I thought it would be cool to start a thread showing pics of places of the beautiful and enigmatic places in our world. I hope this is the appropriate subforum for this!

I came upon this amazing place the other day...

Pink Lake, Senegal, West Africa

One of the most interesting, beautiful attractions and rare natural phenomena in all of Senegal lies just 30 minutes (about 32 kilometers) north of the capital city of Dakar and a few hundred meters off the Atlantic Ocean. Located in the middle of small villages in the midst of a baobab forest, the Pink Lake (also known as Retba in Wolof and Lac Rose in French) is a warm, large but shallow lake with a high salt level that makes it possible for virtually anything to float on it.

As its name implies, the Pink Lake has a stunning, mineral-rich, pink-to-reddish color caused by a unique combination of microorganisms and a high concentration of salt crystals. Time of day and position of the sun further determine periodic changes in its color. Perhaps the water’s most stunning colors are apparent at dusk or dawn, during which the interplay of sunlight with rock-forming mineral deposits (know as feldspar) produces a shimmering effect through the water, emitting a pervasive violet tinge. This staggering brilliance is intensified by the patches of white foam that gather at its borders.

A leading tourist attraction, the Pink Lake appeals greatly to locals and visitors who flock there to float in its calm waters, relax on its sand dunes, or explore its surrounding baobab forest and nearby villages. This way, they are able to have ample insight into local village life, lively vegetable markets, and traditional Fula culture. The lake also served as a standard terminal for the Dakar Rally, where some competitors swim and cool off after taking part in the race at breakneck speeds. (Formerly known as the Paris-Dakar Rally, the Dakar Rally is an annual off-road, automobile race that has traditionally taken place from France to Dakar since its inception in 1978. Due to a number of security concerns, however, other regional locations are now being considered for the race. In, 2009, for instance, the rally took place in South America.)

For a significant number of the indigenous men and women, the Pink Lake provides a means of livelihood as they extract, gather, and sell its abundant buildup of salts. Approximately five kilometers along its shoreline—known as Niaga-Peul—there is a booming, salt mining cottage industry. Women are typically the salters (or producers) while men are the wholesalers and transporters. Besides containing vast quantities of commercial salt, the lake is also a principal trading spot for seafood. In the afternoon, hundreds of fishermen return from the high sea where they usually spend the night, bringing in tons of fish, shrimp, and lobsters in their dugout canoes.

Experts say that the Pink Lake was formed after the seas retreated many thousands of years ago, thus leaving the body of saltwater behind. It is truly a natural oddity and compares with the likes of the Dead Sea, which is also known to contain extraordinarily huge amounts of salt. The Pink Lake thus forms part of the Senegalese national heritage. For biologists, this body of water is in the category of ecological extremes because of its strong salt concentration, which is one of the highest worldwide—(approximately 380 grams per liter).

www.senegalsoul.com/2012/03/pink-lake-senegal.html

Deepwater Whip Coral, Japan

What looks like a tangle of gnarled cables is in fact a forest of deepwater whip coral in Suruga Bay. Each strand is studded with feeding polyps that reach tiny tentacles into the currents to grab floating food.

Photographer: Brian Skerry

Idol Rock, Brimham Rocks-North Yorkshire, England.
It weighs 200 tons and balances on a rock a fraction of its size.

Socotra Island off the coast of Yemen.



Weird or what eh?

The first time I saw it I did a double take and checked what was in my spliff.....

Simply beautiful, Andy! I see what you mean! Thanks for posting these!


*Derinkuyu Underground City (Nevşehir, Turkey)

In 1963, during a simple renovation in the town of Derinkuyu, a cave wall was opened, revealing a passage way to an underground city, thousands of years old, extending more than 280 feet deep. Derinkuyu is 13 stories, with 15,000 little ventilation shafts that bring air to even the deepest of levels. The number of rock rooms that were found could hold over 20,000 Men Women and Children. There is evidence of Religious centers, store rooms, wine presses and stables for livestock. Derinkuyu is the largest excavated underground city in Turkey and is part of a network of several underground complexes found across Cappadocia.

Ancient Ruins of Sacsayhuaman, Peru

Above Cusco, Peru at a elevation above 12,000 feet sits the ancient fortress of Sacsayhuaman, whose immense stone walls may hold secrets that predate the Incas themselves. Some of the stone blocks are estimated to weigh well over 100 Tons.

In the words of author and Researcher, Graham Hancock, "My feeling, very strong feeling, is that we are looking at a two phase construction site in many of the so called "Inca stone monuments" and that the Inca structures sit on top of much more ancient rock cut structures and megalithic structures that we just don't know who built them and this actually fits with the Incas own view."

According to conventional theory, the killke culture built the older sections of the site about 1,000 years ago, but the Incas themselves believe the site was constructed by an earlier unnamed race of people, lead by a powerful god who descended from the skies, Viracocha. Viracocha stands out in the culture as he is known as a very tall, light skinned, white haired being.

The Giant of Atacama, Chile* (900 AD) "The lines at Nazca aren't the only landscape figures South America boasts. About 850 miles south of the plain is the largest human figure in the world laid out upon the side of Solitary Mountain in Chile. The Giant of Atacama stands 393 feet high and is surrounded by lines similar to those at Nazca. www.unmuseum.org/nazca.htm

Experts have estimated that it dates from between 800 and 1400 AD with the most likely date being c. 900 AD. According to some sources the lines extending from the top of the giant's head represent magical rays and can be used as an astronomical calendar to predict seasons and rainfall. It is also known locally as the Gigante de Tarapacá.

According to Wikipedia " The figure was an early astronomical calendar for knowing where the moon would set; by knowing this the day, crop cycle, and season could be determined. The points on the top and side of the head would say what season it would be depending on their alignment with the moon, which was very important in determining when the rainy season would come in the barren Atacama... and it represents a deity for the local inhabitants from 1000 to 1400 CE."

Caral, Peru* Ancient civilization in the Americas, -Norte Chico civilization. The ruins date back over 5,000 years, which means there were cities and life in Peru around the same time as Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt.

Paul Kosok discovered Caral in 1948. Archaeologist Ruth Shady further explored the 5,000 year-old city of pyramids in the Peruvian desert, with its elaborate complex of temples, an amphitheater and ordinary houses. The urban complex is spread out over 150 acres and contains plazas and residential buildings. Caral was a thriving metropolis at roughly the same time that Egypt's great pyramids were being built.

The main Pyramid, Pirámide Mayor, covers an area nearly the size of four football fields and is 60 feet tall.

Bump!

This is such a good thread, I'll pop some more in here tonight when I get home from work.

Explore loads of interesting places online with the google world wonders project.

www.google.com/intl/en/culturalinstitute/worldwonders/

Videos and photography galore.

Coyote Buttes USA

This place in Uzbekistan near the small town of Darvaz is called by locals “The Door to Hell”

Amazing thread thus far, Mountain! It's amazing how unique this little blue marble is.

Great blue hole of Belize.



Lake Baikal - Siberia: What's cool about this lake is it's very deep, and has hydrothermal vents. This makes the lake very fertile. So much so that it has the world's only fresh water seals, and strangle looking shrimp-lobster like creatures called epischura. These two creatures exist nowhere else on the planet. If memory serves me correctly, there are about 1,200 species that inhabit the lake, also which are found nowhere else.

Cave of the Crystals Mexico.
The cave is extremely hot with air temperatures reaching up to 58 °C (136 °F) with 90 to 99 percent humidity.

andyh wrote:
Thanks Andy! I will be looking through this link for more places to explore

*Okay this is going to be a pain a bit because somehow I cannot use a multi-quote option*

humanspirit wrote:
Thanks for posting this!

This place always reminds me of a vivid dream I had when I was a teen of an underground cavern system. People all had on rollerskates to better travel throughout it and there were many rooms with gatherings of people, some sipping drinks and some talking. It was just wild! A good feeling dream though.

Picture this look but with a matching ceiling. I have no clue of the texture of the surface of this place, but the interior in my dream was like smooth hardwood.

martg wrote:
Thanks for posting this, Mart! It looks creepeh, like the entrance to an underworld for sure. Medusa's lair.

Mrindigo wrote:
Wow, never saw such a beautiful place such as the hole of Belize! I wonder what other species are part of that deep lake that hasn't been discovered yet, too. I am going to look these. Thanks for sharing, Indie!

Absolutely beautiful and very interesting places... can't get over how large those crystals are in Mexico, jaw dropping.

Naqsh-e Rustam* - Fars province, Iran* Four tombs belonging to Achaemenid kings are carved out of the rock face at a considerable height above the ground. The tombs are known locally as the 'Persian crosses', after the shape of the facades of the tombs. The entrance to each tomb is at the center of each cross, which opens onto to a small chamber, where the king lay in a sarcophagus. The horizontal beam of each of the tomb's facades is believed to be a replica of the entrance of the palace at Persepolis.

One of the tombs is explicitly identified by an accompanying inscription to be the tomb of Darius I the Great (c. 522-486 BC), third king of the Achaemenid Empire. In 1923, the German archaeologist Ernst Herzfeld made casts of the inscriptions on the tomb of Darius I. Since 1946, these casts are held in the archives of the Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, DC.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naqsh-e_Rustam