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Torres del Paine National Park (Chile)

Torres del Paine National Park is a national park in Chile located between the Andes mountain range and the Patagonian steppe.

Between 3.5 million years ago and 14,000 years ago, glaciations shaped the landscape to remove the upper layers of rock and give the park its current appearance.

Covering an area of ​​181,414 hectares, its main function is the conservation of landscapes, ecosystems, species and genetic diversity of the Paine massif.

Its surface is characterized by its landscape heterogeneity, where mountains, glaciers, valleys, ponds and large lakes converge.

It takes its name from three emblematic granite formations of the del Paine massif: the Torres (Towers) del Paine.

12 million years ago, in the Miocene, the northward movement of the boundary between the Antarctic plate and the Nazca plate caused the intrusion of a 10 km by 20 km laccolith with a thickness of 2,000 mr.

This intrusion created the heart of the Paine massif. The territory also has some small, older intrusions dating from 29 million years ago.

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*Photo by John Spooner.

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Perito Moreno Glacier (Argentina)

The Perito Moreno Glacier is a glacier in Argentina located in Los Glaciares National Park in the province of Santa Cruz.

With a surface area of ​​250 km2 and a length of 30 kilometers, it is one of the 48 glaciers fed by the southern Patagonian ice field, in the Andes, which Argentina shares with Chile.

Named in honor of the explorer Francisco Moreno who studied this region in the 19th century and contributed to discussions for the delimitation of the border with Chile.

Its height is 170 meters of which 74 meters are above ground, the rest being under the waters of Lake Argentino.

 It advances about two meters per day (700 meters per year). In some places its thickness reaches 700 meters.

It is located 78 kilometers from El Calafate, in Argentine Patagonia.

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*Photo by Luca Galuzzi.

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Hide brooms (Norway)

In Norway, it is adamantly believed that witches and evil spirits roam the night sky on Christmas Eve.

And what is a witch's favorite mode of transportation? A broomstick.

As a precaution, the Norwegians therefore hide all the brooms in their houses to prevent witches from getting their hands on them.

Sometimes people go further by firing a warning shot in the air to scare them away.

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Night of the radishes (Mexico)

If the Christmas holidays in France are often associated with an increased consumption of chocolates, this is not the case in the city of Oaxaca in Mexico.

Indeed, every December 23, La Noche de Rabanos ("The Night of the Radishes") is celebrated there, a festival during which traders and artisans sell radishes intricately carved to represent nativity scenes, fauna and local architecture, as well as other relevant representations.

The radish carvings are sold as Christmas centerpieces, and the creator of the best radish drawing wins a cash prize.

An unusual Christmas tradition, certainly, but guaranteed without a liver attack.

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The legend of Krampus (Germany, Austria, Hungary).

Have you ever heard of Krampus?

In Germany, Austria or Hungary, it is a name that makes people shiver.

And for good reason: Krampus is none other than the diabolical and furry alter-ego of Santa Claus.

According to legend, if Santa Claus brings toys to “nice” children, the Krampus has the mission to punish the children on the “naughty” list.

 Most of the time, he is content to scare children with his bestial demeanor, but he is said to throw particularly naughty children into his bag, or chain them in his basket to take them to hell.

It is for this reason that in Austria and neighboring countries, people often dress up as Krampus in early December and roam the streets to scare children.

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Scrabble, a child of the crisis

The famous game to form crosswords on squares which bring more or less points is, him, well born from the crisis of 1929.

Alfred Mosher Butts, a New York architect in his thirties with a passion for anagrams (these words made up of the same letters), finds himself unemployed.

 Idle, he imagines a game to put his passion for words within everyone's reach. He has the idea of ​​token letters.

 To determine the number of each letter and its value according to frequency in English, he analyzes a dictionary and three newspapers including the New York Times.

The game is called Lexiko. He deposited it in 1948, in the United States.

Now called Scrabble, it landed in France in 1955.

It got off to a mixed start, but Club Med activity leaders… gradually introduce holidaymakers to it.

Today, almost all French people (nearly 60% have one, according to its publisher Mattel) know Scrabble.

There is a French federation, a competition, a magazine...

Nearly 150 million Scrabble games have been sold in 121 countries, in 36 languages, including Latin and... Braille.

He would even be at the origin of the Trivial Pursuit.

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