Cenotes, ultimately, became the only water source for the Mayan civilization. Thus, the people consider them sacred spots. Perhaps the most prominent cenote in the region is the Cenote Dos Ojos (two eyes). It earned its named because of the two rivers that unite in a big underwater cavern. Dos Ojos is also very famous because it is, at the moment, the deepest known cave passage in the Yucatan. It is estimated to be more than 415 meters deep.

This cenote lies 13 kilometers north of the town of Tulum, juts a kilometer south of Xel Ha. The dirt road, which stretches 4 kilometers, off Highway 307 leads to the entrance of the cenote. This journey is an adventure in itself as you may most likely come across some interesting flora and fauna along the way. There are two hardwood decks that are set up at the entrance that serve each river. The left side (eye) is usually where the divers enter, while the right side is where more swimmers and snorkelers go.

Cenote Dos Ojos dazzles visitors with its large cave system, which features large columns and clear water. There are many ways to explore Dos Ojos; the first one being scuba diving. By doing so, you will be able to marvel at the deep cave walls up close. With miles and miles of extensive cave systems that connect to more than 25 cenotes, you have a lot of freedom of which direction to dive through. Take note that you need an open water diving certification to be allowed to dive.

If you don’t have the needed certification, you can always to snorkel, which is also fun. There are even tourists who just swim or look around the cenote. If you intend to snorkel, climb down the stairs from the right entrance or second eye. From here, you can explore the secret passageways made of stalagmites and stalactites. The passages can bring you different caves. One of them is called the Bat Cave, which is part of the cave system called Hidden Worlds.

Cenote Dos Ojos receives the same water that flows into the large Caribbean cove called Xel Ha. This water is believed to have healing powers and is considered very pure as it comes from a massive area pristine jungle. To protect the pureness of the water, divers and snorkelers are highly discouraged to not use sun tan lotion, which may pollute the water.

Otway Sound (Ping¸inera de Seno Otway) is home to a penguin sanctuary, which is considered to be the most easily visited area on earth to visit these amazing creatures. The Spheniscus magellanicus or Magellan penguins are relatively small penguins that thrive in slightly warm weather. Almost 10,000 penguins migrate to Otway Sound during the month of September, which is the beginning of the Patagonian summer period. All of the penguins come here in couples! Why? They choose Otway Sound as a place to build their nests and lay most of their eggs.

The penguin couples usually have 1 or 2 offsprings. The male and female penguins take turns to feed and watching over their young. If you want to see baby penguins up close, plan a visit to Otway Sound in November and December, which is also the most common months for tourism. During this time, the adults are fishing for food for their babies. The fishing time takes most of the day so the best time to visit the sanctuary is after 5 pm, when you can witness how the penguin parents come back from the sea to feed the little ones.

The Otway Sound penguin colony is situated northwest of Punta Arenas town, which sits on the Straights of Magellan. Punta Arenas houses the Carlos Ibanez Airport (PUQ), which facilitates direct flights from key cities. From this airport, you need to travel approximately 40 miles or 65 kilometers to reach the sanctuary. You can easily catch a bus from Carlos Ibanez to Puerto Natales, which is the prime gateway to Otway Sound.

There are also a couple of tour operators that conduct visits from Punta Arenas to Otway Sound. The tours are usually conducted from 4 pm to 8 pm. Both Puerto Natales and Punta Arenas are equipped with the usual tourist facilities. You can opt to book an accommodation in either of these towns as they have a wide range of lodging options.

It is only 50 kilometers east of the Andean Mountain Range and is within the country’s western Napo province. The Sumaco region’s isolated location makes it a rarely visited site and results in its excellent preservation. The park that houses it covers about 200,00 hectares or 500,00 acres of land area and is representative of about 8% of the Ecuadorian Amazon area.

The hike to Sumaco promises to be an incredible jungle adventure. Before you even get to the peak, your eyes will be treated to the beauty of an untouched jungle landscape, packed with diverse flora and fauna like monkeys, giant anteaters and tapirs. Such a memorable trip can only be rightfully culminated by reaching Sumaco’s summit.

Once you reach the top of the rim, you will get to see the extinct crater and marvel at the group of snowcapped mountains of Cotopaxi, Antisana and Cayambe in the distance. If you look towards the south and east, the extensive landscape of the Amazon basin unveils itself for admiration. Because of the difficult up and down trek, and forested and muddy terrain, the ascent to the summit usually takes about 4 days to complete. You will need to be physically fit as well mentally sound to make it to the end.

The only access area to the Sumaco Volcano is a community of approximately 300 people called Pacto Sumaco. Despite its small size, the community has been successfully running sustainable ecotourism initiatives to preserve the cultural and natural value of the volcano and the park. This Sumaco region has been declared a World Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO. There are some simple lodging facilities within the village. Spending some time here guarantees you an invaluable cultural experience.

The route to this Ecuadorian volcano is challenging and presents some real risks. That is why it is mandatory that you hire a local guide to help you reach Sumaco safely and on time. Fortunately, there are many guides that reside in Pacto Sumaco and other villages along the Loreto Road, which crosses path with Tena-Quito Road. The estimated daily guide fee is 38 USD, and also covers the use of the shelters. You will most likely do the hike with a group of people.

After exploring the volcano, consider trying out birdwatching! After all, you are in Sumaco Park, one of the places with the highest number of bird species to land area in the world. In fact, there are about 830 species that populate 66 square miles of land. So there are plenty of chances to see some of the fascinating birds within the park vicinity and some that you have never seen before.

The best way to explore the Noong Nooch is to experience it on foot. Most visitors will begin with the Butterfly Hill where you will be greeted with three huge corn installations, surrounded by well- trimmed colorful flower patches. Expect a lot of people taking pictures here because of the incredibly vibrant burst of yellow, burgundy, orange and pink flowers. It transitions via a bridge to another garden full of palms. This part is a sea of dark olive and emerald green. There aren’t any flowers but a puff of pink somewhere in the middle of the garden will surprise you. They are not real but the multitude of concrete flamingoes surprisingly work well in the landscape.

The most visited of the gardens would be the French and the Italian gardens. They are separated by several other gardens but their prominence due to excellent geometrically shaped plants capturing the splendor of their European counterparts, can make you forget what the gardens in between were. These are two of the most photographed in all of Noong Nooch.

The Stonehenge that sits right beside the French garden deserves attention too. The contrasting rough rock arrangements with the neatly manicured lawn and perfectly trimmed shrubs are a delight to behold.

The Mammoth garden is also very picturesque, and the Cactus garden draws volumes of delight! Other gardens you should not miss are the Desert Rose garden, the Cycad Valley and Cycad conservation center, the Orchid garden, the Topiary trees that look like a green zoo, the Palm of the World, the Ant hill, which is a hit among kids just like the Animal sculpture garden, and the zoo garden where animals are not sculptures but real and alive. Here kids can feed deer and goats, see ducks, tigers, turtles etc.

The garden tour is mostly done on foot but if you’re feeling a bit lazy, or perhaps you haven’t ridden an elephant yet, for a fee, you can go around some of the gardens on an elephant’s back. But if you want to make the most of your garden tour, walk! Exploration of the gardens can take up half a day. If you have some hours left to spare, why not also catch Noong Nooch’s cultural and elephant shows.

The cultural show dazzles audience with graceful Thai traditional dance performances; vibrant Thai costumes; short funny Thai acts/ skits and a depiction of the famous Thai martial art called Muai Thai. Another highlight for this marvelous show is the presentation of a portion of Thai history with the participation of the beloved elephants which usually gets the most cheers from the audience.

If you can’t get enough of elephants, stay longer to witness the elephant show staged after the cultural one! This particular show may feature similar elephant tricks and antics similar to the ones seen in places like Samphran but, Noong Nooch’s version is still very much adorable because of the elephants. Prepare your baht for the experience of feeding the elephants, being lifted by an elephant trunk, and any photo opportunities you wish to have with these gentle creatures.

Only some two weeks have passed since ‘Yay’ (water) played an important role in Burmese people’s life. That was when in Tagu (March/April) during ‘Thingyan’ or ‘Water Festival’ – the ‘Burmese New Year’ – the people poured lots of water over one another to wash away all physical filth and dirt and the spiritual sins and evils in order to enter with a clean body and soul into the New Year. Meanwhile we are coping with the heat of the summer as best as we can. All my clothes are dry again and I have recovered from the cold I had caught during that time.

And now, again, yay plays in more ways than one an important role in and for the lives of the people of Burma who are in their vast majority – some 86% – Buddhists.

Again, they pour and throw water; only this time not over one another (so you must not worry, we will stay dry) out of earthen pots (atar pots) they have bought earlier (at the full moon of Kason they can buy them literally at every pagoda corner) but over a tree (or its roots) of the genus ‘Ficus’ that belongs to the family of ‘Moraceae’ and is classified as ‘Ficus religiosa’. This tree is commonly known as ‘Banyan tree’, ‘Bo tree’ or ‘Bodhi tree’ and is a fig tree, more precisely the ‘Indian fig’ tree. Especially on the full-moon day of Kason this sacred tree is of great significance to Burmese Buddhists as it is closely related to Gautama Buddha. In order to understand why this is so, we have to travel some 2,500 years back in time.

Before we start to time-travel and beam ourselves back into the time of around 500 B.C., I must once again draw your attention to the fact that it is often extremely difficult if not impossible to separate historical facts from myth and legend particularly, when it comes to Siddhartha Gautama and his life. Those accounts of his life that still exist were mostly handed down by the Buddha’s disciples as oral traditions and written down long after his death by often idolising followers. For this reason it is most likely that they do not always reflect the historical truth. Therefore, not everyone may agree with all of the details of my writings. However, I have done my very best to find out the truth, which according to the historical ‘facts’ available to me could be as follows.

On the morning of the full-moon day that is celebrated by Burmese Buddhists as the full-moon of Kason, Siddhartha Gautama, the son of the head of the Indian ‘Sakya’ warrior caste (which accounts for the name ‘Sakyamuni’, ‘Sage of the Sakya’, a name Siddhartha Gautama was also known by) sat under a Bo tree near Gaya (now Buddha Gaya in the north-eastern Indian state of Bihar) south of Patna (present-day Bihar’s capital) when he had his ‘Great Enlightenment’ that revealed to him the way of salvation from suffering. This he tried to find for many years by looking for as he is said to have put it: “Who wrought these prisons of senses, sorrow, fraught.”

On this full-moon day under the Bodhi tree he is said to have declared: “I know thee, never shall you build again these walls of pain.” He made the ‘knowledge’ he had acquired in the course of his Enlightenment the basis of his following some 45 years of preaching and teaching as a religious philosopher while travelling as a mendicant. He was about 80 years old when he died in Kusinagara in Nepal after being poisoned.

Legend has it that A) the day he was born as Prince Siddhartha Gautama in ca. 563 B.C., B) the day of his ‘Great Enlightenment’ under the Bodhi tree (Tree of Enlightenment) in ca. 533 B.C. and C) the day of his death, i.e. his passing on to ‘Nibbana’ or ‘Parinibanna’ (a state of neither being existent nor non-existent that to reach is Buddhism’s ultimate goal) as ‘Buddha’, meaning the ‘Enlightened One’ in ca. 483 B.C. fell all on a full-moon day, the day celebrated by the Burmese Buddhists as full-moon day of Kason. For this reason this day is also called ‘Thrice Blessed Day’ or ‘Three-fold Anniversary’. Subsequently the ‘Full-moon Day of Kason’ marks the three main events of Siddhartha Gautama Buddha’s life and as such it is celebrated in a fitting manner by Burmese Buddhists all over the country.

People of all ages, women and men alike go to ‘Payas’ (Pagodas), ‘Zedis’ (Stupas) and ‘Kyaungs’ (Monasteries) in processions to water the sacred Bodhi tree, give alms, make offerings, keep precepts or practice meditation, enjoy the company of other worshippers, the music made by ‘doh bats’, (folk music groups) accompanying the processions and people even dance a few steps to their music. The celebrations are marked by good deeds, songs and music, dances, happiness, hope and many believers make a wish while pouring water on the Bodhi tree from your atar pot to water the tree in this hot summertime and gain religious merits. I too have made a wish, which is that you will enjoy my articles.

The ‘Board of Trustees’ in Yangon organises and conducts an official ceremony to celebrate this day in the context of which a huge processions is led around the great gilded ‘Shwedagon Stupa’. The people leading this procession are clad in the garb of celestial beings such as ‘Thagyamin’ (King of Celestials), the ‘Galon/Garuda King’ (a mythical being half human and half bird) and the ‘Naga’ (Serpent King). This much to the religious, the commemoration part of the full-moon day of Kason. But what about the anticipating part mentioned earlier?

Well, if you remember correctly I have mentioned that in Kason water is in more than one way important to the Burmese. And water is the subject of anticipation. Burmese farmers put it into the following words: “Water in the ponds recedes in Tagu and the whole land is parched in Kason.”

Weary of the scorching sun during high summer that now comes to an end both people and nature are longing for water and are looking forward to the first rains that herald the monsoon that will begin in June and bring the water so badly needed in this agriculture country. And the first light showers, that are drastically changing the natural environment, are falling around the full-moon day of Kason.

Now everything turns green and colourful, the air is cool and clear and people – especially, of course, children – are happily dancing in the first showers, also called ‘Mango showers’ as they bring forth the delicious mangoes which will soon be ripe and available in abundance. So, I hope you have enjoyed the celebration of the full-moon of Kason and have become familiar with what it is that makes this festival so full of meaning to the Burmese people. I suggest that we have a rest now because soon we will celebrate the next festival, the ‘Full Moon of Waso’ in the month of Waso (June/July) that marks the beginning of the ‘Buddhist Lent.

Standing resplendently like a castle, Rijksmuseum, or the State museum, is one of the oldest museums in Europe and has been with us for over two centuries now. This lengthy existence warrants its extraordinary collections of old paintings highlighting its own most celebrated Dutch masters as Rembrandt and Vermeer. The museum encapsulates 800 years of the Netherland’s history and the art from the Middle ages to contemporary times. Some 8,000 works in 80 exhibit rooms are on display.

For the Rembrandt fan, the Rijksmuseum is a delightful collection of the artists work. The exhibition “Late Rembrandt” which has been running from February until May of this year, showcases the master’s works at the pinnacle of of his life as an artist. These works total over a hundred paintings, drawings and prints. Rijksmuseum has managed to curate these works from other museums and individual’s private collections. The Late Rembrandt Exhibition is definitely a once in a lifetime experience and opportunity to know Rembrandt like you have never before.

The Masterpiece collections exhibit some 200 works such as old paintings, sculptures and inventions. Don’t miss Van Gogh’s self-portrait, Pieneman’s “The Battle of Waterloo”, The Javanese Court Collections of paintings, and the astounding sculptures like “The Portraite of Andries de Graeff” and “The Seated Cupid”. A must-see would be the Gallery of Honour featuring paintings of world renowned masters including Frans Hals, Jan Steen, Vermeer and Rembrandt. The famous Night Watch will take your breath away, as well as the popular piece entitled “The Milkmaid”.

For the tea lovers, the museum exhibits an elegant collection of Delft Blue pottery. Gorgeous tea sets and stunning vases will surely wow you! If this is not enough, understand life in the Golden Age through Rijksmuseum’s Doll’s Houses. The oldest in the collections dates back to 1676.

Don’t miss the Cuypersbibliotheek too! It is the biggest and oldest art history library in the country but has been fully renovated recently. Nevertheless, the glorious antique touch has been greatly preserved. The reading rooms are splendid, the spiral staircase for reaching the books is so romantic, and the lights are warm and inviting. Everyone interested in the study of art history is encouraged to come here. iPads for studying are available, and Wi-Fi is free.