Well it appears despite testing that the eNewsletter mailing didn’t send the newsletter out, I’ll be resending it, if you receive it twice, our apologies.
As always, this months edition is available now and can be viewed online, just click one of the links below
Paul, Webmaster
Meeting News from from around the world.
Reviews and news about our meetings in London.
Our first speaker of the new season was Mark Stratton, who showed us the Plymouth-Dakar rally. [link] This is a light hearted race where the vehicles are supposed to cost no more than 100 pounds and have no more than 15 pounds worth of modifications done to them. The route takes the drivers from Plymouth down into Spain, across to Africa and eventually via Western Sahara and Mauritania to Banjul in Senegal. The 7000km taking around 3 weeks to complete. The vehicles included a working ice cream van (ice creams are good for border guard bribery!) as well as more usual cars. Some vehicles don't make it and are abandoned, only to be seen a few days later being driven by a local. The ones that do make it to the finish are auctioned for charity, 134,000 pounds was raised last year, the only unsold car was an East German Trabant!
Our second speaker was Globie Martin Wright who cycle trip took him the wrong way around Australia. Martin's slides showed us some of the more quirky things to be seen on the way including old outback mining machinery and a house on the back of a large lorry. All before Martin rode across the Nullabor doing his best to avoid the many road kill kangaroos and the 50m+ road trains that have been known to suck unfortunate cyclists underneath. The leaning trees of Western Australia showed why Martin was going the wrong way! Up in Northern Territory we saw the prison boab trees and giant termite mounds that dot the landscape. The quirks ending in Queensland with a 70m wall made out of everything and anything including car parts and old motorbikes.
By Padmassana
Reviews of the meetings that took place during the eNewsletters hiatus are available to read in the archive
Rory MacLean will be talking about: The Magic Bus. Rory retraces the Hippie Trail of the 60's and 70's, Istanbul to India revealing how the trail transformed the travellers lives and the countries it travelled through and changing travel - for ever. After the break, Sheila Paine will be giving us her insights on Afghanistan in a talk entitled: Return to Afghanistan; Sheila was smuggled into Afghanistan, hidden under a burqa, at the height of the Mujamedin in 1992 She has recently returned to see what has changed.
London meetings are held at The Church of Scotland, Crown Court, behind the Fortune Theatre in Covent Garden at 2.30pm the first Saturday of each month. There is no London meeting in August, but we will be back in September. For more information, you can contact the Globetrotters Info line on +44 (0) 20 8674 6229, or visit the website: www.globetrotters.co.uk
We used to have meetings in New York City and New Braunfels, Texas. Regrettably, after having done a superb job, neither organisers are able to give their time to Globetrotter meetings. If you are based in New York or New Braunfels and have the time to commit to pick up where our previous organisers left off, we'd love to hear from you - please see our FAQ or contact our the Branch Liaison Officer via our Website at Meeting FAQ. If you are based elsewhere and are interested in starting a branch of the Globetrotters, please feel free to contact us.
For information on Ontario meetings, please contact Svatka Hermanek: shermanek@schulich.yorku.ca or Bruce Weber: tel. 416-203-0911 or Paul Webb: tel. 416-694-8259.
Meetings are held on the third Friday of January, March, May, September and November. Usually at the Woodsworth Co-op, Penthouse, 133, Wilton Street in downtown Toronto at 8.00 p.m.
The Beetle would like to apologise profusely for the absence of the Globetrotter e-newsletter.
Excuses range from being trapped in a snowy Antarctica station, captured by Grand Master Slave Beetles, and getting lost in outer Mongolia, but unfortunately, none of these would be true. Work pressures led to the Beetle in not having enough Beetle time to put beetle feeler to computer.
The Beetle, however, is back, after having spent time in four continents twice, in the last 12 months, (work,) though about to move continents yet again. Let's hope it's for good this time.
Anyone want to guess where the Beetle has been?
Please do write in and tell us what you've been doing in the Beetle's absence! We'd all love to hear.
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Being ’shaked, rattled and rolled’ round this exciting city in the 584 bus that seems to cover nearly all the main parts of the south of Rio at a breakneck speed. Laranjeiras to Leblon via Botafogo-Copacabana and Ipanema all for about 20p. A bus that stops to pick you up anywhere on route if it is at all possible and drops you as near to your destination as possible it can. The 584 does this probably to maximise the passenger’s numbers for its owners and it is no doubt against ‘Heath & Safety’ but I liked it! Another one I liked. The fact you can call collect, from the beaches and all round the boroughs by using the ‘Big Ear’ telephones (Orelh�o). These telephones are to Rio, like the red tel. box is to London - So a mobile is less necessary than in London.
A magazine sent me to Rio a short time ago and I also made a private visit of four months last summer, so I thought I would let the GT Club members know of some of my favourite haunts.
Fruit Juice bars are around all over the place. Polis Sucos is one such place, in Rua Maria Quiterial, Ipanema open 6am to midnight. The bar staff vying with each other in trying to tell us their favourite fruit cocktails- 
Such as “papaya with orange” enthuses one. “N�o, mango and strawberry” shouts another. Livia, a customer joins in. Breaking away from her juice, this Carioca charmer says, “passion fruit and mango is where it’s at. Have we tried it? Can she buy us one? Are we enjoying Rio”? Adam Baines and I finally leave having bought four fruit cocktails and spent nearly £2-50. The staff of this bar are always trying to outdo other bars in freshness and service. Another favourite bar, in Leme - ‘Sindicato do Chopp’ (Union of draught beers) Avenida Atlantica 3806, opens early until very late. Not only great beer but also very good food at value prices just opposite the beach, a place, for locals, surfers, footballers and the bikini crowd gather to have fun, Carioca’s love to say, “The father makes the money in Sao Paulo and the son blows it on good times in Rio” all of course talking about everything except work that four letter word, that is like illness - It happens but why mention it? I have watched the dawn rise in this friendly bar, after many a night on the town, a good pit stop as I wound my weary way home.
The city built around large rocks by Guanabara Bay and its famous beaches. Looking down from the Sugar Loaf towards the metropolis, on the right, at the foot of this massif sheer rock, I once climbed it, way back when I was nearly young, called in Portuguese ‘P�o de A��car’: are 
the still waters of the Rio Yacht Club and the fashionable, safe borough of ‘Urca’. Strike out to the left and after the small Praia Vermelha, then you pass Leme, one of my favourite beaches in a district that is of mixed incomes, like Notting Hill Gate (of a few years ago) but by the sea. Copacabana, where I grew up as a young boy with surfing and football on the beach has changed for the worst. Prostitutes everywhere and Large Five Star Hotels that dwarf the beautiful ‘Copacabana Palace’. More Police and private security than anywhere else, to no doubt protect the Tourist Trade! Arpoador, a big rock sticking out into the sea - Join hundreds of people and TV Crews from around the world watch the Sun go down over Ipanema, Leblon - Finally as the cloak of darkness spreads over you, hear the sound of the watchers on the rock clapping the gorgeous sunset. Ipanema and Leblon are two very good beaches. Ipanema, so very expensive because only two Kilometres in depth, has the great beach in front and a lovely lake with its cycle track all round it, right behind, then past that, the Statue of Christ and mountains. Leblon is the Knightsbridge of Rio, even richer than Ipanema, full of Bankers, business people and yet it is here - In the heart of rich man’s Rio that we find the altar of the poor man’s drink, ‘cacha�a’.
Distilled from humble sugar cane syrup, it helps the poor forget the hell of their worst hours. Cacha�a, mixed with ice, lime and sugar, it becomes caipirinha - A great drink to give you a lift before going out, clearing your mind or even blowing your mind if you drink too much! Academia de Cacha�a, Rua Conde Bernadotte 26, open midday to 3am, this is very best place to have the best cacha�a with a choice of over seventy different types and barmen who really know how to mix the cocktails.
A crowded cycle track, the sun beating down, tanned youths with surf boards attached to their bikes, the sound of waves breaking on the beach, beautiful people, cycling, skating and jogging all around me - In fact on Sundays a three lane highway is closed by the beaches to enable the thousands of Cariocas to have enough room to move about in their various ways. Stop to have a cold beer, coconut or juice or watch some volley, as you cycle along this thirty Kilometre track beside the perfect sandy beaches. To go to beaches further out in the Barra, take the Surf bus that leaves ‘Largo do Machado’ twice a day and drops you off at the beach of your choice past Leblon and then brings you back later in afternoon.
A lagoa (the Lake) behind Ipanema is just the place to go at night to have a low cost drink, meal and sometimes music in the various Kiosks near the water. But for a very special meal in a very good restaurant with ambiance and a perfect view over the start of Rio’s Jockey Club’s flood lit race track - with live music some days of the week - Three styles of food, Japanese, Pizza and European/Brazilian. Centro Gastron�mico Victoria, Rua M�rio Ribeiro 410, Jockey Club Brasileiro, open from 2030 hrs, http://www.complexovictoria.com.br - Prices vary depending what you eat and drink but about average without drink 30$ a head. Less for Pizza than Lobster! Well worth a visit for a special night out. I love it and recommend it.
Finally, tucked into the arches of a viaduct at the bottom of Santa Tereza, that runs the last of Rio’s trams, that like the Routemaster in London, it will soon unfortunately disappear. So if you can - Take an exciting ride on this archaic yellow tram in the day time. This is also the bohemian/hippy club centre and a fantastic fun centre of music bars with low prices that goes on until whenever! Soon It’s 3am and how many caipirinias? So, do yourself a favour, don’t take the bus and be shaken and rolled !! - Pick up a taxi and get safely dropped back to where you are staying. That’s if you can still remember where you are staying?
About the author Tony Annis: Have camera will travel. Over the top but not yet over the hill. Past sixty five and still alive, my get up and go has not entirely got up and gone - like good whisky, I’m still going strong. Travelling through these global villages of ours is great adventure but to me it is the people that make this wonderful world, as well as the exotic places that I love to visit. See you over the next horizon, Tony.
Terrific Tofino: the Esowista Peninsula is perched in the edge of the North America Continent. Next stop Japan! At the north end of the Peninsula is the town of Tofino, located in a protected harbour. Just to the North, you will also find protected waters, and directly offshore is the Wild West Coast.
Photo, left, the beaches go on forever - Tofino BC, courtesy of Ron Kirstein.
The constant ocean surge in this area keeps the surf breaking on expansive white sandy beaches. In winter, waves can reach up to 50 feet in height! North of Tofino, you'll find the Ahousaht First Nations Community, Cougar Annie's Gardens and Hot Springs Cove, and just across the harbour you'll find Optisat First Nations Village on Meares Island.
Before you enjoy all the exciting tourist activities Tofino has to offer, you must first find a place to stay. Since nearly one million visitors flock to this paradise each summer, it is best to book in advance.
Activities in Tofino: whale watching is the first of the must do's while in Long Beach. Our guide was John Forde of the Whale Centre. A seasoned veteran in the whale watching business, he offers a number of other services as well, such as Hot Springs Cove tours, bear watching, bird watching, and fishing. Experience the thrill of seeing whales, otters, bears, and birds in their natural habitat of beautiful Clayoquot Sound. 
Cruise through the spectacular waters on John's 24' Boston Whaler, searching for Orcas, Humpback Whales, Sea Lions and Dahl's Porpoises. Approximately 18,000 Grey whales pass by Esowista Peninsula on their way to food sources along the North American coast to Alaska. John's a master skipper who knows the area like the back of his hand. For a 2-1/2 hour cruise, he manoeuvres his sturdy boat through the powerful water with the skill of an artisan, all the while providing a running commentary of what you're seeing. Prior to our trip we were treated to a slide show of some of John's best photos, elaborating on what was in store for our Eco-tour of the area. Don't forget your camera, binoculars and warm clothes!
Other Must Do Activities in Tofino:
Picture, right, the Boston Whaler - Tour Boat, (photo courtesy of John Forde.)
Surf: Try Surf Sister — Tofino's surfing school for women, and Live to Surf on the highway just before Tofino, where you can rent boards and get good info on the best waves in the area.
Hike: Lots of spectacular hiking trails in the Pacific Rim National Park. Go to the Park Interpretive Centre at Wichaninnish Beach to pick up trail maps and ask for suggestions.
Big Trees: Take a water taxi to Meares Island and take the boardwalk trail to some 'monster' trees.
Hot Springs Cove: Visit by boat or float plane. The naturally steaming hot springs are 2.4 km on a boardwalk from the docks. A great experience! There are two accommodations at Hot Springs Cove - The Inchanter (http://www.innchanter.com/mainpage.htm) and Hot Springs Lodge 1-866-670-1106
Beach Walks: Beachcombing, long walks, sunset watching, relaxing in the sun, listening to the waves - take your pick. There are miles and miles of white sand beaches.
Sea Kayaking: Try Tofino Sea Kayaking and paddle through the protected waters of Clayoquot Sound. Camp on sandy beaches and take in the wildlife.
Photo, left, a sea otter near Tofino, (photo courtesy of John Forde)
Fishing: Try deep-sea fishing or fish protected inlets. Bring your own boat or try one of the local charter companies such as Ospray Charters. Bear Watching: You have opportunities to see bears driving on the highway into Tofino, on backroad excursions, while kayaking (go at low tides), and on boat tours. Check out the Whale Centre for more info.
Native Canoe Experience: Check out Tla-ook Cultural Adventures.
Scuba Diving: Bring your own gear and charter a local boat.
Bird Watching: Check out “Just Birding”, a local bird watching company, or charter John Forde's Whale Centre. John has excellent knowledge of local birds.
Golf: Go to Long Beach Golf Course.
Ahousaht: Take the water taxi to this Native Village and walk the boardwalk trail.
Cougar Annie's Garden: Fly in to these exciting and unique horticultural gardens and learn about the history of this unique lady. Ocean Outfitters (250-725-2866) also provides day visits to Cougar Annie's garden on Wednesday and Sundays. Their boat departs Tofino at 10:00 am, returning at 4:00 PM. Tofino Air can fly you there (1-866-486-3247) Roy Vickers: Visit Roy's Eagle Aerie Gallery and check out the Native Art of world famous artist Roy Henry Vickers in the traditional cedar longhouse gallery in Tofino.
Ron Kirstein is the owner of a Canadian Travel & Tourism Web site (since 1995). Ron has travelled the length and breadth of Vancouver Island BC Canada in search of adventures - see - http://tourismmall.victoria.bc.ca/travelmagazine
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