This is Temple IV at the ancient Mayan capital of Tikal, now in northern Guatemala. It was from the top of Temple IV that the shot in the original 1977 Star Wars movie was filmed of the Millennium Falcon landing (at 44 seconds) near jungle temples (Temples II and III) at the Rebel Base on the moon of Yavin 4.

Built in 740 AD, at 230 feet it is the tallest pre-Columbian structure in all the Americas. While Tikal’s earliest buildings date to the 4th century BC, it was from 300 to 800 AD that Tikal flourished as one of the Mayan Empires most powerful kingdoms.

Then decline set in, with drought, deforestation, overpopulation, and constant warfare with rival kingdoms. With Tikal abandoned by the end of the 900s, it remained covered by rainforest jungle for over a thousand years. American archaeologists began excavations in the 1950s. Today with its major temples restored, Tikal is the most impressive example you can visit of Mayan civilization. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #118 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

National Geographic calls the remote island of Socotra off the coast of Yemen in the Indian Ocean “the most alien-looking place on our planet,” because of its incredibly weird and bizarre plant life like the Dragon’s Blood Tree.

Yet it is safely far away from anarchic Yemen, peaceful and serene in its isolation. And it contains places of mesmerizing beauty – like this natural infinity pool on a cliff edge high above the ocean in full view. Socotra is spectacularly exotic, like nowhere else in our world. It is truly life-memorable to experience it. Wheeler Expeditions was there in the Spring of 2014 – and we’ll be there again in the Spring of ’23. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #129 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

September 1979 – my Hannibal Expedition took two elephants over the same pass Hannibal used in 218 BC across the Alps to attack Rome. There is only one pass that fits the contemporary descriptions of both Greek historian Polybius and Roman historian Livy: The Col du Clapier on what is now the French-Italian border.

Unrecognized as Hannibal’s Pass in 1979, it is still a roadless trail today crossed only on foot or mountain bike. But since our expedition, there are now signs proclaiming it La Route d’Hannibal, and even a life-size statue of an elephant at the French village of Bramans where the track over the pass begins.

The photo you see is us climbing high above Bramans (I’m the one in front with the red backpack). It took us five days to carefully guide our elephants (from an Italian circus) over Clapier and down to the Italian village of Susa. First time in 2,197 years and never repeated 41 years since.

Hannibal’s crossing the Alps with elephants is one of the most epic events of world history. To retrace it yourself with elephants is to make that famous history a part of your life in the most uniquely powerful way. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #15 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

In the Mediterranean, experienced travelers know the French Riviera from St. Tropez to Menton, and the Italian Riviera from Ventimiglia to Cinque Terre. There is one Riviera in the Med they may not know – Albania’s. The Med has many beautiful coastlines, and just about all of them have been “discovered” by jet-setters to backpackers. Not yet, however, for Albania from Saranda in the south across from Greece’s Corfu to Vlora across from the tip of Italy’s Boot Heel.

Here you find an abundance of gorgeous coves and pocket beaches tucked away with hardly a soul there. The one pictured above isn’t even named on a map – there’s just a tiny wharf for local fishermen. Yes, the Albanian Riviera is getting discovered, with boutique hotels and nightclubs sprouting up here and there. But as for now, it’s still the Unknown Riviera, gorgeous with so much untouched. You might want to experience it before it’s overrun. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #82 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

These Mongol nomads in the vast grasslands of central Mongolia milking their goats have a way of life unchanged for centuries. All of our concerns, worries and fears that plague us are totally irrelevant to them. They don’t know about them and wouldn’t care if they did.

Spending time with people such as these gives you an invaluably broader perspective of life on our planet. Our concerns, the issues that dominate our headline news, suddenly seem more parochial and far less important. An evening drinking kumiss (Mongol beer, fermented mare’s milk) in their yurts, telling stories, laughing at jokes – you realize how easy it is to relate to them through the core humanity we all have in our souls.

Exploring Mongolia in this way is a priceless adventure. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #9 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Ha Long Bay near Haiphong, Vietman – meaning Descending Dragon – is a World Heritage Site as one of our planet’s great scenic wonders, with thousands of limestone karst rock pinnacles, towers, and islets. The most beautiful time is dawn, peaceful and serene, with small fishing boats of local villagers out for the morning catch. A few days aboard a comfortable junk cruising Ha Long will do wonders for you. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #160 ©photo Jack Wheeler)

We’re now well over 100 Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World since we instituted this daily feature on TTP last July. So to refresh your memory of them, we’ll be sprinkling a recycle of them from now on in the series.

Our very first was Surrealistic Art in Nature, which you’ll find unsurpassed in Antelope Canyon, a slot canyon near Page, Arizona.  No artist could paint something more surrealistic than what nature has created here.  It’s a photographer’s fantasy land – enhanced by a Navajo Indian guide who knows all the best lighting and perspectives.

You can explore the world to experience the greatest wonders of nature, but they are also to be found here in the American West. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #1 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

I’m at 17,500 feet with the Khumbu Ice Fall behind me.  To the left in the photo is the West Shoulder of Everest, to the right is a flank of Nuptse.  Climbers begin from where I am to ascend the Icefall, thousands of gigantic ice blocks all shifting and moving, reaching Camp I at the top, up a steep glacier-filled valley called the Western Cwm to Camp II, up the even steeper face of Lhotse that adjoins Everest to Camp III, then on to the saddle between Lhotse and Everest called the South Col at Camp IV.  To summit, they start at night up the Southeast Ridge hoping to beat the crowd standing in line at the summit ridge.

The irony of being at “EBC” where I am is that you never see Everest itself – it’s hidden behind the West Shoulder.  Unless you’re a climber doing all the above, the only way to see the world’s highest mountain is on one our Himalaya Helicopter Expeditions (HHE). We fly over the Khumbu Ice Fall and into the Western Cwm where we see the entire Southwest Face of Everest from summit (29,028 feet) to base and the entire face of Lhotse as well.  There are no words adequate to describe the experience.

To have this experience yourself, you can join us this October.  We will operate two HHEs, with one already sold out – but there’s still room for the other: Himalaya Helicopter Expedition Oct 21-28. This is beyond doubt the greatest one-week adventure on earth.  Carpe diem! (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #267 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)

Famboun, Cameroon. This is a Ndiki Drum. It is used by the Sultan of Bamoun to call his subjects to their end-of the-year Nguon festival over which he presides. It can be heard for miles.

The carved wooden forearms and hands propped up at the drum’s end are not the original drumsticks. They are symbolic for what the real drumsticks used to be. Until the British and French put an end to the custom in the 1920s, the Ndiki drumsticks were human arms, amputated at the elbow off captured slaves. Four drummers were needed to properly pound the drum, each requiring two drumsticks: eight amputated human arms in total.

The horror of slavery in Africa was ended by Western colonialists. In its place they introduced roads, railroads, electricity, an impartial rule of law instead of law favoring one tribe over another, and other benefits of civilization. They did a lot of stupid damage to African cultures, true.

But that is vastly outweighed by getting rid of slavery – exemplified by how this drum was pounded until less than 100 years ago. If you have a child or grandchild in school with woke teachers, you might have them bring this picture to class, and explain how the benefits of Western Civilization so greatly outweighs its liabilities. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #124 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

It’s not a cat, nor raccoon, nor lemur. Genets are part of a small carnivorous mammal group called viverrids, distantly related to hyenas, mongooses, tigers and lions. They hunt animals smaller than them like mice both on the ground and in the trees which they are very good and quick at climbing. You see them in Tropical and Southern Africa, but rarely will one pose like this as he did for me. Going on an Africa safari is not all about seeing the big iconic animals, but being lucky enough to spot small yet beautiful creatures such as this. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #144 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

In hidden dunes of the Takla Makan Desert of Chinese Turkestan, you find pilgrimage sites such as this devoted to Sufi saints revered by the Uighur (wee-ger) people who live in oases on the great desert’s edges. The trade route connecting the oases is the Southern Silk Road traversed by Marco Polo in 1273.

Sufism is the ancient peaceful interpretation of Islam. Just as Jesus advised the Pharisees to seek God in their hearts, not through the robotic repetition of religious laws and rules, so do the Sufis. Just as Jesus preached a philosophy of non-violence and benevolence, so do the Sufis. Sufism teaches that the path to Islamic enlightenment is not through compulsion of any kind, but through a personal ecstatic experience of the Divine.

Thus these ramshackle shrines in an uninhabited roadless wilderness – you get to them by donkey cart – are havens of serenity in a chaotic world. This is one of the remotest places on earth, but if you ever manage to get here, you will feel serenity in your heart. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #183 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Afghanistan, 1984. Yes, that’s me with the legendary Qari Baba, Commander of the Harakat Mujahaddin waging a war of liberation against the Red Army of the Soviet Union – and my dear friend. I told him he looked like a combination of Genghiz Khan and Buddha, and he couldn’t stop laughing. We had so many extraordinary experiences together – like blowing up the Soviet High Command of Bala Hissar in Ghazni.

After the war was won with the final Soviet retreat in February, 1989, Qari Baba became the Governor of Ghazi Province. Then Pakistani Intelligence (ISI) created the Taliban to seize control of the country. Qari Baba had to take up arms anew against them. In March of 2006, he was assassinated by a Taliban hit team on orders from the ISI. I will never ever forget him. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #111 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

This is Spain’s most famous and beloved castle, high on a rocky promontory above the city of Segovia some 60 miles northwest of Madrid. The site of a Celtic settlement, Roman trading post, and Arab wooden fort, when the Reconquista of the Christian knights removed the Islamic invaders from their land in the early 1200s, the building of the idyllic fairy tale castle you see began.

For centuries it was the palace residence of the Kings and Queens of Castille. It was here, on December 13, 1474, that Isabella, daughter of King John II, was enthroned as the Queen of Castille. When her husband Ferdinand, whom she married in 1469, became King of Aragon in 1475, they jointly ruled a unified Spain. As we learned in our early school years, it was Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castille who sponsored Columbus’ discovery of the Americas in 1492.

Today, the Castle of Segovia is a World Heritage Site, serving as a museum of the history of Castille and National Archive of Spain. Immaculately preserved and maintained, it’s a thrilling experience to explore. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #266 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 11th century Villa Cimbrone, in the hilltop town of Ravello, built by the Romans in the 5th 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)