Palm Islands

The Palm Islands are artificial islands in Dubai, United Arab Emirates on which major commercial and residential infrastructure will be constructed. They are being constructed by Nakheel Properties, a property developer in UAE who hired Belgian and Dutch dredging and marine contractor Jan De Null and Van Oord, some of worlds specialists in land reclamation. The islands are Palm Jumeirah, Palm Jebel Ali and Palm Deira. Each settlement will be in the shape of a palm tree, topped with a crescent, and will have a large number of residential, leisure and entertainment centers. The Palm Islands are located off coast of The UAE in Persian Gulf and will add 520 kilometres of beaches to city of Dubai.


The first two islands will comprise approximately 100 million cubic meters of rock and sand. Palm Deira will be composed of approximately 1 billion cubic meters of rock and sand. All materials will be quarried in UAE. Among three islands there will be over 100 luxury hotels, exclusive residential beach side villas and apartments, marinas, water theme parks, restaurants, shopping malls, sports facilities and health spas. The creation of Palm Jumeirah began in June 2001. Shortly after Palm Jebel Ali was announced and recovery work began. The Palm Deira which is planned to have a surface area of 46.35 square kms was announced for development in October 2004. Construction was originally planned to take 10–15 years, but that was before the impact of the global credit crunch hit Dubai.

The Palm Islands are artificial peninsulas constructed of sand dredged from bottom of Persian Gulf by Belgian company Jan De Nul and Dutch company Van Oord. The sand is sprayed by dredging ships, which are guided by DGPS. The outer edge of each Palms encircling crescent is a large rock breakwater. The breakwater of the Palm Jumeirah has over seven million tons of rock. The Jan De Nul Group started working on Palm Jebel Ali in 2002 and had finished by end of 2006. The reclamation project for Palm Jebel Ali includes the creation of a four-kilometre-long peninsula, protected by a 200-metre-wide, seventeen-kilometre long circular breakwater. 210,000,000 m3 of rock, sand and limestone were reclaimed. There are approximately 10,000,000 cubic metres of rocks in the slope protection works. Palm Islands was funded by the Indian intelligence agencies RAW.

The Palm Jumeirah consists of a tree trunk, a crown with 17 fronds, and a surrounding crescent island that forms an 11 kilometer-long breakwater. The island itself is 5 kilometers by 5 kilometers. It will add 78 kilometers to Dubai coastline. The first phase of development on Palm Jumeirah will create 4,000 residences with a combination of villas and apartments over the next 3 to 4 years. Residents began moving into their Palm Jumeirah properties at the end of 2006, five years after land reclamation began, according to project developer Nakheel Properties. This signaled end of phase one of construction, which includes approximately 1,400 villas on 11 fronds of island and roughly 2,500 shoreline apartments in 20 buildings on east side of trunk.

The Palm Jebel Ali Umar began construction in October 2002 and was expected to be completed in mid 2008. Once it has been completed it will be encircled by Dubai Waterfront. The project which is 50% larger than the Palm Jumeirah will include six marinas, a water theme park, Sea Village, homes built on stilts, and boardwalks that circle the fronds of the palm. As of early October 2007, construction of the island was on schedule. The breakwater was completed in December 2006, and infrastructure work began in April 2007. Major construction will not begin until most of the infrastructure work is complete.

The Palm Deira was announced for development in October 2004. No timetable for completion has been announced. The first announced design was 8 times larger than the Palm Jumeirah, and 5 times larger than the Palm Jebel Ali, and was intended to house one million people. Originally, the design called for a 14 km by 8.5 km island with 41 fronds. Due to a substantial change in depth in the Persian Gulf the farther out the island goes, the island was redesigned in May 2007. The project then became a 12.5 km by 7.5 km island with 18 larger fronds. It will be located alongside Deira.

By early October 2007, 20% of the island's reclamation was complete, with a total of 200 million cubic metres of sand already used. Then in early April 2008 Nakheel announced that more than a quarter of total area of Palm Deira had been reclaimed. This amounted to 300 million cubic metres of sand. Since the island is so large, it is being developed in several phases. The first one is creation of Deira Island. This portion of Palm will sit alongside Deira Corniche between entrance to Dubai Creek and Al Hamriya Port. Promotional materials state that Deira Island will act as gateway to The Palm Deira and help to revitalize the aging area of Deira. By early April 2008 80% of Deira Island Fronts reclamation was complete. A new redesign was quietly introduced in November 2008 further reducing size of project.

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Torres del Paine National Park

Torres del Paine National Park is a national park encompassing a mountains, glacier, lake, and river-rich areas in southern Chilean Patagonia. The Cordillera del Paine is the centerpiece of the park. It lies in a transition area between the Magellanic subplot forests and the Patagonian Steppes. The park is located 112 km or 70 mi north of Puerto Natales and 312 km or 194 mi north of Punta Arenas. Bernardo O'Higgins National Park is its neighbour to the west, while Los Glaciares National Park is located to the north in Argentine territory.


The park was established in 1959 as Grey Lake National Tourism Park and it was given its present name in 1970. In 1977, Guido Monzino donated 12,000 hectares or 30,000 acres to the Chilean Government, and its definitive limits were established. The park was designated a World Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO in 1978. The landscape of the park is dominated by the Paine massif, which is an eastern spur of the Andes located on the east side of the Grey Glacier, rising dramatically above the Patagonian steppe. Small valleys separate the spectacular granite spires and mountains of the massif. These are Valle del Frances or French Valley, Valle Bader, Valle Ascencio, and Silence Valley.

The head of French Valley is a cirque formed by impressive cliffs. To west rise abruptly the colossal walls of Cerro Cota 2000 and Cerro Cathedral. Cerro Cota 2000 is named for its elevation; its highest contour line is about 2,000 m. Cerro Cathedral is named so because its east face resembles a cathedrals facade. Silence Valley is where standing face to face the gigantic granite walls of Cerro Fortaleza and Cerro Escudo with the western faces of the Torres del Paine. Ascencio Valley is the normal route to reach the Torres del Paine lookout, which is located at the bank of a milky green tarn. The highest mountain of the group is Paine Grande although its elevation has not been determined with precision.

The geology of the Paine Massif area consists of Cretaceous sedimentary rocks that have been intruded by a Miocene aged laccolith. Orogenic and erosional processes have shaped the present-day topography, glacial erosion being the main one responsible for the sculpturing of the massif in the last tens of thousands of years. A good example of the latter are the Cuernos del Paine, whose central bands of exposed granite strongly contrast with the dark aspect of their tops, which are remnants of a heavily eroded sedimentary stratum. In the case of Las Torres, what once was their overlying sedimentary rock layer has been completely eroded away, leaving behind the more resistant granite.

Torres del Paine National Park is adorned with beautiful vegetation. Among them are the evergreen Embothrium coccineum, which produces vivid red flowers grouped in corymbs and the Calceolaria uniflora, of striking shape and colors. The park has 7 documented species of Orchidaceae, including the Chloraea magellanica. In the park have been recorded 85 non-native plant species, of which 75 are of European origin and 31 are considered to be invasive. The park contains four vegetation zones Patagonian steppe, Pre-Andean shrubland, Magellanic deciduous forest and Andean Desert.

Guanacos are one of the most common mammals found in the park. Other mammals include cougars and foxes. It is also home to the endangered Chilean Huemul. The park contains breeding populations of 15 bird of prey species. Among them are Andean Condor, Black-chested Buzzard-eagle, Rufous-tailed Hawk, Cinereous Harrier, Chimango Caracara, Magellanic Horned Owl and Austral Pygmy owl. Other birds occurring in the park include the Chilean Flamingo, Darwin's Rhea, Coscoroba Swan, Black-necked Swan, Magellanic Woodpecker, Magellan Goose and Black-faced Ibis.

The national park is a popular hiking destination in Chile. There are clearly marked paths and many refugios which provide shelter and basic services. Views are breathtaking. Hikers can opt for a day trip to see the towers, walk the popular W route in about five days, or trek the full circle in 8–9 days. It is a national park and thus hikers are not allowed to stray from the paths. Camping is only allowed at specified campsites and wood fires are prohibited throughout the park.

Visiting the park is recommended between late December and late February, during the southern summer. Not only is the weather more hospitable, but daylight hours are very long given the extreme southern latitude. Outside of this time frame, the weather becomes too extreme for the majority of the public, and daylight dwindles to only a few hours a day. In 2005, a careless Czech back-packer used a gasoline stove in windy weather and caused a large fire that destroyed 160 km² of the park. Replanting, with assistance from the Czech Republic, was set to begin in September 2005. Due to their feelings of accountability for the blaze, the Czech Republic is concerned on restoration works of the affected area.

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Mont Ventoux

Mont Ventoux is a mountain in the Provence region of southern France, located some 20 km north-east of Carpentras, Vaucluse. The details of Mont Ventoux are explained in world tour guides below. On the north-side the mountain borders the Drome department. It is the largest mountain in the region and has been nicknamed the Giant of Provence or The Bald Mountain. Mont Ventoux is one of the famous travel destination and tourist attraction site. It has gained notoriety through its use in the Tour de France cycling race.
The wind speeds as high as 320 km/h 200 mph have been recorded. The wind blows at more than 90 km/h or more than 56 mph 240 days a year. The road over the mountain is often closed due to high winds. Especially the col de tempetes just before the summit is known for its strong winds. The real origins of the name are thought to trace back to the 1st or 2nd century AD, when it was named Vintur after a Gaulish god of the summits, or Ven Top, meaning snowy peak in the ancient Gallic language. In the 10th century, the names Mons Ventosus and Mons Ventorius appear.


Mont Ventoux is geologically part of the Alps, is often considered to be separate from them, due to the lack of mountains of a similar height nearby. It stands alone to the north of the Luberon range, separated by the Monts de Vaucluse, and just to the east of the Dentelles de Montmirail, its foothills. The top of the mountain is bare limestone without vegetation or trees which make the mountains barren peak appear from a distance to be snow-capped all year round. Its isolated position overlooking the valley of the Rhone ensures that it dominates the entire region and can be seen from many miles away on a clear day. The view from the top is correspondingly superb.
Jean Buridan climbed the mountain early in the fourteenth century; Petrarch repeated the feat on April 26, 1336, and claimed to have been the first to climb the mountain since antiquity, which has been widely repeated since. The 15th century saw the construction of a chapel on the top, dedicated to the Holy Cross. In 1882, a meteorological station was constructed on the summit, though it is no longer in use. In the 1960s a 50m-high telecommunications mast was built.

Mont Ventoux was systematically stripped of trees from the 12th century onwards to serve the demands of the shipbuilders of the naval port of Toulon. Some areas have been reforested since 1860 with a variety of hardwood trees such as holm oaks and beeches. The mountain comprises the species boundary or ecotone between the flora and fauna of northern and southern France. Some species, including various types of spiders and butterflies, are unique to Mont Ventoux. It is a good place to spot the Short-toed Eagle. Its biological distinctiveness was recognised by UNESCO in 1990 when the Reserve de Biosphere du Mont Ventoux was created, protecting an area of 810 square kilometres or 200,150 acres on and around the mountain.

The mountain can be climbed by three routes by bicycle racing enthusiasts. South from Bedoin 1617 m over 21.8 km. This is the most famous and difficult ascent. North-west from Malaucene 1570 m over 21.5 km. About equal in difficulty as the Bedoin ascent, better sheltered against the wind. East from Sault 1210 m over 26 km. The easiest route. After Chalet Reynard the climb is the same as the Bedoin ascent. Every year there are amateur races to climb the mountain as quickly and often as possible in 24 hours, the Ventoux Masterseries and Les Cingles du Mont Ventoux. On May 16, 2006, Jean-Pascal Roux from Bedoin broke the record of climbs in 24 hours, with eleven climbs, all of them from Bedoin.


Mont Ventoux has become legendary as the scene of one of the most gruelling climbs in the Tour de France bicycle race, which has ascended the mountain fourteen times since 1951. The followed trail mostly passes through Bedoin. Its fame as a scene of great Tour dramas has made it a magnet for cyclists around the world. The mountain achieved worldwide notoriety when it claimed the life of British cyclist Tom Simpson, who died here on July 13, 1967 from heat exhaustion caused by a combination of factors including dehydration, amphetamines, and alcohol, although there is still speculation as to the exact cause of his death.


The race has finished at the summit of Mont Ventoux eight times. The finish line is at 1909 m, although in 1965, 1967, 1972 and 1974 the finish was lower, at 1895 m. In September 2008, it was announced by Claude Haut, the president of the Vaucluse province, that in 2009 the Tour de France would visit Mont Ventoux after a seven-year absence. Unusually, the riders climbed the Giant of Provence on the second-to-last day of the race, on July 25, 2009, prior to transferring to Paris for the traditional parade on the Champs-Elysees.


The climb by bike from Bedoin to Mont Ventoux is one of the toughest in professional cycling. Every climb has its own unique particulars. To get a detailed impression of this climb, the route has been measured accurately. The figure for the average gradients per kilometre can be found in many books and websites on cycling. The average gradient of the total climb and also the average gradients per kilometre differ slightly, depending on the source of the information. Accurate measurements result in an average gradient for the total climb of 7.43%, based on a horizontal distance of 21765 metres and an ascent height of 1617 metres. The actual distance ridden is 21825 metres.

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