Relax, I am not trying to create even more alarmism by suggesting there is a relation between the two diseases; they just happened to be the hot topics of the past 24 hours… quite an eventful day!!

The day started with a number of silly headlines about the potential pandemic of the Gripe Porcino (to call it a la Mexicana) and luckily also some sensible voices (check out Simon Jenkins pointing out we have gone demented… indeed we have!), then went on with the clearing of my inbox of ‘I feel sorry for your business’ and ‘maybe we should cancel our trip’ messages and with a phone call with my mother in which I had to promise I will not be crossing the Atlantic anytime soon. Finally, after checking on a few friends in Mexico, I saw they are far more relaxed about the whole thing than us here, but now we are going into genetics, so that does not count

Cancer, on the other end, is killing far more people than the Swine Flu and it is already a real pandemic to which no one seems to be immune regardless of the age, race, life style and sneezing habits (either in a tissue or to the neighbour’s face). Which is why we should keep ourselves as fit and healthy as possible and grab any chance we have to support the research. And here (finally) comes the link to yesterday’s event;  another exciting London Bloggers Meetup sponsored by Fashion Targets Breast Cancer a charity established in 1990 by Ralph Lauren which has raised over £9m for Breakthrough Breast Cancer.

I must admit I am particularly sensible to breast cancer due to my family history; plus, by coincidence I had my first BC screening a few hours before the meetup (I am getting to that venerable age when they start keeping an eye on you…) but I am not particularly into fashion. However, I was very impressed by the web-marketing and social media techniques this charity has been using to communicate with the public and to get young people involved into its cause. Its main campaign - Million Model Catwalk - uses a very fresh and fun approach to both fundraising and raising awareness.

At the event they did not just offer drinks and canapes, but USB keys full of information, website urls, facebook and twitter accounts… and organised raffles with their fashion items as prizes (I won a lovely t-shirt, and I am certainly considering buying some more stuff to support the cause). Today the PR girls sent follow up messages to the meetup members and got an amazing feedback. There were hash tagged twits (#1mmc) like the one I sent last night, blog posts (like this) and comments on their own blog, all techniques charities should learn and take advantage of! Well done!

Six months is just the right period of time for almost everything. A few weeks are not enough. One year is too much. Six months is a proper break from routine, the perfect duration for a trip, the necessary amount of time to get over something or someone.

It’s been six months from my last post (shame on me), and it’s time to go back rocking and rolling. I can’t guarantee I will be persistent, but at least this is a start. However, I am not going to blog about Mexico or ecotourism or sustainable development this time. One of the reasons I have decided to go back writing tonight is that I am just back from the London Bloggers Meetup, and once again I felt like a black sheep in there. Where do these people find the time to blog is still a mystery to me… they all seem to have demanding full time jobs, loads of interests and busy social lives… and still, they write every single day; some of them even publish 3 o 4 posts per day!!! I hate them

This is going to be a little tribute to that zelous bunch of creative individuals who pushed me back into my wp-admin/post-new.php page. There were many known faces tonight, a few new ones and some old ones were missing. The venue was again the Diageo Private Bar in Henrietta Place (new experience for me as I missed the previous meetup there), which I found really sexy. There was an interesting whisky tasting with a variety of cocktails prepared with Bushmills, Irish cwoffees and ‘proper’ Guinness.

I had a chat with a few people around; the ‘old friend’ Epicurienne, blogging about the pleasures of life ‘in London, Paris, Auckland and the places in-between’; Chris, a veteran blogger - photographer and Londonist’s contributor; Heather, who won tonight’s raffle and went home with some rugby tickets; Lolly, French interpreter in love with Italy; Priyanka, polyedric blogger working in advertising; Tim, author of an awesome blog about music and science; Shell, who blogs about fashion and finds it a cheaper therapy than shopping; Annmucc, a happy girl from Malta who was celebrating her 6 months London anniversary; Cristiano, the Dutch geek with an Italian name; Godwyns, who sometimes falls asleep while blogging; and Drew, another young superman who writes several blogs and who’s involved in the sponsorship of the next meetup, which will take place in a fortnight. Such a shame I will not be able to attend, as it sounded really interesting!

Right, apologies for those I have left out, but it’s time to go to bed now after a great and inspiring night. I will try to fill my body and spirit with vital energy and be more dedicated and focused in my blogging, twittering, flickering, facebooking… I hope they won’t come out with something new soon or I am done!! Good night.

In my Mexico News feed I found something I would like to share with you. Being a yoga fan and recently getting interested in Meetup groups, this article touched a soft spot… The Border Meetup Group organised a yoga social event along the rusty fence dividing the beaches of Tijuana and San Diego, along the US-Mexico border.

Two groups of people rolled out their mats and practiced yoga facing each other from the opposite sides of the gate, greeting at the end through the bars. Nice finding ‘la linea’ in news unrelated to coyotes or drug smuggling…

(photo by: Guillermo Arias/Associated Press)

Just a quick note to inform the gloCatravellers about our gloCal page on Facebook… We invite all people who have contacted us for suggestions, sent feedback about the site, booked a holiday with us, or who just share our views in displaying a link to us on their profile, by clicking on ‘Become a fan” on the above page.

This will help us immensely in spreading the gloCaltravel philosophy and in raising awareness about the impact of our travel choices on the local destinations, their environment and economy.

During my stay in Oaxaca I finally had the chance to meet Ron Mader, founder of the award winning website Planeta and contributing editor for Ecotourism and Latin America of Transition Abroad.

Ron has been living in Oaxaca for the past 6 years, and amongst his many activities he is now actively helping the artisans and tourism operators in town to give a new and fresh start to their businesses, which have been seriously affected by the lack of tourism of the past year, following the social uprising in town.

Through Oaxaca Options – a series of discussions, lectures and small fairs organized by Planeta – he is encouraging tourism operators and local artisans to share their experience for the development of eco, rural, and cultural tourism in town. He is also offering free seminars on the use of the Internet as an effective marketing tool to increase business opportunities and sales.

I was very surprised to see Oaxaca so empty. I had definitely underestimated the negative impact of the social and political crisis and of the consequent travel warning issued by the US government in November 2006 on tourism. Two months ago a ‘milder warning’ recommending caution while travelling to Oaxaca was extended by both the US and Canadian authorities.
I thought maybe in Europe we did not have full press coverage on the situation, hence my naïve attitude, but now that I have been in the city for a few days I can not see any reasons why visitors should not come to Oaxaca.

I was glad to hear from Ron that the negative situation has also generated many ‘reaction projects’, from associations of accommodation providers and language schools to other private initiatives which show the deep love the people of Oaxaca have for their city.

The crisis is now over and its negative impact on the local business is something that has been discussed in too many details. What we like to do now is to focus on the recovery process in all its positive aspects: we love to see local artisans showing their work on Flickr, and Mexican artist Francisco Verástegui drawing a delightful map of the historic trees of Oaxaca. These centenary trees are still there, regenerating their hometown with new oxygen, and ready to offer their shadow to million of tourists!