Yes, our vote has been counted and our very own Puerto Princesa Underground River in Palawan made it as one of the provisional winners of the New Seven Wonders of Nature. “Provisional” because the foundation still needs to verify and check the results of the initial counting of the votes which ended last November 11, 2011. Once the verification has been done, they will announce the official winners early next year.
Other winners based on the first counting are Amazon, Halong Bay, Iguazu Falls, Jeju Island, Komodo and Table Mountain.
But the result was being criticized by some people and said that those who qualified do not deserve the spot. While according to some, there are other potential candidates that should have been included in the magic seven. Well it was already been announced besides, it was also the result of the online votes and campaigns that was conducted for a long time. Its just that those seven got the highest votes among other candidates. But as mentioned, its not yet final and can still be replaced once the board found something malicious or anomaly with the initial results.
Amazon Rainforest, also known as Amazonia, it represents more than half of the Earth’s rainforests and comprises the largest and most species-rich tract of tropical rainforest in the world. In the Amazon Rainforest, you can also found the Amazon River, the largest river in the world. I can still remember when it was featured in one of the Philippine documentary where the host was able to explore the river using a motor boat. And from their journey, they found out some of the most interesting wildlife that can only be seen in Amazon.
Halong Bay in Vietnam features numerous islands and isles of different sizes and shapes made up of limestones. Aside from the interesting forms of limestones, there are caves, floating villages and lakes within the limestone islands like Dau Be.
Iguazu Falls are one of the world’s largest waterfalls. The “Devil’s Throat” is the tallest among the 275 falls with the height of 80 meters. This can be found in the border of Brazilian state of Paraná and the Argentine province of Misiones.
Jeju Island in South Korea, is a volcanic island. The interesting feature of this island is Hallasan (Halla Mountain), the tallest mountain and a dormant volcano. There are also more than 300 satellite volcanoes around the main volcano.
Komodo National Park in Indonesia was founded mainly to protect the Komodo dragon. But later became the place to protect other species. Komodo National Park includes the three larger islands Komodo, Rinca and Padar.
If you are familiar with the constellation “Mensa”, well it was named after the Table Mountain in South Africa. This flat-topped mountains hosts over a thousand of rare and endangered floral species. Table Mountain is the most recognized icon in Cape Town which serves as the gateway to Africa.
And finally, our very own The Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park made it to the list. It has an 8.2 km navigable underground river enveloped by a limestone cave. There are great formations of Stalactites and stalagmites and several large chambers which some are not opened for public viewing. This underround river is said to be the world’s longest. Until now there are still some explorations that are being conducted by a team of Italian scientists especially when they found a fossilof an extinct sea cow species that was estimated to have lived about 200 million years.
If you are still wondering why these natural wonders made it to the top and want to prove if these seven really deserve to be called as the New Seven Wonders of Nature, you may experience it for yourself, plan your trip and book your flight. But I advise you to conduct a flight comparison especially if you are a budget traveler, so you wont regret it if you get disappointed with want you have seen because its not worth it.