Photo taken at an altitude of 22,000 feet (6,700 meters) in a AS 350 B3 ultra-high altitude Eurocopter on our Himalaya Helicopter Expedition.  We are looking into the Western Cwm (valley), West Shoulder of Everest in the left forefront, entire Southwest Face of Everest summit (29,029 ft-8,848m) to base on the left, Lhotse (4^th highest on earth at 27,949ft-8,516m) straight ahead, the flank of Nuptse on the right.

The climbing route is from Base Camp to Camp I past the top of the Khumbu Ice Fall (bottom of photo), up the Cwm to Camp II at the foot of the Lhotse wall, scale via fixed ropes to Camp III perched on the wall, then up to the notch between Everest and Lhotse (on the horizon in the photo) that is the South Col and Camp IV.  The summit is reached from there via the Southeast Ridge on the other side of the photo.

We’ll be here again in late April-early May next year.  (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #91 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

June 2002, the Vulture’s Mouth Glacier. In the deepest heart of the Gobi Desert of Mongolia, south of the Flaming Cliffs where Roy Chapman Andrews discovered dinosaur eggs in the 1920s, there is a naked spine of mountains called the Gurvan Saihan. In the Gurvan Saihan there is a deep gorge called Yol Alyn, the Vulture’s Mouth. And in the Vulture’s Mouth, there is a glacier.

It is not a big glacier, the continual ice buildup of a stream that never melts even in the heat of the Gobi summer. Yet it is a glacier nonetheless, thick enough for my son Jackson and I to walk on for more than a mile.  The Vulture’s Mouth Glacier is just one of a multitude of extraordinary experiences Mongolia has to offer the explorer. Are you up for exploring it with me next summer of 2021? (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #90 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

At the Temple of the Peacock Angel in the Yezidi holy city of Lalish, you find this entrance to a Sacred Spring with a carved black snake, revered by Yezidis as they believe a black snake stuck itself into a hole in Noah’s Ark and saved humanity.

The Yezidis are among the most ancient of all peoples in the Middle East.  Their heartland is in what is now Northern Iraq, or Iraqi Kurdistan.  You may know of them through the horrific butchery perpetrated upon them by the medieval terrorists of ISIS which gained worldwide notoriety.

They are a fascinating people whose syncretic beliefs are a mélange of Zoroastrianism, Syriac Christianity, Sufi Islam spiced with their own interpretation of all three.  In other words, they are their own people, no one else like them – peaceful, at ease with themselves, and immensely likeable.

Their protectors are the Kurds – an extraordinary people in their own right.  We’ll be visiting Iraqi Kurdistan and the Yezidis once more next year. ((Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #89 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

The spectacle takes place in the fall at the May Day Stadium in Pyongyang.  I attended in 2010 and 2012.  It has to be seen to be believed.  You’re looking at 10,000 dancers, acrobats and performers on the stadium floor.  The background screen of a rising sun and Korean letters is a “card stunt,” 30,000 students holding colored cards composing it.

The number “65” is for the 65^th anniversary of the surrender of Imperial Japan in World War II (August 15, 1945 – I took this photo in 2010), their Liberation Day (our V-J Day).  The snowy mountain depicted below the 65 is Mount Paekdu, where all North Koreans are taught their country’s founder Kim Il-sung defeated the Japanese and won the war (he was actually at a Soviet army camp near Khabarovsk, Siberia at the time).  They are never taught a word about the events a few days prior to their Liberation Day, nor to whom the Japanese surrendered.  Hands down, NorkLand is the world’s most bizarre country. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #88 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

A cliff-top fishing village on the Italian Riviera?  Nope, Azenhas (ah-zhane-yas) do Mar – Watermills of the Sea – is on the Portuguese Riviera.  This is a magic place of fairy tale castles, thousand year-old fortresses, luxury boutique hotels, fabulous food, great wine, gorgeous beaches, and postcard-perfect scenery everywhere.

The Portuguese people are among the kindest in Europe, while Portugal is one of the safest countries in the world.  Of all the planet’s First World countries, it’s hard to find one more calm and serene than here.

If you’d like a personal experience of the best of Portugal, Wheeler Expeditions can arrange it for you.  (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #87 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)