Ischigualasto – The Valley of the Moon

The name is old – from the native Quechua tribe and it means the place where you put the moon. Ischigualasto is an extraordinary almost off world experience. Geologists have been visiting the valley in Argentina for more than one hundred years. It doesn’t take long to see what attracts them.

Image Credit Flickr User PabloBD

The Roof of Africa: The Spectacular Beauty of the Ethiopian Highlands

Do not be uncomfortable if the first words that come to mind when Ethiopia is mentioned have negative connotations. If you live in the developed world then you may easily connect the country to its well documented recent history of insurgency, civil war and famine. Yet although Ethiopia’s troubles are far from over there is much more to the country than this. Its Highlands contain the largest continuous area of high altitude land in the whole of the continent. Little wonder then that the Ethiopian Highlands are often called The Roof of Africa. They are also, without exaggeration, simply spectacular.

Image Credit Flickr User Banksias

Image Credit Flickr User Indrik Meyneur

The Highlands are enormous and are divided by the Ethiopian Rift. All of the pictures you will see here are from the northwestern side of the highlands. Designated a National Park in 1969 (the first of ten in the country), this portion contains Simien Mountain and Ras Dashan which is the highest peak in Ethiopia.

Lake Kaindy – Kazakhstan’s Sunken Forrest

Lake Kaindy is situated near the village of Saty in the Kungey Alatau Mountains (a range in the North Tien-Shan) in the central Asian country of Kazakhstan.

There wasn’t always a lake there: the trunks of pine trees jutting out of the water provide testimony to that.

So what happened here?

Image Credit Flickr User Nuggems

The lake is only 400 meters length but in some places it is over thirty meters deep.  It was formed as a result of the massive 1911 Kebin earthquake.  There was a huge landslide which blocked the gorge and a natural dam was formed – and endured.  As the waters rose and it submerged the Schrenk's Spruce (the place means lots of spruce) growing in the area.