We had two excellent speakers in February! First was Alastair Lee who gave us a multi-dimensional view of his travels in China and his very close up views of climbing various horrifically vertical mountains in Northern Yunnan. He spoke of the friendships he and his girlfriend struck up with people who lived close by who were fascinated by some of his climbing equipment, the weather which looked like it was going to defeat them and entertained us with some great poses and a dancing finale! Alastair has published a fabulous climbing guide on New Zealand. Take a look at his web site: posingproductions.com

After the tea and coffee break, Ben Nimmo spoke of his cathartic pilgrimage complete with trombone from Canterbury to Santiago de Compostela, in Spain. He regaled us with hilarious tales of some of the larger than life characters he met en route, the amount of beer and wine he sampled, all out of a sense of duty and through a spirit of comradeship, of course, and in particular the story of how he became a god father to a little girl in France. Funny stories, great pictures, wonderful trip, Ben! Ben has written a highly moving and entertaining book called Pilgrim Snail documenting his pilgrimage. Pilgrim Snail is available now in bookshops and the following website fireandwater.co.uk and Ben's next book 'In Forkbeard's Wake' is out in January 2003.

Coming next, on Saturday 2nd March, we have Philip Koniotes talking about “The Antarctic Peninsular.” Philip has regularly travelled to the Arctic dog-sledding and has travelled extensively, including diving around the world and making five polar trips – the Antarctic has been his most recent journey. He loves the space and trying to capture it on film. After the break, Mark Elliott will be talking on “Saving Kilum Forest” set in NW Cameroon – about curious kingdoms and unique mountain forests. Mark is standing in for Juliet Coombe who is unable to attend the Globetrotter meeting due to a car accident in Australia. She is okay but not yet fit to fly

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 on Saturday 1^st September. For more information, you can contact the Globetrotter Info line on +44 (0) 20 8674 6229, or visit the website: www.globetrotters.co.uk

Hola from Laurie!

Our next meeting will be March 2, 2002. The usual: 4:00pm at the Wings Theater, 154 Christopher Street.

The subject is MEXICO! I will be in Mexico myself at the end of February but will be back in time for our March meeting… Matt Link is back again! And along with Gretchen Kelly, they will explain the interior of the Yucatan peninsula with an emphasis of staying at small villages near archeological sites in lieu of staying at the plastic, commercial areas like Cancun. They will delve into the mysteries of the Maya, touching upon their spiritual practices and history in the area, as well as present day problems modern Maya face in Mexico. They will also be visiting the historic town of Merida as well, one of the loveliest towns in the country. We will have slides as well as some arts and crafts to pass around. Both Matt and Gretchen have attended the Maya World Conference, a meeting of all the countries that have Mayan populations. So this will undoubtedly be a slide show and lecture not to miss!

Gretchen Kelly is the News Editor for Business Traveler magazine and the travel editor for Design Times magazine. Recent feature stories Gretchen has worked on include profiles of Buenos Aires (where she interviewed Eva Peron's living relatives), Aboriginal Australia and the story of porcelain from Dresden to Chungking. She is currently at work on a feature article about Jakarta, Indonesia. For those of you who did not meet Matt at previous meetings, he has been traveling since the age of twelve, when he boarded his family's boat for five years and sailed around the Pacific including the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Micronesia, the Solomon Islands, and New Zealand, where he attended high school. He hasn't stopped since, having visited dozens of countries in Eurasia and living for a number of years in both Hong Kong and Hawaii, where he ran kayak tours and published the guidebook Rainbow Handbook Hawaii. He now lives in New York where he works with Arthur Frommer as Associate Editor of the magazine Budget Travel. See you all soon. Adios!

New York meetings are held at The Wings Theater, 154 Christopher Street (btw Greenwich Stand Washington St), to the right of Crunch Fitness, in the Archive on the first Saturday of each month at 4 pm.

It was a marvelous meeting: Chris from Austin did a first class slide show of the Greek Isles and provided a map for each of us so we would know where we were for each slide. We exchanged travel advice, ideas and materials. A bunch went to the Hoity Toit afterwards for a great time. 21 people attended the February meeting, 5 of whom were new. Once again, thanks to Pauline and Frommer for helping to publicise the Texas meetings – except, now Christina says she really needs a secretary!

In the March Globies, Chris will give a slide show of Turkey and tabletop discussion of 2/3 night great get-aways. After the meeting, for anyone who'd like to continue the discussions, we will adjourn to a local hostelry, to be advised at the meeting.

Meetings are held at 3pm at the New Braunfels Public Library, 700 E. Common Street in New Braunfels, Texas. The meeting ends at 5 p.m. If you would like to continue travel talk on a more informal basis, we plan to adjourn to the Hoity-Toit, a local New Braunfels establishment. If anybody would like to enquire about meetings or help Christina, please contact her on: texas@globetrotters.co.uk

Borough Market is the Beetle's second favourite London market.

It is a farmers market in south east London and opens noon- 6pm on Fridays and 9am-4pm on Saturdays – it is closed from Sunday to Thursday. It has a great atmosphere, the vendors are really friendly and you'll meet many local Londoners who live near by. You can easily spend an hour or two wandering around, even if you really don't want to buy anything! Parts of Bridget Jones Diary were filmed here.

You can browse amongst colourful and fragrant stalls selling flowers of all descriptions, coffees, fruit, organic raspberries, cognac chocolate truffles, piquant mango chutneys, obscure breads and cheeses, veg and meat. It's quite common to ask for free tasting samples! There are quite a few traders who specialise in organic produce. There are stalls selling non food products such as good quality home made candles and bric a brac.

If you are peckish (hungry), you can buy food at the market and there are a number of excellent pubs close by. It is situated between Borough High Street, Bedale Street, Winchester Walk & Stoney Street, Borough SE10 or for info on the web, check out (http://www.londonslarder.org.uk). The closest tube and British Rail station is London Bridge.

Visiting Borough Market could be part of a Saturday stroll around southeast London, taking in maybe the Clink – an old jail, Vinopolis, a wine tasting experience and there are some very old pubs en route!

Want to tell us about your local market? Contact the Beetle

Next month: Colombia Road Flower Market

La Paz seems like a long time a go but it was only a few short weeks.

Three days at high altitude and then we were off to even higher planes. Potosi was the first where we stayed in the town which claims to be the highest in South America and at 4900m, who am I to argue? Walking up the streets was hard work but the locals made it look easy as old ladies with loads on their back over took and disappeared from view before I had gone a quarter the distance. Galling! It is also a town known for its mountain of silver. The Spanish found this great wealth irresistible even to the point that they revoked a papal proclamation decrying the use of coca leaves by the indigenous peoples when they discovered that the use of said leaf meant the miners could work for long periods without food or sleep and did not complain about much.

Coca leaf is endemic in Bolivia and parts of Peru as a substance to chew or tea to drink. It staves off hunger, helps with the altitude, and generally makes a hard life seem more bearable. It was originally in Coca Cola and as a close cousin to cocaine has been extensively researched. I had some tea and all it did was make me pee but others chewed it and their mouths went numb. It is definitely an acquired taste!

Potosi is very grey but the people were friendly and the air was clean. Unlike the rivers which are polluted by the mining that continues today. Now, it is run as a co-operative and the working conditions leave everything to be desired. I did not go down the mines as I am a bit claustrophobic but those who did said it was amazing. After the loveliest days drive through multicoloured hills and valleys we got to Sucre. This is a Spanish colonial town that has the prettiest square and a nice feel about the place.

According to our drivers it was also the nicest hotel we will stay in. Very plush and friendly. Having had a birthday in Puno and another in La Paz we had a third in Sucre. Given our driver, Simon's, aversion to such things, we surprised him with a breakfast party complete with cake, champagne, balloons, presents and a full English breakfast. A good time was had by all – even the birthday boy! The trucks left us the next day and two drivers took them the long way round to meet us in Chile as we were off to cross the salt flats and the trucks would not have made it through the mud flats that lead into Chile.

A bus trip to Uyuni which took all day and we got up the next day to head off to Chile. First stop was to see the salt being shovelled off the flat and into tip-trucks. Due to the rains there was a shallow layer of water on the flat but that did not bother anyone as we got out and paddled around. It took three hours to drive out to a rocky island called Fish Island. This reflects its shape rather than the presence of any animal in the water. It is also covered in cacti, the oldest of which are 1200 – 1500 years old. Beautiful white blooms decorated some and they all grew up in strange and wonderful shapes.

By five in the afternoon our jeep had reached the shore nearest to San Juan, and we were hooning along to try and get there by dark. The reason for the rush was that we seemed to have gotten the most patient driver and the dodgiest jeep. It must have broken down six times and all of us had visions of being stuck there for hours. Nelson fixed it every time though, so no complaints. San Juan was a bit of a non-event. The lights go out at 10pm and although we heard after that there had been a disco, it's hard to give the notion credence. Beautiful stars though.

Next day was through dry country, and barren, but incredibly beautiful with it. Most is a protected area but it would be impossible to make a living there as nothing much grows. There were vicuñas and vizcachas (relatives of llamas and rabbits respectively) but not much else. We saw flamingos in coloured lakes and I took far too many photos. We had lunch in a snow storm at 5000m, and got to our nights accommodation in time for a hail storm. Excellent! Up at 4.30am the next morning to go see a geyser but I suspect the real reason is to make sure you have plenty of time to clear Chilean customs when you got there. In between we saw more coloured lakes and flamingos, mud pools and hot thermal springs for soaking feet in. All very good.

Crossing into Chile was not a problem despite the time factor and we were installed into our Christmas campsite by 2pm. That was December 23rd, and the next two days were spent cooking, eating, singing, sleeping, drinking and generally having a good time. On Dec. 26th I went down to Santiago on an overnight bus (whole journey took 24 hours) to get my visa sorted out for Brazil and then went back to meet the group for New Year at a place called La Serena. A good time was had by all and suddenly it was 2002.

Since then we have been to Santiago to collect new group members (our passenger group rose to 18 in number) and collect mail. Thank you to all my friends who wrote, it was much appreciated. Our group is now in Pucon, centre of the Chilean lake district, and watched over by the Osorno volcano which is happily puffing out smoke as I type. From here it is on to points south and Tierra del Fuego mid – January. While things in Argentina have been volatile, we are hoping that they will have calmed down before we get to Buenos Aires, and in order to spend more time in Chile, we will NOT be going to Paraguay. Rio in Carnival and I shall be there on February 9th.

That about brings you up to date. Life is never dull when travelling overland and I am looking forward to the challenges and adventures of the next few weeks

Thanks Jacqui and keep us posted! If anyone would like to contact Jacqui, her e-mail is: jacquitrotter@yahoo.com

What have you seen on your travels? Drop a line to the Beetle!