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Wilderness First Aid courses 2005

Wilderness First Aid is different from the Red Cross or urban first aid. Focus is on initial and prolonged care for a patient in the back country. Participants will receive a two year certification with the Wilderness Medicine Institute of NOLS (http://wmi.nols.edu).

WMI of NOLS courses are for folks who recognises the importance of having first aid skills if you spend time in the outdoors. We have climbers, trekkers, paddlers, blueberry-pickers, parents, teachers, outdoor guides, scout leaders, fishermen and hunters – all learning about how to care for an injured or sick friend.

Below is the schedule for the Wilderness Medicine Institute of NOLS courses that Crossing Latitudes is hosting in Europe 2005.

WILDERNESS FIRST AID COURSES & WILDERNESS FIRST RESPONDER RECERTIFICATION COURSES (16-24 hours)

London, The Castle Climbing Centre, UK January 17-18, 2005 Course fee: US $160.00 / GBP 90.00 per person. Course taught in English.

Malmö, Sweden, January 21-23, 2005 Course fee: SEK 2100:- per person. Course taught in Swedish. Start Friday evening. CPR included.

Bozeman, Montana, USA at Lindley Park Center April 30 – May 1st, 2005 Cost: $150.00 per person. Course taught in English.

Göteborg, Sweden, 13-15 of May, 2005 Course fee: SEK 2100:- per person. Course taught in Swedish. Start Friday evening. CPR included.

Stockholm, Sweden 20-22 of May, 2005 Course fee: SEK 2100:- per person. Course taught in Swedish. Start Friday evening. CPR included.

Narvik, Arctic Norway 17-19 of June 2005 Cost: SEK 2500:- per person. Course taught in English & Swedish. This course is part of Crossing Latitudes Sea Kayaking Guide course. The first aid course is open to all.

If you are interested in having a course just for your staff or organization please contact Lena Conlan at: info@crossinglatitudes.com or call our office in the USA +1-406-585-5356 or our office in Sweden +46-70-670 11 53.

For more info, please contact: info@crossinglatitudes.com www.crossinglatitudes.com USA: 1-800-572-8747 / Fax: +1-406-585-5356 Europe: +46-70-670 1153 Sweden: 070-670 1153

Driving in Spain

Paul writes in with another piece of advice about travelling in Spain.

Another word of warning to novice travellers in Spain; be careful at the big hypermarkets as thieves operate in the car parks targeting small hire cars (easily identified as they silly sods always put the hire company name on the vehicle registration plates).

We got caught this way on our first trip and my girlfriend lost most of her clothes and a new digital camera, clothes weren't too much of a problem as we were on a naturist holiday but the rigmarole involved in getting a police report is mind blowing. I also had my passport stolen and getting that replaced was even worse !!. Silly to hide our stuff in the car I guess but a lesson well learned and often mentioned to fellow travellers as a word of warning.

Couldn't rob our car or cheat us out of fuel last trip cos we rode all the way down on my motorcycle.

Have you got a tale to tell?

If you have a travellers tale that your aching to tell. Then why not visit the “Travel Sized Bites” section of the Website and share it with the world. Travel Sized Bites

Dolphins Save Swimmers

A group of training lifeguards swimming off New Zealand were protected from a great white shark by dolphins. The lifeguards were training at a beach near Whangarei on the North Island when they were menaced by a 3-metre shark, before the dolphins raced in to help. The dolphins surrounded the swimmers for 40 minutes before they were able to make it safely back to the beach.

Marine biologists say such altruistic behaviour is not uncommon in dolphins. One lifeguard said that it was an uncomfortable experience, as they were circled by a great white shark, which came within a couple of metres, but the dolphins suddenly appeared and herded the swimmers together. The dolphins then swam in tight circles to create a defensive barrier as the great white swam beneath the surface. The swimmers said the dolphins were extremely agitated and repeatedly slapped the water with their tails, presumably to try to deter the predator as it cruised nearby.

Answers to: So You Think You’re Well Travelled?

Answers to: So You Think You’re Well Travelled?

  1. Congo – Brazzaville
  2. Madagascar – Antananarivo
  3. Oman – Muscat
  4. Azerbaijan – Baku
  5. Bangladesh – Dhaka

0 out of 5 – you need to get out more!

1-3 – not bad

4 – very good! You are a Globetrotter!

5 – are you sure you didn’t sneak a look?

Budget Airline Resource

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This website is excellent: a guide to low-cost flying in Europe that includes every budget airline route, with maps and associated information. It also has a news feed of low-cost airline news for European travellers – the only such feed to focus on budget news!

New Moon Handbook on the South Pacific

This 1091-page travel guide describes and maps Tahiti and French Polynesia, Pitcairn, Easter Island, the Cook Islands, Niue, Tonga, the Samoas, Tokelau, Wallis and Futuna, Tuvalu, Fiji, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, and the Solomon Islands.

The 119 town plans and island maps are carefully labelled, without the confusing numbered map keys found in other guidebooks. For ease of reference, all internet and email addresses are now embedded in the listings.

There are sections on scuba diving, snorkelling, surfing, windsurfing, kayaking, yachting, cruising, hiking, fishing, and golf. Beaches, sightseeing, transportation, and places to stay and eat are thoroughly covered, as are the histories, economies, environments, cultures, and peoples of the Pacific region.

Author David Stanley has been writing about the South Pacific for over 25 years. Paul Theroux called his handbook “the most user-friendly travel guide to the South Pacific,” and it remains the leading guidebook to the Pacific islands.

For more information, visit southpacific.org

Funny signs

I was on the Lewis Pass in New Zealand and I saw a sign at a petrol station which stated, instead of petrol and diesel prices, ARM and LEG, gave me a chuckle

CD-rom ‘Kiribati, a personal report’ available now!

This attractive CD gives by means of 10 videos, 700 original photographs with explanations and 60 stories a colourful and varied picture of the country and people of the atoll-state in the heart of the Pacific.

Please visit http://www.kiribati.nl for more information.

Globetrotters Travel Award

A member of Globetrotters Club? Interested in a £1,000 travel award?

Know someone who is? We have £1,000 to award each year for five years for the best submitted independent travel plan. Interested?

Then see our legacy page on our Website, where you can apply with your plans for a totally independent travel trip and we'll take a look at it. Get those plans in!!

Taj Mahal to open at Night

The World Heritage Taj Mahal, built in the 1600's by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan as a shrine for his wife, is to open on moonlit evenings for the first time in twenty years. But before you get too excited, only 400 visitors will be allowed entrance each night, and there will be parking restrictions around the Taj Mahal.

Fave Websites

Recommended by Globetrotter Steve, a great web site that helps travellers with how to pack, pre trip preparations, where to go, pictures, recommended guide books – all sorts, a great resource! Take a look at: Travel Independent

Another website for package tour holiday makers as opposed to independent travellers is:

www.wherewillwego.com It contains 120 activities world-wide from over 2,500 tour operators.

FAST Changi Check In

Singapore's Changi Airport has introduced immigration kiosks that read fingerprints and facial features and double as automated check-in counters, in a bid to cut flight check-in times. The project, known as Fully Automated Seamless Travel or FAST, cuts the time needed for passengers to register for flights and check passports on arrival to from 15 minutes or longer, two minutes.

The system, which began trials in November 2004 at Changi, Asia's sixth-busiest airport, requires users to lodge facial details and thumb prints as biometric data on an identification card the size of a credit card. Passengers insert a card into a kiosk and then look into a camera and press their thumb onto a plate to check their details.

Plague of Locusts

Experts estimate that 100 million locusts swarmed over the Canary Islands in November. The locusts, nicknamed 'sky prawns' have invaded Fuerteventura and Lanzarote, the worst incidence in over 50 years. The desert locusts flew to the Canaries across the 60 miles of ocean from North Africa, where an infestation this summer wreaked havoc on crops. The insects, around 2.5 in long and two grams in weight, can travel twice that far in 24 hours. A 40 million swarm can eat 40,000 tons of vegetation a day.

Fave Restaurant

Anne writes in: I've been living in Mexico City for 8 months and I'd like to communicate to all the travellers to Mexico the address of a great French Bistro located in one of the most popular area of Mexico City, la Condesa.

Its atmosphere is warm and friendly, and the menu counts with delicious French and Mediterranean specialties. Moreover, the restaurant presents

fantastic photo exhibitions by Mexican and foreign artists, which change every 2 months, the photos being auctioned to the benefit of children living on the streets of Mexico City.

The prices are affordable (32 pesos for soups and salads, from 48 to 165 pesos for main dishes), the service excellent.

To get there:

PHOTO BISTRO Calle Citlaltepetl No. 23 (at the corner of Avenida Amsterdam, between Ozuluama and Campeche, close to the Chilpancingo metro station) Col. Hipodromo Condesa Mexico, D.F.

Tel : 5286 5945 Fax : 5211 9806 Email : photobistro@att.net.mx

10% tax on US $ in Cuba

If you want to change US dollars in Cuba, you will now have to pay a 10% tax on exchange. The move will affect Cuban citizens who receive money from relatives overseas as well as foreign visitors. The Cuban government said the move was a response to the toughening of the US embargo on Cuba wanted by the Bush administration. Cubans in the US can now only visit the island once every three years and can only send money to their immediate relatives. Cuba made US dollars legal tender a decade ago after the collapse of the Soviet Union forced it to accept foreign capital and legalise some forms of private enterprise. Expect a foreign exchange black market to appear.

Globetrotters Travel Award

Under 30? A member of Globetrotters Club? Interested in a £1,000 travel award?

Know someone who is? We have £1,000 to award each year for five years for the best submitted independent travel plan. Interested?

Then see our legacy page on our Website, where you can apply with your plans for a totally independent travel trip and we'll take a look at it. Get those plans in!!

Airline Responsible for Death

A US appeals court ruled that an airline that forced an elderly woman to check a bag with her medical devices must bear responsibility for her subsequent death after losing the bag. A lower court ruled in 2002 that Americans Airlines parent company AMR and BWIA International Airways should pay USD$226,238.81 to Caroline Neischer's relatives because she died soon after her bag was lost. Mrs Neischer’s said it was the first case of its kind. “The significance of the case is that never before has an airline been held liable for the death of a passenger caused by delayed or missing baggage.” Mrs Neischer, who spent most of her life in her native Guyana, died at age 75 after flying from Los Angeles to Guyana in 1997. After Mrs Neischer transferred from an American Airlines flight in New York, a ground agent forced her to check a bag that contained a breathing device to treat her respiratory problems. The agent promised she would be given the bag immediately upon arriving in Guyana. However, the bag was lost and Neischer died days later.

Fave Websites

If you are interested in forest conservation, then take a look at this: http://forests.org/

This website provides news from around the world on issues in countries about the protection of forests to volunteer positions.

Also, spotted by Padmassana: Christopher Rogers

He does some fabulous pictures of London, showing all the buildings, they come with a “Key” so you can pick places, buildings etc out.

Eurostar to Close Waterloo

You got used to catching the Eurostar from London Waterloo to Paris or Brussels? Well, in 2007, all cross channel trains will no longer use Waterloo station, which was opened in 1993 at a cost of £130 million. (Note, Waterloo was the scene of one of France’s greatest military defeats in 1825!) Instead the Eurostar will start from St. Pancras station in north London and a depot near Stratford, east London, that has yet to be built. The decision was made because Eurostar believes the cost of running two London bases would be too much.