For ages people have been describing and documenting spectacular sites, structures and phenomena on Earth. Herodotus (Greek historian, 484 BC – 425 BC) and Calimachus of Cyrene (chief of the Library of Alexandria, 305 – 240 BC) are said to have come up with the famous list of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.1 Much more recently, several others have been compiled, listing the new wonders, the natural wonders, wonders of the underwater world, wonders of the industrial world etc.2 Oddly enough, while there are clearly way too many wonders to cram into a rigid list, people still seem to be attached to the number seven. I prefer to leave the number of wonders open-ended, which in part explains the name of this blog.
In this post, I want to write about a brief experience where I got to witness a few of the wonders of the world. When I left Australia at the end of May, I had to go through a crazy itinerary before I landed at my final destination: Sydney-Shanghai-Beijing-Los Angeles-Denver-Atlanta. The total trip took about 50 hours (I had a 12 hour layover at the Beijing airport) and I would never want to do it again, except for one reason: never in my life have I seen so many distinct, unique, amazing views in such a short period of time.
It started with the flight from Sydney to Shanghai, when I looked out the window and saw the Great Barrier Reef (one of the world’s natural wonders!). I knew that during my travels I was going to see it up close, but I wasn’t expecting the aerial view as well. I didn’t have my camera with me, so I don’t have any pictures of my own. These two below look like they’re from a low-flying plane or helicopter, so it’s not actually what I saw. But I suppose they give you an idea.
The next surprise came soon after taking off from Beijing. Not knowing much about Chinese geography, I was just looking out the window, watching as we flew over some mountains. Then all of a sudden I saw a wall lining the top of the mountain chain. Hours after seeing the Great Barrier Reef, I was looking at another wonder of the world: The Great Wall of China.
I still had no camera, so I’m stealing photos from the internet. The view I had looked a lot like the picture on the left. The one on the right looks cooler though, so I included it.
Photos by Johanna Loock and historum.com, respectively.
But that was only the beginning of what would be a pretty remarkable flight. After a while we were asked to close the shutters on the windows so that people could sleep. I tried, and probably dozed off a few times, but I can never get comfortable on airplane seats. I was awake for most of the flight.
There weren’t any screens showing our flight path, so I had no idea what route we were taking to get to LA. Midway through the flight I opened the shutter, and to my astonishment there was floating ice everywhere! I wouldn’t have guessed it looking at a flat map, but apparently the shortest way from China to California is through the Bering Strait:
At that point I was seriously regretting not having my camera. I could have gotten up from my window seat and tried to find it in my carry-on luggage, but there were people in the way, and the window was kind of foggy, and I had already missed taking pictures of the reef and the wall… I decided to just look out and try to ingrain the views in my memory. Below are a few more stolen pictures that look similar to the view I had.
Photos by Ashley Pollak and Claire Parkinson, respectively.
The sun was going down as I looked out, so I decided I would watch it set and then try to get some more sleep. But it tricked me. It got slower and slower as it went down. Then it looked like it was just going to sit there on the horizon. And finally it it started to rise again! I had always wanted to see that happen, but again, since I didn’t really know how far north I was, I wasn’t expecting it. This twenty-second video in no way does it justice, but it’s an example of the sun never setting in the Arctic:
Once I got to LAX, I had to literally run to get my bags, go through immigration, take the bus to the opposite terminal, check in again, and finally get through security and to my gate. Somehow I made it while they were still boarding.
I was dazed from the day and a half of flying already, and again didn’t even think about the flight path from LA to Denver. But as it turns out, my aerial sightseeing was not over yet. I was about to fly directly above Las Vegas, Hoover Dam, the Grand Canyon, Lake Powell, and of course, the Rockies.
I wasn’t looking out the whole time, so I missed Las Vegas and Hoover Dam. But the view of the Grand Canyon (another natural wonder!) was amazing, and I definitely saw a massive dam at Lake Powell, which I assumed was Glen Canyon Dam. Coincidently, I had been to both those places as a kid, so this time I have my own pictures:
The Rockies were also impressive, but I’m going to leave it up to your imagination this time. And the flight from Denver to Atlanta was during the night, so I couldn’t see anything. I don’t think there was anything spectacular on that route anyway. At least nothing compared to what I had already seen.
One of my favorite television shows is BBC’s Planet Earth, so you can imagine how in awe I was during this trip. It turned out to be the most unexpected and surreal sightseeing experience of my life. Hard to believe that you can see so much in such a short amount of time. And all it does is make me want to see more of the several wonders of the world…
Several Wonders 