A Little Costa Rica

Eileen has a few minutes with Evelyn Figueroa Arroyo of the Costa Rica Tourist Board. Take a moment, sit back and relax — and check out the great pictures.

As with all of our videos Quicktime 7.0 or better is required to see our great videos in all of there luster. However, we have now added a new feature on ITKT’s home page to allow viewing for everybody else. Look in the upper right-hand corner for loads of recent ITKT videos.

We are also on iTunes, Youtube and Google video. And be sure to scroll all the way down to see the video.

Written by Wayfarer Digital

Extreme Adventures

JOURNEY TO THE EDGE
Abercrombie & Kent opens up new territory with Extreme Adventures — once-in-a-lifetime expeditions for today’s high achievers

Every successful person has an insatiable thirst for challenge. Much
more than just a motivation, it’s who they are. They satisfy that thirst
in boardrooms and at negotiating tables, in backcountry ski bowls, on
fairways and in personal goals. The more adventurous even take it a step
further, spending their free time challenging themselves by taking it up
a notch in the grand and awe-filled theater of nature. On their behalf,
the legendary travel company Abercrombie & Kent has created an entirely
new portfolio of 15 Extreme Adventures.

Forget your preconceptions of “adventure travel.” These expeditions blow
the lid off the box by combining the most spectacular regions, the
finest wilderness guides and A&K’s trademark mix of privileged access,
air-tight organization and outstanding service. The result is nothing
short of extraordinary: a collection of expeditions in the true
Amundsen, Hillary, Shackleton and Burton sense of the word, all
guaranteed to take you to the outer boundary of experience and, in the
process, to the edge of yourself.

It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves - Edmund Hillary

Shut your eyes just for a moment and imagine the taiga forest in
Northern Norway, the silence broken only by the scrape of the runners as
you lean your sled into the turns, guiding your team of five dogs as
they bound and bark their way through a world still with snow. Feel your
heart race as you click your harness closed and settle back in the
cockpit of a fighter jet, bracing for the G-forces from a vertical climb
to 60,000 feet. Imagine standing on a glacier hundreds of miles from the
nearest road, surrounded by a colony of 15,000 Emperor penguins.
Consider the look on your son’s face as you turn the safari clock back a
hundred years, walking along, and floating down, Tanzania’s wild Rufigi
River.

“How many things have you done that you know, with absolute certainty,
you will remember for the rest of your life? In the end, that’s what
these experiences are all about,” says Peter Boese, vice president of
Extreme Adventures, “providing the kind of memories that change the way
you think about the world.”

“We each interpret ‘challenge’ in different ways,” Boese continues.
“Test your mettle against the implacable forces of nature in the
mountains or the desert, harness the raw power of thoroughbred machines
and open the door to the most awe-inspiring places on Earth.”

The first of these extraordinary new adventures will begin in the fall
2008, starting with an Extreme Safari on foot in the Selous, Africa’s
largest protected wilderness and a UNESCO World Heritage site. Challenge
yourself with Mountain Trekking to Everest Base Camp or climbing Mount
Kilimanjaro. Follow in the footsteps of Lawrence of Arabia on Desert
Expeditions in Egypt and Jordan. Satisfy your need for speed in South
Africa with Man & Machine Extreme. Meet nature at its most challenging
by Conquering the Final Degree and skiing to the South Pole.

Abercrombie & Kent guides are experienced, educated and supremely
qualified. Their first priority is your safety. They have mastered the
necessary bush and survival skills, and know how to keep you motivated
in tough conditions to bring out your best.

With Extreme Adventures, Abercrombie & Kent comes full circle. Its
pioneering tented safaris were born from an insatiable desire to
experience the world in ways that few dare, to consistently deliver
journeys that defy all expectations. When you find yourself at the ends
of the earth, you want exceptional experience, knowledge, skills,
support and reputation at your back.

Written by ITKT Media

Wine in Portugal

Fall in Portugal brings a buzz of activity to the 20 designated wine regions across the country, from picking and processing the grapes to celebrating the harvest with food, song and traditional festivals.

During September and October, visitors can now witness these ancient rituals up close, by taking part in the harvest itself, touring through the many vineyards, crushing the grapes if they desire, or even lodging within the walls of a grand wine estate. Often the estate will have a restaurant and offer wine tasting dinners, complete with a view of the vineyards from whence the grapes came.

Madeira and Port wines may be the oldest and best-known wines from Portugal, but they are certainly not alone. The country of Portugal has steadily invested in its wine making industry for the past 20 years, by adding modern equipment, careful cultivation and improving on techniques that reach back to before Roman times. Nearly 8 percent of Portugal’s landscape is given over to vineyards today and the result is a wide variety of quality wines, each with their own personality.

Two of Portugal’s wine-producing regions are designated as World Heritage Sites by UNESCO. They are the Douro Valley Wine Region and the Pico Island Wine Region in the Azores Islands.

From the plains of the Alentejo towards the south, to the northern valleys of the rivers Dao and Douro, each harvest and harvest celebration has a unique, local flavor.

The vineyards sit among stunning landscapes and are easily toured by car or on bicycle. In the Minho region, the grapes used for the vinho verde wines grow on trellises. The vineyards of the Douro region, the oldest demarcated region in the world and birthplace of Port wine, run in a series of terraces. During the harvest here, throughout the month of September, men can be seen walking the vineyards carrying baskets of grapes, while the women are helping and singing traditional songs as they work or celebrate.

In Centro de Portugal region, the wine routes run through small towns, each brimming with history. Along the River Tejo, the Ribatejo wine region is full of fertile fields that are irrigated when the river here bursts its banks

In the Madeira Islands, September brings grape harvest celebrations and the Madeira Wine Festival. Madeira is one of the best-known wines and first gained popularity among the original colonists in the United States.

Written by ITKT Media

Smoke-Free Beijing Olympics

Beijing to Implement the Provisions on No Smoking on May 1 for Staging a Smoke-free Olympics - April 24, 2008

The Several Provisions on No Smoking Scope in Public Places of Beijing (hereinafter referred to as the Several Provisions) will come into force formally on May 1, 2008. This is based on the Provisions on No Smoking in Public Places of Beijing (hereinafter referred to as the Provisions) adopted by the Beijing People’s Congress in 1995, and further expands the no smoking scope in public places so as to achieve the goal of staging a smoke-free Olympics and fully realizing a “thorough smoke-free environment in public places of Beijing.

The promulgation of the Several Provisions is a major action conducted by the Beijing Municipality, and also a big progress for our city to fully implement the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (hereinafter referred to as the Convention) proposed by the World Health Organization (WHO).

On December 23, 1995, the 23rd meeting of the Standing Committee of the 10th Beijing People’s Congress adopted the Provisions, specified the eight types of public places in our city where smoking is prohibited, and authorized the municipal government to determine other public places as smoke-free places according to the actual conditions. Since the implementation of the Provisions, the Beijing Government gave priority to publicity education of no smoking, strengthened the publicity education on smoking is harmful to health for teenagers, and conducted a serial of no smoking activities = to develop the “smoke-free units. While the publicity education is intensified, the municipal Patriotic Health Campaign Committee strengthens the enforcement and inspection, which enormously promotes the overall implementation of no smoking in pubic places in our city. The Office of the municipal Patriotic Health Campaign Committee authorized Capital Medical University to conduct the sampling survey on implementation of the Provisions in 1995, 2001, 2004 and 2007 respectively. The results show that since the implementation of the Provisions, the average smoking rate for residents of above 15 years old in = the city sees a year-by-year downward trend, from 34.5% in 1995 to 23.0% in 2007, decreasing by around one percentage point per annum.

There are totally 11 articles in the Several Provisions newly promulgated on May 1. In public places where smoking is absolutely prohibited, public places where smoking is partially prohibited and business places offering the accommodation and rest services such as hotel, inn, rest house and training center, provisions on no smoking is specified. Meanwhile, the responsibility of units and publicity education responsibility of the media are intensified. Furthermore, for the purpose of guaranteeing the effective implementation of supervision and management measures, increasing the law enforcement of no = smoking, the Several Provisions stipulates that the offices of Patriotic Health Campaign Committee at the municipal, district or county levels may authorize the health bureau at the municipal, district or county levels to perform appropriate administrative punishments.

The Several Provisions further expand the no smoking scope in public places, specify the responsibilities of the public place administration organ, improve the management measures on no smoking in public places and lay a sound foundation for achieving a smoke-free Olympics and fully realizing the goal of thorough smoke-free environment in public places.

Smoking is harmful to health is one of the most severe public health issues all over the current world. According to the statistics of the WHO, there are presently around 1.3 billion smokers all around the world, and around five million people die of diseases related to smoking each year. The Report on Smoking Control by China in 2007 showed that people who die of passive smoking exceed 100,000 each year in China. The Global Teenager Smoking Survey participated by China indicated that the hazard percentages for teenagers by secondhand smoking in home and in public = places are 43.9% and 55.8% respectively. As of October 2006, total 154 countries or regions all over the world have promulgated provisions on no smoking in pubic places.

The Convention is the first international convention on public health formulated by the WHO, which marks that tobacco control has become a global campaign and holds the legal force of international law. In August 2005, the 17th session of the standing committee of the 10th National People’s Congress adopted the Convention. The Convention took effect on January 9, 2006 in China, and will be fully implemented nationwide on January 9, 2011. This means that China should achieve a thorough smoke-free environment in working places, public means of transportation and indoor pubic places within = three years.

No smoking in public places is the request of keeping our promise to stage a smoke-free Olympics. In 1993, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the WHO entered into an agreement on strengthening cooperation in sports and health and agreed to achieve the all-round cooperation between the IOC and the WHO in 2000. One of the most important cooperation is to realize a thorough smoke-free environment during the Olympic Games. The smoke-free Olympics not only includes the refusal of sponsorships from tobacco advertisements and tobacco producers, more importantly, but also realize = a smoke-free environment in public places of competition venues. For the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, our government made the commitment of staging a smoke-free Olympics. The Beijing Olympic Games is also the first Olympics after the Convention takes effect. Therefore, for the purpose of representing the concepts of “Green Olympics, People’s Olympics and Hi-tech Olympics, it is necessary for our city to expand the no smoking scope in public places and intensify the no smoking work. When we take counsel with the public, most citizens in the city agree and support the provisions = on no smoking in public places.

Sun Xuanli, Vice Director of Beijing Municipal Patriotic Health Campaign Committee said, the Municipal Patriotic Health Campaign Committee especially trained more than one thousand of tobacco control supervisors who will supervise the enforcement of related regulations in all streets, countryside and towns of Beijing. At present, all enterprises and public institutions in Beijing City assign 60,000 plus tobacco control inspectors to supervise and inspect the tobacco control. Besides, the health departments at the district and country levels should supervise the tobacco control = activities in the areas under their jurisdiction, strengthen the law enforcement, warn the noncompliance units to rectify their wrongdoings within limited time and are entitled to impose 1,000 - 5,000 yuan of penalty on violated units and 10 yuan on infringed individuals.

Written by ITKT Media

Iraq blog

No matter how you feel politically about the war, right thing/wrong thing/indifferent, this commemoration speaks volumes. Put up by a peace delegation to mark the 5th anniversary of “Mission Accomplished,” it fills the entire quad at OSU. One red flag for every five Americans killed, a white flag signifies at least five Iraqis have died (the flags fill the lawn). Words cannot describe the magnitude of the feeling evoked here.

Here are some of the sobering visuals I had the opportunity to capture.

In The Know Traveler does not intend to be a political site and the preceding comments are not meant to hamper any efforts to make Iraq and stable place to live for the people who live there and for the rest of us.

We only want to point out that these flags represent real people and a serious situation that feels, all to often, overlooked. Through travel, I have learned to accept and appreciate cultural differences. I wonder if more people were more familiar and accepting of these differences whether war could be justified at all.

This is the cornerstone of ITKT’s philosophy. The more we know about each other. The more we understand a little about our differences, the less likely placing tiny flags to represent the enormous individuals, the less likely large scale disagreements will be accepted in the future by the people. The friends and families of these little flags will appreciate it.

Photography by Steve Smith
Editors comments by Devin Galaudet

Written by Steve Smith & Christine Johnson

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