It looks like a crack in a road, but this is in the Afar Triangle of Djibouti, where a triple junction of tectonic plates is tearing Africa in pieces. Plates spreading apart is called a Rift. I’m standing over where three gigantic rifts – the Red Sea that has split Arabia and northern Africa in two, the Gulf of Aden that will split off Somalia from the rest of Africa, and the Great Rift Valley of East Africa currently ripping Africa itself asunder – originate. Here the once intact Africa Plate began to tear in three directions.

Ironically, here is where humanity did the same. Genetic scientists have determined that some 60,000 years ago a small band of Africans (less than 200) rafted from what is now Djibouti to what is now Yemen in Arabia – and that incredibly, every human on earth today except for those who stayed, is descended from them. That means, e.g., all Europeans, Chinese and Asians, Australian Aborigines, North and South Native Americans, descended from those 200 people long ago.

Two amazing facts from this tiny country. There’s a third – it’s the best place in the world to swim with whale sharks, an unforgettable experience. All in Djibouti! (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #238 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Enter “The Old Man of Storr” in Wikipedia, and it wants to talk about the steep rocky face of the mountain in the background called “The Storr.”  Google or Duckduckgo the images and you’ll get all these photos of rocky pinnacles and spires.  So where’s the Old Man?  It’s the most famous feature on Scotland’s Isle of Skye, yet you never see the Old Man himself.  Well, here he is.

Look at the three sections of rocks in the foreground.  They form a man sleeping on his back.  In the first section on the left, you can see in order his forehead, eyebrows, large nose, both lips open snoring, and chin.  In the third section on the right, you see his feet with his toes sticking up.  In the middle section – well, now we know why he’s embarrassingly renowned, for there is the Old Man’s manhood standing tall and proud.

Ask any Scottish friend of yours if he knows why the Old Man of Storr on Skye is so-named.  Then send this to him.  He’ll no doubt say, “Well, laddie, this calls for a wee dram or two for us to properly toast the Old Man!” (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #297, photo ©Jack Wheeler)

This is Temple IV at the ancient Mayan capital of Tikal, now in northern Guatemala. It was from the top of Temple IV that the shot in the original 1977 Star Wars movie was filmed of the Millennium Falcon landing (at 44 seconds) near jungle temples (Temples II and III) at the Rebel Base on the moon of Yavin 4.

Built in 740 AD, at 230 feet it is the tallest pre-Columbian structure in all the Americas. While Tikal’s earliest buildings date to the 4^th century BC, it was from 300 to 800 AD that Tikal flourished as one of the Mayan Empires most powerful kingdoms.

Then decline set in, with drought, deforestation, overpopulation, and constant warfare with rival kingdoms. With Tikal abandoned by the end of the 900s, it remained covered by rainforest jungle for over a thousand years. American archaeologists began excavations in the 1950s. Today with its major temples restored, Tikal is the most impressive example you can visit of Mayan civilization. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #118 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

We are in Famboun, Cameroon, West Africa, capital of the Bamoun people. The ruling Bamoun Dynasty was founded by Sultan Nshare in 1394. The current Sultan resides in the Palace Royale here. Nearby is a thatched structure that houses what you see in the photo above.

This is a Ndiki Drum. It is used by the Sultan of Bamoun to call his subjects to their end-of the-year Nguon festival over which he presides. It can be heard for miles.

The carved wooden forearms and hands propped up at the drum’s end are not the original drumsticks. They are symbolic for what the real drumsticks used to be. Until the British and French put an end to the custom in the 1920s, the Ndiki drumsticks were human arms, amputated at the elbow off captured slaves. Four drummers were needed to properly pound the drum, each requiring two drumsticks: eight amputated human arms in total.

While in Famboun, I met one of the wives of the Sultan. It was she who told me the history of the Ndiki Drum.

The horror of slavery in Africa was ended by Western colonialists. In its place they introduced roads, railroads, electricity, an impartial rule of law instead of law favoring one tribe over another, and other benefits of civilization. They did a lot of stupid damage to African cultures, true.

But that is vastly outweighed by getting rid of slavery – exemplified by how this drum was pounded until less than 100 years ago. If you have a child or grandchild in school with woke teachers, you might have them bring this picture to class, and explain how the benefits of Western Civilization so greatly outweighs its liabilities.

“To Sua” means “giant swimming hole” in Samoan. It’s a collapsed lava tube hole on the south coast of Upolu in Samoa. On top of lava cliffs overlooking the South Pacific, you clamber down the ladder for a memorable swim. To Sua is but one of the attractions of Samoa: gorgeous waterfalls, marvelously friendly people, and the historic home named “Valima,” of Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894), where he and his wife Fanny spent his last years.

On a hilltop rising above Valima is the gravesite of “Tusitala” – Stevenson’s Samoan name, meaning “Telling of Tales.” Engraved on the side of his tomb is his famous epitaph he wrote himself:

Under the wide and starry sky

Dig the grave and let me lie:

Glad did I live and gladly die,

And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you 'grave for me:

Here he lies where he long'd to be;

Home is the sailor, home from the sea,

And the hunter home from the hill.

Jack Wheeler is Escape Artist’s World Exploration Expert. He is the founder of Wheeler Expeditions at WheelerExpeditions.com.

I showed this picture to my mother after my latest sojourn with the Afghan Mujahaddin fighting the Soviet Union and she didn’t see anything unusual. She didn’t recognize her own son standing in the middle. Good thing – if I had been caught by the KGB or Spetsnaz, it would have been, ahh… unpleasant. I was there with the “Muj” at least a dozen times until they defeated the Soviet Red Army in early 1989 – which led to the Fall of the Berlin Wall eight months later and the extinction of the Soviet Union itself by the end of 1991. It was one of the most thrilling – and consequential – adventures of modern times. (photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Jack Wheeler is Escape Artist’s World Exploration Expert. He is the founder of Wheeler Expeditions at WheelerExpeditions.com