Our first speaker this month was Chris Bradley,
whose talk was called “Walking Wadi Hadramat”.
Chris made a 550 mile solo trek through this barren area of
Arabia. Yemen is another country that is unfortunately on
the No-go list just now, so this talk was a fascinating
insight. Chris showed us Shibam, also known as “The
Manhattan of the desert” thanks to its 500 tower
houses, some dating back 500 years. On his travels, Chris
took part in local events including a shooting competition
and a wedding. His nights spent under the stars, sometimes
literally when one hotel had no room he slept on the roof
and on another occasion he slept on a garage forecourt in
the middle of nowhere, only for his evening meal to be
delivered in shifts by a local family. Chris succeeded in
his attempt to walk the Wadi, ending up on the beach of the
Arabian Sea.
Our second speaker was Rupert Attlee, The Trail
to Titicaca – 7000 mile cycle adventure through South
America. Chris and companions decided to do this epic trip
from the tip of South America following the Andes up to
Lake Titicaca in aid of Leukaemia Research. The trip
didn’t start well when they were all hospitalised
after eating some shellfish. But once recovered they set
off up through Chile to Santiago, though they found it hard
going, having done very little training before setting out.
Before setting off they had assured their sponsors that
they would ride the whole way. This meant that on one
occasion a road tunnel which would have been too dangerous
to cycle through with all the fumes, was closed for them so
they could ride through safely, on the other side they were
met with cheers from the drivers who had been kept waiting.
Rupert’s views of the Andes were superb, culminating
in their Bolivian goal at Lake Titicaca.
£82 was collected after the meeting in aid of Leukaemia
research, thanks to all those Globies who contributed.
Next month, on Saturday 6th March, Anthony
Lambert will talk about railways on the Wildside
– a look at a selection of the world’s
railways. After the break our very own Jacqui
Trotter will be talking about travelling 8 months
overland in South America.
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