Is the economy continuing to hinder your travel plans? Do you like the idea of visiting distant places but can’t handle being on an airplane for more than three hours? Never fear! The Google World Wonders Project is here to satisfy your wanderlust without ever leaving home.
Using its famous Street View technology, Google has managed to deliver some of the most impressive world heritage sites to Internet users directly through their browser. Street View, which has been used to explore cities across the globe for a number of years, employs a special camera system that captures images in a 360-degree, panoramic format. When those images are stitched together and displayed online they create a virtual space that offers viewers a chance to wander around some very iconic places. But unlike Street View, the World Wonders Project is even able to go inside some famous buildings.
In addition to the Street View virtual environment, each of the locations also includes a brief explanation of its historical or cultural significance, as well as additional photographs and videos of the site. That information is organized nicely and serves as a great introduction to the different places as well.
If you can’t travel at the moment, the Google World Wonders Project just might be your best alternative.
This time-lapse collaborative called Terra Sacra from Sean F. White is beautiful. Sean traveled to several countries to film the footage that made up this video (Bolivia, Chile, USA, Antarctica, Kenya, Brazil, Madagascar, United Kingdom, Argentina, Australia, Mali, Nepal, New Zealand, Japan, Bhutan, Peru, Mongolia, Iceland, Cambodia, Egypt, Jordan, Philippines, Syria and Poland). From the skies to seas, this time-lapse is all about nature and the beauty before us in the landscapes found across the world. Enjoy.
In the urban landscape of Buenos Aires, Argentina, fauna is fantastically diverse. I love watching the human wildlife. My favorite species is the callejero, or street circus performer. In parks around the city, they set up their slack lines. They hang their long, silk telas from trees to practice aerial dance. Juggling pins fly. The callejeros spend hours in the parks, simply teaching and learning circus arts.
Each year, callejeros from Buenos Aires and all over Latin America convene outside the city. The event is called La Convención Argentina de Circo, Payasos y Espectaculos Callejeros (Argentinian Convention of Circus, Clowns and Street Performer Shows), or La Convención for short. It’s a grand affair that gains a bigger crowd each year. The November 2011 Convención attracted around 900 participants.
The event was founded in 1996, when the circo nuevo (new circus) phenomenon began to grow in Argentina, mirroring movements and conventions that were going on in Europe’s bohemias.
“La Convención was created to satisfy the need for space. We wanted a space for meeting, learning, exchange and union – by artists and for artists,” comments El Payaso Chacovachi, one of the founding clowns. That first year, 250 people and one small circus tent started something special.
Now, fifteen years later, this has become one of the greatest street-level shows on earth (or at least in the southern hemisphere). La Convención has always been a five-day marathon of workshops, contests, parades and performances. On day one, the big tents go up – two real circus tents.
Flocks of circus artists arrive with their own tents, costumes and juggling pins. A small village springs up in the grassy sports field complex that the organizers have reserved. Dining options: a food tent with lovingly prepared vegetarian fare, or public grills for DIY barbeque. There’s time to decide – dinner doesn’t start until 10 p.m. at the earliest.
Ambling through the tent village, I feel lucky. My Porteño friends with callejero tendencies had tipped me off about the gathering. Word of mouth is the only kind of publicity for this deliberately non-commercial event. I stand out a bit as a foreigner with no circus attire, but nobody minds. I gravitate toward the hula-hoopers and the swapping of skills begins.
According to the printed program, a schedule of organized events is set for each day. “Jueves, 1600hrs: Charla, debate y mesa redonda (Thursday, 4 p.m.: discussion, debate and round table).” This is in jest. The first three days pass in a dreamscape of loose workshops by day and drum circles by night. Artists savor this time as a chance to learn, teach and grow their talents.
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Every imaginable skill from the school of new circus is represented – the juggling of anything from pins to discs and cigar boxes, contact juggling, unicycling, staff spinning, diabolos, poi, hoops, aerial dancing, trapeze and improvised, new forms of object manipulation, balance and strength. Art meets play. Spontaneity reigns.
The last two days – a Saturday and Sunday – are the culmination of La Convención. Saturday is the grand parade. Everybody unpacks their best and finest circus attire. They achieve a “new circus” look by mixing classic elements like wigs and noses with contemporary design. Red, black and white stripes are everywhere. Tutus ruffle. Leotards and leggings are worn tight. I watch two clowns paint each other’s faces, matching each other.
The nuevo circo clowns pile into buses, cheering and playing whatever instruments they can find – tiny charango guitars, kazoos, melodicas and accordions – in an exodus toward the city of Monte Grande. They take to the streets.
Hours of parades degenerate into a massive street party. A foam machine covers everyone with a layer of white. Paper plates of shaving cream appear out of nowhere, suddenly widespread. Pie in the face! Soaked and soapy, I join the chaos.
Back at the circus grounds that night, all the face paint and foam has been washed off. Another party erupts in the Big Tent. A brassy ska band keeps everyone dancing into the small hours of the morning.
A final big day is ahead. The best of the professional performances have been saved for Sunday. The grand finale: shows by the most prestigious circus schools and companies in Argentina, like Compañia Colectivo Xibalba and Escuela Le Lido.
On the bus ride back to Buenos Aires, I read the event booklet cover to cover. I find this:
Founder’s Manifesto [translated]
“Clowns, circus people, and street performer artists are a special stock within the world of professional artists, and I call professional anyone who lives by their profession.
Because of their particular characteristics, as half artist and half foraging go-getter, and since they clearly mix their lives with their art, they are associated with freedom within the collective imagination.
Their freedom is physical (they generally work traveling), economic (the money they earn is directly associated with their ability and effort), and psychic (they don’t have to be the best, they’re happy just being). This freedom allows them to take the reigns of their own lives. So, they happily wander the world without borders, full of limitations, creativity and courage, actualizing themselves as artists and as people.
La Convención is designed to celebrate these lives, and also to learn, to familiarize, to inform ourselves, to enjoy. Most importantly, we come to celebrate once a year for six days, creating our own utopian world full of free and sovereign ideals.”
The unique diversity and one-of-a-kind wildlife of the Galapagos Islands makes it a hotspot for traveling nature lovers from around the globe. In today’s photo, taken by Flickr user wesleyrosenblum, we find a brilliant red crab in close-up on the island of Santiago. This eye-popping crustacean’s wild crimson and orange hue photographed against the otherworldly black volcanic rocks almost had me convinced I was looking at an alien on some distant planet.
Taken any amazing animal shots during your travels? Or perhaps just a shot of your own backyard? Why not add it to our Gadling group on Flickr? We might just pick one of yours as our Photo of the Day.
You can board a plane and fly to any city on this planet. No matter where you go, you’ll find familiarity amid the unfamiliarity. Paved and braided highway systems weave through cities and carry pairs of headlights through the dark night, one after another. Pedestrians congregate on street corners and wait for the opportunity to cross and then do so together as a herd. The buildings get taller; the cars get smaller; the chaos appears to increase, but within it there is a machine that is moving through its commands and that machine knows no barriers. In this video made by Lam Ho Tak, a student at the University of Hong Kong, that machine is documented at work in cities across the globe. Already the winner of several awards, this video is an entertaining short mix and matching color tones, subdued lighting, motion, and other elements of city life that act as a common denominator for cities everywhere.