All sights in Africa

Google Sightseeing takes you on tour of the world as seen from satellite, using the free Google Earth program, or Google Maps in your web browser. Each weekday your guides James and Alex present new weird and wonderful sights as suggested by readers.

The editors: James & Alex

‘Net Jesus Red’

Posted by Alex Turnbull, Tuesday, 19th July 2005

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Some large type. ‘Net Jesus Red‘ is seen here written on the side of a hill in Pretoria, the administrative capital of South Africa. I assume the language is Afrikaans, but unfortunately none of the online tools I could find would translate it…

I tried Dutch though, and got ‘Save Exactly Jesus’. Can anyone do a more accurate translation?

Updated: Thanks to everyone who translated the Afrikaans to “Only Jesus Saves”.

Net Jesus Red

Thanks to TeddyJoe.

Shipwreck!

Posted by Alex Turnbull, Friday, 15th July 2005

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This is the hulking, rusted remains of some sort of large ship off the coast of South Africa… a few hundred miles up the coast from here is the famous skeleton coast, home to countless shipwrecks.

Shipwreck

Many thanks to Patrick. Yes that Patrick :-)

Desert Farming

Posted by Alex Turnbull, Monday, 27th June 2005

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Check out these bizarre circles of farmland smack-bang in the middle of the Libyan desert. This unlikely-seeming sight has been made possible by the construction of the Great Man Made River, possibly the largest water transport system ever built, consisting of a network of pipes buried underground, each four meters in diameter. In the 1960s, efforts to find oil in southern Libya led to the discovery of huge quantities of fresh water underground, and today the Great Man Made River carries more than five million cubic metres of that water under the desert, vastly increasing the amount of arable land.

However, I’m told that apparently these sources of water (which were deposited in the ice age) are only likely to last between 50 and 100 years, yet the project is estimated to have cost 25 billion US dollars.

There’s lots more of these circles around to support this theory, but does anyone else think what they’re actually doing is trying to draw a picture of a giant dog?

Dog Farm

Thanks to Tom Beddard, Stuart McGlashan, Steve Rot, pixiecrinkle, Mark and Phillip.

Pyramids of Giza & The Great Sphinx

Posted by James Turnbull, Wednesday, 22nd June 2005

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Of the 7 wonders of the ancient world, the Pyramids at Giza are the only ones remaining, they are over 6000 years old and are constructed from over 25 million tonnes of limestone. The pyramids were built as tombs for the pharaohs Khufu, Khafre & Menkaure, who as teenagers formed a popular hip-hop trio (possibly not true).

The largest Pyramid was built for Khufu (aka DJ Cheops), Pharaoh of the Fourth Egyptian Dynasty, and was constructed by nearly 20,000 workers who worked year round for decades. It was originally 481 feet high, but has since lost 30 feet due to erosion.

Following to the southwest is the Pyramid of Khafre (aka MC Chephren). Although it is smaller, a steeper angle results in the illusion that the two structures are the same size. In fact, Khafre’s pyramid appears taller since it is on higher ground.

The final, smallest pyramid is that of Menkaure (aka MC Mycerinus). There are also various other smaller pyramids for the pharaohs’ Queens which can be identified using this map.

To the east of the pyramids is the Great Sphinx, the largest single-stone statue in the world. The Sphinx has the face of a man (possibly the aforementioned Khafre, but sans nose) and the body of a lion.

Thanks: Over 80 people, just too many to list! You know who you are, thanks guys ;-)