Cordillera del Paine, Chile

admin — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 21:31:36 +0000

Mountains are considered to be one of the most magical out of all nature’s delights. They have a unique and rare charm to them that combine beauty with adventure. Besides mountains are also said to be symbolic of being perseverant and dedicated to achieve all goals set in life. A perfect example to all this is the Cordillera del Paine in Chile. It is a small mountain group which is actually a part of the Torres del Paine National Park, which is located in the Chilean Patagonia. There are as such no accurate surveys that have been carried out in this region, and for those that have been carried out have not been published. Thus, there is not much information on the elevations, though most of them are known to be naturally suppressed over the years.

The highest summit of this range is considered to be the Cerro Paine Grande, which are followed by the summits of Towers of Paine, and Torres del Paine. Other summits in this range include South Tower of Paine, Central Tower of Paine, North Tower of Paine along with Cuerno Principal and Cerro Paine Chico. Information from various sources claims that all these summits have very high elevations, some even higher than 3000m. However, some photographs and other researchers have revealed that they are not higher than 2700m. Therefore, one cannot really be sure of the geographical facts here. The only good thing that one can do here is enjoy nature’s beauty at its best, and go in for various adventure sports in the lap of nature.

The Torres del Paine National Park was declared by UNESCO as a Biosphere Reserve in the year 1978, and has developed since then as a popular hiking destination. There are well maintained paths with marvellous and magnificent views that are a treat to the eyes. Shelter and other basic services can be easily found here.

There are many different kinds of options for hikers here. They can take a day’s trip to see all the towers, or can also opt for the 8-9 days trip that allows them to go in for the full circle. There is also a popular W route over here that can be chosen. The W route is named so after the shape of the route, and hikers can start and end at any of the base points. The five points of the W route include the Glacier Grey, Refugio Pehoe, Valle del Frances (French for “Frenchman’s Valley“), Hosteria las Torres, and the Torres del Paines themselves. For even more adventurous people, there is a longer walk that can be opted for which includes all these 5 points, but avoids backtracking, and connects Glacier Grey and Torres del Paine.

There are many beautiful and weird places in Chile. If you want something that will give you goose bumps also visit Easter Island and its moai statues.

Easter Island and its moai statues – Enough to give one goose bumps

admin — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 17:02:09 +0000

You must have seen the pictures of an island with weird photographs oh TV an its newspapers and often thought what it was? Well, we have the answer to this query of yours. That place with scary statues is Easter Island and is located in the South Pacific. It is one of the most least visited and isolated islands in the world. The island ‘s population which only consisted of a few thousand inhabitants has also been eliminated by western diseases. Some of them have also been taken away by slave traders. In fact in the year 1877, only 110 people were left on this island out of the indigenous population. This island was discovered by Europeans and they found out that due to isolation the ecosystem of this island was in a very bad shape. Due to scarce natural resources and also owing to deforestation, it had destroyed itself completely. The weird stone statues existing on this island are known by the name of moai, out of which 288 stood on gigantic stone foundations called ahu.
The statues were built during the time period of 1000 to 1650 AD.

This island consists of 850 moai statues in total, out of which 600 unfinished ones are spread all over the island. The hardened volcano stone of Rano Raraku has been used to make up this statues. There is a belief that 50 to one hundred fifty people were almost used to accomplish these statues and were taken from the countryside to the construction site on rollers made up of trees on island. The average height of a statue is fourteen feet six inches with a weight of approximately 14 tons. But some moai are also as tall as a staggering 33 feet exceeding a weight of 80 tons. Astonishingly, one statue that was excavated from the bedrock was 65 feet tall and had a weight of 270 tons.

Some of these statues were also destroyed in the time period of 1600 to 1700 due to tribal wars of this place. The island has been given the popular name of Rapa Nui and another name is Te-Pito-O-Te-Henua. Many studies have been done on the original population of this place which constructed these moai statues and it has now been found that the residents were Polynesian in nature. The same studies have also come to the conclusion that the this island was also used for astronomical purposes by the same population and served as an astronomical observatory. They came to this island in canoes in the 318 AD only and the carbon dating of the skeletons found in the graves has proved this theory. They were just more than a hundred in number and still constructed these magnificent statues. Some of them were also killed enroute to this island .Well the island was in a quite different state when they arrived here consisting of a large number of trees and flock of birds. It had a flourishing ecosystem at that point of time enough to provide them with meat for survival – Visit Easter Island.

Weird, Strange, Interesting Places to Visit » Chile

Cordillera del Paine, Chile

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Easter Island and its moai statues – Enough to give one goose bumps

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