This is a Hoatzin. I took this picture in the Amazon jungles of Colombia, its native habitat. It has no genetic relationship to any other bird, and thus has its own family, the Opisthocomidae, and its own suborder, the Opisthocomi. Extensive DNA-sequencing demonstrates that “the hoatzin is the last surviving member of a bird line that branched off in its own direction 64 million years ago, shortly after the extinction event that killed the non-avian dinosaurs.”

The Hoatzin is the Dinosaur Bird, the only bird on earth directly descended from the dinosaurs. It makes weird noises – grunts, hisses, groans and croaks – no melodious birdsongs. It emits an awful smell due to its fermentation digestive system, and tastes just as awful so no one hunts it for food. Yet it is distinctively pretty in a hyper-funky way. Spend enough time exploring the Amazon, and you may be lucky to see one. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #186 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

In 52 AD, St. Thomas the Apostle, one of Jesus’ 12 Disciples, sailed down the Red Sea and across the Arabian Sea to the Malabar Coast of Southwest India to preach the Gospel of Christ. He found a receptive audience among the peaceful fisherfolk in the villages along the coast – so receptive he established a series of churches that still exist today. Some remain small and humble, others like the one above rebuilt with soaring glass and stone.

There are many Christian denominations in the Indian state of Kerala, which has the entire Malabar Coast, from the original St. Thomas Syrian Christians to Catholic, Pentecostal, Charismatic and others. Of Kerala’s 34 million people, at least 20% are Christian. Kerala is a place of relaxing beauty and peaceful serenity. The best way to explore it is via a luxurious houseboat along the many canals or “backwaters” dotted with fishing villages and churches. You’ll be warmly welcomed. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #155, photo ©Jack Wheeler)

The leatherneck sea turtle is the world’s largest turtle, weighing up to 1500 pounds. This female was about half that. They have an enormous range, all the way from the North Sea to South Africa in the Atlantic, spending their lives at sea eating jellyfish – except when a female comes ashore to her hatching beach and bury her clutch of eggs in the sand above high tide.

Dropping several dozen glistening white golfball-size eggs into a depression scooped out with her flippers, she covers them up with sand, and heads back to sea, never to see them again. More than two months later, the born hatchlings dig out of the sand and wiggle their way into the sea, where the lucky ones survive.

I was able to watch this mommy’s entire egg-birthing process at dawn on a remote beach in the West African country of Gabon. It was such a privilege to witness an act of elemental nature by such an extraordinary creature. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #127 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Toledo, Spain. As you drive up the hill upon which this ancient city sits, at the city’s entrance you are greeted by this statue. It is of King Alfonso VI of León and Castile (1040-1109) holding his sword as the Christian cross symbolizing his liberating Toledo from Moslem rule.

The sword has been the symbol of Toledo for over two millennia. In 193 BC, Romans founded the city as Toletum, where their blacksmiths developed a process of making swords of layered steel with different carbon contents, known to history as “Toledo steel,” the finest in the world for millennia until the hi-tech methods of today.

With Fall of Rome, Christian Visigoths ruled Spain from their capital here at Toledo – known as “Holy Toledo,” the center of a flourishing Christian civilization for 300 years until it was overrun by Moslems spreading Islam from Africa in the early 700s.

It was Alfonso VI who liberated Toledo from the Moslems in 1085. It was his great-grandson, Alfonso VIII (1155-1214) who led 30,000 knights in a surprise attack on 200,000 Moslems at the Plains of Tolosa in 1212 to destroy Moslem rule in Spain.

Today, Toledo is a small town of some 50,000, charming, historic, and peaceful. It’s one of the special places places to visit whenever you decide to explore Spain. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #170 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

July, 1973. The Hellespont is the famous strait separating Europe from Asia, where the Black Sea after flowing through the Bosphorus at Istanbul and a widening called Marmara empties into the Aegean Sea of the Mediterranean. One of the great stories of Greek Mythology is Leander swimming the Hellespont to tryst with Hero, the woman he loved but was forbidden to see.

Thus he swam at night, and she lit a torch for him to swim to. One night a storm blew out the torch and the strong currents swept Leander onto the rocks to drown. So I first swam the Hellespont at night in 1960 and almost drowned myself (LIFE Magazine, Dec. 12, 1960, pp 91-94).

This was the second time, swimming from Leander’s village site of Abydos on the Asia side to Sestos, Hero’s village site on Europe’s. Here I am having reached the Sestos shore.

The Hellespont is where the Trojan War was fought, where the Persians crossed to lose against the Greeks at Marathon and Salamis, where Alexander crossed to conquer the Persian Empire. Lord Byron swam the Hellespont in 1803 to make all the legends and history a part of his life. I was determined to do the same, twice to make sure. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #100 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Yes, that’s me, waving from one of the cave openings on the cliff face honeycombed with 2,000 year-old Sky Caves in a remote region of the Himalayas called Upper Mustang.  The photo was taken by one of your fellow TTPers on our most recent Himalaya Helicopter Expedition last Fall.

Upper Mustang is ruled by the Tibetan Kingdom of Lo, created by Tibetan warrior-king Amne Pal in 1380, with its sovereignty protected today by Nepal from the Chicoms right across the border in Chinese-Occupied Tibet.  Lo, with its capital the medieval walled city of Lo Manthang, is where you will find the most traditional Tibetan culture left on our planet.

You can experience it yourself on our Himalaya Helicopter Expedition next year. If not now, when? Carpe diem.

(Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #250 photo ©Jack Wheeler)