Saturday 3^rd July

This month was the opportunity for the clubs members to show their slides to their fellow Globies. It was also our first meeting where we could try out our new digital projector, many thanks to Paul for making the technical side of the meeting run so smoothly.

We started off with six members giving traditional slide shows, Dan Bachmann kicked off with a talk on the island of Santorini. He was followed by Mike Dodd, who was the first recipient of the Globetrotters Legacy Award, Mike’s slides showed us a small part of his trip to South East Asia. Ernest Flesch showed us his Russian trip from Moscow to St Petersburg. We headed into Asia again with Phil Ferguson’s trip to the mountain kingdom of Bhutan. Across to Africa for Jeanie Copland’s walking trip to Morocco, taking in Berber villages and Marrakech. Last before the break was Helen Barnhill, who showed us faces of Angkor Wat, both human and stone.

The second half of the meeting saw the debut of our new digital projector as Dick Curtis kicked off with a geographical quiz. Tracey Murray took us to Texas and the spectacular Big Bend National Park. Nick Preston showed us Iguaçu Falls from both the Argentinean and Brazilian sides ending with a wonderful shot of the falls during El Nino. Japan was our next destination, as Francesca Jaggs described her retreat trip to the Shinto temples near Kyoto. We stayed in Japan for our next speaker, but this time to the southern Island of Kyushu as Kevin Brackley showed us the volcanoes and towns of the island. And finally Dick Curtis showed us some of the quirky architecture of Brescia in Italy. While the second half speakers had been talking the results of the quiz had been worked out, congratulations to Anne Dodd who won first prize. Many thanks to all the Globies who took the time to prepare and give us a great afternoon.

By Padmassana

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 Admission members £2, non members £4.

What is it: altitude sickness is divided into three syndromes: acute mountain sickness (AMS), high-altitude cerebral edema (HACE), and high-altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE). AMS is the most common form of altitude illness and, while it can occur at altitudes as low as 1,219–1,829 m (4,000–6,000 ft), most often it occurs in abrupt ascents to over 2,743 meters (over 9,000 ft).

How do I get it: travellers whose itineraries who find themselves at an altitude of 1,829–2,438 m (6,000–8,000 ft) and above should are exposed to the risk of altitude sickness. This could happen for example by flying into a high-altitude city, by driving to a high-altitude destination, or by hiking or climbing in high mountains. High-altitude cities with airports are Cuzco, Peru (3,000 m; 11,000 ft); La Paz, Bolivia (3,444 m; 11,300 ft); or Lhasa, Tibet (3,749 m; 12,500 ft).

What happens if I get it: symptoms often resemble an alcohol hangover: headache, fatigue, loss of appetite, nausea, and, occasionally, vomiting. The onset of the most common form, acute mountain sickness is delayed, usually beginning 6–12 hours after arrival at a higher altitude, but occasionally more than 24 hours after ascent.

Diagnosis and treatment: the three rules that travellers should be made aware of to prevent death from altitude illness are:

1. Learn the early symptoms of altitude illness and be willing to admit that you have them.
2. Never ascend to sleep at a higher altitude when experiencing any of the symptoms of altitude illness, no matter how minor they seem.
3. Descend if the symptoms become worse while resting at the same altitude

For most travellers, the best way to avoid altitude illness is to plan a gradual ascent, with extra rest days at intermediate altitudes. If this is not possible, prescription drugs are available to prevent or alleviate the effect of altitude sickness if taken in advance.

How can I avoid getting altitude sickness: not everyone is susceptible to altitude illness, and there are currently no screening tests that predict whether someone is at greater risk for altitude illness. Susceptibility to altitude illness appears to be inherent in some way and not affected by training or physical fitness. How a traveller has responded in the past to exposure to high altitude is the most reliable guide for future trips but is not infallible.

Source: http://www.cdc.gov/travel/diseases/altitude.htm

There will be no July and August meetings, but back in the Fall, with a new format!

For details of forthcoming meetings email newyork@globetrotters.co.uk or register for email updates, click here at our website.

New York meetings are held at The Wings Theatre, 154 Christopher Street (btw Greenwich St and Washington St ), to the right of Crunch Fitness, in the Archive on the first Saturday of each month at 4 pm . Admission $8, non members, $10.

I read somewhere that two Australian women travelling in Africa to dissuade anyone taking stuff from their backpacks put rubber toy snakes on top of their stuff in backpacks.ï¿Â½ They heard Africans and others were afraid of snakes.ï¿Â½ (When I lived in Grant Bldg here at the Soldiers Home in Washington DC, pigeons would use the window sill outside my room as a toilet.ï¿Â½ I brought a similar toy rubber snake and put on the window sill.ï¿Â½ The pigeons took no notice and still performed their toilet all over it. ï¿Â½Ha!)

I don’t know how accurate this is, but I read that if you pay for airline ticket with a credit card the credit card number goes on the airline ticket.ï¿Â½ I know many recommend you pay for airline ticket with a credit ca rd in case they go broke you are covered etc. But this adds a new dimension.

Someone suggested that when you go to the beach you put your valuables in a plastic bag and bury in sand and cover with a blanket while you swim. Someone else suggested a waterproof bag you could take in water with you.

Years ago I met a couple in Rio De Janeiro travelling around the world. ï¿Â½They took their airline bag to the beach and she used it as a pillow while he swam. A big wave came up and she lifted her head to see how he was doing and when she put her head back her pillow was gone.ï¿Â½ No one saw anything but interesting enough there were two undercover policemen just wearing bathing suits that took the couple up in the hills nearby to see if anyone was carrying their airline bag. This was unsuccessful so they returned to the beach and someone said they saw some little boys burying something in the sand (supposed to come back at night andï¿Â½ retrieve).ï¿Â½ They found the bag intact and the grateful couple dispensed money to all.

If you would like to contact Mac, he is happy to answer e-mails: macsan400@yahoo.com

For more information about the Texas Branch: please contact texas@globetrotters.co.uk or register for email updates at our website (click here) or call Christina at 830-620-5482

If anybody would like to enquire about meetings or help Christina, please contact her on: texas@globetrotters.co.uk

What are they up to now? In yet another bid to save more money, Ryanair are trying to reduce the amount of luggage passengers check in. They say that passengers with checked-in baggage may be asked to pay a fee for each checked-in bag to reflect the cost of providing check-in and baggage handling services. Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary said that he hoped to introduce charges of up to £50 a bag next year, with a view to phasing out hold luggage. “The purpose is not to make money from checked-in luggage – the purpose is to get rid of it altogether.” In future, he said he wanted passengers to print out boarding passes when they booked tickets on the internet, allowing them to go directly to their departure gate on arrival at the airport.

So, be warned, you are encouraged to carry your luggage with you and will be forced to pay an excess luggage charge of £4.50 per kilo above the new checked in limit of 15kg. From July 2004, Ryanair have made changes to the amount of luggage that can be a) checked in; b) carried on to the plane and c) increased the excess luggage charge, as follows:

· Increase in the personal ‘carry on’ baggage limit from 7kgs to 10 kgs per passenger (will there really be enough room for ever passenger’s 7kg bag? I doubt it somehow.)

• Reduction in the personal ‘checked in’ baggage limit from 20 kgs to 15 kgs
• Increase in the charge for excess baggage from £4.00 to £4.50 per kilo.

Ryanair has sacked two of its workers who sat in an overcrowded plane’s toilets for a flight from Spain because there were no other seats. The captain of the packed flight from Girona, near Barcelona, to Dublin Airport resigned after he gave the two cabin crew permission. “This is the first such incident of staff travelling on an already full aircraft in the 20 year history of Ryanair,” the company said in a statement.

And more legal spats: after legal disagreements between Ryanair and BBA who operate Stansted airport on fuel charges at Stansted, Ryanair have announced that they will invest USD$240 million to expand its second British base at London Luton. Ryanair accused BAA of overcharging on a fuel levy introduced in 1991 to pay for a GBP£12 million (USD$22.1 million) fuel hydrant system, saying the airport operator had recovered more than GBP£34 million (USD$62.7 million) in 14 years. “There is going to be the mother and father of all wars,” Chief Exec Michael O’Leary told reporters in London. “We are not prepared to be robbed at Stansted. It is a low-cost airport with a high-cost fuel-levy scam going on.” BAA said it was planning to sue Ryanair for GBP£1 million (USD$1.85 million) in landing fees which it said the carrier was refusing to pay in response to the fuel-levy dispute.

Our friends Ryanair have been criticised by the UK advertising watchdog for using the term ‘giveaway’ in an advert. The advert stated a ‘one million flight giveaway’ as long as customers paid taxes, fees and airport charges. The British Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said the advert which ran in the Daily Mirror newspaper was “ambiguous”. “If something is being described as a giveaway”. consumers shouldn’t have to spend a penny,” an ASA spokeswoman said. However, Ryanair argued that the term “giveaway” meant “to denote or bestow as a gift or prize” or “to sell very cheaply”. This is not the first time Ryanair has got into trouble with the ASA. In Feb 2004, the airline was deemed to have used offensive language in an advert – just before bonfire night in November, they had an ad depicting fireworks with the headline “Fawking great offers.” The ASA received 47 complaints from the public on the grounds that the wording was too suggestive.

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Answers to Flag Quiz

Belgium	Bermuda	Cuba	Ghana	India

I arrived in the Guatemalan mountain town of Todosantos Chuchumantan hoping to improve my Spanish. Some hours after my first lesson, my teacher’s brother was shot dead by a local police officer. The dead man turned out to have been the head of a local gang – the next morning the entire town police force fled in fear of lynching. As the town began the preparations for its annual horse racing fiesta, preparations mainly involving getting fantastically drunk, the infamous Guatemalan army rolled in to keep the order. That weekend, six other people would die, and the host family I was living with would fall into crisis when the father punched his wife in the face. Todosantos was a town of welcoming, curious people, with great pride in their Indigenous Mayan traditions, surrounded by stunning mountains, and full of happy children who would shout, “Hola, Daniel!” whenever I passed their house. Despite the sometimes-terrifying events that took place, it remains my favourite place in Guatemala.

Friday, 31st October 2003: I wake to find my language teacher’s brother dead and my host family distraught at the news. The family are pure indigenous Guatemalans – the rather diminutive mother and four daughters have fantastically long blue-black hair. Everyone in Todosantos wears the same clothes – the traditional blue woven dress for the women; red trousers and white shirt with a huge red, purple or green collar for the men. They speak Spanish to me, and the Mayan alien-sounding “Mam” language to each other. The two youngest daughters, the sweet Juana (age ten) and the bubbly Melissa (age nine) are my main Spanish conversation partners. Without much apparent direction or scolding, the daughters cook meals, tend the log fired stove, wash vast amounts of clothes and blankets, sweep, wash the floors, and weave in their spare time. One magical evening, with everyone else out in the family shop, I watch Juana sit singing to herself while Melissa cooks a simple meal for about seven people.

By Friday afternoon, the three-man marimba bands have begun in earnest, as has the drinking. One of my neighbours is taking part in tomorrow’s fiesta, decked in sashes and a tall hat, he dances as much as his whisky brain will allow. He and his friends drink all night.

That night, an old man drinks himself to death and a young man dies from a knife wound – why, no one knows.

Saturday, 1st November 2003: I wake up at six am – my horse-racing neighbour is unconscious lying face down in the mud. By eight am, his friends have revived him and seated him on a horse – he is led across town to the racetrack.

The Todosantos horse race fiesta is not actually a race at all. There are no winners, the aim is to ride one’s horse all day back and forth along the two hundred-metre track, taking a drink at each end. At lunchtime there is a break for more drinking, then the race begins afresh in the afternoon. Already by eight am, the riders are already very drunk and many have not slept at all – as the day goes on, their eyes become mirrors and many ride swaying back in their saddle, arms outstretched at their sides. During the race, one man falls from his horse and is trampled to death – many riders finish the day proudly wounded.

That night, my friends and I go to the town’s annual fiesta disco: tourists and locals dance in a huge cold hall while a semi circle of twelve assault rifled soldiers watch impassively. Early the next morning, a man lying in the street is killed when the arriving bus runs over his sleeping head.

The remaining deaths discovered that weekend were less well documented – rumour and counter rumour were so widespread it was hard for me to know what was real. Many attendees of the fiesta were making their annual return to the town from their jobs in the United States – stories spread of old scores and inexplicably pregnant wives dealt with violently.

Monday, 3rd November: I wake to find my host family’s house turned black. The husband Augusto has drunkenly punched his wife Dominga, her face is swollen and left eye turned red.

I try to decide what to do. After taking advice from the long-term foreign residents of the town, I decide to move out, to send a message to Augusto and to avoid getting involved in any violence from him. I move out to a “Ladino” (as opposing to Indigenous) family, who drink Pepsi and power their stove with gas instead of logs. The sense of rejoining the cold West is jarring.

I had, and still have, little idea what the correct moral decision would have been in a situation like this. But I was missing the girls too much, the new family I was assigned to weren’t that keen on me – so after a few days I moved back in with Dominga and her daughters. As before, Augusto spent most nights sleeping in the family’s shop further up the hill, so I rarely saw him, but suspect it didn’t even occur to him why I’d left the house for a while.

My last week in Todosantos, I worked in the language school, doing the job of the day manager while he took a break to Lake Atitlan. I shopped among the Todosanteros for bread and light bulbs, organised a big meal for all the foreign residents, and arranged teachers and host families for any new students. It was great to interact with the ever-friendly people of the town on a deeper, less-touristy level. I would have come back to the town to do the language school job full time – the current school co-ordinator was leaving in February – but a month later discovered that they had given it to someone else, and so my travels around the world continued.

Daniel’s travels continue at http://blogs.bootsnall.com/dw

All long-distance buses seem to have termini fairly near the Central Station [trains]. Outside this there is a massive square where most local buses start and from the other side there are roads into the centre, of which the Via Roma is the widest. The place where I stayed is just to the left of the Via Roma [third turn] and is visible from it. This is the Rosalia Conco d’Oro, completely unprepossessing from outside but secure, snug, clean, comfortable and friendly inside and with a lift to the third floor reception and rooms. Toilets and showers are shared but I never had to wait.

A small but useful tip for the first time visitor is to buy a ticket valid for twenty-four hours on local buses from the bookshop on the station before you leave that area, as a lot of tobacconists only have one hour tickets. Another is not to think of travelling without a ticket; three times while I was there a pack of three inspectors got into a bus I was on and all doors are locked until they have done their business.

The Museo Archeologico Regionale is not a purpose built edifice like the national museum in Agrigento but the building itself has an interesting history, first as a convent and then as an almost ruined bombing target of the second world war. It is the Greek remains, again, which provide the main interest and for anyone who has come from or is going on to Selinunte, the sala de Selinunte is a must with its collection of stone carvings from the numerous temples there. The top floor has a very fine mosaic, Roman from the third century AD, of Orpheus playing a lyre and surrounded by animals.

Two places in Palermo disappointed me a little, one because it does not live up to the hype and the other because Italian and mock Italian furniture and artefacts are so common in Europe generally. This second was the Palazzo Mirto, an eighteenth century building which has much original furniture.. The other is La Zisa, built in the twelfth century along North African lines. It now contains a good collection of Muslim art. If I had simply expected this, I should have been far more impressed than I was. Local attempts to liken it to the Moorish remains in Andalucia are absurd.

The next place described could present a dilemma for those with children. It could really excite and fascinate or it could frighten and cause bad dreams for years to come. If you are uncertain, please give it a miss! This is the Convento dei Cappucchini, reached by bus from the Piazza del’ Indepenza. This is an abode of Skeletons, many of which are clothed and standing. Right up to the late nineteenth century, wealthy people would make bequests or their relatives would pay for them to be placed there. Division is by sex, status and occupation. There are numerous skeletons of little children and one which can really shock. This is an amazing figure of a two-year old who looks almost as though she could wake up at any time, except that she does not breathe. She died in the 1920’s and was treated with a special embalming process by a doctor whose secret died with him I am not particularly given to fantasy but the skeletons’ appearance of grinning seems to increase as you stay longer. I was not sorry to leave; a strange experience.

A last expedition at Palermo involved a bus trip from quite near the prestigious national theatre. This was to Monte Pellegrino and the ride is stupendous, twisting up through forest with outstanding views to sea and a fine view of a beach to the west of the mountain. The bus stops near the top in a huge car park where there were various stalls set out, mostly selling the most revolting tat. The shrine, the supposed magnet for the trip had no appeal to me at all. Twenty minutes spent waiting for the bus to return, however, was but a small price to pay for the ride up and down.

After two nights, and visits to the archaeology museum and a market on the morning after, I used the train for the first time in Sicily to reach Cefalù.

David was a keen walker, particularly on mountains before he developed serious heart problems in 1995. He has now adapted his holidays to what he is able to do and we are presenting his account of 12 days in Sicily over this and the coming months. Next two episodes: Palermo.

Next episode – Cefalù, Castelbuono and Milazzo