The Wall of Tears, Ecuador

The Wall of Tears is an historical site just five kilometers west of Puerto Villamil on Isabela Island in the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador. A penal colony existed on Isabela from 1944 to 1959 and the penal colony was marked by abuse, and considered prisoners as slaves. One of the tasks entrusted to the prisoners, so they would have to do something. The wall construction was with volcanic stones, and Prisoners had to carry heavy stones from several kilometers. On this tour and during the construction of the wall, many fell due to insolation and lack of food. Moreover, many lives’ lost because the wall collapsed, and many prisoners were buried in makeshift graves along the way. The result of this construction is what nowadays is famous as the Wall of Tears. The wall is said to have been the cause of thousands of deaths during its construction, call it the wall of tears because it is said to emanate eerie cries and have a heavy energy surrounding it.

Isabela worked as a US military base but after the end of World War II, the forces withdrew. Therefore, the Ecuadorian government decided to use the, by then, remote island to take the most treacherous prisoners in the country and found what they called a penal colony. Thus the facilities abandoned by soldiers of the United States for that "prison" were used. But the horror of the story begins 1946 when it was decided, as a sentence, that criminals pay their verdict with hard labor. The Wall of Tears never finished being constructed , it really did not have greatly purpose being nothing more than to cause misery to hold prisoners in an activity, and it is an irresistible formation of about 100 meters long, 3 meters wide and 5-6 m high, which is now a site to visit the island Isabela.

Thus, definitely the history of the penal colony of Isabela and the Wall of Tears is not the gladdest history of the islands. The Wall of Tears, named for the suffering and pain of their builders, still stands all alone on Isabela Island, blocking nothing from anything and complementary each day with the beautiful landscape that grows around it. Peoples can actually walk up to the top of the wall and get an idea of how high it is and how easy it would have been to fall off with a little wooziness from the tropical sun. The penal colony on the island is long gone, but the memory of the cruelty inflicted their lives on.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Calico, The Ghost Town of California

Calico ghost town located in the Calico Mountains founded in 1881, which was California's largest silver producer in the mid-1880s. The former silver mining town in San Bernardino County, California, had more than 500 mines. In 1890 the probable population of the town was 3,500, with nationals of China, England, Ireland, Greece, France, and the Netherlands, as well as Americans living there.

Calico produced over $20 million in silver ore more than 12-years. However, when silver lost its value in the mid-1890's, Calico lost its population.  The miner's packed up, loaded their mules and moved away vacating the town that once gave them a good living.  After that it became a "ghost town." In 1950’s Walter Knott purchased Calico architecturally restoring all but the five original buildings to look as they did in the 1880's.  In 1951, He installed a longtime employee named "Calico Fred" Noller as resident caretaker and official greeter.

Thus, in 1966, Knott donated the town to San Bernardino County, and Calico became a County Regional Park. In 1962, Calico Ghost Town was registered as a California Historical Landmark. Moreover in 2002, Calico vied with Bodie in Mono County to be accepted as the Official State Ghost Town. In 2005, a compromise was eventually reached when the State Senate and State Assembly agreed to list Bodie as the Official State Gold Rush Ghost Town and Calico the Official State Silver Rush Ghost Town. It was proclaimed by then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to be California's Silver Rush Ghost Town. Nowadays, the park operates mine tours, gunfight stunt shows, gold panning, numerous restaurants, the historic, 2 feet 6in narrow gauge Calico & Odessa Railroad, and a number of trinket stores and lots of its original buildings are still standing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Copycat Version of Taj Mahal in Bangladesh

Replica of Taj Mahal in Bangladesh is located 10 miles east of the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka in Sonargaon. It is a scaled copy of the original Taj Mahal Unlike the original work on the building took only five years. A rich Bangladeshi film-maker, Ahsanullah Moni has announced his “Copycat version of Taj Mahal” project at a cost of about USD$ 56 Million in December 2008.  It was built 20 miles northeast of Capital Dhaka. The Replica of Taj Mahal caused bit complaints by some Indian officials. They believe copying Taj Mahal is unethical, and detract visitor from original one. The replica was unlikely to detract from the magnificence of the original and visitors were unlikely to mix up one with the other. A copy is a form of flattery for copyright infringement of the original 350 year old building; however, the Indian High Commission later accepted that the replica was unlikely to detract visitors from the original.

However Ahsanullah Moni said, how he built a replica of the Taj Mahal so that the poor of his nation can realize their dream of seeing neighboring India's famed monument. Therefore, construction work began in 2003, and he said that he came up with the idea in 1980 when he first visited the real Taj in Agra, northern India. He said that his homage had been built because most people living in Bangladesh where nearly half of the population exists below the poverty line and cannot afford to travel to India to see the real Taj Mahal. Everyone dreams about seeing the Taj Mahal but very few Bangladeshis can make the trip because it's too expensive for them.

Mr Ahsanullah Moni first visited the original Taj Mahal in Agra, India in 1980 and after that he has made six return trips. Therefore, he hired a group of architects and sent them to India to get the measurements. However, same marble and stone has used in Replica of Taj Mahal as same in the original Taj. The Replica was made with latest machinery, took less time. Otherwise it would have taken more than 20 years. More interestingly few people visit this site to compare the original Taj Mahal with the artificial one. That intention is to comparing would have very odd and irrational. It is suggested to enjoy & observe the Architectural property of this building rather comparing.

The White Desert of Egypt

Just a few hours from the bursting metropolis of Cairo lies a strange desert that will make you feel like you have landed on the surface of the moon. The White desert is located about 45 km north of Farafra, Egypt. The main geographic attraction of Farafra is White Desert (known as Sahara el Beyda, with the word Sahara meaning a desert. The white desert is clear contrast with the yellow desert elsewhere, something which you will not believe before seeing with your own eyes. The exclusive calcium rock formations crop up across the landscape like great abstract statues, resemble food, names like “mushroom” and “ice-cream cone,” while others have inspired more impressive designations, such as “the Monolith” and “Inselberg.” Perhaps the most characteristic of these unusual natural formations is the famed “chicken and tree” set, also called “chicken and mushroom,” or, better yet, “chicken and atomic bomb.” Only in The White Desert will you encounter such a inexplicable and breathtaking natural museum of chalk-rock.

In the night time, several of the organized trips out here include overnight stay out in the desert. If you want to enjoy the real view of white desert, the best viewed at sunrise or sunset, in the light of a full moon, which gives the amazing landscape an eerie Arctic appearance. The tourists can observe the changing faces of chickens and mushrooms and monoliths as the bright sun of the afternoon sinks into a shadowy dusk. As the sun goes down, the calcium sea seems to reflect all the fuchsias and oranges of the sky. However, any night under the stars of the Western Desert is an experience not soon forgotten; the fortunate few that catch a full moon will witness the desert giving off a ghostly, iridescent glow. Tourists are well advised not to get too close to the formations because any certainly not touch them.  Millennia of erosion have made a lot of them extremely unstable and an unwitting hand could cause these ancient creations to collapse.

The White Desert is a widely held tourist spot for its melodramatic and rare rock formations. The magnificent snow-white desert is actually made of chalk that has been exposed for years to what geologists call "differential weathering," the erosion of soft particles that results in strange protrusions of hard rock. The mushrooms shaped rock formations are 10 to 15ft tall. The limestone bases had been worn away by the mixture of wind and sand that had blown by them at high speeds for thousands of years. The differential weathering explains the very striking forms that now fill the White Desert including shapes like domes, minarets, castles, towers and so forth. The rock formations of the desert are often quite dramatic; you should not miss out on the weird rock balancing, on top of a white pillar. Much of the white desert is accessible only by four-wheeled drive or, for the more traditionally minded, the camel. It’s an anthropomorphist’s paradise.