Today’s Video of the Day brings you a moment of Zen from an unlikely source: Boston Logan Airport at rush hour. Boston-based Chris Eagle made the time-lapse video from about 40 minutes of airplane runway footage, and with the accompanying music by Little People, it feels almost peaceful (probably much more so than if you were on one of the planes waiting to take off). The video is a sequel of sorts to another time-lapse from Logan last year, but the original has a much different feel, watching the airplanes rocket off into the sky.
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It appears as though crazy bike stunts and dangerous urban bike courses just aren’t enough of an adrenaline rush anymore. In Saas-Fee, Switzerland, bikers push riding to the extreme as they pedal down a glacier in a death-defying race. A handful of the 142 riders mounted cameras to their bikes and helmets so us less adventurous (and perhaps more sane) types can get a feel for the crazy race. Riders reached speeds over the 80 mph mark as they dashed over ice and snow from a starting height of 3,500 meters to 1,700 meters. This year’s winner, Charlie Di Pasquale, completed the race in 7:31. Anyone out there up for giving it a try next year?
Bearing the weight of a saint on your shoulders can be a heavy burden. Just watch the men struggling to carry their church’s patron saint around the main square in Cusco, Peru, at the annual Corpus Christi festival earlier this month and you’ll get a feel for the lumbering task. The video comes from this year’s festival, customarily held 60 days after Easter Sunday. It takes up to 50 men to carry these statues around the main square (and make a few signs of the cross with it at alters scattered about), and they only get a few breathers in between.
The act of carrying a statue in this way is a mix of pre-Columbian and colonial traditions. Back in the time of the Inca Empire, richly embellished mummies of esteemed leaders and ancestors were carried around the square on similar platforms during holidays. When the Spanish came, effigies of saints and virgins were swapped in and adorned with flowers, lace, mirrors, beads and other accessories. The custom stuck, and today Corpus Christi remains one of the most important religious festivals in the country.
This year, I was lucky enough to be in Cusco’s main square during Corpus Christi. The square and surrounding streets were overflowing with revelers, who danced, played music, shot off fireworks and enjoyed plenty of delicious Peruvian street food. I was so happy to be enjoying the festival that I almost got caught under the weight of a saint myself. Watch my own video after the jump.
Standing on the mountain ridge of Machu Picchu, the most recognized site of the Incas that sits high above the Urubamba Valley in Peru, is an experience sought after by people from all over the world. Walking around the UNESCO World Heritage Site, one can’t help but wonder what life was like for the Incas who lived there in the 15th century. As visitors take a moment – or in some cases, several hours – to sit and soak up the surrounding peaks of the Andes Mountains, one gets a sense of the kind of connection the Incas must have had to the breathtaking landscape that surrounded them. One of those peaks, Huayna Picchu, or “Young Peak,” is the emblematic sugarloaf mountain that rises over Machu Picchu in most photos. The Incas paved a trail up the side of the mountain and built temples and terraces on its summit – where local guides say the high priest and local virgins lived. Today, 400 tourists can enter Huayna Picchu each day by purchasing advanced tickets for 152 Peruvian neuvos soles, or around $57 U.S. dollars. The one-hour climb to the top isn’t easy; it’s a steep ascent the equivalent of 253 flights of stairs that includes some dizzying hairpin turns where climbers must use steel cables for support and – in certain spots – leaves climbers exposed on the side of the mountain on tiny steps. In this video, Mike Theiss takes viewers to the summit, showing how hikers must squeeze through a cave at one point and demonstrating just how harrowing some of the stairs can be. But the best parts about the hike (and the above video) are the 360-degree view from the top and the bird’s-eye view of Machu Picchu. Watch closely to see the switchback road the buses take to transport travelers from Aguas Calientes, the town below the Inca site, to Machu Picchu. Believe me, the views are worth braving your fear of heights and the soreness that results from the climb!
Over the past two months a group of 20 muralists from around the world have been coming together to revamp vacant walls in a Baltimore neighborhood. Although not currently well trodden by visitors, the neighborhood is full of theaters and art galleries and was recently dubbed the Station North Arts & Entertainment District in hopes that it would become the new cultural heart of Baltimore. The ambitious mural project, Open Walls Baltimore, is already sparking national dialogue and will hopefully enliven public spaces enough that visitors are attracted to the area. Artists leaving their mark on the neighborhood have come from faraway places such as Buenos Aires, Montreal, Capetown, and Kiev, as well as several homegrown muralists from Baltimore and nearby New York City. The video above gives an idea of the spirit of the project, which is being curated by street artist Gaia. All of the murals should be completed by this Friday, May 25, when a celebration will take place throughout the district.
Baltimore has a long history of promoting public art. Outside of Open Walls Baltimore, there are two- and three-story murals painted on more than 100 buildings throughout the city. Of course, Baltimore isn’t the only city known for its murals – to view a sampling of a wide range of public art check out the Mural Locator, a self-funded website working to chart amazing murals throughout the world. So far, more than 500 murals have been mapped since the website began in 2010.