community and Jonathan Kaplan – A Surgical sojourn in Iraqi Kurdistan mountains Jonathan works in remote parts of the world, under the extreme conditions of battlefield and disaster zones. He has written vivid, wryly funny accounts of survival his own and patients in “The Dressing Station” +“Contact Wounds” and is surgeon, teacher, writer, TV medical advisor, photographer journalist and documentary film-maker.

London meetings are held at The Church of Scotland, Crown Court, behind the Fortune Theatre in Covent Garden at 2.30pm the first Saturday of each month. There is no London meeting in August, but we will be back in September. For more information, you can contact the Globetrotters Info line on +44 (0) 20 8674 6229, or visit the website: www.globetrotters.co.uk

Another month when there was standing room only in Covent Garden to hear two excellent talks. Bradt guide author David Atkinson showed us what there is to see and do in Bolivia, including the shack where Che Guevara died and to show us the Butch and Sundance trail. For those more into beautiful scenery we saw the Salar De Uyuni along with the “Salt Hotel”, the National parks along with the trekking opportunities and a death defying mountain bike descent. For more about David you can visit his website at www.atkinsondavid.co.uk

After the break Globies welcomed back Juliet Coombe, last year she talked to us about dropping everything to go to Sri Lanka and help in any way she could after the tsunami. Her talk this time was about how doing that has changed her life, including meeting her Sri Lankan husband and living in Galle. Juliet explained that Galle Fort actually survived the tsunami intact because it is built of ships ballast and coral. The cricket ground near the fort and other areas close by were decimated, but they are coming back to life. The tsunami has made some interesting possibilities for divers including seeing a fleet of buses and what is now an under water church. The railway that we saw pictures of has now been repaired and Juliet’s message is that Sri Lanka does not want charity, but it does want visitors to return for their holidays so that the people can rebuild their lives with dignity.

March 2007

This month Simon Banks showed us his cycling trip to China, showing us how it was in cities like Shanghai and how just a few years later they have become ultra modern, with neon lit skyscrapers. Shanghia now also boasts the world’s fastest train; the Maglev which delivers travellers from the airport to the city. Simon loves Chinese food and advised us to always ask for “Number 31” from the menu, saying it’s always different.

After the break Globies welcomed back Alistair Humphreys – Cycling the world. This was a humorous alphabetical talk, an A-Z dip into his 46,000 mile, 60 country trip around the Globe, taking in delights such as the Salt Hotel in Bolivia and trying to ride his bike with his eyes closed across the salt flats of Salar de Uyuni, just because he could! He also showed us abandoned towns in Russia and the town of Mullet in Albania. You can read more about Alistair’s travels at www.roundtheworldbybike.com

By Padmassana

Next Meeting: Saturday, 14th April

Jessica Boyd – The Zabbalen, Cairo’s rubbish collectors and recyclers – Jessica, with Bill Finnegan, spent three weeks with this indigenous Cairo community and Jonathan Kaplan – A Surgical sojourn in Iraqi Kurdistan mountains Jonathan works in remote parts of the world, under the extreme conditions of battlefield and disaster zones. He has written vivid, wryly funny accounts of survival his own and patients in “The Dressing Station” +“Contact Wounds” and is surgeon, teacher, writer, TV medical advisor, photographer journalist and documentary film-maker.

London meetings are held at The Church of Scotland, Crown Court, behind the Fortune Theatre in Covent Garden at 2.30pm the first Saturday of each month. There is no London meeting in August, but we will be back in September. For more information, you can contact the Globetrotters Info line on +44 (0) 20 8674 6229, or visit the website: www.globetrotters.co.uk

We used to have meetings in New York City and New Braunfels, Texas. Regrettably, after having done a superb job, neither organiser is able to give their time to Globetrotter meetings. If you are based in New York or New Braunfels and have the time to commit to pick up where our previous organisers left off, we’d love to hear from you – please see our FAQ or contact our the Branch Liaison Officer via our Website at Meeting FAQ. If you are based elsewhere and are interested in starting a branch of the Globetrotters, please feel free to contact us.

For information on Ontario meetings, please contact Svatka Hermanek: shermane@schulich.yorku.ca or Bruce Weber: tel. 416-203-0911 or Paul Webb: tel. 416-694-8259.

Meetings are held on the third Friday of January, March, May, September and November, usually at the Old York Tower, 85 Esplanade (It is at the south-east corner of Church & Esplanade – 2 blocks east from the Hummingbird Centre at 8.00 p.m. Meetings are held on the third Friday of January, March, May, September and November. Usually at the Woodsworth Co-op, Penthouse, 133, Wilton Street in downtown Toronto at 8.00 p.m.

The first hurdle nearly became my undoing – Customs are notoriously difficult with film crews but when one of the cases slipped, broke open and bullets spilled on to floor around the custom’s officer’s feet, I knew by his bulging eyes he was about to take an ugly pill and be very, very difficult. After a spluttering that seemed to go on forever, there followed a torrent of Arabic that flowed over me like raging tide. I let him run out of breath before I attempted show him my papers, permissions in both Arabic and English in what seemed to no avail. However, after a time he did calm down and I explained to him, “It is all pre 1915 and the bullets are blanks” – This did not impress him at all but he finally let the rifles and blanks through to my assistant, who moved like lightning to put them on a truck and roared off to our base. If I thought my troubles were over I was wrong. I had hoped he would just read the permissions and let the other boxes through. As I reached to push a large industrial trolley out of the Custom area, he stepped in front and motioned for me to open them. I showed my papers again and he again told me to open crates in what probably was exasperated Arabic. Stalling no longer, he opened the crates. The first one contained Lewis machine guns, belt ammunition, for the use of, etc, he rushed to another opened that and saw explosives of the Special Effects Dept. He threw a major tantrum, shouted, men rushed up and he hadn’t even reached the very large crate that contained the Artillery piece!

About five years ago, just after it became religiously correct to play music and TV was up and running, though mostly programmes showing the Mosque or the Royal household. McMillan Films had taken me from the cold of a London winter to the heat of Saudi Arabia to help in making a Drama Documentary about the ‘Birth of Saudi Arabia’ and ‘King Abdulaziz ibn Saud’ who reigned for over fifty years and was a remarkable brave clever soldier, religious leader and statesman and he was both a good friend of Winston Churchill and President Roosevelt. A remarkable well informed man on world affairs the king had two radio operators, whose job it was to monitor world news and give a summary to him every night of the week. My job as 1^st Assistant Director/Production Manager was to help organize and make it all happen – With the help of course, of a Regiment of Cavalry, some of the Camel Corps and two battalions of infantry from the Kingdom.

Thanks to Customs, a little rescheduling was needed. So we started with what we had, rifles and blanks. The king had to clear the bandits off the Caravan Trails and make them safe for trade and this became one of our first scenes.

The hiatus with the Customs’ continued, it was more than their ‘jobs worth’ to let our weapons, props through – So we had to make appointments higher up the food chain, to deal with this problem and as with many things in the Kingdom, this took some time.

In this down time between appointments the Producer, Michael McMillan and I went to see the Camel races – Sand instead of grass track and little boys were the jockeys, other than that it was just like a racecourse in England! We were also invited to a sumptuous lunch at a GPS location in the desert, a three hour drive seeing no one or anything but sand but on arrival we joined a couple of thousand others for sweet tea, on a carpet, by a log fire; hundreds of miles, maybe thousands from the nearest forest. A traditional meal of Mutton, Camel, exotic salads and fruits both to eat and drink; laid out in the tents. Each tent held about four hundred men and of course no women present at all. Cross legged on the carpeted interior, we discussed the Euro and the probability that it would take fifty years for Europe to become a federation! After lunch a strange sort of singing, chant filled the air and the Prince, courtiers started to sway, swords in the air. Suddenly, I was offered a sword, put in the middle and before I could worry if I could do the dance and not slice anyone with my weapon, I was amongst them. The clash of swords, the swaying of bodies to the slow drum beat, the thrusting intrusion of a news camera, this I thought, is what it’s like when you dance with a Prince!

The heat seemed stifling, the sun was trying to bore its way through my Tilley hat, the sweat was sticking to my back, I tried to clear my parched throat; before starting my radio check. The stillness of the desert was only broken by my Walkie Talkie radio, “Turn over sound”, “Sound rolling”, came the reply, “Action Cavalry”, “Turn over cameras, stand by special effects”, I said . The horses appeared, from a walk, gathered pace into a cantor and as they approached the camera and myself the cavalry became a thunderous noise of drumming hooves with dust enveloping both man and beast. Special effects joined in and from what had been a dead silence of a few moments ago was now a cacophony of explosions, ground shaking, men shouting their battle cries, the smell of cordite in the air caching in your throat, your adrenalin pumping as this regiment of horses sweeps by only passing a few feet away. A famous General once said, “The only thing worse than a battle won, is a battle lost”. Our battle with the customs now over we had started to film our horse and camel charges and the reason I had time to take these photos is that these set pieces take time to set up. Like real soldiering: filming is all about ‘hurry up and wait.’ The shot of the single charging warrior, I sometimes put on the front of an envelope that contains my CV – With a balloon coming out of his mouth, the words ”My CV must get thru” in it.

King Abdulaziz was the first person to put machine guns on moving vehicles. Model T Fords had Lewis guns set up on them, so they could be moved about the battlefield. So with his small force but with cannon, machine guns, the latest rifles of the time, he out thought as well as out fought his enemies.

We set up an ambush and made use of our Lewis guns, the ordinary Saudis so peaceful now, we found it most difficult to teach them to pretend to fight but they certainly died well in our ambush! Of course this scene was cut from the film, as they did not want the real story warts and all.

The Cavalry were normally used in demonstrations of horsemanship, in Royal tournaments etc. So they really enjoyed riding the desert and taking part in mock battles and too be very honest I also thought myself privileged to be enjoying all the fun of old style warfare but without the casualties or consequences.

About the author Tony Annis: Have camera will travel. Over the top but not yet over the hill. Past sixty five and still alive, my get up and go has not entirely got up and gone – like good whisky, I’m still going strong. Travelling through these global villages of ours is great adventure but to me it is the people that make this wonderful world, as well as the exotic places that I love to visit. See you over the next horizon, Tony.