Easter Island

The Moai, huge sculptures shaped human head, the main tourist attraction of Easter Island, Valparaíso Region, Chile. Easter Island has several settlements called Ahu "Altars", where a group of more or less numerous Moai meets, but always perfectly organized and looking in the same direction. Ahu Tongariki is the name of the settlement largest moai in terms of size and situation. Ahu Tongariki is located on the east coast of the island, about 20 kilometers from the capital Hanga Roa, between the coves of Hanga Hanga Hotu Iti and Nui. Ahu Tongariki is an altar, one composed of 15 figures aligned parallel to the coast, stand with their backs to the sea, as virtually all of the island Moai facing the center of it.

Photo credit Ferran Altimiras

Currently Ahu Tongariki is considered the largest ceremonial center of Easter Island and even the largest of all the islands of Polynesia, and also one that has greater diversity because the statues are totally different from each other or in another words it different sizes, different thicknesses, etc. and representing various types of ancestors who inhabited the island centuries ago. As a historical note, note that in 1960 the area was devastated by a tsunami caused by an earthquake in the Chilean city of Valdivia. Most of the statues were completely buried under sand and remained for more than three decades until between 1992 and 1996 the restoration works were undertaken place. The 15 Moai were exhumed and returned to its original position, but only one of them was able to return the "hat", since the rest were badly damaged and are at serious risk.

Isla de Pascua, Chile. Photo credit h2ofotografia (wordpress)

KAP on Tongariki - Easter island. Photo credit Pierre Lesage

Ahu Tongariki detrás Rapa Nui, Chile. Photo credit Altamira

Kite Aerial Photography on Tongariki at sunrise. Photo credit Pierre Lesage

Moai caigut. Photo credit Ferran Altimiras

Ahu Tongariki moai. Photo credit stuwil

Photo credit Sergio TB

Plataforma Ceremonial mas grande de la isla con 15 Moais. Photo credit Patricia ("Pato")

Photo credit Domingo Mery

Ahu Tongariki - Easter Island. Photo credit Ik T

The Historic Landmark of Lake Michigan, USA

Point Betsie lighthouse standing on dune of the northeast shore of Lake Michigan, at the southern entrance to the Manitou Passage — north of Frankfort in Benzie County in Northern Michigan. The cylindrical tower is 39 feet tall. The quick 4 years construction completed in 1858 with total cost of $5,000 and since 1859 its began to start service. This was one of the earliest Life Saving Stations, and was run under the auspices of the U.S. Life-Saving Service. Known now as Point Betsie, this historic landmark found on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan was originally named Pointe Aux Bec Scies, meaning point of sawbill ducks, by French explorers.

Image credit Robert

The parapet has a red roof that matches the keepers dwelling. The importance of this lighthouse to navigation, the Lighthouse Board suggested in 1880 that the short tower be replaced with a new one hundred foot structure, however the new tower was never built. The cast iron lantern room was equipped in 1858 with a Fourth Order lens, which had served at the station for 104 years was removed from the tower in 1996 and replaced with a Vega VRB-25 250 mm acrylic optic. The old lens was carefully moved to the Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore Park headquarters building, where it was placed on display and where it may be seen to this day. The light sat 52 feet above the lake on a bluff and had a range of 27.5 miles. 

Currently the station was transferred to Benzie County under the terms of the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act in 2004 and, with the extensive leadership and volunteer power provided by The "Friends of Point Betsie Lighthouse" extensive restoration and renovation continues to this day. For example, the lightstation has been repainted to its original color scheme, which has not been seen since the 1940s. The site is open for tours on a seasonal basis. Point Betsie stands in quiet testimony to the many keepers who maintained the light while their wives maintained the household, tended gardens, and watched their children playfully explore the dunes. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places and Point Betsie is said to be one of America's most photographed lighthouses, and the most-visited attraction in Benzie County.

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Wall of Tears

The Wall of Tears is a historical site 5 km west of Puerto Villamil on Isabela Island in the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador. A penal colony existed on Isabela from 1944 to 1959 and the penal colony was always marked by abuse, and considered prisoners as slaves. One of the tasks entrusted to the prisoners, so they would have to do something, it was the construction of a wall with volcanic stones, Prisoners had to carry heavy stones from several kilometers. On this tour and during the construction of the wall, many fell due to insolation and lack of food. In addition, some died because the wall collapsed in a while. Many of these prisoners were buried in makeshift graves along the way. The result of this construction is what today is known as the Wall of Tears.

Image credit shadowdoc31

Isabela worked as a US military base but after the end of World War II, the forces withdrew. Thus, the Ecuadorian government decided to use the, by then, remote island to take the most dangerous prisoners in the country and found what they called a penal colony. Thus the facilities abandoned by soldiers of the United States for that "prison" were used. But the horror of the story begin 1946 when it was decided, as a punishment, that criminals pay their sentence with hard labor. The Wall of Tears never finished being constructed , it really did not have much purpose other than to hold prisoners in an activity, and it is an overwhelming formation of approximately 100 meters long, 3 meters wide and 5-6 m high, which is now a site to visit the island Isabela. Certainly the history of the penal colony of Isabela and the Wall of Tears is not the happiest history of the islands. The Wall of Tears, named for the suffering and pain of their builders, still stands , contrasting each day with the beautiful landscape that grows around it.

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Muro de las Lagrimas, Isabela. Image credit Kathi Spencer

The World's Largest Adobe City

Chan Chan is an archaeological site and the largest Pre-Columbian city in South America, located in the Moche Valley, 5 kilometers from Trujillo, Peru. Its extension covers 20 square kilometers and had a dense urban center of 6 km². Chan Chan constructed by under the flag of Chimor the kingdom of the Chimú. The Chimu Kingdom, with Chan Chan as its powerful capital, reached its apogee in the 15th century, not long before falling to the Incas. A late intermediate period civilization which grew out of the remnants of the Moche civilization. Chan Chan is the world largest adobe city and Chan means sun-sun. Chan Chan was declared World Heritage byUNESCO in 1986, when it was also added in the list of world heritage in danger due to the torrential rains that destroyed the citadel, earthquakes, or rise of the first layer of groundwater beneath the area.

Chan-Chan Trujillo, Peru. Photo credit Alexandre Militão

The central zone is formed by a set of 10 walled enclosures (called "citadels") and other solitary pyramids. This core set, covers an area of 6 square kilometers, approximately. The rest is made up of a multitude of small poorly maintained structures, sidewalks, canals, walls and cemeteries. An estimated 20 to 30 thousand inhabitants (Kent Day) and people throughout the territory Chimú at 500,000, according to John Rowe. According to Middendorf (1894) in Chan Chan lived 100,000 people. At the time of abandonment, the population would have been 5-10000 inhabitants (Kent Day).

In its spaces, houses, warehouses, workshops, streets, walls and pyramidal temples. Its enormous walls are profusely decorated with geometric figures, stylized zoomorphic and mythological beings. These hydraulic works are still visible and are the wonder of modern engineering; cemeteries and other facilities that were perhaps markets, workshops and barracks. Chan Chan consisted of 10 large generally rectangular units. Each unit was surrounded by high walls taller than 9 meters, locking in them a emparillado streets, large and small houses, large pyramids, food and water tanks. Today it is a vast labyrinth of massive walls, many of them carved with beauty, where you can still appreciate its well planned streets that intersect at right angles; sumptuous bringing water from considerable distances, such as the Summit that united the Chicama and Moche.

Photo Credit Alejandro Tabini

Courtyard by its location is related to the area of ​​warehouses in the Tschudi citadel. Photo Credit Alejandro Tabini

Friso in Chan Chan. Fish stepped design with birds in the socket.Photo Credit Andy Deitsch

Street in the Tschudi Citadel of Chan Chan. Photo Credit ARNAUD_Z_VOYAGE

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Lencois Maranhenses National Park

Jewels in the Brazilian crown, those infinite sand dunes scattered with crystal clear water lagoons, at some 6 miles from São Luís, are located in The Lençóis Maranhenses National Park, Maranhão state in northeastern Brazil. These sheets consist of a desert about 63 mile long and 32 mile wide, alongside the Atlantic to the North, and surrounded by tropical forests to the South. Seen from the sky, the scenery of a rare beauty, the dunes are molded by the wind and the trapped tropical rains have created immense pools of fresh, green and blue waters.

Desert lagoons in the state of Maranhão, Brazil. Photo Credit Karen Hoffmann

It is an area of low, flat, occasionally flooded land, overlaid with large, discrete sand dunes. It encompasses roughly 1,500 km2, and despite abundant rain, supports almost no vegetation. The area became a National Park on June 2, 1981. Composed of large, white, sweeping dunes, at first glance Lençóis Maranhenses looks like an archetypal desert, but in fact it is not an actual desert. Lying just outside the Amazon Basin, the region is subject to a regular rain season during the beginning of the year. This desert is the amount of rain the drops over the dunes, creating ponds of crystal clear water on the depression between dunes. Despite its desert-like appearance, Lençóis Maranhenses records an annual rainfall of  62.9 inches, 300 times more than in the Saara. The rains cause a peculiar phenomenon: fresh water collects in the valleys between sand dunes and is prevented from percolating down by a laeyer of impermeable rock which lies underneath the sand. The resulting blue, green and black "lagoons" are surrounded by the desert-like sand, and reach their fullest between July and September. During the period of drought, the lagoons evaporates and become completely dried. After the rainy season, the lagoons are home of many species of fishes, turtles and clams. The mystery in this story lies in the fact that when the lagoons fill up, life comes back, as if they had never left the place. One of the hypotheses to explain the phenomenon is that the eggs of the fish and crabs are maintained alive in the sand, exploding when rain come back.

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