discover the country

Most dangerous walkway

2012-05-07T00:38:00.002-07:00

Did you ever seen such a dangerous walkway..?? El Caminito del Rey (also known as The King’s Walkway) can be considered most dangerous walkway in the world. El Caminito del Rey was built in 1901 as a connection between the power plants of Chorro Falls and Gaitanejo Falls. It took four years to finish and in 1905 Alfonso XIII, King of Spain, crossed the walkway for the inauguration, thus giving it its name, The King’s Walkway.
Built along the steep walls of a narrow gorge, in the Malaga region, El Caminito del Rey has deteriorated severely in the last years and after four people died crossing it, in 1999 and 2000, the authorities decided to close it off to tourists. It’s only 1 meter wide and it stands 300 meters above the river floating in the area. Onlly a small part of the walkway has handrails and much of the concrete walkway has collapsed, leaving only the steel beam that originally held it up.

Wonderful Bolivia

2012-05-06T01:01:00.002-07:00

Steam locomotives, rusting away in Dali's desert of time
In the first part of this travelogue, we showed the serene and fantastic beauty of the Uyuni's Salt Lake in Bolivia - the weird cactus forest, salt formations and volcanos surrounding one of the most desolate landscapes on Earth. We also mentioned the train graveyard, and now we have some pictures to prove it.
Torgeir Bull from Norway has recently traveled in these parts, and brought us a report... no less outlandish than the last article:

There were plans to develop the area near the city of Uyuni (3660 ft above the sea level) into a great railroad hub and terminal station. The construction started in the late 19th century, but was never completed. Today, the empty husks of steam locomotives are rusting away under the watchful sun,
like some kind of discarded metal carapaces - while the soft pinky-flesh train "kiddies", no doubt, roam the desert, chewing on some llamas... A picture worthy of S. Dali, perhaps entitled "Time & Rust" -

Weird skulls and bones are spread here and there -

as the flattest plain on Earth recedes into vastness of space and time -

More shots of salt pyramid structures. Some of them are arranged into patterns only visible from space... just kidding.

Torgeir writes:
"...We traveled to the Uyuni Salt Pans, the largest in the world - a sea of salt, a fantasy world of its own. It looks like an endless frozen over lake or a white expanse of desert, and is actually the evidence of a prehistoric sea that existed there.
This site gives additional info: The lake's total area is 10,580 km2, average annual temperature ranges from 20°Celsius in the daytime to -25°C at night; the climate is dry and cold, with low rainfall and intense solar radiation. As a result of the instant evaporation of ground water that occurs in the southern high plateau due to the dryness of the air, enormous flat salt beds have formed, consisting mainly of the sodium chloride... The surface crust is 10 m thick, and the amount of salt in the Pans is estimated at 64000 millions tons"

The "forest" of giant cactuses - goes well with the playground of gutted steam trains.

To solidify the Salvador Dali connection, this area even has a (huge!) Dali rock -

and a "wave of lava" -

and so the Jeep disappears into a wide blue yonder -

More great Bolivia experiences
The road just outside Sucre. The roads during the rain season are not (read NOT) in good condition... The rock slides are common and buses have to navigate around them almost every 50 meters.

Many taxi drivers in Bolivia use imported cars, so they have to move the steering wheel over to the left side. This picture is taken from the right front seat.
Strange bridge found near a village. Image taken just before a bunch of dogs decided to go after us.
Even more fantastic bridge, found between Sucre and Potosi - styled after some fantasy castle:
A fitting ending to the bizarre country and landscape tour, the closest thing on Earth to the "Salvador Dali-Land" theme park.

World's highest waterfalls

2012-05-03T23:50:00.002-07:00

If you've been thrilled (despite suspension of disbelief) by indestructible Indiana Jones hurtling down three spectacular CG waterfalls in a row, you might have wondered if our planet has REAL places with similarly enormous waterfalls in a jungle setting. Well, here is a place with a full 800 meter vertical drop - this should appear lethal even to Indiana Jones screenwriters.
Angel Falls, Venezuela (also called Salto Angel) is the Earth's highest uninterrupted waterfall. It is 979 metres (3,230 feet) tall - think of it as 2.5 times as tall as the Empire State Building and full 15 times higher than Niagara Falls!

Located in the Canaima National Park, in southeastern Venezuela, the falls start from the nameless creek that meanders through the series of highly-fractured crevices and gorges on top of a "Tepuy", or table-top mountain. The water then bursts into the void and plunges uninterrupted 2,421 feet to the river and more cascades below.
You can actually kayak to the base of the falls (imagine how wet you'll be there - though the waterfall is of such a great height that most water is turned into mist before it reaches the ground).

In a season of highest water, the single waterfall splits into three streams - sometimes even more, which
together become a giant veil of water.

How to get to the Angel Falls?
Not so easy. You would need to hook up with a flight from Caracas or Ciudad Bolivar to get to the Canaima camp, from where you'd start your trip along the river to the base of the falls. This page lists the complete directions. The travel guide even says that on cloudy days you can not see the falls (must be a real let-downer after all this trouble to get there!)
This is the most accessible viewpoint to photograph the falls:

The view from the top is fantastic enough to inspire a multitude of "Lost World" legends (including the famous Conan Doyle book), not to mention the table-top mountain itself - a wonder-world of vegetation and species found nowhere else on Earth.
A True Island in Time
It is truly an Island in Time, discovered by the civilized world only a hundred years ago - an ancient landscape shrouded in mystery.

Aerial Fly-by of Angel Falls - an entirely different aspect:

In the morning the rocks are colored pink from a rising sun:

The fascinating world around the waterfall is a perfect combination of magic and reality. The highly-eroded terrain of table-top mountain, the spectacular maze of gorges which leads to the waterfall can be clearly seen and enjoyed in this video:
Rainbows seem to dwell at the foot of it (a boon to photographers). Some people are making breathtaking BASE jumps from its top. See the incredible video of Eric Jones's base jump.

Stranded with wife and a gardener, looking for gold
Angel Falls were named after Jimmy Angel, a larger-than-life character, an experienced bush pilot and gold prospector, who accidentally discovered it in 1933.
Ironically, he also ended up stranded on top of this waterfall - on the enormous and isolated mesa mountain Auyan-tepui (which means "Devil Mountain"). He and his wife Marie (and their gardener) were on reconnaissance flight to look for gold - but damaged the plane at the landing and had to find the way down the mountain on foot. It took them eleven days - but they survived the ordeal (proving that cooperating - not arguing - with your wife can be beneficial in extreme circumstances)
The full story of Jimmy Angel adventures on top and around Auyan-tepui can be found on this excellent page - would make for a great adventure movie script.
Interestingly, there are some other mysterious wrecks in a savanna fields nearby (DC-3, no less):

The mountains in Venezuela (including the Canaima National Park) are equally magnificent:

To whet your appetite for the next installment of the series, here is another really neat waterfall:

Iguacu Falls in Argentina and Brazil:
(which served as a real location for some of the recent Indiana Jones "waterfall drop" shots)

World Waterfall Database is a good site to discover the exact facts about your favorite waterfalls, and perhaps plan your next exploration trip.

Beautiful Pamukkale in Turkey

2012-05-03T01:48:00.003-07:00

Pamukkale is one of the world’s most unique locations which attracts large number of visitors by its unique nature and by unique combination of historical monuments, amazing natural features and welcoming touristic offers. If we would translate the name of the Pamukkale into English, it would be called a Cotton Castle, and, indeed, this place could remind us, by its shinny whiteness, on a huge field covered with pure white cotton. Pamukkale is located at the south-west of Turkey, in the nearby of the city of Denizli. It is a complex of unique mineral and thermal springs, located in the valley of Menderes river, which are often considered to have a healing power. The fact that here you can also find the remains of the antic settlement Hierapolis which existed about more than 2000 years ago, and on this very location there are remains of ancient spas, tells us that this place has been recognized as unique and joyful by visitors for thousands of years in past.
There are 17 thermal springs in Pamukkale which are releasing the hot water whose temperatures are ranging from 35 to 100 Celsius degrees. The waters from those springs are rich with minerals and this is what caused the emergence of the beautiful white terraces on the places where this water has been passing. Those terraces are made from minerals such as calcium-carbonate and they were formed in a shape of various swimming pools. All this makes this location highly attractive for visitors from the rest of Turkey and from the whole world. The place is pretty accessible, there is an airport in Denizli which is about 65 kilometers away from Pamukkale and you can get from the airport to Pamukkale for about one hour of ride. If you are one of those who are planning to visit this place, don’t forget to bring some sunglasses since this place can be pretty shiny because of the reflection of the sunlight from the white surface of the pools.

Wonders of the world

2012-05-02T05:20:00.001-07:00

The Statue of Liberty (1886) New York City, U.S.A.
The Statue of Liberty was a gift of the French government to the United States to honor the ideals of freedom and independence. It was a very early gesture of national generosity. This huge statue became a symbol of hope and freedom for many hundreds of millions of people who immigrated to
the United States during the 20th century to find a new life of peace and prosperity.

The Taj Mahal (1630 A.D.) Agra, India
This immense mausoleum was built on the orders of Shah Jahan, the fifth Muslim Mogul emperor, to honor the memory of his beloved late wife. Built out of white marble and standing in formally laid-out walled gardens, the Taj Mahal is regarded as the most perfect jewel of Muslim art in India. The
emperor was consequently jailed and, it is said, could then only see the Taj Mahal out of his small cell window.

Alhambra (12th century) Granada, Spain
Mohammed I, the first king of the Nasriden – a Moorish dynasty in Granada - converted a 9th-century castle into his private royal residence, and it is this which we now know as the Alhambra. The structure, which covers an area of 13 hectares, is renowned for its stunning frescoes and interior detail. The building is one of the finest examples of Moorish architecture in the world and is among Europe’s most-visited tourist attractions.

Angkor (12th century) Cambodia
Angkor is the most important monument of the south-east Asian Khmer Empire and the world’s largest sacred temple. Built during the reign of King Suryavaman, at the beginning of the 12th century, Angkor is noted for its intricate ornamentation and striking beauty. With its water moats, concentric walls and magnificent temple mountain in the center, Angkor Wat symbolizes the Hindu cosmos, with its oceans at the periphery and the Meru mountain at the center of its universe.

Christ Redeemer (1931) Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
This statue of Jesus stands some 38 meters tall, atop the Corcovado mountain overlooking Rio de Janeiro. Designed by Brazilian Heitor da Silva Costa and created by French sculptor Paul Landowski, it is one of the world’s best-known monuments. The statue took five years to construct and was inaugurated on October 12, 1931. It has become a symbol of the city and of the warmth of the Brazilian people, who receive visitors with open arms.

The Hagia Sophia (532 - 537 A.D.) Istanbul, Turkey
The Hagia Sophia was erected during the reign of Emperor Justinian (532 - 537 A.D.), when the Byzantine Empire was at the height of its power and influence. The massive dome, which is the prominent architectural feature, has since often been used as a model for the design of Islamic mosques. Indeed, after the fall of Byzantium, the Hagia Sophia was converted into an Ottoman mosque. Today, the monument is a museum serving both Christians and Muslims.

Kiyomizu Temple (749 - 1855) Kyoto, Japan
Laid out in 794 A.D., the palaces and temples of Kyoto were the residences of Japan's emperors and shoguns for more than 1,000 years. The Japanese Emperor is enthroned at the Imperial Palace of Gosho. Among other significant works are the Higashi Nonganji and Nishi Hoganji temple complexes, the Kinkakuji Temple with its 'Golden Pavilion' and the Kiyomizu Temple, the temple of “clear waters.” The Kyoto sites have been destroyed and rebuilt many times throughout history and are today among Asia's greatest cultural heritage sites.

The Kremlin and Red Square (1156 - 1850) Moscow, Russia
Built as a residence for Ivan I, the Kremlin was the official residence of the Czars until the 1917 Russian Revolution. Today, it still houses the President’s office. In front of the Kremlin is Red Square – an impressive and exuberant plaza which, for many people, is associated with the infamous May Day demonstrations. Rising from the square is St Basil's Cathedral, built in the 1550s to commemorate Ivan the Terrible's capture of the Mongol stronghold of Kazan.

Machu Picchu (1460-1470), Peru
In the 15th century, the Incan Emperor Pachacútec built a city in the clouds on the mountain known as Machu Picchu ("old mountain"). This extraordinary settlement lies halfway up the Andes Plateau, deep in the Amazon jungle and above the Urubamba River. It was probably abandoned by the Incas because of a smallpox outbreak and, after the Spanish defeated the Incan Empire, the city remained 'lost' for over three centuries. It was rediscovered by Hiram Bingham in 1911.

Neuschwanstein Castle (1869 -1884) Schwangau, Germany
Neuschwanstein Castle was built in a time when castles and fortresses were no longer strategically necessary. Instead, it was born of pure fantasy – a beautiful, romantic composition of towers and walls in the perfect setting of mountains and lakes. The combination of various architectural styles and intrinsic craftwork has inspired generations of adults and children alike.

Petra (9 B.C. - 40 A.D.), Jordan
On the edge of the Arabian Desert, Petra was the glittering capital of the Nabataean empire of King Aretas IV (9 B.C. to 40 A.D.). Masters of water technology, the Nabataeans provided their city with great tunnel constructions and water chambers. A theater, modelled on Greek-Roman prototypes, had space for an audience of 4,000. Today, the Palace Tombs of Petra, with the 42-meter-high Hellenistic temple facade on the El-Deir Monastery, are impressive examples of Middle Eastern culture.

The Pyramid at Chichén Itzá (before 800 A.D.) Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico
Chichén Itzá, the most famous Mayan temple city, served as the political and economic center of the Mayan civilization. Its various structures - the pyramid of Kukulkan, the Temple of Chac Mool, the Hall of the Thousand Pillars, and the Playing Field of the Prisoners – can still be seen today and are demonstrative of an extraordinary commitment to architectural space and composition. The pyramid itself was the last, and arguably the greatest, of all Mayan temples.

Statues of Easter Island (10th - 16th Century) Easter Island, Chile
Discovered on Easter Sunday, 1722 by Dutch explorer Jakob Roggeveen, this collection of 25 meter-high stone sculptures still puzzles historians and archaeologists as to its origins. It is believed that a society of Polynesian origin settled here in the 4th century and established a unique tradition of monumental sculpture. Between the 10th and 16th centuries, they erected the enormous stone figures, known as the Moai, which have long fascinated the entire world and endowed this island with a mythical atmosphere.

Stonehenge (3000 B.C. - 1600 B.C.) Amesbury, United Kingdom
Construction of Stonehenge took place between ca. 3000 and 1600 B.C. With each stone weighing around 50 tons, it is regarded as a truly amazing feat of engineering. Although it is not clear who built the monument, nor for what purpose, it has been speculated that it was either a temple dedicated to the worship of ancient earth deities, an astronomical observatory or a sacred burial site.

Sydney Opera House (1954 - 73) Sydney, Australia
When the Sydney Opera House was finished in 1973, this landmark building - in the true sense of the expression, - put the whole continent of Australia on the world map. This building does not imitate or reflect what we generally imagine an opera house might look like, indeed, it is a completely abstract interpretation. The ability to create abstract art only developed after the invention of photography in the late 19th century, when painters first began to experiment with an abstract, cubist interpretation of reality.

The Acropolis of Athens (450 - 330 B.C.) Athens, Greece
Built atop what is known as the “Sacred Rock” of Athens, the Acropolis was to radiate power and protection for its citizens. The temples of the Acropolis have become the some of most famous architectural landmarks of ancient and modern history. Today, the Parthenon in particular is an international symbol of Greek civilization. A graphic illustration of the temple also appears in the UNESCO logo, representing culture and education.

The Eiffel Tower (1887 - 89) Paris, France
The creation of Gustave Eiffel, this magnificent steel tower has come to serve as a symbol of Paris, as well as of France itself. The structure is not only a landmark that is recognized all over the world, but is perhaps the most popular architectural achievement in the Western world. It was the tallest man-made structure in the world until the Empire State Building was constructed. The tower is visited by six million people every year.

Timbuktu (12th century) MaliIn the 12th century, Timbuktu was at the crossroads of the four most important caravan paths supplying the Arab world, which then spanned from the Middle East all the way to Spain. The accumulation of wealth made it one of the wealthiest places on earth at the time. This allowed one of the first universities in the history of humankind to be established– the celebrated Islamic university called the Koranic Sankore, where 20,000 students studied law, medicine, rhetoric, etc. Today, it remains with us as a powerful myth and, in this way, resembles another Ancient Wonder, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

The Great Wall of China (220 B.C and 1368 - 1644 A.D.) China
The Great Wall of China was built to link existing fortifications into a united defense system and better keep invading Mongol tribes out of China. It is the largest man-made monument ever to have been built and it is disputed that it is the only one visible from space. Many thousands of people must have given their lives to build this colossal construction.

The Pyramids of Giza (2600 - 2500 B.C), Egypt
The Pyramids of Giza, the oldest and only Ancient Wonder still standing, are testimony to perfection in art and design, never subsequently achieved. They were built by planners and engineers purely to serve their earthy rulers - who were also their gods. Philosophy did not exist at this time, and creation was not subject to any questioning. The pyramids are the purest of constructions, built for eternity.

The Roman Colosseum (70 - 82 A.D.) Rome, Italy
This great amphitheater in the centre of Rome was built to give favors to successful legionnaires and to celebrate the glory of the Roman Empire. Its design concept still stands to this very day, and virtually every modern sports stadium some 2,000 years later still bears the irresistible imprint of the Colosseum's original design. Today, through films and history books, we are even more aware of the cruel fights and games that took place in this arena, all for the joy of the spectators.

Neon nights in Tokyo

2012-05-01T03:24:00.001-07:00

With 35 million people in the metropolitan area, Tokyo can rightfully be called one of the world's great megacities. It is an endless expanse of buldings and overground highways and railroads, lit by the ever-present neon signs. History and the old has definitly had to take the backseat, with future pushing ahead at full speed. The size and density of Tokyo can be intimidating at first, but with patience and curiosity the many small treasures of the city reveal themselves.

Beautiful Sydney Harbour Bridge

2012-04-30T12:22:00.001-07:00

The Sydney Harbour Bridge was completed in 1932 and at that time was truly an engineering achievement and triumph. Prior to this, people had to travel between the city center on the south side of the harbor and the residential on the north side by ferry or a circuitous 20km road route, which involved five bridge crossings.
The single-span arch bridge, colloquially known as the 'Coathanger', and the railway line took eight years to build, and used up to 1,400 workers with 16 killed in accidents during construction. The arch spans 503 meters and supports the weight of the bridge deck. Today, over 150,000 vehicles cross the bridge, about 15 times more than in 1932.
Recently, climbing this bridge has become one of Sydney's new pastimes and is proving a hit with thrill seekers. Thousands of people have taken up the BridgeClimb challenge. A guided climb is available either during daylight or night.

Most weirdest vacations

2012-04-28T00:45:00.003-07:00

A $1 Million vacation

A battle is brewing for bragging rights to the most expensive vacation. The Emirates Palace resort in Abu Dhabi announced a Million Dollar Travel package that “incarnates pure opulence.”Along with first-class airfare and seven nights at a giant suite at the Palace, the package includes:
Chauffeur-driven Maybach at your disposal daily during your stay in Abu Dhabi.
Daily spa treatments.
Day trip in private jet to Iran where you’ll create your own Persian carpet with the country’s most-exclusive and best-renowned hand-maker.
Day trip to Bahrain in private jet for “a pearl deep sea experience,” with the pearl hand-designed settings.

The Emirates is hoping the trip gets it a slot in the Guinness Book of World Records. But it turns out that Leading Hotels of the World has its own ode to opulence. Its $1 million Around the World in 80 Ways trip, which plays off the storied journey of Phileas Fogg, lets travelers recreate the 19th-century around-the-world fantasy experience with 21st-century comfort and flair.

A vacation with real mermaids

At a west Florida intersection, where the 21st century runs headlong into 1947, is a roadside attraction that must be seen to be believed. There are no Disney cartoon characters or underwater mannequins, but living, breathing, bubble-blowing mermaids just an hour drive north of Tampa. Weeki Wachee Springs attracts tourists from around the world, and during its heyday attracted celebrities including Elvis Presley. But in recent times the park has fallen into disrepair and is faced with a few financial and political woes.
Weeki Wachee is a theater built into a natural spring—allowing the audience to walk into an underwater world without getting wet. With today’s environmental laws, there will probably never be another place like it in the U.S. Clad in their iridescent Lycra tails, the mermaids perform choreographed routines and stories and are sometimes joined by fish, turtles, and manatees—creatures that some say inspired the original mermaid legends.

A naked vacation

A fun-but-unscientific poll found out that more Americans are open to the idea of naked vacations, a.k.a. nakations. The poll found that 48 percent of Americans would be willing to bare it all at a nude beach. That’s up from 31 percent last year. Why the increased interest in nakations? Are Americans’ attitudes about nudity loosening up? Or are travelers simply looking to travel light – so they can avoid the hefty baggage fees now imposed by many airlines?
All you’ll need for the week (sunscreen, cap, sunglasses, shoes and toiletries) can fit in a small carry-on that will fit under the seat, avoiding even carry-on bag fees. But saving money on baggage is one thing. But what about the risk of sunburn “down there?” It’s a real concern, experts say. In other words, slather it on if you take it all off.

A vacation where you can swim with pigs

Swimming with dolphins? You can go one better! Visit the paddling porcines in Big Major Cay and jump in for a dip if you’re brave enough. They won’t bite—well, as long as you don’t whisper “BLT” within earshot.

A vacation to the Moon

Space Adventures provides the opportunity for you to blast off in a Soyuz spacecraft for a circumlunar mission. During the seven-day space flight, which reaches top speeds of 17,000 mph, you’ll see stars, the illuminated far side of the moon, and the Earth from 250,000 miles away. Candidates must train for four months alongside Russian cosmonauts at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia. Two seats are available for $100 million each.

Volcano at Reunion

2012-04-27T03:49:00.003-07:00

La Reunion is a small island wedged between Madagascar and Mauritius. It is one of twenty-six regions of France and President Jacques Chirac is the head of state. The volcano is about 530,000 years old and has erupted an estimated 170 times since the mid 17th century.
The red hot lava cut roads in half, damaged homes and created huge clouds of steam as it flowed into the Indian Ocean.
It is the third eruption of the Piton de la Fournaise or 'Mountain of the Furnace' this year alone.
About 50 teenagers were taken to hospital from three schools in Saint Joseph with respiratory problems caused by the volcano's sulpher fumes.
Researchers on the island are concerned the recent activity may be creating more cracks lower down the volcano, which will allow the molten lava to spread further.

Most historical places

2012-04-27T03:28:00.000-07:00

The Statue of Liberty (1886) New York City, U.S.A.
The Statue of Liberty was a gift of the French government to the United States to honor the ideals of freedom and independence. It was a very early gesture of national generosity. This huge statue became a symbol of hope and freedom for many hundreds of millions of people who immigrated to the United States during the 20th century to find a new life of peace and prosperity.

The Taj Mahal (1630 A.D.) Agra, India
This immense mausoleum was built on the orders of Shah Jahan, the fifth Muslim Mogul emperor, to honor the memory of his beloved late wife. Built out of white marble and standing in formally laid-out walled gardens, the Taj Mahal is regarded as the most perfect jewel of Muslim art in India. The emperor was consequently jailed and, it is said, could then only see the Taj Mahal out of his small cell window.

Wonderful Vatu Vara island

2012-04-27T03:02:00.001-07:00

The Most Beautiful & Expensive Private Island in the World
The magnificent island of Vatu Vara is often referred to as “Hat Island” because of it’s unusual shape. The island is reputed by many to be the most beautiful in . It’s unique topography with limestone cliffs covered in dense tropical jungle and the flat summit is like a cross between Bora Bora and “The Lost World” of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. From the top of it jungle-clad 1,030 foot peak, to the bottom of it’s aquamarine lagoon this is 100% pure tropical paradise. All the cinematic clichés about tropical islands are here for real; and to continue the theme you even get Mel Gibson as a neighbour. He owns Mago island just 32 kilometres to the east.

The volcanic and limestone island is nearly 2 miles in diameter at its base. It’s 305 meter summit, the highest in Lau, is a massive truncated pyramid bounded on all sides by almost perpendicular cliffs up to 200 feet in height. The crest of the pyramid is some 40 acres in extent, and is generally flat, although pitted with holes and depressions from 6-30 feet deep, some of them filled with water. At it’s base there is in most places a wide belt of gently sloping land, standing not more that 25 feet (7.5m) above sea level, and forming the brim of the hat suggesting the island’s profile. On the northern and eastern edges of the island the sea breaks against the limestone cliffs, which are deeply undercut; but elsewhere the island is circled by a broad fringing reef, which, off the western coast swings sharply away from the shore to enclose the lagoon. The precipitous sides of the central mass are scored by three shallow terraces, marking pauses in the uplift of the island; but these are not readily observed, being smothered under the dense vegetation that clothes the whole towering structure.
It’s unmistakable shape, and it’s massive peak like that of a vast stone hat, dominates the surrounding skyline and is recognizable over a radius of thirty-five miles (56km) from nearby islands such as Kaibu, Yacata, and Vanua Mbalavu. The limestone cliffs souring above the beaches, lending an aura of majesty that few islands in the in possess. The closest island in appearance is Monu Riki island in the Mamanucas which was the location for Tom Hank’s in “Cast Away”; but Vatu Vara dwarfs Monu Riki by comparison.
It is hard resist hyperbole when describing the island, but the exquisite and cinematic topography of Vatu Vara has even attracted numerous geologists over the years. It is a former atoll, specifically called a “Guyot”. This is an extinct volcano that has become overgrown by coral reefs to form an atoll. The flat top was once at sea level, which is why the summit is flat. The topography of the island is more reminiscent of Krabi in , Langkawi in or the Aru Islands in Irian Jaya.
The island is surrounded by several beaches, nestled amidst the towering limestone cliffs, and shaded by graceful coconut palms, where one can lie on the sand as fine and white as castor sugar and gaze out at the sunsets over the massive lagoon which envelops the island in a turquoise embrace.
From the beach the lagoon shimmers enticingly with a brilliance of light and color unsurpassed. Put your head under the shimmering waters of the lagoon and the real magic begins. Beneath the sun-gilded waters tinged in turquoise lies a submerged landscape of untouched magic and awesome beauty. More than 400 varieties of fantastic fish glint like ornaments of gold in the iridescent waters of the sheltered lagoons, providing hours of enchantment for snorkelers and scuba divers alike. As you lie languorously in the embrace of the ocean, your only company will be a myriad of queer and familiar fish, the occasional curious turtle, and always the company of swift and graceful birds.
Vatu Vara is located 60 kilometres South West of Vanua Balavu, 20 kilometres south of Kaibu at Lat: 17° 26'00 S Long: 179° 31'00 W. The name Vatu Vara is pronounced with an accent on the final a.

Most dangerous roads

2012-04-26T02:17:00.001-07:00

Kelly Road
Ohioville, Pennsylvania

A one-mile section of Kelly Road, Ohioville, Pennsylvania is an area that has had numerous reports of paranormal activity and bizarre happenings. Reports say that when animals have entered this haunted stretch of road they suddenly turn from peaceful and quiet to violent (think Cujo), chasing after other animals and even people. The road is surrounded by dark, thick and creepy forest where white apparitions and noises that can’t be explained have been seen and heard. No one is quite sure why this short section of road is haunted but theories suggest that is could be somehow connected to cult activity that was once taking place in the area and curses that have been put on the land for some reason.

Dead Man’s Curve
Clermont County, Ohio

Dead man’s curve is a dangerous turning intersection in Clermont County–according to the most common reports, at the place where 222 meets State Route 125. The road was part of the Ohio Turnpike built in 1831, and it has a long list of victims. On October 19, 1969, five teenagers died there when their 1968 Impala was hit at more than a hundred miles an hour by a 1969 Roadrunner. There was only one survivor: a guy named Rick. Ever since that day, the intersection has been haunted by “the faceless hitchhiker,” whom Rick has seen five times. It is described as the pitch-black silhouette of a man, a “three-dimensional silhouette.”
According to Haunted Ohio III, Rick’s friend Todd said “Rick and I were heading home from Bethel to Amelia. I noticed a man’s shape on the side of the road. It turned like it was hitchhiking, with an arm sticking up. The thing wore light-colored pants, a blue shirt, long hair and a blank, flat surface where the face should have been. We looked back. There was nobody there. I’ve also seen the black shadow figure, walking its slow, labored, dragging walk by the side of the road.”
Due to rerouting, the actual location of Dead Man’s Curve is somewhat in doubt. They say it is at 222 and SR 125, near Bantam Road. As you head east on 125, 222 turns right towards Felicity and Bantam Road turns left toward East Fork Lake State Park. The spot is just below a carryout.

Boone County
Illinois

In the city of Belvidere in Boone Country, Illinois there is an intersection that has been the site of many hauntings, particularly the Bloodspoint Road. Other roads included in this local haunting are Wheeler, Flora Church, Pearl, Poole, Sweeney, Cherry Valley, Stone Quarry, Fairdale, and Irene. It is believed that the hauntings on these roads are a result of a number of tragic and spooky events that happened there in the past. These events include hangings, suicide, various train accidents and the purported inhabitation of a witch.

Stocksbridge By-Pass
England

Stocksbridge By-pass is formerly part of the M67 motorway in England, it was then downgraded to a dual carriage way and today it is just a single carriage way. The road, which was finished being built in 1989, runs around north side of the Stocksbridge and its valley. It has been the location of many hauntings. Over time there have been sightings of children playing late at night under the bridge and a monk who just stands and looks out. One sighting of the monk prompted a police investigation which ultimately provided no explanation. Other people have heard the sounds of children singing in the vicinity when there are none to be seen. Perhaps most frighteningly are the reports of people driving who have suddenly noticed an apparition of the monk sitting beside them in the car!

M6 Motorway
England

To answer you question, yes, size does matter. Because in England, many people agree that the longest road is also its most haunted! Motorists making their way down this road have experienced unusual phenomena: Roman soldiers marching, an upset woman trying to hitch a ride, and lorry going the wrong way down the road! Apparently with 230 miles and 6 lanes, there is more than enough room for this parade of freaks. Next time you are utilizing the thoroughfare for travel, beware of a phantom pickup truck.

Tuen Mun Road
Hong Kong

Even if you don’t buy into the whole haunted roads business, you would be wise to exercise caution on this road. The road is very heavily used, yet it hasn’t been redesigned to take all of the modern traffic. It is notorious for it’s frequent traffic jams wrecks. And apparently, the ghosts are out to get you on top of this! Many claim that ghosts will suddenly appear in the middle of the road, causing the driver to swerve to avoid hitting the “person”. And to make matters worse, supposedly the ghosts of the crash victims are being added to the already high spirit count. Travel this road with caution, and keep an eye out for much less cautious “pedestrians”.

Highway 666
Utah, United States

Now known as Highway 191, the route (the sixth branch of the famous Route 66) is notorious for accidents, apparitions, and just plain bad luck. Linda Dunning writes on prairieghosts.com about an incident with her husband:
“He [author's husband] was alone and hadn’t seen a car for miles and miles. Suddenly, he saw a truck that looked like it was on fire heading straight for him, right down the middle of the highway. The truck was going so fast that sparks were flying up off the wheels and flames were coming from the smokestack. It scared him so bad that he pulled way off the road and walked 20 feet or so out into the desert away from his car and waited for the truck to pass him, going what he estimated was 130 miles an hour. He then got back into his car and continued on.”
If you aren’t careful, hell hounds will shred your tires. A young girl walking down the road will vanish if you try to help her. If you are alone, a ghost may just take up residence in your back seat. Dunning has this to say for you advice:
“Take a lot of people with you and don’t leave any space for unwanted passengers who just might decide to appear in your backseat. Pull off the road if a huge diesel truck comes barring down on you from either direction. Don’t be curious to see if there is a driver in that single car passing you in the night. Don’t look for lights floating in the sky. Hope you don’t see any young girls in white dresses. Never stop if you spot something peculiar and don’t pick up hitchhikers. Lastly, if demon dogs approach you in the night, just keep driving.”

A229 from Sussex to Kent
England

“In November 1992 Ian Sharpe was heading up the A229 from Sussex into Kent. A girl in white with “beautiful eyes” stepped in front of his car and she disappeared under the front Wheels. In total despair Sharpe stopped the car believing he had killed her and was powerless to help.
On leaving the car he found nothing there. No girl, no body no white dress – or even any wildlife; a fox a badger or a rabbit. Not a sausage… I think you get the point.”
If you are faint of heart, this road is not recommended. Another contender for England’s most haunted road is A229. The local constabulary are not strangers to calls of people plowing into pedestrians, more specifically, a woman in white, only to lose track of the body. If you are passing Lower Bell pub towards Maidstone, don’t be too surprised if that hitchhiker vanishes before you reach your destination. The ghost lady is generally regarded as that of Judith Langham, who was tragically killed in a collision of her wedding day, still in her dress.

Clinton Road
Passaic County, New Jersey

“What is it about this road?” inquires the article on weirdnj.com. A question that has been on the minds of many. What causes all the weird happenings? While nobody can seem to answer the “why,” most can attest to the “what”.
If you are visiting the road at midnight, stop by the bridge at Dead Man’s Curve for a game of catch. Toss pennies into the water, and the ghost of a young boy will toss them back.
A gray wolf with red eyes will stalk you from the bushes.
Satan worshippers will hang hang up their bloody clothes to dry, right next to the mutilated animals.
The ruins of a castle reside in the woods.
If you find yourself in the wrong section of woods, expect to be chased out by Satanists or the Ku Klux Klan.
Weird animals, speculated to be survivors and interbred specimens from the abandoned nearby zoo, Jungle Habitat, from which most of the animals escaped.
A dangerous curve that has been the demise of many an unwary driver is rumored to be heavily haunted.
Phantom pickup trucks will gladly escort you from the road. Well, chase you.
Weird lights flying in the sky will draw you attention upward, away from the blood stains on the pavement.
This road is not a joke. Regardless of your stance on the paranormal, it is confirmed fact that many dangerous groups gather here for less-than-savory activities. And they do not like to be disturbed.

A75 Kinmont Straight
South West Scotland

For over fifty years this road has been the scene of numerous hauntings. Reports of paranormal activity have been frequent enough that the road has been nicknamed ‘the Ghost Road’ It is thought to be Scotland’s most haunted road and has received hundreds of reports of unexplained sightings. In 1957 a truck driver saw a couple walk in front of his truck and he thought he hit them. When the driver stopped to investigate the couple were nowhere to be seen. This is something of a typical “ghost story” scenario, but that is what Halloween is all about after all!

World’s most extreme bridges

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The Old Bridge of Konitsa (Greece)

This centuries-old bridge in Greece spans the river Aoos, which is
full in winter. If you look carefully to the right under the top of the bridge, you can see a small bell. Villagers say that when there is enough wind to make the bell sound, it is too dangerous to cross the bridge.

The Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge (Ireland)

Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge is a rope suspension bridge near Ballintoy, County Antrim, Northern Ireland. The bridge links the mainland to the tiny Carrick Island. The site is owned and maintained by the National Trust, spans twenty metres and is thirty metres above the rocks below. Today the bridge is mainly a tourist attraction, with 247,000 visitors in 2009. When it’s windy, this is truly an exhilarating experience – terrifying (if you’re afraid of heights) but exhilarating.

Royal Gorge Bridge (Colorado)

The Royal Gorge Bridge is a tourist attraction near Cañon City, Colorado, within a 360-acre (150 ha) theme park. The bridge deck hangs 955 feet (291 m) above the Arkansas River, and held the record of highest bridge in the world from 1929 until 2003, when it was surpassed by the Beipanjiang River 2003 Bridge in China. It is a suspension bridge with a main span of 938 feet (286 m). The bridge is 1,260 feet (384 m) long and 18 feet (5.5 m) wide, with a wooden walkway with 1292 planks. The bridge is suspended from towers that are 150 feet (46 m) high.

Inca Rope Bridge (Inca Empire, Peru)

Inca rope bridges were simple suspension bridges over canyons and gorges (pongos) to provide access for the Inca Empire. Bridges of this type were suitable for use since the Inca people did not use wheeled transport – traffic was limited to pedestrians and livestock. These bridges were an integral part on the Inca road system and are an example of Inca innovation in engineering. They were frequently used by Chasqui runners delivering messages throughout the Inca Empire.
The Incas used natural fibers found within the local vegetation to build bridges. These fibers were woven together creating a strong enough rope and were reinforced with wood creating a cable floor. Each side was then attached to a pair of stone anchors on each side of the canyon with massive cables of woven grass linking these two pylons together. Adding to this construction, two additional cables acted as guardrails. The cables which supported the foot-path were reinforced with plaited branches. This multi-structure system made these bridges strong enough to even carry the Spaniards while riding horses after they arrived. However, these massive bridges were so heavy that they tended to sag in the middle, and this caused them to sway in strong winds. Part of the bridge’s strength and reliability came from the fact that each cable was replaced every year by local villagers as part of their mita public service or obligation. In some instances, these local peasants had the sole task of maintaining and repairing these bridges so that the Inca highways or road systems could continue to function. The greatest bridges of this kind resided in the Apurimac Canyon along the main road north from Cuzco.

The Immortal Bridge (China)

Mount Tai in the Shandon Province of China has had cultural and religious significance for thousands of years. It is one of the five sacred mountains of China and is associated with the dawn, birth and renaissance. As you progress up the mountain you will come across this – The Immortal Bridge. This Bridge is composed of three huge rocks and several smaller ones. Below it is a valley and to the south is a seemingly bottomless abyss. No one knows quite when these enormous rocks fell into their current place but it is quite likely they have been like this since the last ice age.

Miniature crafted cities

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Sugar City

Artist Meschac Gaba imagined a city of sugar, and then built it. Models of some of the world’s most instantly recognizable buildings form part of an exhibition called Port City at the Greenland Street gallery in Liverpool.
He filled it with instantly recognizable landmarks from around the world, such as the Taj Mahal, the Eiffel Tower, the Sydney Opera House, the London Eye, Petronas Towers, the Reichstag, the Empire State Building, and more. There are 600 buildings in the fantasy city, which measures 30 feet by 20 feet and took two years to build.

Moscow

Take a trip back in time with this 400 square feet model. Created in 1977 by 300 workers for the 60th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, is a very detailed depiction of the USSR’s capital. This scaled piece of propaganda by Russian artist Efim Deshalyt was designed to be visited and admired and ultimately to show that the Soviet Union’s capital was more magnificent than any Western capital. It is currently for sale with an asking price of $3 million dollars.

Madurodam – The Netherlands

Madurodam is opened all year round. The canal houses of Amsterdam, the Alkmaar cheese market and parts of the Delta Works, all replicated in minute detail on a 1:25 scale. All is set in beautiful gardens. Windmills turn, ships sail through the harbor and trains are traversing the city on the world’s largest miniature railway.

Paris

Gerard Brion took up the challenge of building a miniature model of Paris 15 years ago. With 18,000 hours of painstaking work logged, he has crafted a miniature city, known as Le Petit Paris, in his garden in Vaissaic in the South of France out of salvaged items like old concrete blocks, baby food jars and soup tins. 150,000 visitors a year experience over 40 Paris monuments, such as the Champs Elysées, Montmartre, the Seine River, and the Eiffel Tower on a 1:130 scale set in a French-style garden planted with 400 bonsais.

City of Biscuits

Chinese artist Song Dong used thousands of biscuits and sweets to create a replica of an Asian city complete with a stadium and a church. The cityscape, installed in London department store Selfridges, was comprised of over 72,000 edible treats including caramels and fruit shortcake. Once it was completed, customers were invited to dig in.

Wonderful secret places

2012-04-22T01:21:00.003-07:00

The world is full of secret and exclusive places that we either don’t know about, or simply couldn’t visit if we wanted to. This list takes a look at ten of the most significant places around the world that are closed to the general public or are virtually impossible for the general public to visit.

Vatican Secret Archives

This has been mentioned on a previous list – the archives are not secret despite their names. You can view any document you wish. But you cannot enter the archive. You must submit your request for a document and it will be supplied to you. Despite the foolishness of the recent junk from Ron Howard and Dan Brown (Angels and Demons) the documents are all available and there are no copies of suppressed scientific theories or great works that were banned. The only documents you can’t access are those which are not yet 75 years old (in order to protect diplomatic and governmental
information). Indexes are available for people who want to see if a document exists in the archives. The Vatican Secret Archives have been estimated to contain 52 miles (84 km) of shelving, and there are 35,000 volumes in the selective catalogue alone.

Club 33

Contrary to popular belief, Disneyland has a full liquor license which is used when the place closes down to the general public to accommodate private parties. But there is one place in Disneyland that is always open to sell booze: Club 33. Club 33 is a private club located in the heart of the New Orleans Square section of Disneyland. Officially maintained as a secret feature of the theme park, the entrance of the club is located next to the Blue Bayou Restaurant at “33 Royal Street” with the entrance recognizable by an ornate address plate with the number 33 engraved on it. Fees for joining range from 10 – 30 thousand US dollars and membership comes with a car park. If you want to join the club, you have to go to the end of the fourteen year waiting list.

Moscow Metro-2

Metro-2 in Moscow, Russia is a purported secret underground metro system which parallels the public Moscow Metro. The system was built supposedly during (or from) the time of Stalin and codenamed D-6 by the KGB. Russian journalists have reported that the existence of Metro-2 is neither confirmed nor denied by the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB) or the Moscow Metro administration. The length of Metro-2 is rumored to exceed even that of the “civil” (i.e. public) Metro. (It is said to have 4 lines and lie 50 to 200 m deep. It is said to connect the Kremlin with the FSB headquarters, the government airport at Vnukovo-2, and an underground town at Ramenki, in addition to other locations of national importance. Needless to say, the fact that no one confirms its existence makes it pretty difficult to visit.

White’s Gentlemen’s Club

White’s is the most exclusive English gentlemen’s club. It was founded in 1693 by Italian Francesco Bianco (Francis White) to sell the newly discovered hot chocolate but eventually became a typical (but extremely private) gentlemen’s club. The club is famous for its “betting book” in which members make bizarre gambles. The most famous of which is a 3,000 pound bet on which of two raindrops would slide down the window first. So why is this club on the list? Women are excluded completely from membership, so that is half our audience out. Secondly, men who want to join this exclusive club can only do so if invited by a sitting member who has the support of two other members. Unless you are a member of royalty, or are extremely powerful in politics or the arts, you are unlikely to ever see the exclusive White’s invitation.

Area 51

I have put this so high on the list because it is the one place most readers are likely to expect to see. Area 51 is a nickname for a military base that is located in the southern portion of Nevada in the western United States, 83 miles (133 km) north-northwest of downtown Las Vegas. Situated at its center, on the southern shore of Groom Lake, is a large secretive military airfield. The base’s primary purpose is to support development and testing of experimental aircraft and weapons systems. The intense secrecy surrounding the base, the very existence of which the U.S. government barely acknowledges, has made it the frequent subject of conspiracy theories and a central component to unidentified flying object (UFO) folklore. The sign above states that deadly force can be used if people enter the Area 51 zone.

Room 39

Room 39 or Bureau 39 is arguably one of the most secretive organizations in North Korea that seeks ways to obtain foreign currency for Kim Jong-il, North Korea’s Chairman of the National Defense Commission. Room 39 was established in the late 1970s. It has been described as the lynchpin of the North’s so-called “court economy” centered on the dynastic Kim family. It is unknown how the name originated. Very little is known about Room 39 due to the secretive nature surrounding the organization, but it is widely speculated that the organization uses 10 to 20 bank accounts in China and Switzerland for the purposes of counterfeiting, money laundering, and other illicit transactions. It is also alleged that Room 39 is involved in drug smuggling and illicit weapon sales. It is known, however, that the organization has 120 foreign trade companies under its jurisdiction and is under the direct control of Kim Jong-il. North Korea has denied taking part in any illegal activities. Room 39 is believed to be located inside a ruling Workers’ Party building in Pyongyang, the capital city of North Korea.

Ise Grand Shrine

The Ise Grand Shrine in Japan (which is actually a series of over 100 shrines) is the most sacred shrine in Japan. It is dedicated to Amaterasu (the Sun goddess) and has been in existence since 4BC. The main shrine is alleged to hold the most important item in Japan’s imperial history: the Naikū (the mirror from Japanese mythology which eventually ended up in the hands of the first emperors). The shrine is demolished and rebuilt every 20 years in keeping with the Shinto idea of death and rebirth (the next rebuilding will be in 2013). This ranks very high on the list of places you will never go because the only person who can enter is the priest or priestess and he must be a member of the Japanese imperial family. So unless we have a Japanese prince or princess reading the site, no one here will ever see anything more than the thatched roof of the Ise Grand Shrine.

Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center

This is a place that is not only closed to the public, but it is a place that the public hope to never have to enter! In most “end of the world” films we see these days, there is always a highly classified area where US government officials and a chosen few get to go in the hopes that they can escape the impending doom. The Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center is the real thing. It was set up in the 1950s due to the cold war but continues to operate today. It is a “last hope” area. For obvious reasons its operations are highly classified. It is run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The center is already functioning and even in small local disasters in the US, much of the telecommunications traffic is routed through it.

RAF Menwith Hill

RAF Menwith Hill is a British military base with connections to the global ECHELON spy network. The site contains an extensive satellite ground station and is a communications intercept and missile warning site and has been described as the largest electronic monitoring station in the world. The site acts as a ground station for a number of satellites operated by the US National Reconnaissance Office, on behalf of the US National Security Agency, with antennae contained in a large number of highly distinctive white radomes, and is alleged to be an element of the ECHELON system. ECHELON was reportedly created to monitor the military and diplomatic communications of the Soviet Union and its Eastern Bloc allies during the Cold War in the early 1960s, but since the end of the Cold War it is believed to search also for hints of terrorist plots, drug dealers’ plans, and political and diplomatic intelligence. It has also been involved in reports of commercial espionage and is believed to filter all telephone and radio communications in the nations which host it – an extreme violation of privacy.

Mezhgorye

Mezhgorye is a closed town in Russia which is believed to house people working on the highly secret Mount Yamantaw. The town was founded in 1979. Mount Yamantaw stands at 1,640 metres (5,381 ft) and is the highest mountain in the southern Urals. Along with Kosvinsky Mountain (600 km to the north), it is suspected by the United States of being a large secret nuclear facility and/or bunker. Large excavation projects have been observed by U.S. satellite imagery as recently as the late 1990s, during the time of Boris Yeltsin’s pro-Western government after the fall of the Soviet Union. Two garrisons, Beloretsk-15 and Beloretsk-16, were built on top of the facility. Repeated U.S. questions have yielded several different responses from the Russian government regarding Mount Yamantaw. They have said it is a mining site, a repository for Russian treasures, a food storage area, and a bunker for leaders in case of nuclear war.

Places with disgusting names

2012-04-20T01:35:00.000-07:00

Tombstone
Arizona

In the Southwest American desert, the town of Tombstone is a reminder of the Old West’s violent, lawless past. It received its name when a prospector looking for valuable rocks was told that all he would find out in the harsh area would be his own tombstone. However, the prospector stumbled upon silver, named his mine The Tombstone, and the town sprung up from there.
Although the inception of the name of the town was a tongue-in-cheek joke, it lived up to its name; perhaps it was a self-fulfilling prophesy. A substantial part of the town consisted of saloons and whorehouses which attracted various unsavory characters including many outlaws. One of these brothels, The Bird Cage Café, was reported by the New York Times as being “the wildest, wickedest night spot between Basin Street and the Barbary Coast”. Violence and bloodshed became the norm in Tombstone, with the Shootout at the OK Corral between Wyatt Earp and his brothers and a gang of outlaw “cowboys” being the most famous event. Not ironically, Tombstone is home to a number of cemeteries which are tourist attractions today.

Dead Sea
Israel/Jordan

This body of water in Israel and Jordan certainly does not have a shortage of bleak or depressing nicknames. Lake of Asphalt, Salt Sea, Sea of the Devil, and Stinking Lake are a few, even though it holds some biblical importance. Its high mineral content, which makes it ten times saltier than the world’s oceans, allows nothing to live in its waters except some bacteria. It lies at the lowest point of dry earth on the planet, plunging 1,300 feet below sea level. Being so low, water does not drain but can only evaporate leaving only the strong concentration of minerals. An estimated 7 million tons of water evaporates daily.
The mineral deposits are actually sought after and are used for things such as medicines, fertilizers, and cosmetics. Health spas and resorts were also commonplace on the sea because it was, and still is, believed that the water has healing properties. However, scientists are warning that the Dead Sea is in fact dying itself. In recent years, it has been rapidly shrinking with the southern end disappearing altogether. Over the past 50 years the water level has dropped 80 feet and the sea has lost a third of its volume. To make matters worse, the only thing that flows into the sea is raw sewage with virtually no fresh water replenishing it. While officials are devising ways to keep the Dead Sea as pristine as they possibly can, it is evident that it will never be the same again and its destiny is that it will continue to dwindle. Strict conservation efforts must be put into effect to at least slow the inevitable.

The Skeleton Coast
Namibia

The rusted, dilapidated remnants of hulking ships, recent and ancient, litter this stretch of coast in this southwestern African nation, which the Namibian Bushmen called, “The Land God Made in Anger”. Many are covered by the sands of time – only their bows can be seen jutting through sandbars, while others are completely unseen, buried in their sandy graves. Punishing winds and currents, rocks, and fog have resulted in the demise of many ocean vessels throughout time, as well as multiple marine animals such as whales, whose bleached bones can be found intermingled with decaying hulls, and for which the coast gets its name.
Countless shipwrecked sailors came face to face with death here. If they were “fortunate” enough to avoid drowning and make it to land, they were greeted with an arid, salty wasteland of massive sand dunes that extended for a hundred miles inland with no opportunity for finding sustenance. Eventually, they would perish from thirst or exposure. Although the area is slightly more accessible today, it is still very remote and notorious, and ships go out of their way to stay farther out to sea when passing by it.

Murder Island
Nova Scotia

The Tusket Islands lie off the coast of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. Although they are picturesque and beautiful, they are also home to the mysterious and ominous Murder Island.
Stories surrounding the island are quite cryptic. One tale has the origin of the name going back to 1735, when the brig “Baltimore” was discovered on the shore with its interior splattered in blood and deserted except for one mysterious woman. She told confusing stories of a convict revolt and an Indian massacre which were never substantiated or fully explained. Before a concrete conclusion could be reached, the inscrutable woman disappeared along with the knowledge of what had really happened.
Another story tells about a smallpox epidemic that ran rampant through a French fleet stationed near the island sometime in the 1700s. Hundreds of corpses were unloaded onto the diminutive island and buried there. Reports of human bones popping up through the island’s beaches continued through the 20th century. Whether or not these stories can be proven, it is probable that Murder Island holds some checkered secrets.

Galgbacken (Gallows’ Slope)
Stockholm

Also known as Gibbets’ Slope, which is another name for gallows, Gallows’ Slope was the largest and last place of execution in Sweden’s capital city. The last execution took place in 1862 with the preferred method of execution being, obviously, hanging. However, beheadings were also quite popular. Criminals of all ilk were put to death here, including murderers, rapists, embezzlers, and counterfeiters. A number of those sentenced to die were also prominent figures of the day. In the 1930s, construction workers found human skeletal remains while beginning construction on residential housing on the site. No doubt, bones of those unlucky enough to meet their death on the gallows still lie buried at Gallows’ Slope.

Hell’s Kitchen
New York City

A neighborhood in Midtown Manhattan, Hell’s Kitchen was infamous for crime, sex, and violence. It is thought to have gotten its name from a rough, dangerous hostel long since gone. Irish and German immigrants first settled the neighborhood with most of them working on the docks as longshoremen, or in slaughterhouses and factories. The influx led to a filthy shantytown and the rise of multiple street gangs. After the American Civil War, the population swelled even more, and tenements rose above the streets resulting in further squalid conditions. More gangs were formed, violence grew exponentially, and the neighborhood became known as “the most dangerous area on the American continent”.
When Prohibition banned the production and sale of alcohol in America in the 1920s, some of the gangs evolved into organized crime rackets dealing in bootlegging, gambling, prostitution, and extortion. In the 1950s, Puerto Rican immigrants populated Hell’s Kitchen which resulted in much racial tension and subsequent violence with the other ethnic groups. This strife became the influence for the movie West Side Story. A bit later, the Westies, an extremely violent and powerful Irish-American gang, operated from their base in the neighborhood.
Today, Hell’s Kitchen has gone through a gentrification process and real estate agents prefer to call the neighborhood Clinton. However, there are still hints of the neighborhood’s tawdry past, as some pornography shops and strip bars still sprinkle the area.

The Death Zone

This is not a specific location per se, but describes an altitude on Earth exceeding 26,240 feet (8,000 m). Some mountaineers define it as an altitude over 25,000 feet. Almost all of the peaks in the death zone are located in the Himalaya and Karakoram ranges (which is technically part of the Himalayas). It is at this particular height that oxygen is so scarce that life simply cannot be sustained. Climbers cannot acclimatize themselves to this height, cannot digest food, and without oxygen tanks their bodily functions deteriorate at a rapid pace resulting in unconsciousness, deliriousness, hallucinations, and eventually death.
Although there are no definitive numbers, hundreds of climbers have died climbing peaks in the death zone. On a macabre note, the bodies of all who have succumbed on these mountains simply remain there since removing them would be such a painstaking and dangerous, if not impossible, task. Therefore, the death zone is essentially the world’s highest graveyard.

Golgotha (Place of the Skull)
Jerusalem

A biblical entry, Golgotha was an ancient site located outside the walls of 1st century Jerusalem. It is said that Jesus was crucified on this site, as were many who were convicted of crimes by the Roman Empire. There are a few theories about how the hill got its name. Some believe the name refers to the number of abandoned skulls and bones that were found there. Others say the craggy, rocky hill physically resembled a skull. Still others claim that Golgotha loomed over a cemetery so it naturally would be bestowed with a gruesome name.
It was a Jewish religious requirement that all executions take place outside of the city of Jerusalem and the Romans were believed to have honored this tradition. Therefore, the site of Golgotha was established just outside of the walled city. Due to many parts of Jerusalem being destroyed and rebuilt throughout history, the exact site of the hill is disputed. However, many scholars agree that the site lies within the Church of the Holy Sepulcher which was built by the emperor Constantine. According to tradition, this is also the site where Adam (the first man) was buried. Wherever the current-day location of Golgotha may be, it is a historically documented site where grisly executions actually took place.

Devil’s Island
French Guiana

Located off the coast of French Guiana, Devil’s Island was a notorious penal colony. The main prisons were actually located on the mainland, but the whole complex collectively became known as Devil’s Island. Originally a leper colony, it operated as a penal colony from 1884 to 1952. Conditions were probably worse than any modern-day prison in any country today. While wearing nothing but pairs of shoes and straw hats, and being barraged by malaria-carrying mosquitoes, prisoners would work waist deep in water while their skin baked in the unrelenting sun. If they didn’t meet their daily quota of work, such as chopping enough wood, they would only be fed a paltry piece of dry bread for the day.
In Kourou, which was the deadliest camp on Devil’s Island, 4,000 prisoners died within the span of three years. All throughout the penal colony, thousands of men died from exhaustion, thirst, hunger, heat stroke, dysentery, malaria, and murder. The only hope many of the convicts had was escape.
Most escapees fled through the dense jungle where they had to compete with hostile natives, piranhas, flesh-shredding brush, and the same mosquitoes and oppressive heat they faced in the colony. If they were lucky enough, they made it to Dutch Guiana where they would find sanctuary. Some attempted to escape by sea on makeshift rafts; some were successful, others died a watery death. Those who were caught and brought back to Devil’s Island were labeled as “incorrigible”. They were put into solitary confinement, made to work like animals all day, then shackled in irons overnight until it was time for them to go to work again.
Prisoners stopped being sent to Devil’s Island in 1938, and in 1952 the prison was closed. When accounts of the horrors were revealed to the general public, people were appalled that a civilized country such as France would propagate such atrocities. Today, Devil’s Island is a museum and tourist attraction.

Death Valley
Nevada/California

Lying in America’s Mojave Desert, Death Valley is one of the hottest, driest, inhospitable places on Earth. It is 3.3 million acres of barren wilderness consisting of towering mountains, canyons, rifts, salt flats, and sand. The lowest point in North America is here at the Badwater Basin, where the elevation sinks to 282 feet below sea level. Temperatures commonly reach over 100 degrees F, with the highest temperature recorded being 134 degrees F, two degrees short of the highest ever recorded on Earth.
The hardships early pioneers, as well as intrepid individuals following them, faced in the various regions of Death Valley gave rise to equally morbid names. Some of them include: the Funeral Mountains, Dante’s View, Furnace Creek, Devil’s Golf Course, Desolation Canyon, Devil’s Cornfield, Black Mountains, Stovepipe Wells, Hell’s Gate, and the aforementioned Badwater Basin. People first attempted to traverse the burning sands of the area during the California gold rush of 1849. They were known as the Death Valley 49ers and many of them never got to lay their eyes on gold since they became victims of the hellish conditions. In 1933, Death Valley was established as a national park. Many people visit each year, but if you are to go off the established and official roads and trails it is crucial that you are with an experienced guide; rescue operations are an all too common occurrence in this unforgiving place.

Most bizarre cities

2012-04-19T23:33:00.002-07:00

For thousands of years cities have been the manifestation of humankind’s artistry, imagination, and instinct to succeed. They embody our strong social desires and longing to create grand masterpieces. London, Constantinople, Paris, New York, Ancient Rome, and Tokyo have been just a few of the dazzling trophies mankind has built. But there have been many cases in which someone’s vision for a better, more efficient, or more fantastic city collapsed into a heap of broken dreams.

Triton City

Buckminster Fuller was a brilliant visionary, scientist, environmentalist, and philosopher who, in the 1960s, developed a bold design. It was dubbed Triton City and was intended to be a floating utopia for up to 5,000 residents. His giant, floating city was designed to encourage people to share resources and conserve energy.
Fuller was initially commissioned by a wealthy Japanese patron to design a floating city for Tokyo Bay. He died in 1966, but astoundingly enough, the United States Department of Urban Development commissioned Fuller for further design and analysis. His designs called for the city to: be resistant to tsunamis, provide the most possible outside living, desalinate the very water that it would float in for consumption, give privacy to each residence, and incorporate a tetrahedronal shape which provides the most surface area with the least amount of volume. Everything from education to
entertainment to recreation would be a part of the city. Fuller also claimed that the low operating costs would result in a high standard of living.
HUD eventually sent the plans to the U.S. Navy where they were dissected and analyzed even further. The city of Baltimore, upon hearing of the project, became interested and petitioned to have Triton City moored off of its shores in Chesapeake Bay. However, as municipal and federal administrations changed, the project languished and was never brought to light. Today, there are derivatives of Triton City, such as the artificial island Kansai and its airport in Osaka, Japan, but they pale in comparison to the scope of Triton City.

Broadacre City

Originally designed by one of the most famous and respected architects in history, Frank Lloyd Wright, in 1932, Broadacre was meant to be a “New Town” utopia. It did not fit into its own category because it had many characteristics of a conventional city of the time as well as incorporating the principles of an agricultural nation which Thomas Jefferson championed. In essence, he wanted to abandon the crowded, machine-age, industrial city, but avoid a rural community.
Just like Jefferson believed every citizen should have their own “vine and fig tree”, Wright planned the city so that each denizen would grow their own food on their one acre plot of land. In what was a controversial characteristic, citizens of all social classes would intermingle much more than in any other city or town of the day. Wright also despised centralization so it was essential that the city be sprawling and widespread, which severely differentiated itself from a city. In Broadacre, homes, factories, offices, and municipal buildings would all be separated by large expanses of parks planted with lawns and trees. Cleanliness was paramount and there was to be only light industry and all utility wiring would be buried underground.
Opponents of Wright’s city were vociferous however. Because he believed that the automobile was “the advance agent of decentralization” he envisioned extremely little mass transportation which many city planners vehemently disagreed with. Wright’s vision never was realized, and the closest thing we have today are the sprawling suburban communities that blanket much of our planet.

Disney Resorts

These are not cities by definition, but anyone who has been to a Disney resort knows that they are basically self-sufficient cities in their own right. Considering the amount of real estate the conglomerate already owns and operates it’s amazing how many other things they planned that never came to fruition. It’s also interesting to realize what we could have had from the world’s largest entertainment company since most of these would have been great places to visit:
Mythia: A Greek and Roman myths and legends-inspired park planned to be built near Disneyland.
WestCOT: A West Coast EPCOT Center planned for California.
Disneyland East: A large park to be built on the site of the 1964 World’s Fair in Queens, NY.
Port Disney: An American version of Tokyo DisneySea planned for California.
Disney’s Asian, Venetian, Persian, and Mediterranean resorts to be built near Disney World.
Disney America: A patriotic theme park that was to be built in Virginia.
Discovery Bay: A land inspired by Jules Verne‘s various works. Some ideas were later incorporated into Disneyland Paris.
Beastly Kingdom: A mythical beings land planned near Animal Kingdom in Florida.
Dark Kingdom (Shadowlands): A park near Disney Word that would have showcased all of Disney’s villain characters and be the antithesis of the Magic Kingdom. Maleficent’s Castle would have been in the center of the park.
Sci-Fi City: Planned for Tokyo Disneyland, this would have been an immense park with an endless amount of science fiction rides and attractions. If built it would have been the most extensive and impressive “tomorrowland” ever created.
Disney’s Snow Crown: A Disney-themed ski resort situated at the Mineral King glacial valley in northern California which was ultimately prevented by preservationists.
These are the biggest resorts and parks that were conceived by Disney but never built. There are hundreds more attractions, rides, restaurants, etc. whose ideas were put to paper but never became reality for a multitude of reasons.

Dongtan

Just a couple of months ago it was reported that China’s planned city of Dongtan would not become a reality. It was highly publicized and anticipated since it was to be the first mega eco-city of its kind.
Slated to be twice the size of Manhattan, the site was an island near Shanghai and was to change the way humans interacted with their environment. The exodus of individuals from the countryside to cities in China, therefore creating more environmental waste, spurred a movement for more environment-friendly projects, and Dongtan was by far the most ambitious one.
The self-sustaining city would have produced its own energy from solar, wind, and bio-fuel power, and recycled city waste. Public transportation would have been powered by clean technologies such as hydrogen fuel cells, and a vast network of foot and bicycle paths would have substantially cut down on vehicle emissions. In addition, organic farming methods were to be used inside the city limits.
It was to be a green model for the entire world, but, like most projects of this scale, resistance and problems arose. Many considered it a pipe dream which was never really plausible, while others claimed China’s rapidly developing cities would negate any benefits Dongtan presented. When Shanghai’s mayor (the project’s biggest supporter) was arrested for property-related fraud in 2006, the plan fell into further disarray with permits lapsing and enthusiasm waning.
Eventually, the global recession all but sank the undertaking and the innovative ideas planned will have to be put on hold.

Slumless, Smokeless Cities

Sir Ebenezer Howard was the father of the garden city movement, which is a suburban town near a large, metropolitan city that is designed to not be reliant upon its bigger neighbor. Garden cities were intended to provide a pleasant environment with open public land while at the same time contain industry and agriculture. He succeeded in spearheading the building of many garden cities, beginning in the United Kingdom, to mixed results. But his vision of the slumless, smokeless cities model has gone unbuilt.
His design is very interesting, and if one is to peruse his self-drawn diagram, the aesthetics appear quite pleasing. A number of characteristics are notable. The entire design resembles a big wheel, with the Central City being the hub with six smaller, surrounding garden cities. Each city is surrounded by a circular canal, and one large circular canal, the Inter Municipal Canal, connects each of the six outer cities. Continuing with the canal theme, independent straight canals cut through all six cities and run directly into the Central City. Roads also ran along these straight waterways. Running inside the outer towns would be the Inter Municipal Railway. Inside the Railway, Howard planned for such things as farms, an insane asylum, reservoirs, an agricultural college, industrial homes, cemeteries, and a “home for waifs”.
The overall design was to relieve the huddled crowdedness and dirtiness of big cities but still have the feeling of connectivity. Since it would have been such a daunting project, and there wasn’t quite enough support for Howard’s plan, these connected cities never materialized.
California City

While this is a city that you can visit, you will never see its original plan fulfilled. Nat Mendelsohn was a developer who had a dream of developing a city that would rival Los Angeles in terms of grandeur. He ambitiously began building on a 320 square kilometer piece of land in the middle of California’s Mojave Desert complete with a huge park and artificial lake. If one were to look at a satellite picture of the city it may seem like Mendelsohn had at least come close to realizing his dream. However, if you are to look closer you would notice something conspicuously missing – houses.
Although hundreds of streets, complete with cul-de-sacs, crisscross in one continuous, gigantic grid, the network is just one, prodigious ghost town. But at least ghost towns have structures; these streets are lined with absolutely nothing, not even a telephone pole. It kind of looks like an intricate crop circle mysteriously made in the middle of the desert or threadbare hiking paths run amok twisting through the dirt and sand.
Mendelsohn had the same idea as many real estate developers of the time. He would buy a vast amount of land, divide it into thousands of home plots, then sell them to families who longed for a piece of property to call their own. The gamble did not pay off for him however, because 50 years later decaying streets still lie there empty. One reason is that dust storms are a common occurrence in the area, but he mainly overestimated demand.
The city is not empty though. It has a population of roughly 14,000 people comprising a small town. The entire town, however, only takes up a small corner on the outskirts of the boundless, barren grid. Although it’s a town with services, it will never be a large city the likes of Los Angeles that Nat Mendelsohn conceptualized.

Minnesota Experimental City

The Minnesota Experimental City (MXC) was the brainchild of a private partnership between the University of Minnesota and the Federal Government in the 1960s and would be intentionally open to observation and evaluation by urban studies experts. Like its name suggests, the city would be a combination of experimental ideas never before tried on such a large scale.
The city would accommodate about 250,000 people, and it would focus on open spaces such as parks, farms, and wilderness. Only one sixth of the area would be paved and the city would be partially covered by a geodesic dome (designed by Buckminster Fuller). This design is extraordinarily strong, is hurricane and tornado proof, and is widely used today. The city would be car-free, with cars parked at the edge and people-movers whisking people into the center of the city. A futuristic and highly advanced automated highway system, in which magnetic, driverless cars were used, would connect people to the outside world.
Perhaps the most drastic and controversial departure from conventional cities was that there would be no schools. Instead, the practice of lifelong learning would be practiced. Lifelong learning states that everyone is a teacher as well as a student and that education takes place through social interactions, observations, and joining groups and clubs among other things.
Budgetary problems as well as logistics quashed the city’s groundbreaking.

Welthauptstadt

Welthauptstadt Germania (World Capital Germania) was to be the jewel of the Third Reich. Adolph Hitler, unmatched in his hubris, was convinced that Germany would become the center of Europe, and perhaps the world, and had begun to plan his capital city, which was a rebuilt Berlin, even before World War II began. His goal was to exceed the quality and splendor of other world capitals such as London, Paris, and Washington D.C.
Plans for this grandiose city included a stadium that could house 400,000 spectators, a Chancellery with a lavish hall twice as long as the one at the Palace of Versailles, the Triumphal Arch (based on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris but much, much larger), and a giant open square to be surrounded by large government buildings. The centerpiece of the new city would be the Volkshalle, or People’s Hall, which would include a humongous domed building designed by Hitler himself and chief architect Albert Speer. If this domed building was built it would still today be the largest enclosed space in the world, being sixteen times larger than the dome at St. Peter’s.
Even though the War began before construction could begin and put a halt to commencing building, all the necessary land was acquired and engineering plans were developed. Hitler’s plan was to win the war, finish construction on Welthauptstadt, hold an extravagant World’s Fair there in 1950, then retire. Needless to say, the crushing of the Nazi regime and Third Reich at the hands of Allied forces put an end to the future of the great city.
One humorous aspect of the planning of Welthauptstadt is that the marshy-like ground of Berlin never could have supported the monstrous structures Hitler wanted as the showpieces of his city.

Seward’s Success

A planned city across the bay from Anchorage, Alaska, the name was a reversal on “Seward’s Folly” which was the name bestowed on the transaction that Secretary of State William Seward made when he purchased Alaska from Russia. It was to be a city unlike any in the world.
First and foremost, it was to have a colossal, glass dome covering it which made it completely climate controlled. The city would have amenities for 400,000 citizens including a sports arena, mall, schools, and petroleum center. Transportation would be quite innovative and included moving sidewalks and an aerial cable car line that would shuttle people around the city and to nearby Anchorage. Skylights and large windows would give people the sense of openness but would not compromise the climate-controlling properties of the dome. Cars would be nonexistent inside because it was a city “for people, not cars”, and all energy used in the city would be provided mostly by natural gas. Later, plans called for a subway under the bay that would also lead to Anchorage.
Failure to make lease payments on the land, and the impracticality of it all, ensured that Seward’s Success would, in the end, not be such a success.

BoozeTown

No, this was not an insincere idea concocted by someone just to garner attention. Back in the 50s it was the dream of one man who doggedly fought to make it an actuality. It was to be a resort city completely centered around the culture of drinking, where alcohol would be embraced, loved, and revered.
Mel Johnson loved to drink. As a young man he traveled the world to see the great drinking cities: Dublin, New York, Havana, Rio, Barcelona, New Orleans, and Paris. But the drinking culture of these cities just wasn’t enough for him; he wanted something more. He was a very intelligent man who dropped out of Harvard University and served in the armed forces, but after World War II he had his epiphany and set out to create BoozeTown.
His city would be comprised of dozens upon dozens of bars and nightclubs, all with different themes. He was meticulous in his planning and fleshed out every detail. Street names would allude to alcohol, such as Gin Lane, Bourbon Boulevard, and 21st Amendment Ave; there would be a moving sidewalk and an electric trolley system which would help escort staggering drunks home (or to another bar); much of the alcohol would be brewed or distilled inside the town which would produce revenue; every bar and liquor store would be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week; drinks would be allowed everywhere, even banks and places of worship; the city would have its own currency, BoozeBucks; there would be a police force, the Party Police, but instead of harassing drinkers they would be there to assist them; the BoozeTown Bugle would keep citizens abreast of the current news; and no children would be allowed inside. There would be a big daycare just outside city limits for visitors. Johnson figured that the permanent populace would consist of “retirees, artists, and goof-offs”, people who wouldn’t be responsible for children in the first place. He believed that famous artists, writers, and actors would in time flock to the city to live. In the middle of the city would be a towering building shaped like a martini glass in which Johnson would have his home and headquarters.
He scouted out areas for BoozeTown, such as somewhere in Middle America, northern Nevada, and an island off of the western coast of Mexico. Johnson had money from the death of his wealthy father but he needed much more capital and held numerous, lavish fundraisers in order to raise it. He printed up a plethora of trinkets such as maps, postcards, and matchbooks with BoozeTown’s logo on them to help persuade investors. At times, he believed he had enough money and set various opening dates for his city. However, very few people were actually serious about ponying up the money Johnson needed. This, added to the fact that he was acting increasingly more erratic and eccentric, and that the press was vilifying him, basically ended his dream of BoozeTown. In 1960 he gave up on the dream and was later committed to a hospital and diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. He died just a few years later.
You can almost picture yourself driving down an open stretch of road in the middle of nowhere then, suddenly, seeing a titanic martini glass pop up on the horizon beckoning you to come experience BoozeTown, “Where It’s Always Happy Hour”.

New year traditions

2012-04-19T08:40:00.000-07:00

Irish Wind

There is an Irish tradition of predicting the political future of the country by checking which way the wind blows at midnight on New Year’s Eve. If the wind is from the west, there is a chance that good fortune will reign that year. If the wind is from the east, however, the British will prevail. Mistletoe was handed out to ward off bad luck, and single women put a sprig of mistletoe under their pillows in hopes of catching a dream about their future husbands. Another tradition peculiar to Ireland is pounding on the doors and windows of the house with bread. This practice was to chase out evil spirits and ensure bread for the upcoming year.

Lavish Parties

Madeira, a Portugese island, holds a place in the Guinness Book of Records for the most lavish New Year’s party. In 2007, 8,000 fireworks per minute made up the display in Funchal, the capital city, for a total of 600,000 fireworks. Visitors from around the world fill the tiny harbor, where the dazzle is reflected. In 2009, the government is spending 12,000,000 Euros to ensure the most spectacular celebration anywhere in the world. Other famous fireworks displays take place in Rio de Janeiro, Sydney harbor, and, of course, New York City, were visitors watch the descent of the giant six-foot crystal ball marking the last moments of the old year.

Ancient History

New Year’s is the oldest holiday still being celebrated. The Babylonians celebrated the new year as early as 4000 B.C. At that time, the new year began on the first new moon after the Vernal Equinox. The celebration continued for eleven days, with each day having a different purpose and activity. Then, as now, resolutions were made. A common Babylonian resolution is to return borrowed farm equipment. At this time each year, the king was stripped of all power to undergo a ritual of humiliation, in which he was hit by the priest and separated from everyone for three days to pray. When he reappeared, ceremonies of restoration were performed to ensure that nature would support him during the coming year.

Imperial Ball

Austria has one of the most glamorous of New Year’s celebrations. At the Imperial Ball, a tradition of the Hapsburg dynasty that has continued for hundreds of years, dancers wear white gowns and black jackets. At midnight, “The Blue Danube,”is played. The Strauss operetta, “Die Fledermaus, is performed each New Year’s Day. Celebrants dine on suckling pig – considered good luck. The tables are often decorated with candy pigs. Children pour molten lead into a tub of water. A soothsayer then reads the shape of the lead. It is considered bad luck to find that your lead resembles an old woman.

Chinese New Year

By the Chinese calendar, the year 2009 is actually 4706, a year of the ox. Chinese New Year is celebrated on the second new moon after the winter solstice. In 2010, it will fall on February 14. Firecrackers and noisemakers will chase away evil spirits. The fabulous dragon and lion will dance in the streets. People will wear red, the most auspicious of colors, and red envelopes with lucky money will be given to children. Tangerines are often given for good luck, but odd numbers are unlucky, so the tangerines are given in pairs. The third day of the new year is the day the mice marry off their daughters, so people go to bed early, so they don’t disturb the mice.

Japanese New Year

It is traditional in Japan to spend a full week preparing for the new year to arrive. The house must be thoroughly cleaned, so that no evil spirits can linger. All debts must be paid. And most importantly, all disagreements must be resolved and forgiven. Before midnight, 108 bells ring, to symbolize the elimination of 108 troubles. With no troubles, disagreements, debts, or disorder to contend with, all are free to welcome in the new year with every expectation of peace and prosperity. The day after New Year’s is First Writing Day, when people write their hopes and dreams for the new year.

Emancipation Day

For African Americans, New Year’s Day has a special significance, and is often called Emancipation Day or Jubilee Day. On January 1, 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing all slaves from bondage, was read in Boston. Today, many African-American families hold “watch services” on January 1. Traditional foods include black-eyed peas, collard greens, ham hocks, and macaroni and cheese. The uniquely African-American celebration, Kwanzaa, continues over seven days starting December 26, so the New Year’s celebration is often part of Kwanzaa’s way of reconnecting people with their African roots. Kwanzaa began in the United States in the 1960s, and is not celebrated in Africa.

First Baby

Using a baby to symbolize the new year has been controversial from the beginning. Many cities watch for the first baby of the new year, to shower him or her with gifts from local merchants and lots of media attention. But parading a living baby through the streets brought disapproval from Greek mothers as early as 600 B.C. Egyptians also used a live human baby to symbolize the birth of a new year. Early Christians disapproved of the practice, but its popularity eventually overcame all objections, and the symbol remains one of the most popular. Today’s baby is traditionally a diapered boy with a sash labeled with the number of the upcoming year he represents.

First Footing

First-footing is an ancient European New Year’s custom that continues into the present in many areas. The first person to enter a home after midnight on the first day of the year should be a male, preferably with dark hair. Blondes may have been associated with Vikings – visitors who never brought good luck. The first-footer should carry a gift, such as a coin for prosperity, bread for food, salt for flavor, or whiskey to represent good cheer. The first-footer can be a resident of the house, but must not be inside during the hour leading up to midnight. No fair stepping outside and coming back in again!

World's scariest roads

2012-04-18T07:17:00.002-07:00

Kelly Road
Ohioville, Pennsylvania

A one-mile section of Kelly Road, Ohioville, Pennsylvania is an area that has had numerous reports of paranormal activity and bizarre happenings. Reports say that when animals have entered this haunted stretch of road they suddenly turn from peaceful and quiet to violent (think Cujo), chasing after other animals and even people. The road is surrounded by dark, thick and creepy forest where white apparitions and noises that can’t be explained have been seen and heard. No one is quite sure
why this short section of road is haunted but theories suggest that is could be somehow connected to cult activity that was once taking place in the area and curses that have been put on the land for some reason.

Dead Man’s Curve
Clermont County, Ohio

Most incredible graveyards

2012-04-18T07:05:00.003-07:00

Saint Louis Cemetery
New Orleans, Louisiana

This is actually three cemeteries. Each is worth visiting, though Saint Louis Cemetery #1 is, in my opinion, the most interesting, and the one I will be referring to. The tombs in Saint Louis are above ground, and the stone buildings are actually concealing bodies only a few feet away from the visitor. The reason for this is supposedly because the ground water level in New Orleans is impractical for burials, though there is some dispute of this. Saint Louis #1 is more than a little run down, and a tour guide is strongly recommended. Voodoo is alive and well in New Orleans and the tomb of Voodoo
Queen Marie LaVeau is supposedly located in the Glapion family crypt in Louis #1. When I visited, graffiti made this particular tomb hard to miss, but that was a few years ago, and I can’t vouch for what it looks like now. As an aside, when I visited I did not go with a tour. Aimless wandering through the one square block cemetery found many tombs that had been broken into, and more than a few remains scattered. This cemetery is not for the fainthearted.

Forest Lawn Memorial Parks
Glendale & Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles, California

Also: Hollywood Forever (Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.) Three places for the price of one! First, Forest Lawn: A unique entry… The creators of these parks wanted to approach the creation of a final resting place with a sunnier outlook. The result is practically a theme park for death. Traditional headstones are ditched in favor of markers set into the ground, and replicas of artwork –paintings and statuary- and famous buildings from all over the world, abound. If, for instance, you want to see the complete collection of Michelangelo’s sculptures but can’t afford to bounce around Europe, look no further. This cemetery contains the only complete collection in the world that is made from casts of the originals and marble from the same quarry Michelangelo used. Between Glendale and Hollywood Hills you can find the final resting place of what may seem like most of Hollywood (and you’ll find the rest at Hollywood Forever). Curiously, some of the graves are in a restricted section, among them Hollywood elite such as Humphrey Bogart, Nat King Cole and Mary Pickford, but most are available to the public. Some of the more visited markers are those of Walt Disney, L. Frank Baum, Errol Flynn, James Stewart, Spencer Tracy, Tex Avery, Scatman Crothers, Bette Davis, Marty Feldman, Buster Keaton, Fritz Lang, Liberace, Telly Savales (buried with a lollipop!), and many, many more. Hollywood Forever is located nearby, adjacent to the north wall of Paramount studios. It is less popular because it spent the latter part of the 20th century being run down and financially mismanaged. It was purchased by its current owners in 1998 and refurbished. Movies are screened there in the summertime, drawing hundreds of visitors. Famous occupants include Mel Blanc, Cecille B. DeMille, Douglas Fairbanks, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., George Harrison, Johnny and Dee Dee Ramone, Rudolph Valentino, and my all time favorite actor, Peter Lorre.
Green-Wood Cemetery
Brooklyn, New York

Boasting 600,000 graves spread out over 478 acres, this site is a popular tourist attraction for those visiting New York City. Like Père-Lachaise, there was a campaign to promote the cemetery involving moving famous bodies there and donating monuments. Unlike Père-Lachaise, the plan didn’t really work, and from the time it was opened in 1838 until the building of the Brooklyn Bridge in 1883 made it easier to get there, the cemetery did not get that many permanent residents. Those that did come to stay had plenty of room to do so, however. There are hundreds of ornate tombs for famous and non-famous residents alike, but the site still seems wide open. Most New Yorkers who made their name in the second half of the 19th century (a prolific chunk of time for famous New Yorkers) can be found here. There are also war memorials and monuments, including an Obelisk that serves as a grave marker for 103 of the nearly 300 victims of the Brooklyn Theater Fire.
Old Jewish Cemetery
Josefov, Prague, Chzech Republic

Easily the oldest cemetery on this list, with the earliest discernable headstone dating back to 1439, the Old Jewish Cemetery operated until 1787, which means it closed before most of the entries on this list had opened. The headstones bear this out, jumbled at strange angles and deeply weatherworn. Ropes divide the walkway from the headstones, and tickets can be bought to see the cemetery individually or in addition to visiting the surrounding synagogues. Interestingly, while many Jewish cemeteries were destroyed during the holocaust, Hitler specifically requested this one remain intact, as he apparently intended to build a museum here after his assumed victory.

Zentralfriedhof
Simmering, Vienna, Austria

At 2.4 square kilometers, it is the second largest cemetery (after Hamburg) in Europe. It also, at 3.3 million occupants, is the largest in Europe by number interred. Conveniently, the most famous occupants of Zentralfriedhof are located in a section called the Ehrengräber. Just as Vienna is the capital of classical music, so the Ehrengräber is the home of many classical musicians and composers, many of whom where moved from other cemeteries (to complete the collection, so to speak). Here you will find Ludiwg Van Beethoven, Johannes Brahms, Antonio Salieri, Franz Schubert, Johann Strauss (I&II), and, interestingly, Falco (of Der Kommissar fame).
Merry Cemetery
Săpânţa, Maramureş county, Romania

A strangely joyous cemetery, Merry Cemetery contains hundreds of wooden markers brightly painted with scenes from the lives (and sometimes the demise) of the deceased, as well as poems about their lives. There is little or no weather proofing on the markers, so that the paint fades with the memories of the dearly departed. You can find many pictures of markers here, with translations of some of the inscriptions.
Protestant Cemetery
Near Porta San Paolo, Rome, Italy

Also known as the Englishman’s cemetery and the Non-Catholic Cemetery, the latter moniker applies the best. This was the place to bury those who died in and around Rome but who where not Catholic. The most recognizable feature of the cemetery is probably the Pyramid of Cestius, a small scale Egyptian style pyramid built around 18 to 12 B.C. that is the tomb of a Gaius Cestius Epulo, making it the oldest tomb in the cemetery by over a century and a half. It was incorporated into the city fortification known as the Aurelian Walls, which were, in turn, later used as a partial border to the cemetery. The first modern burials date from the mid 1700’s. Its most famous residents include the poets John Keats and Percy Shelley, making it a pilgrimage site for fans of Romantic poetry. An interesting story surrounds the burial of Percy Shelley. Though he was cremated on the beach near where he drowned, his ashes (minus his heart, which would be buried with Mary Shelley years later) where to be interred here. The body of his son, William Shelley, also buried in the Protestant Cemetery, was exhumed to join his father. Unfortunately, the body exhumed was that of a 5 1/2 foot man, not the body of a three year old boy. In the end, William Shelley’s body was never found, and Percy Shelley was buried without him.
Cimetière du Père-Lachaise
Paris, France

Located east of Paris’ city center, Père-Lachaise has become arguably the most famous cemetery in the world, boasting hundreds of thousands of visitors a year. It was not always this popular, though. When it was first opened in 1804, no one wanted to be buried there because it had no history. In a campaign to promote the cemetery, famous bodies where actually moved to Père-Lachaise, among them Molière and the famed lovers, Heloise and Abelard. This unusual attention grabber worked, and Père-Lachaise became the place to go when you were done going places. There are so many famous buried in Père-Lachaise, it could make up its own list. Off the top of my head: Marcel Proust, Gertrude Stein, Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde, Isadora Duncan, Camille Pissarro, Édith Piaf, Marcel Marceau, Ticky Holgado, Max Ernst, Colette, Frederic Chopin, Sarah Bernhardt, and Honore de Balzac.

La Recoleta Cemetery
Buenos Aires, Argentina

Always topping lists of places to visit in Buenos Aires, the Cementerio de la Recoleta is a fascinating glimpse into Argentine history. The most famous tomb is undoubtedly that of Eve Peron’s, but there are many more Argentinean politicians, poets and personalities. The cemetery is designed much like a city, with wide avenues branching off into alleyways, all lined with “houses” for individuals and families. Many are exceptionally well maintained, but there are many more that no longer have family members to maintain them and have thus fallen into disrepair. There are stories of crypts being used as maintenance closets, with cleaning supplies stored on top of coffins. Among the tombs that have been maintained, you will find many sculptures that have been declared national historic monuments, as well as a myriad of styles, from Egyptian to Gothic to Art Deco. Another interesting note: among Argentina’s rich and famous deceased, you may also find a colony of feral cats that have made Cementerio de la Recoleta their home, and who are often fed by the locals.

Bizarre landmines countries

2012-04-17T05:17:00.003-07:00

Land mines are controversial because they remain dangerous after the conflict in which they were deployed, killing and injuring civilians and rendering land impassable and unusable for decades. The International Campaign to Ban Landmines has sought to prohibit their use, culminating in the 1997 Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction, known informally as the Ottawa Treaty. The UN estimates that with current technology, it will take nearly 1,100 years to clear all the mines in the world.

Mozambique

Landmine Count: 3 million
After almost thirty years of war, Mozambique is one of the poorest countries in Africa. Grain must be imported and the economy depends heavily on foreign aid. Mozambique is faced with desertification, pollution of surface and coastal waters, and severe drought and floods in the central and southern provinces. In addition, much of its farmable land is unusable because of landmines. “Perhaps the most devastating use of land mines was the random dissection of mines in fields and
along access paths to stop peasants from producing food,” notes Human Rights Watch Africa in a report entitled “Land Mines and Economic Life”. Mines manufactured in 15 different countries were used by all sides in the fighting, accelerating a devastating famine cycle in the 1980s that sent a huge refugee exodus across the borders with South Africa, Zambia, Tanzania and Malawi. According to Handicap International, an estimated 20 people step on landmines every month in Mozambique. Sixty percent of them die because they lack access to health services. In 1996, Mozambique’s Defense Minister estimated that there were still about 3 million landmines in Mozambique. The devastation caused by mines in Mozambique is striking. In addition to farmable land, power lines, roads, bridges, railroads, and airports, even schools, factories and cattle dip tanks were mined. Wildlife is also threatened by mines: elephants have been found maimed by anti-personnel mines and killed by anti-tank mines. The average life expectancy in Mozambique is about 46 years.

Bosnia-Herzegovina

Landmine Count: 3 million
Bosnia-Herzegovina is heavily contaminated with landmines and explosive remnants of war, primarily as a result of the 1992-1995 conflict related to the break-up of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The mine contamination is generally low density. Mines were used extensively along confrontation lines, which moved frequently. Most minefields are in the zone of separation between the two entities; this is 1,100 kilometers long and up to four kilometers wide. In southern and central Bosnia-Herzegovina, mines were often used randomly, with little record keeping. Some of the affected territory is mountainous or heavily forested, but the fertile agricultural belt in Brčko District is one of the most heavily contaminated areas. Every month landmines kill or injure 30-35 people, 80% of them civilians. The presence of these deadly weapons is hindering reconstruction, severely reducing food production and diverting resources needed to rebuild society. So far, only a small percentage of mine-contaminated land has been cleared according to humanitarian standards. Most minefields remain unmarked.
Kuwait

Landmine Count: 5 million
Kuwait’s history has been filled with stress due to the vast amount of oil found throughout the country. During the Gulf War, Iraq occupied Kuwait from August 1990 until February 1991. The Iraqi troops planted millions of AP and AT mines in the “Kuwait Theater of Military Operations.” Approximately 97.8 percent of Kuwait’s land became mined or UXO affected. Heavily mined areas were the northern cost of Kuwait Bay and the Kuwait-Saudi Arabia border. Immediately after Kuwait’s liberation, the government planned for an integrated mine action program. The duration was 24 months and cost $128 million (U.S.). According to the Landmine Monitor Report, as of April 3, 1999, almost 2 million landmines had been recovered from coastal and desert areas of Kuwait. A mine awareness program was also established to inform civilians about the dangers of landmines.
Cambodia

Landmine Count: 8-10 million
Three decades of war in Cambodia have left scars in many forms throughout the country. Unfortunately, one of the most lasting legacies of the conflicts continues to claim new victims daily. Land mines, laid by the Khmer Rouge, the Heng Samrin and Hun Sen regimes, the Vietnamese, the KPNLF, and the Sihanoukists litter the countryside. In most cases, even the soldiers who planted the mines did not record where they were placed. Now, Cambodia has the one of the highest rates of physical disability of any country in the world. While census data for Cambodia is sketchy, it is generally accepted that more than 40,000 Cambodians have suffered amputations as a result of mine injuries since 1979. That represents an average of nearly forty victims a week for a period of twenty years. While it is believed that no military groups are still deploying mines, the devices are still being used in new and horrible ways: Civilians have used mines to protect property and settle disputes; poachers are reportedly using mines to hunt tigers, which are prized for use in medicines in neighboring Vietnam; and in once incident in 1998, police surrounded a forest with mines in order to capture a murder suspect who had hidden there. He emerged from the forest and stepped on a mine, and was then shot to death by police. At the current rate of progress, it may take as many as 100 years to clear all the mines in Cambodia.

Iraq

Landmine Count: 10 million
Iraq is severely affected by mines and unexploded ordnance (UXO) as a result of the 1991 Gulf War, the 1980-1988 Iraq-Iran War, two decades of internal conflict, and even World War Two. Landmines and UXO pose a problem in the north, along the Iran-Iraq border, and throughout the central and southern regions of the country. The number of mines planted in Iraq is not known, but it is estimated by the United Nations to be at least 10 million. A recently completed Landmine Impact Survey confirmed that all twenty-five districts in the three provinces (governorates) comprising northern Iraq are mine-affected, and 3,444 distinct areas suspected of mine and/or UXO contamination affect over 148,000 families (more than one in five) living in 1,096 mine-affected communities.
Afghanistan

Landmine Count: 10 million
Afghanistan has suffered greatly from war since 1978, and all sides to the various armed conflicts have used antipersonnel mines, particularly Soviet forces and the Afghan government from 1979 to 1992. Landmines have been planted indiscriminately over most of the country. Agricultural farms, grazing areas, irrigation canals, residential areas, roads and footpaths, both in urban and rural areas, are contaminated. Mines are a major obstacle to repatriation, relief, rehabilitation and development activities. Landmines kill or maim an estimated ten to twelve people each day in Afghanistan. It is believed that almost 50 percent of landmine victims die due to lack of medical facilities.
Angola

Landmine Count: 10 to 20 million
Estimates of the number of Angolan landmines range between 10 and 20 million, which equates to at least 1 to 2 land mines for every person in the country. U.N. estimates put the number of Angolan amputees resulting from the silent killers at 70,000. For three decades mines were scattered in Angola’s fields, villages, roads, and other unexpected places to intimidate, maim and kill innocent victims. Land mines have a devastating effect upon the environment by restricting the movement of people, deterring farming, disrupting economies, and killing and mutilating many innocent men, women, and children. In 1993 a UN General Resolution moratorium on the sale and export of antipersonnel land mines was passed. However, international consensus has yet to be achieved and Angola’s problem continues unabated.
Iran

Landmine Count: 16 million
Landmine and unexploded ordnance (UXO) contamination in west and southwest Iran, particularly the provinces of Kurdistan, Western Azerbaijan, Khuzestan, and Kermanshah, results from the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq conflict. Government officials claim that Iraq planted some 16 million landmines in Iran during the 1980s, contaminating an area of over 42,000 square kilometers. Landmines and UXO are reported to have severely limited agricultural production in the five provinces along the Iraqi border. They also compromise exploitation of oil fields. Mine and UXO contamination has affected historical sites and hindered archeological studies in southwest Iran.
Egypt

Landmine Count: 23 million
World War II and the Egypt-Israel wars of 1956, 1967, and 1973 have left Egypt a mine-affected country. Egypt often cites a figure of 23 million landmines buried in the country. Egypt’s problem stems from the fact that its land mines are old and hard to locate and were designed for use against tanks, whereas international criticism is generally focused on anti-personnel mines. According to the ministry of defense, mines have hampered human and economic development and have killed and injured thousands of civilians. Seven million mines have been cleared from the western desert in the past 15 years and three million from the Sinai desert. The nomadic people refer to waste tracts of desert minefields as “The Devil’s Garden.”

Somalia

Landmine Count: 1 million
The mine problem in Somalia is a result of various internal and regional conflicts over an almost 40-year period, with the first reported occurrence of mine-laying in 1964. Central and southern Somalia are heavily contaminated with mines and unexploded ordnance (UXO). The UN claims that the socioeconomic impact of landmines can be seen in almost every aspect of Somali society: reduced land available for livestock and agricultural production, increased transportation costs, poor performance of rehabilitation and development efforts, loss of life, disabilities, a general lack of security of communities, and obstacles to repatriation and reintegration. Casualties continue to be reported from mines and UXO. The UN also believes, however, that the mine and UXO threat in Somalia is “a finite problem” and one that “given sustained attention,” can be solved in a seven- to ten-year period with adequate resources. Somalia cannot accede to the Mine Ban Treaty because it has been without a central government since the 1991 fall of the government of Siyad Barre.

Most weird streets

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Pan-American Highway
The Americas

Claim To Fame: World’s longest road
The Pan-American Highway is the longest motoring road in the world. It has replaced Yonge Street (in Toronto Canada) as the longest road since changes were made to the configuration of Highway 11 and Yonge Street in the 1990s. The Pan-American highway links the mainland nations of the Americas and is an amazing 48,000 kilometers (29,800 miles) long. The highway passes through 15 nations, including the USA, Canada, Mexico, Peru, Argentina, and El Salvador.

Parliament Street
England

Claim To Fame: World’s narrowest street
Parliament Street is in Exeter, England. It is the narrowest street in the world, measuring less than 0.64m (25″) at its narrowest point. It was originally called Small Street (for reasons that are obvious) but was renamed when parliament passed an act of law that expanded the representation of the people in the house of commons. The street dates from the 1300s and it is 50 meters long.
Road To Giza
Egypt

Claim To Fame: World’s oldest paved road
The Road to Giza is the world’s oldest known paved road. The road is over 4,600 years old and is six and a half feet wide. It covered a distance of seven and a half miles – connecting the quarries to the Southwest of Cairo, to the quay on Lake Moeris which connected to the Nile. The road was used to transport the enormous blocks of basalt to Giza where they were used for building (especially for paving).

9 de Julio Avenue
Argentina

Claim To Fame: World’s widest street
9 de Julio Avenue (meaning 9th of July Avenue – in honor of Argentina’s independence day) is the widest street in the world. It has six lanes in each direction and it spans an entire city block. There is a single building that sits on the Avenue (the former Ministry of Communications building) but there are many famous landmarks along the side – such as the old French Embassy, a statue of Don Quixote, and the famous obelisk (visible in the picture above) and Plaza de la República.
Lombard Street
United States

Claim To Fame: World’s crookedest street
Lombard Street in San Francisco is famous for its bizarre hair-pin turns. There are eight of the turns (called switchbacks) and the street is known as the “crookedest street in the world”. The turns were added because the street would have been too steep for most vehicles (though it would still be less steep than the street in item 1). The twisting section of Lombard Street is now one way – in order to make it safer and there is a parking ban in place.
The Magic Roundabout
England

Claim To Fame: World’s worst roundabout
Anyone who has been on the Internet for a while will recognize the Magic Roundabout – it has appeared in virtually every “funny picture” list you can find. The roundabout is a real roundabout in Swindon, England. It was built in 1972 and it includes 5 other smaller roundabouts. To make matters worse, you must travel anti-clockwise (the reverse of the normal situation on British roundabouts) when you enter the smaller central roundabout. The Swindon Junction has been voted the worst junction in Great Britain.
Savoy Court
England

Claim To Fame: Only street in Britain where you must drive on the right
As most of our readers will know, the British drive on the left (unlike Europe and the United States). But there is one exception to this rule: Savoy Court is the only street in Britain where cars must legally drive on the right. Apparently this dates back to the old Hackney Cabs – by driving on the right, the driver was able to open the backdoor without leaving the cab, allowing the passengers to alight on the sidewalk. This is allowed by a special act of parliament.
Steepest Street
New Zealand

Claim To Fame: Steepest street in the world
Baldwin Street in Dunedin, New Zealand boasts the steepest street. New Zealand has many cities built on or around mountainous and hilly areas, and Dunedin is no exception. This street (and many others in New Zealand) were designed by British town planners who had never been to the country. They simply overlaid a grid pattern on the map and had no idea that they had made impossible or ridiculous design choices. The slope on Baldwin street has a 35% grade. The road is so steep that at the top it is made of concrete because the usual road surfacing material used in New Zealand (asphalt) would slide down the street in hot weather.

Ebenezer Place
Scotland

Claim To Fame: World’s Shortest street
Ebenezer Place is the shortest street in the world, measuring just 2.06 meters (6.8 ft). There is just one house on the street, number 1 Ebenezer Place which was built in 1883. The building is a hotel (Mackays) and the owner was instructed to paint a street name on its shortest side. It was officially declared a street in 1887.

Abandoned places

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The Ghost City – an apocalyptic inspiration for filmmakers for as long as I can remember. There is nothing more surreal than witnessing an abandoned city, and writers through the ages have grabbed hold of this fact with both hands. Introducing us to all forms of abandonment. From the 1948 Ghost-Town-Western ‘Yellow Sky’ starring Gregory Peck, to the deserted London streets of Danny Boyle’s ’28 Days Later’. The frightful tension associated with popular 90′s video game ‘Silent Hill’, to the post-apocalyptic nothingness of Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer-winning novel ‘The Road’. The theme is well-trodden, everywhere you may choose to glance. An excellent backdrop to any form of entertainment, whether it be film, literature or anything else for that matter.
There is however some degree of foundation to this surreality. The ghost town is common among the Americas, especially in the Central and Southern states. Surveys suggest that there are around 6,000 abandoned sites of settlement in Kansas alone. But what can cause such large-scale loss of population? One of the main factors is depleting natural resources, linking to roads and railways bypassing certain places. Another more sinister cause can be disaster, whether natural or man-made. Such was the case with Patton, Missouri. After being flooded over 30 times since their town was founded in 1845, residents tired after two floods in 1993. With government help, the whole town was rebuilt three miles away, now known as New Pattonsburg, leaving the old Pattonsburg behind as a ghost town.

San Zhi, Taiwan

More of a modern choice this time. Below is an abandoned City in the North of Taiwan. In the area of ‘San Zhi’, this futuristic pod village was initially built as a luxury vacation retreat for the rich. However, after numerous fatal accidents during construction, production was halted. A combination
of lack of money and lack of willingness meant that work was stopped permanently, and the alien like structures remain as if in remembrance of those lost. Indeed, rumors in the surrounding area suggest that the City is now haunted by the ghosts of those who died.
After this the whole thing received the cover-up treatment. And the Government, who commissioned the site in the first place was keen to distance itself from the bizarre happenings. Thanks to this, there are no named architects. The project may never be restarted thanks to the growing legend, and there would be no value in re-developing the area for other purpose. Maybe simply because destroying homes of lonely spirits is a bad thing to do. San Zhi can also be seen from an aeriel view here.

Varosha, Cyprus

Varosha is in the Turkish occupied city of Famagusta in Cyprus. It was previously a modern tourist area, and flowered into one of the most luxurious holiday destinations. In the year of 1974 however, the Turkish invaded Cyprus and tore up the island. Citizens fled, expecting to be able to return to their homes within days. The Turkish military wrapped it in barbed wire and now controls it completely. Allowing nobody to enter to this day, aside from themselves and UN personnel. The buildings are slowly falling apart. Though on the positive side, rare sea turtles have begun nesting on the deserted beaches.
The Annan Plan had provided for the return of Varosha to Greek Cypriot control, but after the rejection of the proposal by Greek Cypriot voters this hand-over to Greek-Cypriots has not materialized. That is not the end of the story, as the Governments are working together to plan a complete revival of Varosha to its former beauty. Currently, three concept hotel complexes have been designed by Laxia Inc. And by 2010, the de facto “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus” will apparently open Varosha to tourism once again.

Gunkanjima, Japan

Hashima Island (端島; meaning Border Island) is one among 505 uninhabited islands in the Nagasaki Prefecture of Japan about 15 kilometers from Nagasaki itself. It is also known as “Gunkan-jima” or Battleship Island thanks to its high sea walls. It began in 1890 when a company called Mitsubishi bought the island and began a project to retrieve coal from the bottom of the sea. This attracted much attention, and in 1916 they were forced to build Japan’s first large concrete building on the island. A block of apartments that would both accommodate the seas of workers and protect them from hurricanes.
In 1959, population had swelled, and boasted a density of 835 people per hectare for the whole island (1,391 per hectare for the residential district) – one of the highest population densities ever recorded worldwide. As petroleum replaced coal in Japan in the 1960′s, coal mines began shutting down all over the country, and Hashima’s mines were no exception. In 1974 Mitsubishi officially announced the closing of the mine, and today it is empty and bare, with travel currently prohibited. The island was the location for the 2003 film ‘Battle Royale II’ and inspired the final level of popular Asian videogame ‘Killer7′.

Balestrino, Italy

Balestrino is quite a strange case in that it was extremely difficult to find any decent information on it. At least on the abandonment itself. No one is quite sure when the town was established, though records date back to before the eleventh century – when Balestrino was owned by the Benedictine abbey of San Pietro dei Monti. As you can see from the pictures, the upper part of the town consists of a Castle (of Marquis) and the lower part a parish church (of Sant’Andrea). Records of population go back to around 1860, when around 800-850 people lived there. Mainly famers who took advantage of the landscape to farm olive trees.
In the late nineteenth century, the North-West coast of Italy was struck by numerous earhquakes. One of these in 1887 (magnitude 6.7) destroyed some villages in the area of Savona, and although no official records show Balestrino was affected it coincides with much repair work and a dip in population. Finally in 1953 the town was abandoned due to ‘geological instablility’, and the remaining inhabitants (around 400) were moved to safer ground to the west. The derelict part of Balestrino that has stood untouched and inaccessible for fifty plus years is currently undergoing planning for redevelopment. Today around 500 people remain in the town’s newer area which is a good kilometer down the road.

Katoli World, Taiwan

I thought I would break out of the abandoned residential mould and look at something inspired by Miyazaki’s Oscar winning ‘Spirited Away’. Those who have seen it will know that the family stumbles across an old theme park at the start of the movie, one that was built in the eighties but has since lost popularity and been abandoned. Well this is a usual occurence in Asia, one can find many amusement parks that have been left to rust. Here is just one of them, though one that was forced to close for something other than financial loss.
Katoli World is situated in the Dakeng Scenic area just outside of Taichung, Taiwan. Opened in the mid eighties, it enjoyed moderate success as one of the few theme parks on the island of Taiwan to host a rollercoaster (two). The park was closed after a massive earthquake on September 21st, 1999. Thousands of people were killed during the quake but nobody inside the park as it struck after opening hours. Large areas of the park were destroyed and it was forced to close. A place once vivid with young laughter is now slowly turning to rust.

Centralia, Pennsylvania

Johnathan Faust opened Bull’s Head Tavern in Centralia in 1841, and Centralia was incorporated as a borough in 1866. The anthracite coal industry was the principal employer in the community until the 1960s, when most of the companies went out of business. An exposed vein of coal ignited in 1962 thanks to weekly garbage burning, and as a result a huge underground coal fire commenced. Attempts to extinguish the fire were unsuccessful, and it continued to burn throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Adverse health effects were reported by several people due to the carbon monoxide produced.
In 1979, locals became aware of the scale of the problem when a gas station reported a fuel temperature of 172 degrees Fahrenheit (77.8°C). This provoked widespread attention, boosted in 1981 when a 12-year-old almost plunged to his death as a 4 foot wide, 150 foot deep sinkhole suddenly opened beneath his feet. In 1984, $42 million was spent on relocation, with most residents moving to the nearby Mount Carmel and Ashland. In 1992, Pennsylvania condemned all houses within the borough, meaning that of the 1,000+ residents in 1981 – only a handful now remain – mainly priests. The fire still rages on, and according to experts could do so for another 250 years.

Yashima, Japan

Yashima is an imposing plateau to the northeast of Takamatsu, the second largest city on Shikoku – which is one of Japan’s major islands. This plateau stretches out to sea, and can be seen in the fifth photo below. It is the site of a famous battle that took place on 22nd March 1185 during the Genpei War. The top of Yashima hosts the Yashima Temple, which is a well-known Shikoku pilgrimage. This is about the only thing that does draw crowds to this strangely neglected geographical anomaly, but it wasn’t always so.
During an upsurge in mid-eighties’ Japanese economy, the people of Takamatsu decided that the plateau was an excellent place to encourage tourism, so took to pouring money into developing this sacred land. Six hotels were built, along with many parks and trails – even an aquarium. Though somewhere along the line people realized that Yashima plateau wasn’t so such an attractive opportunity, especially with views of the nearby rock quarry. Visitor numbers then dropped as millions of Yen were lost on inflated real-estate deals. All the hotels and shops were forced to shut down, as was the cable car that at one point transported many to Yashima’s heights.

Pripyat, Ukraine

Pripyat is an abandoned city in the Zone of alienation in northern Ukraine, Kiev Oblast, near the border with Belarus. The city population had been around 50,000 – and had been home to most of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant workers. Then the Chernobyl disaster struck in 1986 and the place was abandoned due to threat of radiation. Afterwards Pripyat acted like a museum for a long time, perfectly showing a slice of Soviet life. However at some time at the beginning of the 21st century the place was looted heavily, nothing was left behind – even toilet seats were stolen.
The city will not be safe for human habitation for several years to come, and even then it will be a long time before people consider it healthy to develop once again. Before the power plant was built, concerns were voiced at its planned closeness to the city of Kiev. They had planned to build it only 25 km away, placing the capital at risk from pollution amongst other things. However after a long debate they decided to build Chernobyl along with Pripyat 100 km away from Kiev. A choice that would in the end prove to be a wise one.

Craco, Italy

Craco is located in the Region of Basilicata and the Province of Matera. About 25 miles inland from the Gulf of Taranto at the instep of the “boot” of Italy. This medieval town is typical of those in the area, built up with long undulating hills all around that allow for the farming of wheat and other crops. Craco can be dated back to 1060 when the land was in the ownership of Archbishop Arnaldo, Bishop of Tricarico. This long-standing relationshop with the Church had much influence over the inhabitants throughout the ages.
In 1891, the population of Craco stood at well over 2,000 people. Though there had been many problems, with poor agricultural conditions creating desperate times. Between 1892 and 1922 over 1,300 people moved from the town to North America. Poor farming was added to by earthquakes, landslides, and War – all of which contributed to this mass migration. Between 1959 and 1972 Craco was plagued by these landslides and quakes. In 1963 the remaining 1,800 inhabitants were transferred to a nearby valley called Craco Peschiera, and the original Craco remains in a state of crumbling decay to this day.

Bodie, California

Founded in 1876, Bodie is the authentic American ghost town. It started life as a small mining settlement, though found even more fortune from nearby mines that attracted thousands. By 1880 Bodie boasted a population of almost 10,000 – such was the boom. At its peak, 65 saloons lined the town’s main street, and there was even a Chinatown with several hundred Chinese residents.
Dwindling resources proved fatal however, and although greatly reduced in prominence, Bodie held a permanent residency through most of the 20th century. Even after a fire ravaged much of the downtown business district in 1932. Bodie is now unpopulated. The town was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1961, and in 1962 it became Bodie State Historic Park as the few residents left moved on.
Today, Bodie is preserved in a state of arrested decay. Only a small part of the town survives. Visitors can walk the deserted streets of a town and interiors remain as they were left and stocked with goods. Bodie is open all year, but the long road that leads to it is usually closed in the winter due to heavy snowfall, so the most comfortable time to visit is during the summer months.

Latin American travel experiences

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For those of you enjoying summer vacations, and for those us making plans for our vacation when winter ends, here is a great list of places to visit in Latin America. If you can’t visit Europe, it doesn’t mean you have to stay local for your holidays! For the purposes of this list, I have generally left out more frequently-visited spots such as Cancun, Acapulco, Costa Rica and Miami (considered by many to be part of Latin America) in the hope that people will want to venture beyond the tourist route and explore the real soul of this immense, diverse and beautiful part of the world. Feel free to share your own favorite Latin American travel experiences.

Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia

The world’s largest salt flat is located in Bolivia, and it offers one of the most unique landscapes on the planet. The Salar de Uyuni covers over 12,000 sq km, and the salt is over 10 meters thick in the center, creating in effect a salt tundra. In summer, the salt planes are a completely flat and bone-dry expanse, but in the wet season, it is covered with a thin sheet of water that is still drivable. Rent a
land rover for a camping trip, or stay in a hotel that’s completely made of salt! Definitely for the more seasoned trekker, but a truly unforgettable experience. You’ll probably never walk on the moon, but in Uyuni, you’ll come pretty close.

Bocas del Toro, Panama

If you’re like me and passionately detest the hordes of tourists one associates with Costa Rica or other destinations, Panama might be a great alternative for you. Bocas del Toro is a small archipelago on the country’s western coast. Remote and difficult to access even today, the region’s indigenous and West African cultures have flourished over the centuries, and one usually hears more English or Creole than Spanish here. Check out nearby Red Frog beach for a quiet getaway, or take in some great snorkling in the reefs. Stay too long, and you’re likely to stay for good.
Jalisco state, Mexico

If there is such thing as a perfect climate, you’ll likely find it in Jalisco. Most come to Jalisco for the beaches of Puerto Vallarta, and it is undoubtedly a beautiful place. But if that’s not your thing, stay in the historic center of Guadalajara for some great food, music and museums – Old Mexico at its finest. Or tour the Jose Cuervo distillery for some free samples. You can also find less-crowded beaches like Barra de Navidad, La Manzanilla or San Patricio. Jalisco has much to offer, and you could easily spend weeks wandering around without even leaving the state. [Image Source]
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Founded in the 16th Century as a fortification against French pirates stalking the Portuguese trade routes, Rio has become one of those places whose very name conjures images of steamy tropical nights, sensual Latin rhythms and beautiful, scantily-clad women. And that’s pretty accurate. Take in the Carnival atmosphere of the “cidade maravilhosa” along Impanema or Copacabana beach, or a panoramic flight around Sugarloaf Mountain in a helicopter (well worth it). Sadly, Rio does have a reputation for crime, and you should take certain precautions while visiting, but don’t let it keep you away.

Torres del Paine, Chile

At the southern tip of the New World lies Torres del Paine National Park, in Patagonian Chile. Visiting here might leave you with the impression that you have reached the end of the earth, and that you’d be crazy to go one step further for fear of falling into some infinite abyss. In other words, it be way down there. The park is home to lakes, vast glaciers and mountains massive and sheer. It’s certainly a must-do for the outdoorsman, but it offers something else, not easily explained in a travel brochure. Somewhere between the deafening silence in the air, the mighty rocks crowned with mist and snow, and the eternal and inexorable march of the glacial ice, you will feel as though you have borne witness to the dawn of creation itself, and it’s extraordinary.
Buenos Aires, Argentina

Tango, Madonna and escaped Nazis. That’s the extent of most people’s knowledge of this sprawling Argentine metropolis. Nevermind the quintessentially European feel of the place, it’s affordability, its world-class restaurants, its nightlife, its wine, its art. Nevermind the flourishing rock/hip-hop music scene, the internationally-renowned fashion industry or the cultural diversity born from being the capital of a nation of immigrants. Nevermind that you can fly there directly from the U.S., Europe and Australia for a reasonable price. Madonna? Who’s that?
Galapagos Islands, Ecuador

The Galapagos archipelago was claimed by the newly-independent Republic of Ecuador in 1832. Three years later, some egghead named Darwin visited the islands and came up with some universally popular scientific theories. Come to the Galapagos and it’s easy to see why he chose this spot. Giant tortoises, sea lions, penguins, albatrosses and countless other species rarely seen anywhere else can all be witness in this relatively small 19-island chain. Arrange your trip early, as restrictions to the delicate biosphere are understandably tight. And make sure you spend a few days there to help the local economy.
Jau National Park, Brazil

Amazonia. Vast beyond comprehension, remote, and tragically delicate. Spanning Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru, Suriname, Guyana and French Guiana, the Amazon is one of the last frontiers, and it’s disappearing at a staggering rate. There are many points of entry to the region, and one of the best is located near Manaus in Brazil’s Amazonas state. Follow a straight-line road 200 km to Jau National Park, a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site. Tropical, constantly wet (it IS a rain forest) and home to myriad species of dolphins, fish, birds, crocodiles, turtles, monkeys, jaguars, tapirs and insects, the park can be explored by boat for the adventurous or by foot for the suicidal. Fall asleep in a hammock to the calls of the wild, and be grateful to have glimpsed the splendor of this ecological treasure before it’s gone forever.
Machu Picchu, Peru

The Empire of the Inca once ruled supreme across the inhospitable mountains of Peru. Remarkably, they constructed entire stone cities without the need for cement, and built sprawling networks of roads along the spine of the Andes which are still passable today. The most famous is the Camino del Inca, or the Inca Trail. Hire a guide to take you on the four-day journey from Cuzco to Machu Picchu, once a great mountain stronghold of the Inca. If the altitude gets to you, chew on some coca leaves (yes, it’s legal – no, it’s not cocaine) while you take in some of the most breathtaking vistas the Western Hemisphere has to offer. Passing through the Sun Gate as the morning fog slowly fades over the spectral city, long before the tour buses arrive from Cuzco, you might feel as though Machu Picchu has been waiting hundreds of years just for you.
Contributor: Gringo Joe

Peten Region, Guatemala

Take one of the direct international flights into Flores to explore this wondrous region. From the cobblestone streets of colonial Flores to the imposing Mayan ruins of Tikal, Peten offers an affordable and safe alternative for visitors to Guatemala. On a steamy summer day, you can dip into the cool waters of Lake Peten Itza or tour the caves of Ak’tun Kan. And make sure you take away some of the great local habanero chile salsa, unless you’re just too afraid of it.

incredible places for travelers

2012-04-13T22:58:00.000-07:00

A New Zealand online newspaper recently produced a list of exhilarating activities for travelers who want to do more than just see the sights. This is the list – in no particular order. Hopefully this list will help you with your next holiday plans!

Walking the Great Wall in China

The world’s longest man-made structure stretches over 6,300 miles (10,139 kilometers) from Shanhaiguan in the east to Lop Nur in the west. It’s a great way to experience the country’s history, culture and breathtaking scenery but you’ll need physical strength and stamina to keep up, as this is not an activity for the weak.

Hiking the Inca trails in Peru

Hiking 28 miles (45 kilometers) Peruvian Andes, you’ll come across the stunning ruins of the long-forgotten Inca city of Machu Picchu. Like Indiana Jones, you will cut away foliage with a machete as you make your way through the subtropical jungle, cross deep ravines, scale long flights of stairs, and pass through the crumbling passageways constructed by the Incas thousands of years ago.

Camel trekking in Morocco

Embark on the adventure of a lifetime in the Sahara Desert, on camel. Starting in Marrakech, follow the ancient camel caravan routes through the desert to Jebel Saghro and up towards the dunes of Erg Chebbi, camping each night beside a crackling fire at small, palm-fringed oases.

Tandem skydiving in England

Tandem skydiving involves being strapped to an instructor as you leap out of a plane 10,000 to 12,000 feet (3,048 to 3,657 meters) above the ground so you don’t need to worry about pulling the cord at the right time.
Cage diving in South Africa

Forget the movie “Jaws.” You’ll be in a robust cage with an oxygen tank strapped to your back as the king of the deep approaches, with its gleaming white teeth, dead black eyes and its torpedo-like body.

Bungee jumping in Zimbabwe

You could just appreciate the beauty of Zimbabwe’s Victoria Falls with a walking tour — or, for those more daring, bungee-jump from a perch at the nearby Victoria Falls Bridge. Until recently, this was the highest legal bungee-jump spot in the world with a 364 feet drop towards the Zambezi River.

Motorcycle trip up Highway

There are few road trips that manage to pack in the best of both the natural and the man-made worlds, but a motorcycle trip up the road linking Los Angeles and San Francisco does just that. The trip affords drivers sights of everything from mansions to coast lines with the awesome beauty of the coastal mountains in the Big Sur.

Running with the bulls in Spain

Running away from a bull during the nine-day San Fermin festival in Pamplona, Spain, is one of the most exhilarating activities an outsider can do. Six or so raging bulls charge down the street, bucking and snorting, and the aim of the game is to run as fast as you can and escape injury by ducking into alleyways or completing the run before the bulls.

Ice fishing in Canada

If you’ve ever wanted to catch your own fish straight from a hole in the ice, try Ontario, Canada, which offers up over one quarter of the world’s freshwater, with plenty of trout, bass and pike. Travel to Algoma Country on the northern part of Lake Superior then bait-up, cast your line and wait for something juicy to bite which can then be cooked a crackling fire.

Trekking to Everest’s South Base Camp in Nepal

Trekking to Everest’s South Base Camp in Nepal is the adventure of a lifetime. Start at Kathmandu before making your way to Lukla and up the Khumbu Valley towards the South Base Camp. In addition to breathtaking snow-capped mountain ranges, you’ll take in the Khumbu Icefall, Sherpa villages, the Namche Bazaar, and a number of Buddhist monasteries on route.