Republic of Chile (part I)

Recently I found an interesting country to talk about, Chile. Starting I would like to talk about tourism, wich I think it is very interesting but don't understimate, there's lot to know about Chile, one of the most interesting countries I ever research.

Tourism:
The main attractions for tourists are places of natural beauty situated in the extreme zones of the country: San Pedro de Atacama, in the north, is very popular with foreign tourists who arrive to admire the Incaic architecture, the altiplano lakes, and the Valley of the Moon. In Putre, also in the North, there is the Chungará Lake, as well as the Parinacota and the Pomerape volcanoes, with altitudes of 6,348 m and 6,282 m, respectively. Throughout the central Andes there are many ski resorts of international repute, like Portillo and Valle Nevado. In the south, the main tourist sites are the Chiloé Archipelago and Patagonia, which includes Laguna San Rafael National Park, with its many glaciers, and the Torres del Paine National Park. The central port city of Valparaíso, with its unique architecture, is also popular. Finally, Easter Island in the Pacific Ocean is probably the main Chilean tourist destination.
For locals, tourism is concentrated mostly in the summer (December to March), and mainly in the coastal beach towns. Arica, Iquique, Antofagasta, La Serena and Coquimbo are the main summer centres in the north, and Pucón on the shores of Lake Villarrica is the main one in the south. Due to its proximity to Santiago, the coast of the Valparaíso Region, with its many beach resorts, receives the largest number of tourists. Viña del Mar, Valparaíso's northern affluent neighbor, is popular due to its beaches, casino, and its annual song festival, the most important musical event in Latin America.

Geography:
The northern Atacama Desert contains great mineral wealth, primarily copper and nitrates. The relatively small Central Valley, which includes Santiago, dominates the country in terms of population and agricultural resources. This area also is the historical center from which Chile expanded in the late nineteenth century, when it integrated the northern and southern regions. Southern Chile is rich in forests, grazing lands, and features a string of volcanoes and lakes. The southern coast is a labyrinth of fjords, inlets, canals, twisting peninsulas, and islands. The Andes Mountains are located on the eastern border. Chile is the longest (N-S) country in the world (over 4,200 km). Chile controls Easter Island and Sala y Gómez Island, the easternmost islands of Polynesia, which it incorporated to its territory in 1888, and Robinson Crusoe Island, more than 600 km from the mainland, in the Juan Fernández archipelago. Easter Island is nowadays a province of Chile. Also controlled but only temporally inhabited (by some local fishermen) are the small islands of Sala y Gómez, San Ambrosio and San Felix, these islands are notable because they extend Chile's claim to territorial waters out from its coast into the Pacific.

National symbols:
The national flower is the copihue (Lapageria rosea, Chilean bellflower), which grows in the woods of southern Chile. The coat of arms depicts the two national animals: the condor (Vultur gryphus, a very large bird that lives in the mountains) and the huemul (Hippocamelus bisulcus, an endangered white tail deer). It also has the legend Por la razón o la fuerza (By right or might or By reason or by force). The flag of Chile consists of two equal horizontal bands of white (top) and red; there is a blue square the same height as the white band at the hoist-side end of the white band; the square bears a white five-pointed star in the center representing a guide to progress and honor; blue symbolizes the sky, white is for the snow-covered Andes, and red stands for the blood spilled to achieve independence.

Next post I will write more information about Chile.

India

Nice to see you again! =)

Today I would like to talk about India. To begin, I can talk about this structure where it can be found in that country. Known as Taj Mahal from the 17th century, it is often called a poem in stone. If so, the mausoleum is a love poem because it was created by Shah Jahan for his favorite wife Mumtaz Mahal.

The South Asian country of India includes a peninsula extending into the Indian Ocean, and it is a land of great contrasts in geography. The barren, snow-capped Himalaya, the world's tallest mountain system, rises along its northern border. South of the Himalaya, the low, fertile Ganges Plain is India's most populous region. The Great Indian Desert, eastern India receives some of the highest rainfall in the world during the monsoon season.

Home to the Indus Valley Civilization (ancient civilization that flourished in the Indus River basin) and a region of historic trade routes and vast empires, the Indian subcontinent was identified with its commercial and cultural wealth for much of its long history.

The name is derived from Indus, from the Old Persian word Hindu, Sanskrit Sindhu, the historic local appellation for the Indus River. The ancient Greeks referred to the Indians as Indoi, the people of the Indus. The Constitution of India and common usage in various Indian languages also recognise Bharat as an official name of equal status. Hindustan, which is the Persian word for “Land of the Hindus” and historically referred to northern India, is also occasionally used as a synonym for all of India.


India follows several religions, some originated, other brought from other cultures:
Four major world religions, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism originated there, while Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam arrived in the first millennium CE and shaped the region's diverse culture. Gradually annexed by the British East India Company from the early eighteenth century and colonised by the United Kingdom from the mid-nineteenth century, India became an independent nation in 1947.

India displays significant biodiversity. India's forest cover ranges from the tropical rainforest of the Andaman Islands, Western Ghats, and North-East India to the coniferous forest of the Himalaya. Important Indian trees include the medicinal neem, widely used in rural Indian herbal remedies. The pipal fig tree, shown on the seals of Mohenjo-daro, shaded Gautama Buddha as the sought enlightenment.

Notable endemics are the Nilgiri leaf monkey and the brown and carmine Beddome's toad of the Western Ghats. India contains 172 threatened species. These include the Asiatic Lion, the Bengal Tiger, and the Indian white-rumped vulture, which suffered a near-extinction from ingesting the carrion of diclofenac-treated cattle.

Something about culture:
India's culture has managed to preserve established traditions while absorbing new customs, traditions, and ideas from invaders and immigrants and spreading its cultural influence to other parts of Asia.

Indian architecture is one area that represents the diversity of Indian culture. Much of it, including notable monuments such as the Taj Mahal and other examples of Mughal architecture and South Indian architecture.

Indian music covers a wide range of traditions and regional styles. Classical music largely encompasses the two genres – North Indian Hindustani, South Indian Carnatic traditions and their various offshoots in the form of regional folk music.

Indian dance also has diverse folk and classical forms. Among the well-known folk dances are the bhangra of the Punjab, the bihu of Assam, the chhau of West Bengal, Jharkhand, Orissa and the ghoomar of Rajasthan.

Indian cuisine is characterized by a wide variety of regional styles and sophisticated use of herbs and spices. The staple foods in the region are rice (especially in the south and the east) and wheat (predominantly in the north). Spices originally native to the Indian subcontinent that are now consumed world wide include black pepper; in contrast, hot chili peppers, popular across India, were introduced by the Portuguese.

Traditional Indian dress varies across the regions in its colours and styles and depends on various factors, including climate. Popular styles of dress include draped garments such as sari for women and dhoti or lungi for men; in addition, stitched clothes such as salwar kameez for women and kurta-pajama and European-style trousers and shirts for men, are also popular.

Finally, it would be wise to talk about sports:
India's official national sport is field hockey, administered by the Indian Hockey Federation. The Indian field hockey team has won the 1975 Men's Hockey World Cup and Olympic gold medals. However, cricket is the most popular sport; the India national cricket team has won the 1983 Cricket World Cup and the 2007 ICC World Twenty20. Indian national team cricketers enjoy widespread popularity and hold several world records.
Tennis has become increasingly popular, owing to the victories of the India Davis Cup team. Association football is also a popular sport in northeast India. The Indian national football team has won the South Asian Football Federation Cup several times. Chess, commonly held to have originated in India, is also gaining popularity with the rise in the number of Indian Grandmasters. Traditional sports include kabaddi, kho kho, and gilli-danda, which are played nationwide. India is also home to the ancient martial arts, Kalarippayattu and Varma Kalai. The Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna and the Arjuna Award are India's highest civilian sports awards.

I hope you enjoyed the culture of India, till my next post! lies in the west, but

Congo, Republic of the

The Republic of the Congo, also known as Congo-Brazzaville or the Congo, is a country in Central Africa.
The republic is a former French colony. Upon independence in 1960, the former French region of Middle Congo became the Republic of the Congo. Congo became a multi-party democracy in 1992.

The earliest inhabitants of the region were Pygmy people(member of any human group whose adult males grow to less than 150 cm -4 feet 11 inches- in average height or less than 155 cm), who later were largely displaced and absorbed by Bantu tribes during the Bantu expansions. The Bakongo are a Bantu ethnicity that also occupied parts of present-day Angola, Gabon, and Democratic Republic of the Congo, forming the basis for ethnic affinities and rivalries among those countries. Several Bantu kingdoms -notably those of the Kongo, the Loango, and the Teke- built trade links leading into the Congo River basin.

The inhabitants of the Congo river delta first came into contact with Europeans in the late 15th century with Portuguese expeditions charting the African coastline. Commercial relationships were quickly established between the inland Bantu kingdoms and European merchants who traded various commodities, manufactured goods, and slaves captured from the hinterlands. For centuries, Congo river delta was a major commercial hub for transatlantic trade.

Located in the central-west Africa, with a small portion of coast in the Atlantic Ocean and crossed by the Equator, the Congo is hot and humid climate. About 55% of the territory is covered by tropical forests.

The Congo is located in the central-west sub-Saharan Africa, and is crossed by the equator. To the south and east, is limited by the Congo River and its tributaries one of the Ubangi River, and the left sides of both rivers belong to the Democratic Republic of Congo. The other is the country's borders with Gabon to the west, Cameroon and Central African Republic to the north and (Angola) the southwest. The Congo also has a short Atlantic coast.
Its capital, Brazzaville, is situated on the banks of the Congo River in the south of the country, even in front of Kinshasa, the capital of DR Congo.

The country is a southwestern coastal plain, which is mainly drained by the river Kouilou-Niari. The interior consists of a central plateau between two basins, north and south.

Animals: some are very known, others very strange =)
- Gorilla, Tigerfish, Buffalo, Okapi

Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico is a country in the east Caribbean Sea, associated with the United States of America. It represents the island of Puerto Rico and for a few more islands and islets, among which stand out from Vieques, Culebra and Mona. Its capital is San Juan.

Puerto Ricans often call the island Borinquen, derive from Borikén, its indigenous Taíno name. The terms boricua and borincano and Borinquen respectively, and are commonly used to identify someone of Puerto Rican heritage. The island is also popularly known as "La Isla del Encanto", which translated means "The Island of Enchantment".

It was a spanish colony. When Christopher Columbus arrived in Puerto Rico during his second voyage on November 19, 1493, the island was inhabited by a group of Arawak Indians known as Taínos. They called the island "Borikén" or, in Spanish, "Borinquen". Columbus named the island San Juan Bautista, in honor of Saint John the Baptist. Later the island took the name of Puerto Rico (Spanish for "Rich Port") while the capital was named San Juan. In 1508, Juan Ponce de León became the island's first governor to take office.On July 25, 1898, during the Spanish-American War, Puerto Rico was invaded by the United States with a landing at Guánica. As an outcome of the war, Spain ceded Puerto Rico, along with Cuba, the Philippines, and Guam to the U.S. under the Treaty of Paris. From that point it became an U.S. colony.

Puerto Rican culture is a mix of four cultures, African (from the slaves), Taíno (Amerindians), Spanish, and more recently, North American. From Africans, the Puerto Ricans have obtained the "bomba y plena", a type of music and dance including percussions and maracas. From the Amerindians (Taínos), they kept many names for their municipalities, foods, musical instruments like the güiro and maracas. Many words and other objects have originated from their localized language. From the Spanish they received the Spanish language, the Catholic religion and the vast majority of their cultural and moral values and traditions. From the United States they received the English language, the university system and a variety of hybrid cultural forms that developed between the U.S. mainland and the island of Puerto Rico. The University of Puerto Rico was founded in 1903, five years after the island became part of the U.S.

Much of the Puerto Rican culture centers on the influence of music. Like the country as a whole, Puerto Rican music has been developed by mixing other cultures with its own unique flavor.
Early in the history of Puerto Rican music, the influences of African and Spanish traditions were most noticeable. However, the cultural movements across the Caribbean and North America have played a vital role in the more recent musical influences that have reached Puerto Rico.

Thailand

This picture shows one of several martial arts I practiced before. The Muay Thai which is also known as Thai Boxing, it is the national sport of Thailand. Consist of a martial art created there more than thousand years, it is thought one of the mightiest struggles of world, for the explosion of blow and of agility. Also it is known like " The Art of Eight Members ", since it is characterized for the use of the elbows, knees and violent blows with the shin and feet, besides the fists, in counterpoint of arts that use to punish the four members, only the feet and the hands.
Thailand is a country located southeast of Asia, being limitrophe with Laos and Cambodja, at east; Myanmar at west Malasia, at south. The country's official name was Siam (Royal Thai General System of Transcription: Sayam). The word Thai is not, as commonly believed, derived from the word Tai meaning "free" in the Thai language; it is, however, the name of an ethnic group from the central plains (the Thai people).
However that may be, the locals seem to have also accepted the alternative meaning and will verbally state that it means "Land of the free" when generally people refer about this country and habitants (thai culture, thai language, Thai habitants, etc).
The northern region of the country presents mountain relief, the highest point is mount Doi Inthanon, with 2576m. Northwest there is an elevated area known as Khorat Plateau which is, at east, rounded by Mekong river, one of the biggest in the world, draining an huge area of the asian continent. However, due it's variations in flux and having waterfalls, that river is not sailable. Other important river is Chao Phraya, with 370 km extension, that cuts the country north to south, crossing the capital Bangkok. In the south region of the country the relief is lower, without many elevations.
Thailand is located in the climatic Tropical zone, so the climate is quite hot and characterized by monsoons. The vegetation is characterized practically by tropical forests. There are hundred years behind, the forests were serving also of home for thousands of elephants that, unfortunately, due to the devastation and the hunting, today the population of elephants is of approximately 5,000. In 1989 the government began to build natural parks to protect the elephants and animals that were in the same situation.
The population of the Thailand is relatively homogenious: 85 % of the population shares the same culture and language, thai, what is the language taught in the schools and used in the government. English is the most well-known second language. The most following religion is the Buddhism.
Thai culture is one of the richest of the world, known by the special art of his kitchen, very appreciated. You can see a good example here. It is a stir-fried with baby sweetcorn and mushrooms. In the ingredients you can see: red pepper and mushrooms on the left and Chinese celery, baby sweetcorn, garlic cloves and carrots on the right. This mixture of flavour is appreciated well, leaving any one wishing to taste.
Well, I have to to say goodbye, we will see ourselves again soon!

Italy

Hi! Welcome! Let's hope I can surprise you one more time... Take a peek to this image. This natural wonder has attracted large crowds of curious tourists for almost two hundred years now, but its significance as a cultural and perhaps religious site dates back to before recorded history of life on the beautifull island of Capri. To get to the cave, you must catch a speed boat from the Marina Grande which then transfers you to small canoe-like crafts that will fit into the grotto's narrow opening.
And you are already asking yourself what is the name of this cave? The answer is Grotta Azzurra, meaning blue cave.
Depending on the time of day, the cavern inside glows a brilliant or subdued dark blue color. Some tourists wonder if they had rigged the cave to appear blue, but in fact the color is a natural phenomenon of light that is refracted from the bluish water outside the small underwater portals leading into the grotto. Because of the attraction's popularity, the wait outside the cave's entrance can be very long but inside there it is all worthy.

Then anyone can wonder where it can be found... And it is on Italy! Something about: Italy was a land of sociability of many known influent european civilizations, as greek and roman. It's capital Rome has been a global city historically important, overall focusing on ancient Rome and catholic church.
Italy it's not all about Rome, actually all in that country is a good reason for art. Every city is a source of inspiration, some examples are Florence, Venice, Turin and Milan. Culture and art has given influence to europe in most and also some part of the world. In Italy it has born different intelectual and artistic movements that spread around europe and rest of the world, such as Renaissance and Baroque style. The italian contribution to art and culture came from art works made by Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli and others.
Besides painture, sculpture and architecture, the contributions of science, literature and music are unquestionable. In science to stand out Gaileu Galilei, da Vinci.
In the area of music the classic becomes an expression of sounds. Instruments were invented in Italy such the piano and violin which made able to perform artistic forms or music such as syphony, concert and sonata. It has born the opera by Claudio Monteverdi in the Renaissance. Also there are other composers like Vivaldi in the Baroque age, classic for Rossini and romantic for Verdi, among others...
Now it's time to say good-bye. I hope you have fun, till my next post! =)

Venezuela

Hi! I'm glad to see you again! This time you caught me up in time. Let me show you something... Let me introduce you Hacha falls. Anyone can be mesmerized by a beautifull sight like this! Hacha Falls spills into Venezuela’s Canaima Lagoon as towering mesas called tepuis rise in the background. This area in southern Venezuela is home to Angel Falls, the world’s highest uninterrupted waterfall. Did you know the origin of the name Venezuela? Venezuela, in northern South America, was named for Italy's Venice by 15th-century European explorers who found native houses on stilts above Lake Maracaibo. Those constructions were similar to the houses in city of Veneza, then that region was called Venezuela (Small Veneza).
The contemporaneous culture evolution is derived of pre-hispanics, hispanics and africaans roots, consonant to the colonial period. The specific culture was made with an intense process of transculture. The richness in celebrations and traditions is product of fusion of native crowd, europeans and africaans which arrived over 500 years, and afterwards formed actual venezuelan society.
About the food... I like this part! Tasting venezuelan food is like submerging in a world of aromas and flavours wich describe a gastronomy of strong tastes and wonderfull colors. Venezuelan cookery uses ingredients like corn, manioc, banana, indian pepper, grains, tubercules, sugar cane and several meats. The most representative dishes are Pabellón Criollo, Arepa, Hallaca, and Cachapa.
Now the music. Their music is a mixture of rithms between salsa, merengue, calypso and also other south american. Joropo is a typical dance of Venezuela. The instruments most used are cuatro, harpa llanera and maracas.
The favourite sports are baseball, football, basquetball and boxe, by this order.
Well I got to rush to another country, I hope to see you soon. Goodbye =)

Intro

Hello! Right now I'm packing my personal luggage. Tomorrow it will be a big day! I´m going to make a small visit to several countries at random.
Well... You can't persuade me to tell where I am going or what to do, so you will have wait and see my next posts. But you can leave allways comments as you like. The only thing I can tell you at the moment is that I have the objectives to describe you some cultural and important information about each country and the basis of my selection is what I think it is interesting and also what gives a good perspective about it can be found there.
By the way... This is all fictitional because I can't travel, at least not so soon.
I hope to talk to you soon, see you later.