Marble Caves of Chile Chico

Mother Nature outdoes herself with this stunningly beautiful set of caves carved into marble

Carved into the Patagonian Andes, the Cuevas de Mármol are located on a peninsula of solid marble bordering Lake General Carrera, a remote glacial lake that spans the Chile-Argentina border.

Formed by 6,000-plus years of waves washing up against calcium carbonate, the smooth, swirling blues of the cavern walls are a reflection of the lake's azure waters, which change in intensity and hue, depending on water levels and time of year.

Located far from any road, the caves are accessible only by boat. Thirty minute tours are operated by a local company, weather and water conditions permitting.

REMINDERS!

There are ferries from Chile Chico that will take you to and through the Marble cave and its tunnels. The caves are based on a lake, and the only way to reach them is by ferry. 

Source: www.google.com.us

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Michaelskapelle Ossuary

This German bone house contains the remains of some 20,000 souls

Sitting unsuspectingly behind the Church of St Katharin in Oppenheim, Germany is a relatively small building that looks a tad sinister thanks to its severe angles, but inside is something much more gothic: BONES!

The Church of St Katharin, which began construction in 1225, is home to some impressive and rare 14th century stained glass windows that have managed to survive centuries and wars, but it is what lays behind the historic church that is of special note. In the Michaelskapelle (Chapel of St Michael) lies one of the largest ossuaries in Germany, housing the skeletal remains of over 20,000 Oppenheim residents who died between 1400-1750 CE. The honored dead ended up in the ossuary thanks to a laundry list of reasons, but a number of them are thought to have been killed as a result of famine and war. 

The longer bones are stacked like cord wood, creating an unbroken bulwark of bones, punctuated by skulls that are set into the wall at

irregular intervals. While the stacks of bones don't quite reach to the ceiling, it is thought that they did at one time go all the way up, but have slowly compressed themselves over the centuries, making the collection seem somewhat smaller, but not by much.

The ossuary is generally closed, but the bones can usually still be seen through the bars of the door gate. However, special tours of the space can be arranged. In fact many of the skulls bear the marks of small hands where children have touched the skulls to see if they're real.

Source:  www.google.com.us/ph

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Gunung Padang Megalithic Site

These broken shards of ancient ruin may hide an ancient pyramid

Deep in the jungles of Indonesia there is a hill covered in a mess of stone-age columns, but what lies beneath is possibly one of the oldest structures known to humankind.

In 2011, geologist Dr. Danny Hilman Natawidjaja noticed something peculiar about Gunung Padang. The hill isn’t an actual hill, it’s a buried pyramid that may have been built between 9,000 and 20,000 years ago. There’s even evidence of human-made chambers that show carbon-dating as far back as 26,000 years. If proven true, this claim could rewrite history as we know it and expose a forgotten civilization.

The predominant understanding among historians is that all human civilization began after the last major Ice Age that covered the Earth back in 11,500 BCE. If this pyramid-like structure dates further than 11,500 BCE, then it could prove that Plato’s account of

a sunken civilization in Timaeus and Critias was not merely Ancient Greek legend. What secrets lie deep inside Gunung Padang? Only further excavation will tell. Let’s hope the Indonesian government allows Dr. Natawidjaja to continue his research in spite of the outrage and protest to stop any further research from Indonesia’s archaeological establishment.

Gunung Padang might join the ranks of Gobekli Tepe, another megalith in Turkey, as one of most important archaeological discoveries in recent history.

Source: www.google.com.us/ph

              atlasobscure.com

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Tuhala Witch's Well

This disappearing geyser has been attributed to witchcraft, but really it's all about rainfall.

Located in the tiny village of Tuhala, the Witch's Well is a naturally

occurring geyser that has been known to flood the entire area after heavy rains. Clearly the work of witches. 

The Witch's Well is actually an example of what is known as a "karst spring." The opening from which the spring issues is located over an underground river, which is normally located far enough underground that it isn't a problem. But after extremely heavy rains,

the river tends to swell up and issue forth from the well, completely flooding the surrounding area. The geyser effect can last for days, making for a major disaster for those effected by the flooding.

In olden times, this pandemonium was not seen as simply an unfortunate natural occurence, but was instead blamed on those perennial villains, witches. According to the local lore, witches would gather down in the well and lash each other with branches. This pagan reverie was thought to cause the catastrophic flooding that came periodically came from the well. Unfortunately it was just nature and science.

The well does not flood each time it rains, but just occasionally. It is often years between each flooding, so when it occurs, people

now come from all around to check it out. A wooden cap has been placed over the natural hole, so even though it can be damaging, the Witch's Well certainly looks like it has caged a witch inside of its depths.

Linkage: www.google.com.us/ph

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A Smoke Corpses of Aseki, Papua New Guinea

We tend to associate mummies with ancient Egypt, but a lot of culture around the world practiced mummification. The Anga tribe of the Aseki region of Papua New Guinea is one of them. Anga’s mummies, however, aren't wrapped in bandages and placed in tombs. They are left in the open, high above a cliff, often overlooking the village where they once lived.

One of the most important process of mummification is the removal of moisture from the dead bodies, because water promotes decomposition, and a decomposed body cannot be preserved by mummification. Ancient Egyptians achieved this by covering the dead bodies with salt and mixture of spices that had great drying properties. The Anga tribe employed a more direct approach they heated the dead bodies over a fire.

The elaborate process began by slicing open the knees, elbows, feet, and other joints. Hollow bamboo poles were then inserted in the slits, as well as the stomach of the body to evacuate its contents. The bodies were then smoked for over a month until all bodily

fluids had dripped out of the numerous cuts made in the body, as well as through the bamboo tubes. This fluid was collected and massaged by the villagers over their own bodies, as a mean to transfer the power of the deceased to the living. Some articles claim that the left over fluid was used as cooking oil, which is not only gross and revolting but is also a lie.

Most of what’s known about the mummies is based on the exaggerated tales of one British explorer named Charles Higginson, who was the first person to document a report on the smoked corpses in 1907. It was Charles Higginson who described the Anga as bloodthirsty savages who greedily lapped up the entrails of their own kin during the smoking

process. “But if that was the case,” reasonsIan Lloyd Neubauer, who travelled to this part of Papua New Guinea and spoke to the people there, “then why didn't the Anga make a meal of Higginson, a lone and defenceless foreigner living in their midst?”.

After the body was smoked and dried, it was covered with ocher, a claylike form of iron oxide, to protect the mummifying remains from scavengers and the elements. Even in the sweltering

conditions of Papua New Guinea, which normally accelerate the decomposition of corpses, the process worked remarkably well.

Mummification came to an end in 1949 when missionaries took firm root in Aseki. The remaining mummies are now carefully preserved by villagers who periodically perform restoration work whenever a limb of a mummy droops or looks like it would fall off. Supports to body parts would be added, and heated sap from local trees would

be used as glue. They would also touch up the ocher clay.

Anga mummies can be found in several villages of Papua New Guinea's Aseki District. Incidentally, the Anga tribes weren’t the only people who smoked their dead. 

This type of mummification was also practiced by the Philippians in the town of Kabayan. They are known as Kabayan Mummies or Fire Mummies.

Linkage: amusingplanet.com
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               haroldnesmith.worldpress.com 

New Found: Fairy Circles in AUSTRALIA

The mysterious phenomenon shows up on a new continent.

For many years, scientists have puzzled over a striking phenomenon in Namibia in a regular, hexagonal pattern, plants clear the ground and leave empty circles of earth. These blank spots are called "fairy circles," because they seem to have been put there almost by magic and because scientists can't agree on what, exactly, causes them.

Stephan Getzin, an ecological modeler at Germany's Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, once believed that the fairy

circles might be created by termites, one of the more popular theories for how the circles are formed. But as he researched them, he changed his mind: it seemed more likely, he wrote in a 2014 paper, that plants self-organize into these mysterious patterns.

That paper promoted an Australian scientist, Bronwyn Bell, to get in touch: fairy circles had been documented only in Africa, but, she wrote to Getzin, Australia had a similar phenomenon. Now, Getzin, Bell, and their colleagues have released a new paper, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, that details the discovery of these Australian fairy circles and argues that, here too, the plants organize themselves into this arrangement.

The Australian fairy circles are found in western Australia, about 10 miles from the town of Newman. As in Namibia, the earth here is

dry and water scarce; it's water competition, argue the scientists who believe the plants self-organize, that drives vegetation here to leave patches of earth bare.

There is a notable distinction between the circles on the different continents. In the Namibian fairy circles, the exposed earth is loamy, and the open circles act as reservoirs of water. Here, the clay surface of the land is hard and dry, and it directs water towards the places where plants are actually growing.

Getzin and his colleagues did look for termite activity in the area where the Australian fairy circles were found, but they found no correlation between termite activity and the pattern of plants. One scientist who believes the Namibian circles are the work of

termites,Norbert Jürgens, told the New York Times that he might not actually call the Australia circles "fairy circles" because their clay characters makes them function differently.

The discovery of the Australian fairy circles hints that maybe there are more of these out there in the world: they're hard to identify from the ground, since they're spaced far enough apart that it's often impossible to see the next circle over while standing in one. Much easier is to find them in aerial photos, and in this age of satellite photography, there are plenty of those. Maybe all we need to do is look, and we'll find more fairy circles and, finally, a definitive answer to what causes them.

Linkage: atlasobscura.com   

                      www.google.com.us/ph  ; harold-nesmith.blogspot.com

                 

The Gateway to Hell - Darvaza Turkmenistan

The Darvaza gas crater or “The Door to Hell” is a 60 meters wide and 20 meters deep hole in the heart of the hot, expansive Karakum

desert in Turkmenistan, that has been on on fire for the last 38
 years. But the hole is not of a natural origin. The large crater is a result of a Soviet gas exploration accident that occurred in 1971.

The Darvaza (also known as Derweze) area is rich in natural gas. While drilling in 1971, the Soviets accidentally tapped into a massive underground natural gas cavern, causing the ground to collapse and the entire drilling rig to fall in. To prevent escape of poisonous gas into the atmosphere, the geologists decided to light it on fire. They had hoped the fire would use all the fuel in a matter of days, but as it turns out, the supply of natural gas below the crater is near infinite as the crater’s been burning since.

On a dark night, the glow of the burning hole can be seen from miles away and the smell of burning sulfur can be detected from a distance that becomes quite strong as you near the hot edge of the crater.

The Soviet drilling rig is believed to still be down there somewhere, on the other side of the "Gates of Hell."

Linkage: www.google.com.us/ph

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An Elderly Couple Took The Same Picture Every Season, However The Last Picture Kept Me Speechless

Pictures are memorable objects, when looking back at them they instantly unleash many emotions, a picture says more than a thousand words!

It is very hard to explain the emotions you bear with a single picture, sometimes even impossible.

A single picture can represent a bundle of emotions at once, sometimes the easiest way to express yourself is simply by showing an image or picture.

This lovely couple have been happily ever married for many years, and they bear a tradition with them by taking the same picture every single season. However;the final picture of their photo book ended up in being something very sad.

They would stand in the same position through good and bad weather, in front of their house. By observing the pictures thoroughly, you are easily able to see the unconditional love that those two shared among each other.

These pictures were represent their joy and happiness in life over the years, but the last picture put me into tears!

Picture 1

Picture 2

Picture 3

Picture 4

Picture 5

Picture 6

Picture 7

Picture 8

Picture 9

Picture 10

Picture 11

And Then this sad thing had to happen!

Picture 12

Journalist ken Griffiths of the Sunday Times took a picture of his parents from 1973 onward. Its a tradition they kept up for years and the result are beautiful. In the Spring, they stand proudly over their flower and during the winter, they come closer together. Its a love story told through seasons and photographs. Definitely worth a look. 

Love is eternal, and will last forever even after passing away. We kindly invite you to share this with your loved ones, showing them the true emotions of love.

Linkage: In memory of Ken Griffiths and to his/her parents

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