High in the Himalayas of India in the remote moonscape of Tibetan Ladakh is the gompa (Tibetan monastery) of Lamayuru. It is older than Tibetan Buddhism, for it was originally a gompa for the lama monks of Bön, the ancient animist religion of Tibet. I took my son Brandon here on an expedition through Tibetan India in 1993. Brandon had his 10^th birthday here. Behind him is the enormous statue of blue-eyed Sakyamuni Buddha in the central prayer hall.

Brandon has never forgotten Lamayuru as anyone who has been here never does. We’ll be here again this August – and Brandon will be leading the expedition. (Glimpses of our breathtaking world #151 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Cap Haitien, Haiti. On a steep mountain top three thousand feet high above the north coast of Haiti, stands this staggeringly gigantic fortress.

It is the Citadelle Laferrière, revered by professional distortionists of history as "the greatest monument to black freedom in the Americas." What it really is instead is a monument to totalitarian insanity.

In 1807, the leader of a victorious slave army against the French named Henri Christophe (1767-1820) seized Haiti and proceeded to re-enslave his people. With their slave labor, he built La Citadelle – 20,000 slaves died under the lash or from utter exhaustion building it, hauling hundreds of cannons, tens of thousands of cannon balls, and millions of bricks and rocks 3,000 feet up the steep slopes to the site.

Finally, in 1820, Christophe’s slaves rebelled, his body dissolved in a huge vat of liquid lime, the mortar for the fortress’ bricks. The Citadelle has been a deserted ruins ever since. I was the only visitor there. So much for "the monument to black freedom." Haiti has never experienced a single day of freedom in its entire existence to this very day.

Haiti, in other words, is not only a failed state – for over 200 years, it has always been a failed state. Tragically, the odds are high it always will be. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #265 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

West of the Himalayan giants of Annapurna and Dhaulagiri in Nepal lies a roadless high wilderness inhabited only by Tibetan nomads called Dolpa. The region is named after them, Dolpo. The Dolpa practice the ancient pre-Buddhist animist religion of Tibet called Bön. They worship sites of nature they consider holy. And holiest of all is the Sacred Lake of Phoksundo.

The Dolpa consider the blue of Phoksundo an act of magic by the gods. Once you see it, you can only agree. This picture is not photoshopped – it is real. We visit it in late October when it is ice free on our Himalaya Helicopter Expeditions. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #41 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

What would be an ideal place to escape from all the lunacy washing over our country – for a few days to a second home?

Let’s see… it would have to be a First World country with all the civilized amenities of modern life, and a cultured, educated, and welcoming people many, many of whom speak English.

A First World country that brushes aside all Woke nuttiness engulfing the US as silly rubbish to be ignored, and traditional Christian family values revered instead. That is not much farther away than a US cross-country flight. That has Goldilocks weather, not too hot, not too cold. That has sunsets in the ocean, fabulous food and wine, incredible castles in the sky, history that’s thousands of years old yet so hip and current it’s the cultural capital of its continent.

We’ve had Glimpses of this place before: The Europe That’s Still There, and The Portuguese Riviera. Yes, the Ideal Escape Hatch for us is Portugal – a quick overnight flight getting there, a morning flight return.

For 10 days in October of 2022, Rebel and I conducted a Portugal Exploration for TTPers. Rebel and I and your fellow TTPers will be doing it again in a few days from now. Just click on Portugal Exploration – May 3 -12, 2024 -- you owe it to yourself to be entranced by the photos, for a glimpse of this ideal place. (Glimpses of our Breathtaking World #157 ©photo Jack Wheeler)

This is not a Monet painting. It is a real photograph looking straight down upon the swirling clear blue water of the Syri i Kaltër – Blue Eye – Spring burbling up from a deep karst hole of the Bistricë River in the mountains of southern Albania.

The water surges up with such force that scuba divers trying to determine the spring’s depth could only get down to 50 meters (164ft) and no more, thus the depth of the underwater source is unknown. The water is cristal clear, drinkably pure, and very cold. Found between the World Heritage mountain town of Gjirokaster and the Adriatic beach resort town of Saranda, it’s a hypnotic, mesmerizing experience. The Blue Eye is the beauty of nature at its most entrancing. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #293, photo ©Jack Wheeler)