Hiking in Patagonia

The south of Chile and Argentina is a hiker’s dream. The melange of craggy mountains crowned with glaciers and glistening with waterfalls, scrubland dotted with pale glacial lakes, flowering meadows, marshlands, and windblown cliffs that skirt the Magellan Strait present countless opportunities for exploration on foot.

Belize

Belize is a country on the eastern coast of Central America. It is the only country in Central America whose official language is English, though Belizean Creole and Spanish are also commonly spoken..In Belize you can explore unspoiled Caribbean islands, reefs and tropical rainforests with world-class scuba diving, sailing, fishing, hiking, Maya sites.

Fiji Island

Fiji Islands is a Melanesian country in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about two-thirds of the way from Hawaii to New Zealand and consists of an archipelago that includes 332 islands, a handful of which make up most of the land area, and approximately 110 of which are inhabited.
Fiji is the product of volcanic mountains and warm tropical waters. Its majestic and ever-varied coral reefs today draw tourists from around the world.

Mountain ranges of Burma

Myanmar is located in Southeast Asia, bordered by India and Bangladesh in the northwest, China in the northeast, Laos in the east, Thailand in the east and southeast, and the Indian Ocean to the south and the west.Burma has plenty of wonders for the eye--sinuous, life-giving rivers, lush mountain forests, and intricately-drawn cities.North Myanmar is a Asian treasure trove, a pristine environment with the only mountain ranges with eternal snow and icy glaciers.

Peruvian Andes

The Andes is the longest continental mountain range in the world. It is a continual range of highlands along the western coast of South America.The Andes extend from north to south through seven South American countries: Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina.Stone Age Shelter Discovered in Peru Andes is the Oldest High-Altitude Settlement in the World.Many visitors to South America choose Andes Mountains Peru vacations as their first choice, and for good reason. Besides being stunningly beautiful, the Andes Mountains in Peru provide a myriad of attractions, from historical ruins, to charming mountain towns. Many Andes Mountains South America natives still dress in traditional garments, and in Peru, the descendants of the mighty Inca are among the most colorful people you will find anywhere on the planet. The bulk of Andes Mountains Peru vacations find their base in the tourist haven city of Cusco. From Cusco, you can hike the Inca Trail, take a train to Machu Picchu, visit the Sacred Valley and even descend into the Amazon Jungle.

Neelakurinji flowers

Neelakurinji is a shrub that is found in the shola forests of the Western Ghats in South India. Nilgiri Hills, which literally means the blue mountains, got their name from the purplish blue flowers of Neelakurinji that blossoms gregariously only once in 12 years.
'Neelakurinji' in Full Bloom at Munnar. Kerala Forest Department will be deploying more wildlife watchers in the hills and valleys of high range Munnar to protect 'Neelakurinji', the rare purplish blue flowers which bloom only once in 12 years.The blossoming of the beautiful flowers in Munnar in Idukki district, located in the biodiversity hotspot of Western Ghats, is attracting a large number of tourists and nature enthusiasts to the hill town.

American Indians in Montana

The state of Montana is home to 7 Indian reservations and 12 tribal groups. Six percent of the state’s total population, nearly 53,000 Montanans, are American Indians. Each tribe has unique cultures, traditions and histories. The tribes are: *The Assiniboine tribe *The Blackfeet tribe *The Cheyenne tribe *The Crow tribe *The Gros Ventre tribe *The Kootenai tribe *The Salish tribe *The Sioux tribe *The Shoshoni tribe *The Chippewa tribe *The Cree tribe

Grand Canyon

Every year, a staggering five million people flock to Arizona to see the Grand Canyon's sweeping views, hike its trails, and hop on a mule for a trip through the vast canyon.With its ever-changing and dramatic scenery of enormous proportions, the Grand Canyon is one of the world’s most spectacular landscapes. Its pine and fir forests, painted deserts, sandstone canyons, mesas and plateaus, volcanic and geologic features, the Colorado River, perennial streams, and waterfalls breathtakingly combine to form one of Earth’s greatest landmarks. The only one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World to be located in North America. It the most visited national park in the United States, 277 MILES FULL OF SUPERLATIVE BEAUTY!

Our Solar System

Ancient astronomers observed points of light that appeared to move among the stars.The Solar System comprises the Sun and the objects that orbit it.The Solar System formed 4.6 billion years ago from the gravitational collapse of a giant molecular cloud. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun, with most of the remaining mass contained in Jupiter. The four smaller inner planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, also called the terrestrial planets, are primarily composed of rock and metal. The four outer planets, called the gas giants, are substantially more massive than the terrestrials. The two largest, Jupiter and Saturn, are composed mainly of hydrogen and helium; the two outermost planets, Uranus and Neptune, are composed largely of substances with relatively high melting points (compared with hydrogen and helium), called ices, such as water, ammonia and methane, and are often referred to separately as "ice giants". All planets have almost circular orbits that lie within a nearly flat disc called the ecliptic plane.

Madagascar Rainforests

Madagascar, is an island country in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of Southeast Africa. The nation comprises the island of Madagascar (the fourth-largest island in the world), as well as numerous smaller peripheral islands. Following the prehistoric breakup of the supercontinent Gondwana, Madagascar split from India around 88 million years ago, allowing native plants and animals to evolve in relative isolation. Consequently, Madagascar is a biodiversity hotspot; over 90 percent of its wildlife is found nowhere else on Earth. The island's diverse ecosystems and unique wildlife are threatened by the encroachment of the rapidly growing human population and other environmental threats. Madagascar is home to some of the richest rainforests on Earth. Well over half of Madagascar's species are found in these forests which lie on the east coast of the island. It is estimated that only a third of the original lowland forest remains intact. Seven percent of the lowland forests that remain are protected in national parks and reserves.

Buddhist Temples In Thailand

Thai people who originally lived in southwestern China migrated into mainland Southeast Asia over a period of many centuries. The oldest known mention of their existence in the region by the exonym Siamese is in a 12th-century A.D. inscription at the Khmer temple complex of Angkor Wat in Cambodia, which refers to syam, or "dark brown", people.The ancient Siamese kingdoms of Thailand maintained an independent existence throughout their thousand year history, and were never conquered by foreign powers.There are a total of 40,717 Buddhist temples (Thai: Wat) in Thailand as of 31 December 2004, of which 33,902 are in current use, according to the Office of National Buddhism.

Animal Seals

Seals closest living relatives are bears and musteloids (weasels, raccoons and skunks). Molecular evidence supports them as a monophyletic lineage (descended from one ancestral line).Males live to about 18 years while females live to approximately 24 years. Most species prefer the colder waters of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. They spend most of their lives in the water, but come ashore to mate, give birth, molt or escape from predators, like sharks and killer whales. They feed largely on fish and marine invertebrates; but a few, like the leopard seal, feed on large vertebrates, such as penguins and other seals.

Firefly

Credit- en.wikipedia.org
Lampyridae is a family of insects in the beetle order Coleoptera. They are winged beetles, and commonly called fireflies or lightning bugs for their conspicuous crepuscular use of bioluminescence to attract mates or prey. Fireflies produce a "cold light", with no infrared or ultraviolet frequencies. This chemically produced light from the lower abdomen may be yellow, green, or pale red, with wavelengths from 510 to 670 nanometers.About 2,000 species of firefly are found in temperate and tropical environments.

Solstice

Credit image - scifun.edu.ac.uk
A solstice is an astronomical event that occurs twice each year as the Sun reaches its highest or lowest excursion relative to the celestial equator on the celestial sphere. The solstices, together with the equinoxes, are connected with the seasons. In many cultures the solstices mark either the beginning or the midpoint of winter and summer.

Machu Picchu Peru

Credit- en.wikipedia.org
Machu Picchu was built as an estate for the Inca emperor Pachacuti (1438–1472). Often mistakenly referred to as the "Lost City of the Incas", it is perhaps the most familiar icon of Inca civilization.

The Incas built the estate around 1450, but abandoned it a century later at the time of the Spanish Conquest. Although known locally, it was unknown to the outside world before being brought to international attention in 1911 by the American historian Hiram Bingham. Since then, Machu Picchu has become an important tourist attraction.

Machu Picchu was declared a Peruvian Historical Sanctuary in 1981 and a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983. In 2007, Machu Picchu was voted one of the New Seven Wonders of the World in a worldwide Internet poll.

Giant panda

Giant panda. Credit- en.wikipedia.org
Gaint panda also known as panda bear lives in a few mountain ranges in central China, mainly in Sichuan province, but also in the Shaanxi and Gansu provinces.

Though it belongs to the order Carnivora, the panda's diet is over 99% bamboo. Pandas in the wild will occasionally eat other grasses, wild tubers, or even meat in the form of birds, rodents or carrion. In captivity, they may receive honey, eggs, fish, yams, shrub leaves, oranges, or bananas along with specially prepared food.

Black hole

A black hole is defined as a region of spacetime from which gravity prevents anything, including light, from escaping. The theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass will deform spacetime to form a black hole. Around a black hole, there is a mathematically defined surface called an event horizon that marks the point of no return. The hole is called "black" because it absorbs all the light that hits the horizon, reflecting nothing, just like a perfect black body in thermodynamics.

Natural gas

Natural gas is a fossil fuel formed when layers of buried plants, gases, and animals are exposed to intense heat and pressure over thousands of years. The energy that the plants originally obtained from the sun is stored in the form of chemical bonds in natural gas. Natural gas is a nonrenewable resource because it cannot be replenished on a human time frame. Natural gas is a hydrocarbon gas mixture consisting primarily of methane, but commonly includes varying amounts of other higher alkanes and even a lesser percentage of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and hydrogen sulfide. Natural gas is an energy source often used for heating, cooking, and electricity generation. It is also used as fuel for vehicles.

Planet Saturn

Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest planet in the Solar System, after Jupiter. Named after the Roman god of agriculture, its astronomical symbol (♄) represents the god's sickle. Saturn is a gas giant with an average radius about nine times that of Earth. While only one-eighth the average density of Earth, with its larger volume Saturn is just over 95 times more massive

Flightless birds

Flightless birds are birds that cannot fly. There are about 40 species in existence today, the best known being the ratites and the penguins.Many flightless birds evolved on islands that had few predators from which the birds needed to escape. Others use fast swimming or running as an alternative to flying.

Sacred Land of Japan

Shinto/Buddhist pilgrimage trail through forest in the Kii Mountains of Japan. 15 percent of the world's surface is “sacred land”. Kumano sacred forest trails were and are still used for the pilgrimage to the sacred site "Kumano Sanzan."

Winter Olympic Games

The Winter Olympic Games is a major international sporting event that occurs once every four years. The first Winter Olympics, the 1924 Winter Olympics, were held in Chamonix, France. The original sports were alpine and cross-country skiing, figure skating, ice hockey, Nordic combined, ski jumping and speed skating.
The 2014 Winter Olympics, officially the XXII Olympic Winter Games, or the 22nd Winter Olympics, is a major international multi-sport event currently being held in Sochi, Russia. Scheduled for 7–23 February 2014,

Mission to Mars

Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second smallest planet in the Solar System, after Mercury. Named after the Roman god of war, it is often described as the "Red Planet" because the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance.[14] Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin atmosphere, having surface features reminiscent both of the impact craters of the Moon and the volcanoes, valleys, deserts, and polar ice caps of Earth. The rotational period and seasonal cycles of Mars are likewise similar to those of Earth, as is the tilt that produces the seasons.
Since 6 August 2012, there have been two scientific rovers on the surface of Mars beaming signals back to Earth (Opportunity of the Mars Exploration Rover mission, and Curiosity of the Mars Science Laboratory mission), and three orbiters currently surveying the planet: Mars Odyssey, Mars Express, and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Two orbiters launched in November 2013, Mars Orbiter Mission and MAVEN, are currently on their way to Mars.

Touch-me-not plant