August, 1971. The gentle Mbuti people live in the Ituri rainforest, one of the world’s densest jungles, in northeastern DR Congo.  They are among the most ancient of all human populations, with their ancestors having hunted in these forests for over 60,000 years.  The tallest among them is under five feet.

It was on my first visit to Africa that I was able to spend time with them.  They live in scattered bands of a few dozen each, always on the move in search of game, sleeping in small makeshift huts of branches and leaves, and far away from villages of Bantus who always try to enslave them.

Their music is hypnotic.  To the beat of drums of hollowed-out logs, they sing with a polyphonic complexity that is extraordinary.  I’ll never forget the performance they gave for me.  Alas, no tape recorder – much less videocam back then! (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #65 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

When he was 10 years old, I took my son Brandon to Indian Tibet for one of the great whitewater experiences on the planet, running the Zanskar River through the crest of the Himalayas.  That was 27 years ago and he’s never forgotten it to this day.

Taking your kids on a great adventure not only bonds you with them in a deep and unique way, it opens the world to them as a place of magic, excitement, and wonder that stays with them for the rest of their lives.  And for the rest of your life too.

In the summer of 2021, we’ll explore Indian Tibet again – the remote Himalayan regions of Lahaul, Spiti, Ladakh, and Zanskar – where traditional Tibetan culture still flourishes as it no longer does across the border in Chinese Tibet.  I am proud to say that Brandon will be leading the expedition.  I’ll just be along for the ride.  (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #64 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

This is St. Paul’s Natural Pool on Pitcairn Island, where in 1790 Fletcher Christian and his mutineers of the Mutiny on the Bounty settled, and where their descendants live to this day.  They were awed by the uninhabited island’s lush beauty, with huge banyan trees rising above them like giant cathedrals, and thought it a Garden of Eden where anything grew, coconuts, bananas, taro, breadfruit, mangoes, guavas, passion fruit, yams and sweet potatoes in the rich volcanic soil.

Pitcairn has no beaches, though, so this was their swimming hole – and still is for Pitcairners today.  They are happy to take you here, and to the island’s colorfully named spots, like Where Dick Fall, Oh Dear, Break Im Hip, Down the Hole – and to Fletcher Christian’s Cave, his lookout for British warships hunting them (they failed for 25 years) .

It’s not easy to get here – fly to Tahiti, then remote Mangareva from where you sail for two days on a supply ship.  But you’ll be so welcome upon arrival.  You stay in one of their homes in Adamstown and be treated like family.  It’s a travel experience like none other. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #63 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

The Antarctic island of South Georgia is one of the most extraordinary places on earth.  Square miles of king penguin rookeries, thousands of fur seals, hundreds of gigantic elephant seals amidst a backdrop of massive glaciers and snow-capped mountains.

All of the animals here have no fear of you whatever and ignore your presence – except if you make the mistake of getting too close to a bull elephant seal for his comfort.  It’s a mistake I made as you can see.  Luckily, with several tons of blubber to carry, this fellow can’t move as fast as me, so I hightailed it quickly.  That satisfied him, and all was soon back to placidly normal again.  (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #62 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

On display in the National Museum of Congo in Brazzaville: “Ancient Money.” I took the picture because this is the money that made us human 90,000 years ago.  They are tiny Nassarius gibbosulus estuarine snail shells too small for food, perforated with small holes to string on a necklace, used as money “before the establishment of the CFA” as the sign says, the Central Africa Franc in 1945.

These are the same species of shell that was the first jewelry in history unearthed at seashore sites in Morocco and hundreds of miles inland in Algeria some 90kya (thousand years ago) – meaning they were traded.  For the first time in history, a species began to exchange things between unrelated unmarried individuals to share, swap, barter and trade, and over great distances.

Other animals do not barter. This, maintains science author Matt Ridley, is what made us distinctly human, enabling us to cooperate with other groups or tribes, to innovate, to evolve ever more complex cultures.  This little shell, used as money, is the founding of human culture. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #61 photo ©Jack Wheeler)