James' World 2

Click the link below the picture

.

The Eduardo Avaroa Andean Fauna National Reserve (Reserva Nacional de Fauna Andina Eduardo Avaroa; Spanish acronym: REA) is located in Sur Lípez Province. Situated in the far southwestern region of Bolivia, it is the country’s most visited protected area. It is considered the most important protected area in terms of tourist influx in the Potosí Department.

Located at an altitude between 4,200 m (13,800 ft) and 5,400 m (17,700 ft) in Bolivia, it extends over an area of 714,745 hectares (1,766,170 acres) and includes the Laguna Colorada National Wildlife Sanctuary. Categorized under IUCN Category IV, it is primarily for the protection of birds that inhabit the different lagoons in the reserve. The reserve protects part of the Central Andean dry puna (oligothermic) ecoregion. The reserve’s major attractions are erupting volcanoes, hot springs, geysers, lakes, fumaroles, mountains, and its three endemic species of flamingos in particular.

Established in 1973, the national park is named after Eduardo Avaroa (1838–1879), the Bolivian war hero of the 19th century. It was created by Supreme Decree (SD) of 13 December 1973 and extended on May 14, 1981. Since 2009, the entire reserve is part of the larger Los Lípez Ramsar site.

The reserve is situated in the southern region of Andean mountains in southwestern Bolivia. The mountains rise to heights varying from 3,500–5,000 m (11,500–16,400 ft). The basin features depict active volcanoes, hot springs, geysers, and fumaroles, and a parallel has been drawn with the Yellowstone National Park in the US. Its water resources are limited to lakes and saltwater lagoons due to very low rainfall of 76 mm (3.0 in) annually. Two communities, Quetena Chico and Quetena Grande lie within the reserve.

Lakes include Laguna Verde, Laguna Colorada, Laguna Salada, Laguna Busch and Laguna Hedionda. Laguna Colorada lies at an altitude of 4,278 m (14,035 ft) and covers 60 km² (23 sq mi). It is named after the effect of wind and sun on the micro-organism that live in it. The lake is very shallow, less than 1 m (3 ft 3 in) deep, and supports some 40 bird species, providing pink algae to population of rare James’s flamingoes who can walk across it. Wikipedia

.

An image from Eduardo Avaroa National Reserve Bolivia

.

.

Click the link below for images:

.

__________________________________________

Click the link below the picture

.

Gobustan State Reserve located west of the settlement of Gobustan, about 40 miles (64 km) southwest of the center of Baku was established in 1966 when the region was declared as a national historical landmark of Azerbaijan in an attempt to preserve the ancient carvings, mud volcanoes and gas-stones in the region.

Gobustan State Reserve is very rich in archeological monuments, the reserve has more than 6,000 rock carvings, which depict people, animals, battle-pieces, ritual dances, bullfights, boats with armed oarsmen, warriors with lances in their hands, camel caravans, pictures of sun and stars, on the average dating back to 5,000-20,000 years.

Gobustan State Historical and Cultural Reserve acquired national status in 2006 and were added to the UNESCO World Social Legacy List in 2007.

The rock carvings and petroglyphs at the site display mesmerizing images of prehistoric life in the Caucasus. The well-preserved sketches display ancient populations traveling on reed boats; men hunting antelope and wild bulls, and women dancing.  The controversial Norwegian anthropologist Thor Heyerdahl returned many times to Azerbaijan between 1961 and his death in 2002 to study the site in his “Search for Odin”.

The language of the ancient population of Gobustan is disputed, but the petroglyphs still give information about the lives of prehistoric people who lived there. More than 4,000 pictures of animals, humans, natural life experiences, hunting, and dancing were carved over a span of thousands of years. Most of the petroglyphs are on large cliffs, divided among multiple ancient residences, and in some cases, they have been carved over older images. The first carvings depicted natural human and animal figures, often irregularly, but over time they began to more closely resemble the measurements and proportions of their subjects, including such details as the foot muscles of people in hunting scenes. The heads of the human figures tend to be small and carved without noses, mouths, eyes, or ears. However, experts do not interpret this lack of facial features as an indication that the Gobustan artists lacked technical skill, since some of the carvings demonstrate a higher degree of complexity and detail. Many scenes from tribal life are depicted among the petroglyphs, and images from the Seven Beauties cave suggest that women may have participated in hunting.

It’s estimated that 300 of the planet’s estimated 700 mud volcanoes sit in Gobustan, Azerbaijan, and the Caspian Sea. Many geologists as well as locals and international mud tourists trek to such places as the Firuz Crater, Gobustan, Salyan and end up happily covered in mud which is thought to have medicinal qualities. Wikipedia

.

An image from Gobustan National Park

.

.

Click the link below for images:

.

__________________________________________

Click the link below the picture

.

The Sámi people are an indigenous Finno-Ugric-speaking people inhabiting the region of Sápmi (formerly known as Lapland), which today encompasses large northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and of the Murmansk Oblast, Russia, most of the Kola Peninsula in particular. The Sámi have historically been known in English as Lapps or Laplanders, but these terms are regarded as offensive by some Sámi people, who prefer the area’s name in their own languages, e.g. Northern Sami Sápmi. Their traditional languages are the Sámi languages, which are classified as a branch of the Uralic language family.

Traditionally, the Sámi have pursued a variety of livelihoods, including coastal fishing, fur trapping, and sheep herding. Their best-known means of livelihood is semi-nomadic reindeer herding. Currently, about 10% of the Sámi are connected to reindeer herding, which provides them with meat, fur, and transportation. 2,800 Sámi people are actively involved in reindeer herding on a full-time basis in Norway. For traditional, environmental, cultural, and political reasons, reindeer herding is legally reserved for only Sámi people in some regions of the Nordic countries.

Speakers of Northern Sámi refer to themselves as Sámit (the Sámis) or Sápmelaš (of Sámi kin), the word Sápmi being inflected into various grammatical forms. Other Sámi languages use cognate words. As of around 2014, the current consensus among specialists was that the word Sámi was borrowed from the Proto-Baltic word *žēmē, meaning ‘land’ (cognate with Slavic zemlja (земля), of the same meaning).

The word Sámi has at least one cognate word in Finnish: Proto-Baltic *žēmē was also borrowed into Proto-Finnic, as *šämä. This word became modern Finnish Häme (Finnish for the region of Tavastia; the second ä of *šämä is still found in the adjective Hämäläinen). The Finnish word for Finland, Suomi, is also thought probably to derive ultimately from Proto-Baltic *žēmē, though the precise route is debated and proposals usually involve complex processes of borrowing and reborrowing. Suomi and its adjectival form suomalainen must come from *sōme-/sōma-. In one proposal, this Finnish word comes from a Proto-Germanic word *sōma-, itself from Proto-Baltic *sāma-, in turn borrowed from Proto-Finnic *šämä, which was borrowed from *žēmē.

The Sámi institutions — notably the parliaments, radio and TV stations, theatres, etc. — all use the term Sámi, including when addressing outsiders in Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, or English. In Norwegian and Swedish, the Sámi are today referred to by the localized form Same. Wikipedia

.

An image of Sami from Norway

.

.

Click the link below for images:

.

__________________________________________