the world's first planetary defence system by deliberately crashing a spacecraft into an asteroid. the dart mission is the first test of a technique which could one day be used to defend earth from an approaching space rock. the kremlin has admitted mistakes in the way it has tried to mobilise hundreds of thousands of russian reservists to fight in ukraine. the call—ups have triggered widespread protests after reports that the disabled and people with no military experience were being handed draft papers. the un's special representative in haiti has said an economic crisis, a gang crisis and a political crisis have converged into a humanitarian catastrophe. haiti's latest wave of protests was triggered by the government's decision to end fuel subsidies. this week on the travel show,

i'm in tarifa, in spain, where it's definitely the windier the better as i check out the big air kitesurfing competition. oh my god, that was so good! i loved it. we are getting artsy in southern turkey for the mardin biennial. and tick, tick, boom — we go behind the scenes at boomtown during the countdown to the opening of this year's festival in the heart of the english countryside. it's all hands on deck!

hello, and welcome to the travel show, coming to you this week from beautiful tarifa, in southern spain. perched on the southernmost tip of continental europe, just 1a kilometres from north africa, tarifa is the gateway between these two continents. its position leaves the small spanish town open to a blasting from the winds that shape its rugged coastline. in this part of the world, there are two prevailing winds. one is the mellow, consistent poniente wind and the other one is this bad boy, the levante, which storms in from the east and batters this coastline, and when it does, all the best kitesurfers from around the world want to be right here. and yet while a windy beach break might not seem like your idea of a dream trip, it is for a mass influx of kitesurfers that sees the population of this once sleepy town over triple in size

during the windy summer months. and this year will be bigger than ever as the world's leading kitesurfers compete to fly the highest in the world's first ever big air competition, hosted right here in tarifa. the winds here can reach up to 60 knots, with the athletes expertly manipulating it to fly over 30 metres high. i have headed over to the leaderboard to see how the competition is shaping up. so the best of the best kitesurfers in the world are competing here today? 60 competitors but they are divided in five divisions. we have 2a men and 12 women. it is an elimination system, so they are riding in groups of two or three riders at the same time and then the winner advances to the next round. we will see in the end of the day who is going to ride for the final and take the crown. there is a reason why the wind is so consistently good

here in tarifa. judging commentator lewis explains why. here is so special because it's so close to the north of africa, what happens with the geology of the land is these mountains push up, and you've got this strong wind that it comes in, you've got to think of an hourglass where the sand rushes through the middle, that's what happens here in both directions, eitherfrom the atlantic or the mediterranean, that is why so uniquely always windy and so strong. i think we are going to see something very special, later. now that the winds are getting stronger and the competition is really heating up, i want to know how the athletes are doing. lorenzo, congratulations! thanks a lot. looked incredible out there, what is it like out there? the wind is pumping, it's like 30 knots and we are flying really high. it's just an unreal feeling. when i'm doing my best tricks, ijust feel like superman on the water. it's like i've got a superpower. it's great energy on the beach,

the wind is super strong - and that is exactly- what we are looking for, so hopefully i continue to make it and ride in the final soon. - congratulations and good luck for the next stage. and yet the mediaeval town of tarifa and its surrounding beaches were not always home to this global influx of tourism. tarifa is a really bustling town, and that certainly wasn't always the case. in fact very few tourists came here because why would you want to sit on the beach with such a wind blowing all the time? but then in the 1980s, the world came to love tarifa's wind and everything changed. tell me about the first time you came to tarifa. i came through this entrance with my car full of boards and then we got stuck in one of these small street. in your car? stuck in a tiny street? it is absolutely tiny!

i have come to the old town to meet michel who, in 1982, left his hometown and chased the wind to wind up in tarifa, opening the town's first ever kitesurfing school. why were you coming to tarifa? i came just searching the wind. it was a paradise for windsurfing. wind every day, long beach, sandy beach, nobody. it is perfect for us. in fact, before kitesurfing came to tarifa, there was an exodus of locals leaving the town to find work. now, tarifenos can stay in their hometown thanks to the employment opportunities which this sport has brought with it. so at the end we are the ones that push this town up. you did a good job. yeah, we did a good job. sometimes you think it's better not to do it because then we'd have a perfect spot for us. now it's full of people. you gave the game away, now everyone knows! always when you think that one it's too late.

now i've seen the pros in action, i kind of think i should give it a go. can't be too hard, can it? it's going to be disastrous. i've met with tanja, owner of one of the 40, yes, that is 40, kitesurfing schools that line this coast. it is time to experience what this legendary wind feels like for myself. it's great! oh, oh! once we are in the water you will see that it will feel quite natural. i wouldn't bet on it, tanja. screams.

how was it for you? oh my god, that was so good! i loved it. you did really well. i loved it, it reallyjust felt like being a kid again. i couldn't come to tarifa without trying its most famous sport. but i think for now i will leave it to the professionals. now, if that has inspired you to go to a destination with plenty of sun, sea and kitesurfing, then these are the spots you should be thinking of visiting on your next trip. if you are new to the sport, one of the best locations to learn kitesurfing is dakhla in morocco. this flatwater lagoon surrounded by moroccan desert makes an ideal training ground. with consistent winds virtually all year round, and plenty of reasonably priced accommodation for the budding kitesurfer, then this

is the perfect place to earn your stripes. feeling like you've got to grips with kitesurfing and looking to build your confidence? then cumbuco in brazil could be for you. if you are looking for a fun and social experience, with smaller waves, then this is the setting to really hone those skills. and cabarete was once a fishing and farming hamlet on the north coast of the dominican republic but today it is considered by many to have one of the best kitesurfing scenes around. with so many of the sport's top contenders flocking to the beach, a phrase has been coined by the locals, "confetti skies", to describe the spectacle of so many people enjoying the best wind and waves the island has to offer. still to come on the travel show... it's boom time for boomtown. we go behind the scenes at the festival. we did really well out of scrap yards and car boot sales,

as you can imagine! and we hit the streets of mardin for the city's fifth biennial. it's in the middle of nowhere, but look! it's packed. so don't go away. welcome back to the programme. i am still in the tarifa area, and at baelo claudia, the roman ruins, and i am going to meet someone who is going to give me a really tasty insight into the ancient life of this area. manuel, hello. hello. so tell me, what do we have here? garum paste was the main export of baelo claudia, one of spain's best preserved archaeological sites, revered over 2,000 years for this fermented fish conserve, which both preserved and flavoured the food of the time.

so if you were an ancient roman person you would have been very happy to find this on your table? and now the best chefs of the area are bringing back this ancient treat for modern day audiences. it's just a very savoury — a deep, savoury flavour. i can see why the romans would have enjoyed to have this on their food, especially if it were boiled.

just how important is this resurrection? how does it feel to you to be rediscovering these ancient tastes? strategically placed in south—eastern turkey, high above the routes connecting turkey to syria and iraq, is the ancient city of mardin. due to its position, this place has lived under many

different rules, from the babylonians to the persians, but we are here to check out how the mardin biennial looks to encapsulate these influences into new exciting works of art. here is a little bit of interesting info. the festival isn't centred in one place, rather it's spread about various culturally important sites around the town, so visitors are expected and encouraged to go and visit all of mardin. tonight, where we are going for the grand opening, is the german headquarters, which was used by the germans during world war i as part of their alliance with the ottoman empire. and so off to the opening night we go! part of the appeal of mardin is its hilltop location, meaning its buildings are built in a tiered system more commonly seen in the theatre or sports stadium. it may look pretty but you better pack your walking shoes. after upping my step count,

i arrived at the intended destination. and it's packed! i didn't think it would be, because it took ages to get here, it is in the middle of nowhere, but look! i'm not the world's number one expert on the arts, but i am willing to have my mind opened. there are so many little nooks and crannies full of art, you really have to go searching. anything in here? no! chuckles. a no for once. that's karl marx. what does this mean? look — come and look. that is karl marx, isn't it? ah, see, i did get it right — it is karl marx. but when i got talking to some of the artists, i started to understand what they were exhibiting and what it meant for the region but also, beyond that. right. what is this? what can you tell me

about this exhibit? so basically, this piece is called 0smoscape: echoes of the 0smotic landscape. so, over the past years, i've been collecting data related to water and i've built a composition, a graphic notation score — a musical score. so i'm playing the sound and the sound correlates to the data that's being collated. and i'm manipulating it as well. a lot of the power companies are facing water crisis and they're not able to cool their systems down, so it's causing, you know, electrical disruptions. i've been specifically looking at creation mythologies - so ceramic is, you know, clay — like wet clay that is cooked - and is transformed into - a completely different matter. so there's a change —| like a kind of alchemy where the matter is transformed into something else. _ so that is kind of my metaphor for myself as well. _ let's change - into something else. now is the time.

how important is it you have a festival of art and culture in mardin? i think it's very organicl that it's happening here because here, likely, i you sit down and you go into a store, you sit down- and you have tea with somebody. all of a sudden, you're learning all of these, l like, other stories and, - you know, gossips and other information that you wouldn't . have any access to whatsoever, but it's an oral tradition. the works on display here are varied but they all tie in to the festival's main theme. a big part of the thematic is to do with globalisation as a gesture for border crossing and a gesture that was quite universal and was an appeal to reach out to the other across barriers of all kinds — cultural, political, linguistic. the south—eastern region in turkey is like a mix between the kurdish people and other groups as well. i mean, the geography

is sort of like already a cultural melting pot. itjust makes sense. it's like asking for it in some ways, and ready to be the receptacle for that kind of occurrence. because itjust perfectly reflects the globalisation that you're looking for to, you know, thematically put out there? precisely. yeah. the biennial is a great experience but this city's rich culture is here to see all year round. from its people to its unique architecture scattered across the slopes of this ancient city, mardin itself is truly a work of art. this summertime saw many of europe's top festivals make their comebacks after two years of covid restrictions. we headed to the english countryside to find out how to turn a farmer's field into a temporary town full

of music and theatre. you've got the kind of core team. you've then got the district kind of co—ordinated team, which is outdoor set theming. then that goes down into the street venues and smaller crews, so each one of these street venues will have its own individual crew. so they add their own bit of love and kind of detail and energy to their own little space. we've been, like, working since last week, so we've kind have been working and now it's suddenly "do this! "do that! do this! do that!" it's all hands on deck! this platform that has been based out. that's is the platform that we're working with, is it? so, these guys have done — they have probably been here for about two weeks, i'd say, and they've just — i mean, they'd have planned it for probably a couple of weeks in scrapyards and yeah, we do really well our of scrapyards and car boot sales,

as you can imagine! the space we finished today probably is going to have to be a voluntary day tomorrow because i don't think it's all going to be finished by tonight. there's probably about 8,000 people on—site, i think. we start with the creative brainstorming of how the festival is going to look like in september and then, we do creative brainstorming right the way through up to december and thenjanuary, we go into kind of delivery and preplanning, preproduction and then, it takes us an eight months of the preproduction to get us to opening. now, it's all about delivery. now we're on the ground, just making sure that all that planning that we've done lands as it was — how it was planned to do so, and making sure we deliver the best show of the year. there's always last—minute hiccups. we've obviously got artists dropping out of the last minute, staff dropping out at the last minute, various things, travel

problems, visa problems, all those sorts of things, so while it is locked, there's — it's continually changing and evolving. a lot of people want to play here because of — well, we're a bit different with all the theatrics going on, so we have a good reputation for what we deliver and how spectacular it can be. a lot of production levels are hugely impressive, so people want to play here. as we come into the final show week of the build, we have a 24—hour shift, so we have a daytime crew and a night—time crew, so we just keep it flowing through. festivals generally gets a lot of bad press about line—ups not being gender balanced or diverse enough, so it makes you more and more aware of it. it's the fashion to be as bold as to try for to aim 50—50, but we've been trying to gender balance the line—up for — well, since i've been here. it has always been something that we've been striving for, but it's not about gender, either — it's about diversifying the line up to all people.

you know, we want everyone to not only feel welcome, we want to go out of our way to try and bring them in. harriet from southampton, everybody! _ most of them have been waiting three years to come. they've had their tickets for three years. the gates will open, they'll run in, they'll be setting up their campsites, be meeting their neighbours. it is really exciting. but before that, we have to get the site completely signed off. welcome! 0urjob is to make sure they're well behaved, of course, make sure everyone�*s happy, well hydrated — especially in this sort of weather. yeah, make sure everything's 0k, man. it's great seeing all the public come in — that moment when they come in. cheering and whistling. and when they come into the city and get lost and get so interactive with the world, like that's — you can't replace that. come back! - yoga instructor! i have learned a lot in the last 15 years being here.

i think that's the beauty, because we've grown. we grew at such an amazing speed. there was so much learning every year. what's important to me is to go out and feel that vibe out there. old town derry. i want to see how it feels for the audience and how they're reacting. right now, it's all ramping up and everyone's getting settled in and everyone just starts exploring and chatting to characters, going through doors. all of those really unique, one—off experiences you get at boomtown that people remember, they start happening now. but that's all we have time for on this week's show. i'm off to watch a bit more kite surfing. but before i go, here's what's coming up next week.

we have something very special for you. we'll bejoining a group of adventurers heading off on a journey of a lifetime to one of the most fascinating but inaccessible places in the world — the wreck of the titanic. we are literally 300 metres from the titanic and, you know, i was thinking, "we're not going to make it". so dojoin us then, if you can. and if you can't wait, in the meantime, check us out on social media, where you'll find a whole range of amazing travel content from the bbc. until next time, from me, christa larwood and the rest of the travel show team here in tarifa, it's goodbye.

hello. the start of the new week almost felt like the start of a new season, especially when the dark clouds rolled in, the rain started to fall and the wind picked up and another showery day to come, much like we had on monday, on tuesday. now the showers will be focused in certain areas. the weather chart is a fairly similar one. still got north westerly winds, but they're actually going a little bit more westerly and allow this little sliding weather system just down towards the south west. but i'll show you where the showers will be mainly focused, particularly in the morning in northern parts of scotland, frequent here with hail and thunder. we'll see another zone of frequent showers to the north and east and northern ireland, isle of man, into north west england, northeast wales and also the north west midlands. and then there's that weather system i mentioned down towards the south west, which will slide its way in bringing devon, parts of cornwall and the channel islands more in the way of grey skies and further persistent rain as we go through into the afternoon. now, either side of those

certain rain areas, fewer showers around, more in the way of dry weather. although, we'll see a few showers crop up later, particularly south east scotland and northeast england. but in the sunshine, like on monday, it will feel pleasant enough. out of it in the breeze, ii to 16 degrees, distinctly cool. now the wind goes a little bit more northerly again as we go through the night and into wednesday, clearing away the rain from the southwest. there should be showers, the north and east of the country, more likely, in fact, as we go through. and so temperatures here maybe not as low as they were to take us into tuesday, a little bit lower compared to tuesday morning on wednesday morning out towards the west. so we've more of a northerly airflow and an air of low pressure pushing in off the north sea on wednesday. that's going to change the focus for where the wetter weather is more likely to be on wednesday. this time, more like down through east of scotland, particularly later into northeast england, parts of yorkshire, lincolnshire, maybe east anglia. it does mean further west, fewer showers compared with tuesday, lot more in the way of drier and sunnier weather. and so maybe feeling a little less chilly in these areas, especially as the wind

starts to ease. as you go through into thursday, the outbreaks we see in eastern england on wednesday will have pushed their way southwards overnight, gradually clearing away, a few showers dotted around, but overall, the quietest day of the week, winds should be lighter, more sunshine, fewer showers and temperatures on the up. now, as you go through then into friday, well, we start on a cool note, a ridge of high pressure, but a more prolonged spell of rain set to sweep across the country with strong to gale—force winds. a big change, but still an autumn feel to end the week.

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