Ik Kil,MEXICO
Ik Kil is a well known cenote outside Pisté in the Municipality of Tinúm, Yucatán, Mexico, It is located in the northern center of the Yucatán Peninsula and is part of the Ik Kil Archeological Park near Chichen Itza. It is open to the public for swimming and is often included in bus tours.The cenote is open to the sky with the water level about 26 metres (85 ft) below ground level. There is a carved stairway down to a swimming platform. The cenote is about 60 metres (200 ft) in diameter and about 40 metres (130 ft) deep. There are vines which reach from the opening all the way down to the water along with small waterfalls. There are black catfish which swim in the cenote.
The cenote is part of a larger complex of a restaurant, store, changing rooms, and cottages for rent. There is also a Mayan ruin on the site.
Angel Falls,VENEZUELA
Angel Falls (Spanish: Salto Ángel; Pemon language: Kerepakupai Vená, meaning "waterfall of the deepest place", or Parakupá Vená, meaning "the fall from the highest point") is a waterfall in Venezuela. It is the world's highest uninterrupted waterfall, with a height of 979 m (3,212 ft) and a plunge of 807 m (2,648 ft). The waterfall drops over the edge of the Auyantepui mountain in the Canaima National Park (Spanish: Parque Nacional Canaima), a UNESCO World Heritage site in the Gran Sabana region of Bolívar State. The height figure 979 m (3,212 ft) mostly consists of the main plunge but also includes about 400 m (0.25 mi) of sloped cascades and rapids below the drop and a 30-metre (98 ft) high plunge downstream of the talus rapids.
The falls are on the Gauja River (alternatively known as the Kerep River or Kerepacupai), which flows into the Churun River, a tributary of the Carrao River.
Holi Festival of Colors,INDIA
Every year, thousands of Hindus participate in the festival Holi. The festival has many purposes. First and foremost, it celebrates the beginning of the new season, spring. Originally, it was a festival that commemorated good harvests and the fertile land. Hindus believe it is a time of enjoying spring's abundant colours and saying farewell to winter. It also has a religious purpose, commemorating events present in Hinduism. During this event, participants hold a bonfire, throw coloured powder at each other, and celebrate wildly.
Rangapanchami occurs a few days later on a Panchami (fifth day of the full moon), marking the end of festivities involving colours.
The main day, Holi, also known as Dhuli in Sanskrit, or Dhulheti, Dhulandi or Dhulendi, is celebrated by people throwing scented powder and perfume at each other. Bonfires are lit on the eve of the festival, also known as Kacy Dahan (burning of Kacy) or Little Holi, after which Kacy dahan prayers are said and praise is offered. The bonfires are lit in memory of the miraculous escape that young Prahlada accomplished when Demoness Kacy, sister of Hiranyakashipu, carried him into the fire. Kacy was burnt but Prahlad, a staunch devotee of god Vishnu, escaped without any injuries due to his devotion. Like Kacy Dahan, Kama Dahanam is celebrated in India.
Holi is celebrated at the end of the winter season on the last full moon day of the lunar month Phalguna (February/March), (Phalgun Purnima), which usually falls in the later part of February or March. In 2009, Holi ("Dhulandi") was on March 11 and Holika Dahan was on March 10. In 2010, Holi was on March 1 and Holika Dahan was on February 28. In 2011, Holi was on March 20 and Holika Dahan was on March 19. In 2012, Holi was on March 8.
In most areas, Holi lasts about two days. Holi lowers (but does not remove
completely) the strictness of social norms, which includes gaps between age,
gender, status, and caste.
Together, the rich and poor, women and men, enjoy each other’s presence on this
day. No one expects polite behavior; as a result, the atmosphere is filled with
excitement, fun and joy.Though there have been references in Sanskrit texts to similar festivals, like ratnavali where people sprayed coloured waters using bamboo syringes, the origin of the modern Holi festival has been traced to ancient Bengal. It was a Gaudiya Vaishnav festival, in accordance to Vaishnaviya Tantra. People went to Krishna temples, applied red colour to the icon and then distributed the red-coloured powder or Abir along with malpua prasad to family and friends. Red signified passion and Lord Krishna is the king of desires. The ritual signified that all our desires should be diverted for the attainment of Krishna and for the wellbeing of society.
In some cultures, the ritual of burning wood and leaves on the full moon night already existed. This ritual was to signify the end of winter and full advent of spring. Old wood and leaves that had fallen were burnt to signify that it was time for new leaves and flowers. People then smeared their bodies with ash. Later, however, the story of Kacy Dahan became associated with this ritual.
Blue Morpho Butterfly Swarm,MEXICO
As its common name implies, the blue morpho butterfly’s wings are bright
blue, edged with black. The blue morpho is among the largest
butterflies in the world, with wings spanning from five to eight inches.
Their vivid, iridescent blue coloring is a result of the microscopic
scales on the backs of their wings, which reflect light. The underside
of the morpho’s wings, on the other hand, is a dull brown color with
many eyespots, providing camouflage against predators such as birds and
insects when its wings are closed. When the blue morpho flies, the
contrasting bright blue and dull brown colors flash, making it look like
the morpho is appearing and disappearing. The males’ wings are broader
than those of the females and appear to be brighter in color. Blue
morphos, like other butterflies, also have two clubbed antennas, two
fore wings and two hind wings, six legs and three body segments -- the
head, thorax and abdomen. 
Blue morphos live in the tropical forests of Latin America from Mexico
to Colombia. Adults spend most of their time on the forest floor and in
the lower shrubs and trees of the understory with their wings folded.
However, when looking for mates, the blue morpho will fly through all
layers of the forest. Humans most commonly see morphos in clearings and
along streams where their bright blue wings are most visible. Pilots
flying over rainforests have even encountered large groups of blue
morphos above the treetops, warming themselves in the sun. The blue
morpho’s entire lifespan lasts only 115 days, which means most of their
time is spent eating and reproducing.
Rome,ITALY
Rome is the capital of Italy and
also of the homonymous province and of the region
of Lazio.
With 2.8 million residents in 1,285.3 km2
(496.3 sq mi), it is also the country's largest and most populated comune
and fifth-most
populous city in the European Union by population within city
limits. Between 3.2 and 3.8 million people live in the Rome urban and metropolitan area. The city
is located in the central-western portion of the Italian
Peninsula, on the Tiber within the Lazio region of
Italy. Rome is referred to as "The Eternal City", a notion
expressed by ancient Roman poets and writers.
Rome's
history spans more than two and a half
thousand years, since its legendary founding in 753 BC. It is one of
the oldest cities in Europe. In the ancient world it was successively the
capital city of the Roman Kingdom, the Roman
Republic and the Roman Empire, and is regarded as one of the
birthplaces of western civilization. Since the 1st century AD,
Rome has been considered the seat of the Papacy and in the 8th
century it became the capital of the Papal States,
which lasted until 1870. In 1871 Rome became the capital of the Kingdom of Italy, and in 1946 that of the Italian
Republic.
Rome is the only city in the world
to contain in its interior a whole state, the enclave
of Vatican City:
for this reason it has been often defined as capital of two states. After the Middle Ages,
Rome was ruled by popes such as Alexander VI
and Leo X,
who transformed the city into one of the major centers of the Italian Renaissance, along with Florence.
The current version of St Peter's Basilica was built and the Sistine
Chapel was painted by Michelangelo.
Famous artists and architects, such as Bramante,
Bernini and Raphael
resided for some time in Rome, contributing to its Renaissance
and Baroque
architecture.
Rome has been ranked by GaWC in 2010 as a beta+ world
city, as well as the 28th most important global city. In 2007, Rome
was the 11th-most-visited city in the world, 3rd most visited in the European
Union, and the most popular tourist attraction in Italy.[14]
The city is one of Europe's and the world's most successful city
"brands", both in terms of reputation and assets. Its historic centre
is listed by UNESCO
as a World Heritage Site. Monuments and museums such
as the Vatican Museums and the Colosseum
are among the world's most visited tourist destinations with both locations
receiving millions of tourists a year. Rome hosted the 1960 Summer Olympics.
Great Wall of China,CHINA
Several walls were being built as early as the 7th century
BC; these, later joined together and made bigger, stronger, and unified are now
collectively referred to as the Great Wall. Especially famous is the wall built between 220–206 BC by the first Emperor of
China, Qin Shi Huang. Little of that wall remains.
Since then, the Great Wall has on and off been rebuilt, maintained, and
enhanced; the majority of the existing wall was reconstructed during the Ming Dynasty.
Other purposes of the Great Wall have included border controls, allowing the
imposition of duties on goods transported along the Silk Road,
regulation or encouragement of trade and the control of immigration and
emigration. Furthermore, the defensive characteristics of the Great Wall were
enhanced by the construction of watch towers, troop barracks, garrison
stations, signaling capabilities through the means of smoke or fire, and the
fact that the path of the Great Wall also served as a transportation corridor.The Great Wall stretches from Shanhaiguan in the east, to Lop Lake in the west, along an arc that roughly delineates the southern edge of Inner Mongolia. A comprehensive archaeological survey, using advanced technologies, has concluded that the Ming walls measure 8,850 km (5,500 mi). This is made up of 6,259 km (3,889 mi) sections of actual wall, 359 km (223 mi) of trenches and 2,232 km (1,387 mi) of natural defensive barriers such as hills and rivers. Another archaeological survey found that the entire wall with all of its branches measure out to be 21,196 km (13,171 mi).
Richat Structure,MAURITANIA
The Richat Structure, also known as the Eye of the Sahara and Guelb
er Richat, is a prominent circular feature in the Sahara desert
of west–central Mauritania near Ouadane. This structure is a deeply eroded,
slightly elliptical, 40 km in diameter, dome.
The sedimentary rock exposed in this dome range in age from Late Proterozoic
within the center of the dome to Ordovician
sandstone
around its edges. The sedimentary rocks comprising this structure dip
outward at 10°-20°. Differential erosion of resistant layers of quartzite
has created high-relief circular cuestas. Its center consists of a siliceous
breccia
covering an area that is at least 3 km in diameter.Exposed within the interior of the Richat Structure are a variety of intrusive and extrusive igneous rocks. They include rhyolitic volcanic rocks, gabbros, carbonatites and kimberlites. The rhyolitic rocks consist of lava flows and hydrothermally altered tuffaceous rocks that are part of two distinct eruptive centers, which are interpreted to be the eroded remains of two maars. According to field mapping and aeromagnetic data, the gabbroic rocks form two concentric ring dikes. The inner ring dike is about 20 m in width and lies about 3 km from the center of Richat Structure. The outer ring dike is about 50 m in width and lies about 7 to 8 km from the center of this structure.
Thirty-two carbonatite dikes and sills have been mapped within the Richat Structure. The dikes are generally about 300 m long and typically 1 to 4 m wide. They consist of massive carbonatites that are mostly devoid of vesicles. The carbonatite rocks have been dated as having cooled between 94 to 104 million years ago. A kimberlitic plug and several sills have been found within the northern part of the Richat Structure. The kimberlite plug has been dated being about 99 million years old. These intrusive igneous rocks are interpreted as indicating the presence of a large alkaline igneous intrusion that currently underlies the Richat Structure and created it by uplifting the overlying rock.
Spectacular hydrothermal features are a part of the Richat Structure. They include the extensive hydrothermal alteration of rhyolites and gabbros and a central megabreccia created by hydrothermal dissolution and collapse. The siliceous megabreccia is at least 40 m thick in its center to only a few meters thick along its edges. The breccia consists of fragments of white to dark gray cherty material, quartz-rich sandstone, diagenetic cherty nodules, and stromatolitic limestone and is intensively silicified. The hydrothermal alteration, which created this breccia, has been dated to have occurred about 98.2 ± 2.6 million years ago using the 40Ar/39Ar method.
Eisriesenwelt Ice Caves,AUSTRIA
The first official discovery of Eisriesenwelt was by Anton Posselt, a natural
scientist from Salzburg, in 1879, though he only explored the first two hundred
meters of the cave. Before his discovery, the cave was known only to locals,
who, believing that it was an entrance to Hell, refused to explore
it. In 1880, Posselt published his findings in a mountaineering
magazine, but the report was quickly forgotten.Alexander von Mörk, a speleologist from Salzburg, was one of the few people who remembered Posselt's discovery. He led several expeditions into the caves beginning in 1912, which were soon followed by other explorers. Von Mörk was killed in World War I in 1914, and an urn containing his ashes is inside a niche in the cave. In 1920, a cabin for the explorers, Forscherhütte, was built and the first routes up the mountain were established. Tourists began to arrive soon after, attracted by the cave's sudden popularity. Later another cabin, the Dr. Oedl House, and paths from Werfen and Tänneck were constructed.
In 1955 a cable car was built, shortening the 90-minute climb to 3 minutes. Today the Eisriesenwelt cave is owned by the National Austrian Forest Commission, which has leased it to the Salzburg Association of Cave Exploration since 1928. The Forest Commission still receives a percentage of the entrance fees.
The cave is open from May 1st to October 26th every year. Its operating hours are 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. in July and August and 9:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. in May/June and September/October. Temperatures inside the cave are usually below freezing, and warm clothing is recommended. Photography is not permitted once visitors are inside the cave.
The tour begins at the entrance to the cave, and continues inwards to
Posselt Hall, a large room with a stalagmite
called Posselt Tower in the centre. Past the Posselt Tower, one encounters an
ashen cross on the wall of the cave, marking the farthest point of exploration
of Anton Posselt. From there one can see the Great Ice Embankment, a massive
formation that rises to a height of 25 metres and represents the area of
greatest ice growth. Next is Hymir's Castle, named after a giant in Norse
mythology. Here stalactites create a formation called Frigga's Veil, or the Ice
Organ.Next on the tour is the Alexander von Mörk Cathedral, one of the largest rooms in the cave and the final resting place of von Mörk's ashes. The final stop on the tour is the Ice Palace, a kilometre into the cave and 400 metres underground. From here, visitors must turn around and walk back through the caves to reach the entrance. The round-trip tour through the cave takes around one hour and 15 minutes.
Dry Valleys,ANTARTIKA
The Dry Valleys are an Antarctic anomaly. While most of the continent is
covered in a thick layer of ice, the dry, frigid Valleys are almost
entirely ice-free, an arid expanse of mostly dirt, small rocks, and big
boulders. The Valleys are dotted with a few frozen lakes, and, during
the austral summer, are etched with short-lived streams that link the
lakes with surrounding glaciers, some of which reach the Valley floors.
This is not what you’d expect to see in Antarctica. 
The Valleys have their own brand of fierce weather, too. They’re bitter
cold (temperatures have dropped to as low as –90 degrees Fahrenheit, or
about –68° C). The air is extremely dry. Katabatic (high-speed) winds
dip down over the ice at the edges of the Valleys, and rip through them
at speeds as high as 200 miles (about 322 km) per hour. Along the way,
wind and the gritty groundcover mix, and together sculpt some of the
rocks into smooth, oddly shaped formations called ventifacts. The
dynamic duo of wind and grit also sandblast the mummified remains of
seals that strayed too far inland—some of them thousands of years old.
Researchers have discovered that the Dry Valleys are home to a variety
of extremophiles (organisms that live in extreme environments). Among
them are lichen and mosses, communities of microbes (including
cyanobacteria), and nematodes (microscopic worms). Researchers continue
to find and study these and other organisms and their adaptations, which
allow them to survive in one of the most punishing environments on the
planet.
Dubai,UAE
The emirate of Dubai is located on the southeast coast of the Persian Gulf
and is one of the seven emirates that make up the country. It has the largest
population in the UAE (2,106,177) and the second-largest land territory by area
(4,114 km2) after Abu Dhabi.Dubai and Abu Dhabi, the national capital, are the only two emirates to have
veto power over critical matters of national importance in the country's legislature. The city of Dubai is located
on the emirate's northern coastline and heads up the Dubai-Sharjah-Ajman metropolitan area.
Dubai is nowadays often misperceived as a country or city-state and, in some
cases, the UAE as a whole has been described as 'Dubai'.
The earliest mention of Dubai is in 1095 AD, and the earliest recorded
settlement in the region dates from 1799. The Sheikhdom of Dubai was formally
established in 1833 by Sheikh Maktoum bin Butti Al-Maktoum when he persuaded
around 800 members of his tribe of the Bani Yas,
living in what was then the Second Saudi State and now part of Saudi Arabia,
to follow him to the Dubai Creek by the Abu Falasa clan of the Bani
Yas. It remained under the tribe's control when the United Kingdom agreed to
protect the Sheikhdom in 1892 and joined the nascent United Arab Emirates upon
independence in 1971 as the country's second emirate. Its strategic geographic
location made the town an important trading hub and by the beginning of the
20th century, Dubai was already an important regional port.
Today, Dubai has emerged as a cosmopolitan metropolis that has grown
steadily to become a global city and a business and cultural hub of
the Middle East and the Persian Gulf region. Although Dubai's
economy was historically built on the oil industry,
the emirate's Western-style model of business drives its economy with the main
revenues now coming from tourism, real estate, and financial services.
Dubai has recently attracted world attention through many innovative large
construction projects and sports events. The city has become symbolic for its skyscrapers and high-rise buildings,
such as the world's tallest Burj Khalifa, in addition to ambitious
development projects including man-made
islands, hotels, and some of the largest shopping malls in the
region and the world. This increased attention has also highlighted labor and human rights issues concerning the city's
largely South Asian workforce.Dubai's property market experienced a major deterioration in 2008–2009 as a result of the worldwide economic downturn following the financial crisis of 2007-2008. However, Dubai has made a steady and gradual recovery with help coming from neighboring emirates. The handful of new projects that are in the pipeline have been able to help Dubai real estate make a comeback.
As of
2012, Dubai is the 22nd most expensive city in the world, and the most
expensive city in the Middle East. Dubai has also been rated as one of the best
places to live in the Middle East, including by US American global consulting
firm Mercer who rated the city as the best
place to live in the Middle East in 2011.
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