Salar de Uyuni

Could you imagine 12000 km2 of salt? In Bolivia exists an incredible desert of salt and the Bolivians have known how to take profit of this. The name of this desert is Salar de Uyuni and it is specifically located in the Potosí department in the southwest of Bolivia. Uyuni is one of the biggest reservations of lithium in the world, and there are great quantities of magnesium, potassium and boron.

As you must imagine this is a big economic source as there are a lot of tones of salt with they can trade as well as with the lithium and the other components already said. But the economic source it is not finished with the traffic of salt there also exist the tourism attraction. A lot of people came every year to see the awesome view of a desert of salt because the desert is transparent and it’s seems like you are walking over a mirror.

But to gain more tourists they thought to build a hotel with blocks of salt in the middle of the desert. It’s a small hotel but soon became a very popular tourist destination. This is the second hotel that it is build in the desert, the first was smaller and it’s had 12 double rooms, a common bathroom, and no shower. In the current hotel they had included a dry sauna and a steam room, a saltwater pool and whirlpool baths.

Another very popular attraction is the train cemetery. This cemetery contains the old trains that distribute the salt of the desert to the Pacific Ocean ports. In the 40s the mineral industry collapsed for the mineral depletion so many of trains were abandoned and they became a train cemetery. Someone saw in this trains a tourism source and convert this in an attraction for the tourists.

Wadi Rum

Today we want to talk about another fantastic destination created by nature. There are so many places in our world that seems to pertain to another planet like the one who I would talk now: Wadi Rum.

Wadi Rum is a valley of sandstone and granite rock located between the southern of Jordan and the east of Aqaba. Wadi is an Arabic term to refer to a valley and Rum probably comes from an Aramic root meaning “high” or “elevated”. This valley it’s not only important for its views and beauties but it’s because has been inhabited by many human cultures since prehistoric times, and these civilizations has leaving their marks in paintings on the rocks, graffitis and temples.

Wadi Rum it’s also known too for been the place where T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) based his operations during the Arab Revolt of 1917-1918.

People have taken advantage of this place like Zalabia Bedouin who, working with climbers and trekkers, had developed eco-adventure tourism in the zone and in the actuality is their main source of income. The valley is now one of the most important destinations in Jordan and attracts a lot of tourists every year, especially climbers and trekkers. It’s also popular for doing activities like camping under the stars in the desert, riding horses, hiking and rock-climbing among the massive rock formations.

To end this post we reported that exists an annual marathon in the region called Jabal Ishrin, you dare to participate?

See you in another post.

Be curious!

Loch Ness

Last week I was doing my final English class project for this year, it consisted in an organized trip around Scotland, when I was doing it, I has to book a room in Inverness, a town pretty close from Ness Lake ( or Loch Ness like Scottish people named ) and I saw that exist a lot and a lot of tours around the Loch Ness, obviously because presumably Nessie, the mythological animal that lives inside them, is still diving in those cold water. In fact, this is the main case that how a curiosity can become a business.

Nessie history start in the typical Scottish tavern, anybody know where, maybe in a town next to the loch, or in Inverness, maybe in a Britain city, the important is that the fishermen who use to fish in this lake explains to the others that they saw a giant animal diving around them, along decades, a lot of people told that they saw the monster as well. The legend was growing when a photo, in 1934 showing Nessie’s head and neck, alarms the people becoming Nessie in a superstar, everyone wanted to see it and start to travel to Inverness, the biggest city close from the Lake.

In this moment, some businessman has the vision, they had to build hostels, hotels, make tours around the lake. This kind of business still working nowadays even that everyone knows that the picture made in 1934 is a big fake, even studies who prove that Nessie or their offal doesn’t exist. Exist a lot of tours, for different prices, for different hours of duration, for different kinds of ship, there are tours for 1 hour to 6 hours, from 10euros to 60, with a boat or with cruise the offer is really huge. Nessie is famous, it was made a lot of merchandising around this animal, were doing films and cartoon series, they introduce in our minds as a real phenomenon.

Anyway, the Loch Ness is a magic place, not for Nessie, is located in the amazing Britain highlands, is the second one bigger lake in Scotland, and has more water than all England and Wales lakes at once. With impressive landscapes, mix of colours, a medieval mid-ruins castle just in the coast of them, and with the characteristically Scottish weather. Loch Ness suggests us that we are in the medieval age, and for me, this is the main attractive about the lake.

Bunker's business

Last week, I was reading newspaper when I saw an amazing advertisement in relation to a bunker selling.

The advertisement explain that this kind of bunkers can resists all type of natural catastrophes where will arrive the Maya’s end of world and atomic bombs as well in case of war. The price starts from 800€ without the furniture necessary to survive inside of them. The surprise is that this bunkers exist in Spain a traditional sceptic country with this kind of things . The people start to go insane and suffer the collective paranoia or maybe the pressure of the media. That’s not end good…

Everybody knows that this prophecy is being taken really seriously for a lot of people , and exist someone who decides to take advantage of this “trend”, and this is a little example.For instance, a lot of people are buying bunkers in USA just in case, and they say that if the prophecy is false, they’ll use in case of war. A large percentage of USA population thinks that the third big war will arrive soon, I care this kind of collective behaviour…but we’ll talk in other occasion.

For me the important is how the people take advantage of the collective paranoia. Firstly, this bunkers don’t guarantee the security of natural disasters or atomic bombs because in some cases, is just a metal box at 2 meters under land. I don’t know if this business is legal, but I’m sure that’s not completely safe. But it’s not important for the sellers or constructors, in fact, they use one of the most important channels nowadays and one of the less controlled as well, Internet. Searching “Buy Bunker” and you’ll  find a lot of offers of bunkers and a lot of advices about how to manage your bunker to being legal.

 Maybe the most incredible story is the GSE2012 ( Spanish Group for Survival 2012 ), this is a pioneer group that is building an a atomic collective bunker. To have place in this big collective bunker you must affiliate to the group for a expensive price to help the construction. It was founded by Jonathan Bosque, who start they own group for survival after work in the group of Patrick Geryl, writer of “World cataclysm 2012”. The first bunker of GSE2012 will have place for 50 people, the 50^th first affiliates to the group, then they plan to build another one, bigger, with place for 400 people. Around the bunker they will build a little eco-town to live a few weeks before the prophecy to check if it’s able to human life. The final price to have a place in this big bunker was 2.400€ for 450 people…1.080.000€!!! The end of this story is more dramatic, after 21th of December, Jonathan Bosque disappeared with all money and no bunker built.

Take care about your security and family security as well but take more care about who is trying to sell your security, because you can being scammed.

See you in our next post!