Globetrotters meeting Saturday 2nd November
2002 By Padmassana
Our first talk was from James Greenwood and was entitled Globetrot
on Horseback. James’ round the world journey took him ten years to
complete. His slides began in Argentina and then north into Bolivia, where
hostel (or should that be hostile?) owners lock their guests in their
rooms at night, not to protect them, but to ensure that they pay for their
accommodation the next morning. And in James’ case without shooing out
the various sheep, chickens and cats that were already in the room. James was
introduced to Horse soup that is actually made of beef, but which gets its name
from the way the meat is transported and preserved. James’ photos of
Potosi included stalls selling dynamite and other explosives, he told us how he
had bought some and gone up the hill to “blow up” a rock, which
resulted in the taxi that had taken him up there being showered with rock from
his explosion!
Fitting such a long journey into a 45-minute talk is not easy so we jumped
across the Pacific to Japan. The Japanese authorities had actively tried to
discourage James’ project, but with some help from a local Mr Big James
obtained a horse in the shadow of Mt Fuji and was able to explore Japan. We
crossed to India where James’ bought a black horse with an even blacker
temperament. The horse spent the first 3 days trying to injure James, but once
it worked out James was on his side he became very protective of James, to the
extent that when James was struck down with heat stroke, the horse
wouldn’t let anyone through the door to attend to him and resulted in his
rescuers having to break into to the back of the building. After India it was
into Pakistan and into munition strewn Afghanistan, where he had to travel with
a Kalashnikov carrying guard. The fantastic mountain views making up for the
inconvenience. James’ Iranian visa was only for 2 days, but he managed to
string this out to 6 months! James’ story continued westwards into Turkey
and southern Europe. His ride through the Champagne region of France was
reminiscent of Afghanistan, but this time he and his horse were trying to avoid
munitions from the first world war, that had been unearthed by local farmers
and dumped on roadside verges. After ten years James arrived back to Gloucester
and his waiting family.
Our second speaker was Peter Hutchison whose talk was entitled–
Across the great South American watershed. Peter’s journey to
the previously unexplored Parapeti river in southern Bolivia was funded by a
grant from the Winston Churchill Trust. When Peter and his group reached the
river they found large areas of it were only navigable by pulling the canoes
along. It was too shallow to paddle; on day one disaster struck as one canoe
hit a tree stump and was so badly damaged they had to return to the nearest
town for repairs. To compound the early bad luck their expedition medic became
ill and had to return home. But they battled on, having to rely on a GPS for
navigation as the maps they had were found to be wildly inaccurate. The river
wound its way in places through deep undergrowth, hard work chopping their way
though. They also had to contend with mosquitoes and tarantulas; they were
forced to dress as for a winter trip covering every piece of exposed flesh to
avoid being bitten.
Peter and his team managed to paddle their canoes to the to the Kaa Iya del
Gran Chaco National Park and to their final destination of Quimome. The trip
took two months to complete and they were the first people to descend the
Parapeti river, a tributary of the Amazon. While in Quimome Peter hired a light
aircraft to get an aerial view of the trip they had just completed. A hard trip
that won’t be featuring in any travel agents’ brochures in the near
future!
London meetings are held at The Church of Scotland, Crown Court, behind the
Fortune Theatre in Covent Garden at 2.30 pm the first Saturday of each month.
There is no London meeting in August. For more information, you can contact the
Globetrotter Info line on +44 (0) 20 8674 6229, or visit the website: www.globetrotters.co.uk
