Groups of animals have collective nouns, like a pride of lions or a school of fish.  A group of zebras is called a dazzle.  The term is excellently appropriate.  You may wonder why zebras have such clearly obvious stripes that any predator can see.  The reason is that predators like lions or hyenas always target a specific individual in the group that’s weak, young or vulnerable.  To be dazzled is to be confused or bewildered, and that’s just what zebra stripes do to attacking predators.  As the zebras merge on the run, it’s far more difficult for the predator keep focused on the selected target – so the zebras escape unscathed far more often than not.  Their stripes are a marvel of evolutionary survival.  This photo was taken on the plains of the Serengeti and we just finished visiting it last week.  (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #285, 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 always 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 next month. Just click on Portugal Exploration – May 2 -11, 2025 -- 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)

You’re looking at something historically and scientifically astonishing. It is what remains of an astronomical observatory built 600 years ago – in 1420 – by a Sultan in Central Asia who loved science and mathematics more than war and conquest.

It was in Samarkand, the most fabled oasis of the Silk Road, that Sultan Ulugh Beg built his circular observatory, three stories high of white marble. All that’s left today is part of the underground sextant that you see in the photo.

For the full story of what he achieved, with many more photos, click on The Sultan Astronomer in TTP I wrote in 2020.

This Glimpse is to whet your appetite to learn about this amazing Sultan and his scientific achievements.

It’s also to whet your appetite for joining your fellow TTPers on our Heart of Central Asia expedition this September. The story of The Sultan Astronomer is but one example of what awaits you in exploring Central Asia, an enrichment of your life beyond description. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #212 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

This is the fortress town of Shatili in an extremely remote Caucasus region in Georgia called Khevsureti. It was built by the Crusaders 1,000 years ago. The Khevsur people who live here trace their ancestry back to these Crusaders and until the 1930s still wore chain mail in feud-battles with other towns. I took this picture in 1991.

American traveler Richard Halliburton (1900–1939) saw and recorded the customs of the Khevsurs in 1935. The Khevsur men, dressed in chain mail and armed with broadswords, wore garments full of decoration made up of crosses and icons. They don’t do that anymore, but they proudly retain their Crusader Christian heritage – for Georgia adopted Christianity in the 4^th century AD. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #85 photo ©Jack Wheeler)