Meeting news from our branches around the world.

Nick from London says that he thinks that it does not really count if you have only been to the inside of an airport in a particular country, though others may argue this point. There are other brief visits I have made to countries. For instance, a couple of years ago I was holidaying in Thailand and took one of those long tail boat trips on the Mekong river in the Golden Triangle. During the short journey the boat driver called in at a jetty on the Lao side of the river for petrol.

Aha! I thought to myself, This is an opportunity to visit Laos! I leapt off the boat and walked up the jetty and spent a couple of minutes on the riverbank on the Lao side of the river. So I have had a very short “visit” to Laos, at least I have stood on Laotian soil, but of course I can't really say that I have been to the country in any usual sense. Perhaps others have similar rapid drop ins on countries? Write in and let the Beetle know what you think!

Globetrotters meeting on 1^st February by Padmassana

David Abram was up first and gave us a very interesting talk on Trekking in Corsica. David has spent long periods in Corsica in order to research his Trailblazer guidebook. He told us that the cheapest way to get there is to take a No-Frills cheap flight to either Marseilles or Nice and then take a ferry across to the island. David first showed us the easier coastal walks; we saw the azure seas and waves crashing on to rocky headlands. The main route for Trekking/walking on Corsica is the GR20, which winds its way 170 Km across the islands roof. The route has an altitude change of 19,000 Metres. David explained that although his photos of the route looked daunting to all but experienced mountaineers, including parts where it was necessary to use cables and ladders, most reasonably fit people can manage the route. The GR20 route is for the most part well marked with waypoints. It is divided into 16 stages, which most of the 17,000 people who do the walk each year complete in around 12 days. David finished up with some Corsican music and some of his favourite photos of Corsica. In next month’s e-news we are lucky enough to have one of David’s stories about his time in Corsica – look out for it!

After the interval our second speaker was Peter Nasmyth whose talk was entitled Caucasus adventure. Peter kicked off with photos of snow-capped peaks like Mt Elbrus and hilltop churches, lit by the intermittent electricity supply. This region has many surprises for the visitor; it’s a place where the locals drink toasts to Stalin (he was a Georgian) and to Adolf Hitler (he fought the communists). Other surprises were a bubbling carbonated lake, surrounded by red mineral covered rocks. Tblisi is the Georgian capital, we saw old areas where balconies over hang the streets and a tower block that was once the best hotel in town, but is now a home to many refugees from the wars in neighbouring countries like Ossetia and Chechnya. Peter’s photos of the local people included traditional dress that has built in bullet holders and knives in the waistband of trousers. The Caucasus is an area where it is possible to go heli-skiing, by renting a helicopter and heading up into the mountains, very popular with German skiers. Peter finished by telling us about his charity, which helps the local children, who are bright and well educated, but have little to channel their energies into. Peter also helped establish Prosperos bookshop. The first English language cafe bookshop, which according to Peter sells the best coffee in the Caucasus.

Coming up: Saturday 1st March

Leslie Downer – “Sadayakko and her amazing journey around the World.” Sadayakko was a geisha and Japan's first actress. In 1900 she enchanted audiences around the World from san Francisco, New York, London, fin-de-siecle Paris, Vienna and St. Petersburg. Part II of Leslie's geisha adventures. Geoff Roy – “Great Wall of China” is the longest man-made structure on Earth- stretching from the Yellow Sea to Tibet (6,700kms.) Geoff's talk covers walking on restored, as well as un-restored sections of “wild wall”

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 register for email updates at at our website (click here)

February is a slow month in the Costa Del Sol. This is why you can get some of the best deals during that month. The temperature goes from 16-10 degrees Celsius. So you can still be in shorts.

I recently just got back from Costa Del Sol. I took advantage of the airline price war that is going on right now. Arriving at the airport I noticed that the traffic was not as heavy as it was during the summer but still a fair number of the people getting off those planes were from the UK, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Germany. First things I noticed was that I needed sunglasses and needed to take off my heavy winter jacket. I just arrived from a Northern European country where that morning it was -6 Celsius. It was also icy and snowing conditions.

I was smiling as I thought of my colleagues back home at work. I was thinking that some of them do deserve their day in the sun. Some of my colleagues had become as cranky as the northern weather in the northern part of Europe and the sun would bring back their smiles. Productivity would greatly improve.

The second thing I noticed is the smile on the Spanish people's face. They seem that they were enjoying themselves. I thought what enjoyment have I had before coming to Spain? In my Northern country I was stuck everyday in traffic, I was driving 20 kilometres an hour on the highway due to snow and icy conditions, I had 3 layers of clothes on because of freezing temperatures. Coming to Spain I was no longer stuck in traffic, there were no icy conditions to peril my well being, and I was taking off my 3 layers of clothes in February!!! Therefore, I too had a smile on my face.

Once in Costa Del Sol, you will be tempted to stop on the highway to view the ocean. My suggestion is to drive west towards Marbella. Take the coastal highway N-340 so that you can get the ocean view throughout your journey. Stop somewhere where you can view the great ocean- like the top of the Sitio de Calahonda. Calahonda is 36 Kilometres west of Malaga and on the N-340. Once at the top there are bars and restaurants where you can sit outside and see the breathtaking views. You will soon forget your problems at work, your icy conditions, and your 3 layers of clothes that you left back home.

About the Author: Fred Desrosiers lives in the coldness of the Swiss Alps. He has been to the Costa Del Sol several times. He loves it so much that he returns time and time again. He can help you if you’d like to visit the Costa del Sol. View his website at Fred's Homepage

Coming up: Saturday 1st March

Seeds of Peace is concerned with sowing the seeds of peace among children who have grown up with the horror of war. They will be back for an encore presentation, following their first visit to the New York branch of the Globetrotters Club on January 4, 2003.

Speaking will be: Jeremy Goldberg and Rebecca Hankin of Seeds of Peace, an organization that provides an opportunity for the children of war to plant the seeds for a more secure future. The program focuses on Arab and Israeli teenagers from ten nations in the Middle East but has also brought youngsters from Cyprus, the war-torn Balkans, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and other regions of conflict to its unique coexistence program. Seeds of Peace has been featured in The New York Times, USA Today, The Washington Post, Time Magazine, The Christian Science Monitor, The Wall Street Journal, People Magazine and on ABC, CBS & NBC network programs, including “Nightline” (twice) with Ted Koppel, “60 Minutes” with Morley Safer, “Sunday Morning,” “The Today Show,” “Good Morning America” and on CNN, PBS and NPR. Jeremy Goldberg is the Director of Corporate Relations at Seeds of Peace, Mr. Goldberg's experience includes time spent on Capitol Hill, as well as at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington, DC-based think tank. He is also the founder and former editor-in-chief of the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, a nationally distributed foreign affairs publication. Jeremy is an honors graduate of the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Rebecca Hankin is currently Director of Media Relations at Seeds of Peace, a position she has held since April 2002. Since its founding, Seeds of Peace has graduated over 2,000 teenagers representing 22 nations from its internationally recognized conflict-resolution program.

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

New York meetings are held at The Wings Theater, 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.

Iris is a British lady of considerable character and pluck, on a 23 week overland expedition from Quito in Ecuador to Caracas in Venezuela. After this, she plans to do a 3-month voluntary placement in Ecuador, and then visit Central America for another overland trip between Panama City and Mexico City, ending up with perhaps another 2-month voluntary placement somewhere in South America again. This amazing journey will take Iris one year. Here is an extract from Iris’ journey notebook.

30^th November: The Journey to Cuenca

I sent my last emails from Baños, was there 3 days and it was a lovely little town but, as I say, that volcano was brooding over it, which made things a little scary! One of our number said he had read there are evacuation arrows in the streets showing the population the way to run should there be an eruption but he couldn't find them which rather concerned him! But we evacuated from Baños without any trouble, but my, what a journey we had to Cuenca – right through the Andes at a minimum of 2,000 metres, sometimes going up to well over 3,000 metres. Everywhere – mountains that seemed to be almost piled one on top of the other, with the occasional narrow valley plummeting down to the depths with hamlets nestled in them. Scary at times as the road was just cut out of the mountainsides and there were some really incredible hair pin bends – looking over the side I was thankful we were going so slowly with no danger of going over the edge because we would have all been killed if we had crashed over the side – probably drops of at least 300 – 1,000m in places with nothing but rock to fall on!

We saw lots of local people – mostly shepherds in the traditional Andean garb of trilby hat, colourful (often red) shawls and brightly coloured skirts, minding their sheep, goats, donkeys, pigs, cattle or llamas. Unfortunately, the cloud was low and obscured what must have been some very fine views but every so often the scene (rather than the sky) would clear and we would see some awesome sights – steaming volcanoes, two or three of them in a line; sheer precipices and steep mountains with their tops obscured in cloud.

We left Baños at 0745 (yours truly being the last on the bus, not because I got up late, I was up at 0500 exercising and showering but the restaurant which was supposed to open at 0600 was later opening and then the girl who waited on table had to run off to the baker's to get bread. But by the time we were all breakfasted (and some rolled in in the early hours of the morning so had no breakfast as they were suffering from hangovers) and I had collected my belongings and finished my ablutions (the obligatory cleaning of teeth), I turned out to be the last on the bus!

We then made our way slowly out of Baños to Cuenca some 366 kms to the south but the terrain, coupled with the weight in our bus – full water tanks as well as petrol tanks, and with two drivers and 22 people aboard with all their luggage – we made slow progress up hills and all sorts of vehicles were continuously overtaking us. We were ok on the straights and downhills but on the downhill had to go slowly again because of the weight being hurled down steep inclines and having to negotiate some hair-raising bends.

We stopped for lunch on the roadside – our leaders/drivers (Heather and Martin) had bought local produce at the market in Baños and so we helped prepare a lunch of salad (lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, radishes, avocado pear, onions) and rolls, butter, ham and cheese for us all. We go through an elaborate process of disinfecting our hands, using a spray disinfectant after using the toilet and then washing our hands again in disinfectant water and rinsing them again in disinfectant water and shaking them rather than wiping them dry. All table surfaces and pots and pans are sterilised and then work begins at cutting up and buttering and putting things on plates and in bowls on long trestle tables and canvas stools are put out for us all to sit on. Meanwhile, the local dogs congregate, sniffing out the food and looking longingly at us, as are the local shepherd population.

In the site where we were there were a couple of shepherds (women) with their children, and their donkeys and pigs. The children were wide-eyed but rather suspicious urchins (suspicious of us) and refused all requests to have their photos taken, but hanging around watching these strange tourists in their shorts and long trousers preparing food they could only dream about. We didn't encourage the dogs with any scraps and we certainly did not stroke any of them (dirty little mutts), but they all seemed innocent enough and quiet if not friendly, but after we had all finished eating, the food over was handed out to the shepherds and their children in the form of ham and cheese and salad rolls, and bags of lettuce and tomatoes, and for the pigs, all the swill resulting from the lettuce and other vegetables used in the salad. So everyone benefited, even the local hospice (just a dirty brick building with a small shop and rather disgusting loos but at least we were able to use them and rinse our hands under the tap, hence the strict regime of disinfecting our hands every time we used the loos when we stopped.

At one stage, we experienced the necessity of relieving ourselves without the aid of modern conveniences. The men went one way in a small wooded area and the women went the other. It is at times like these one wishes one was a man and could just open our flies without having to strip ourselves half naked and crouch in the undergrowth. Of course, yours truly had to choose a place with some rather long stems of grass, which tickled my posterior regions as I crouched so I made a rather ungainly spectacle of myself jumping around every time something touched me in a rather intimate place! Then the ceremony of the trowel – burying the tissue we used in the ground so that we didn't pollute the local area of scenic beauty! I am sure this is going to be the first of many occasions when we will need to wander off, trowel in hand, to seek out similar places for similar purposes.

If you’d like to contact Iris, whether to wish her luck with her trip or to ask questions about her itinerary and places visited, I am sure she would like to hear from you. She can be contacted on: irisej2002@yahoo.co.uk

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For information on Ontario meetings, please contact: Svatka Hermanek:

shermanek@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 Woodsworth Co-op, Penthouse, 133, Wilton Street in downtown Toronto at 8.00 p.m.