10,000 feet high in the Amazon cloud forests of northern Peru is a mysterious lost city built by an unknown people many centuries before the Incas existed.  Known as Kuelap by villagers in the lowlands below, the Incas called the people who built it Chachapoyas, “Cloud Warriors.”  I led an expedition here in 1994, climbing high up into the Amazon Andes to come upon gigantic stone walls 60 feet high surrounding hundreds of stone structures.  Here you see Rebel among them. We’ll be here again in a year or two in another exploration of Peru. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #153, photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Nakhal Castle, Oman. If you want to see an ultra-rich Arab sheikdom with exotically designed skyscrapers, you go to Qatar or Dubai. But if you want a more genuine Arabia of Sultan’s palaces, of forts and castles perched on rocky crags, of traditional villages tucked away in mountain fastnesses, of rock pools and grottoes gushing with spring water hidden in secret valleys, a place out of Arabian Nights rather than one of garish ostentatiousness – then you come here to the Sultanate of Oman.

Omanis are a polyglot people from all over Arabia, Persia, and India who’ve lived here for millennia, creating a cosmopolitan trading society that adheres to its traditional culture. There are fabulous hotels with great bars, concerts by the Omani Philharmonic Orchestra, and once outside the capital of Muscat, an Arabian wonderland so exotic it seems out of a movie. We’ll be here in the Spring of ’22. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #119 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Over a thousand feet on a mountain ledge above Amalfi on the Mediterranean, you’ll find the Terrazzo dell'lnfinito, considered by poets for centuries the most beautiful view in the world. It is part of the magnificent gardens of the 11^th century Villa Cimbrone, in the hilltop town of Ravello, built by the Romans in the 5^th century.

The Sorrentine Peninsula is a finger of land south of Naples sticking out into the Med’s Tyrrhanean Sea, off the tip of which is the legendary island of Capri. The main town of Sorrento is on the north side facing Naples and Mount Vesuvius. But it is the steep southern shore of the Amalfi Coast that is our planet’s most spectacularly scenic drive with its ancient ports of Amalfi and Positano.

Exploring this magical part of the world is an ultimate “bucket list” experience. And to top it off, on the way down from Naples, you get to visit Pompeii, the excavated Roman city buried and preserved by the ash of Vesuvius in 79 AD. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #115 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

This is one of the truly great mountain sights on earth yet never seen – except for professional mountaineers and those on our Himalaya Helicopter Expeditions. Kanchenjunga at 28,169 feet (8,586 meters) is the world’s 3^rd highest mountain (after Everest and K2), with a drop from summit (the peak on the left in front of the cloud) to the glacier at it base of 12,000 feet straight down.

You can be awed by such a picture, but to actually physically be here, to witness this magnificence personally so that it is forever a part of your life, is to feel a depth of awe that has to be experienced to be understood. Kanchenjunga is part of the Himalayas, now on the border of Nepal and Sikkim, once an independent kingdom now absorbed into India. We fly right up the North Face, and into the Amphitheatre of the Southwest Face as well.

We hope to be here again in early November if Nepal opens up by then; we’ll be here for sure next April. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #31 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Next to the entrance of The Red House, the Parliament of Trinidad and Tobago in the capital of Port of Spain, there is this marble inscription.  It is clear that it is inspired by our 1776 Declaration of Independence and America’s founding principles.  Trinidad’s population is 99% either Indian (from India), African, or a mix of the two.  64% are Christian, 21% Hindu, 6% Moslem, others undeclared – and all have these principles as a common bond between them.

Here in the Caribbean’s Trinidad is such a clear example of how America’s founding moral principles are such an inspiration to all humanity, of all cultures, creeds, and ethnicities.  They are universal, America’s heritage as a gift to the world.  This is the heritage of all Americans – something we need to hold on to and hold dear as we persevere during this current period of our country’s cultural, moral, and political lunacy.  (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #152, photo ©Jack Wheeler)