Activists protesting cuts in subsidies to solar power in Germany protest outside the building where Vice Chancellor and Economy Minister Philipp Roesler and Environment Minister Norbert Roettgen were announcing the cuts on February 23, 2012 in Berlin, Germany. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

“A snapshot from mountaineer's life”. Have you ever wondered how does a mountaineer's day start? I will give you a hint: you wake up at 3 am, set the stove, wake up your partner, pretend it is warm, quickly consume a high-calorie breakfast, watch your friends slowly ascending the icy slopes of your dream summit with their tiny head torches glimmering against perfectly blue ice, and hope for the good weather. One would ask: why all this trouble? The answer is easy: for the love of the adventure and the unknown. Location: Chamonix, Haute Savoye, France. (Photo and caption by Kamil Tamiola/National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest)

ATTENTION! All pictures are presented in high resolution. To see Hi-Res images – just TWICE click on any picture. In other words, click small picture – opens the BIG picture. Click BIG picture – opens VERY BIG picture.

“Kumbh Mela is a mass Hindu pilgrimage in which Hindus gather at the Ganges river. The normal Kumbh Mela is celebrated every 3 years, the Ardh (half) Kumbh Mela is celebrated every six years at Haridwar and Prayag, the Purna (complete) Kumbh takes place every twelve years, at four places (Prayag (Allahabad), Haridwar, Ujjain, and Nashik). The Maha (great) Kumbh Mela which comes after 12 “Purna Kumbh Melas”, or 144 years, is held at Allahabad.

The last Ardh Kumbh Mela was held over a period of 45 days beginning in January 2007, more than 70 million Hindu pilgrims took part in the Ardh Kumbh Mela at Prayag, and on January 15, the most auspicious day of the festival of Makar Sankranti, more than 5 million participated. The previous Maha Kumbh Mela, held in 2001, was attended by around 60 million people, making it at the time the largest gathering anywhere in the world in recorded history”. – Wikipedia

Photo: Sadhus (holy men) smoke at their camp near the ritual site at Sangam, the confluence of the Ganges, Yamuna and mythical Saraswati rivers during the Ardh Kumbh Mela festival (Half Pitcher festival) January 18, 2007 in Allahabad, India. Millions of Hindu pilgrims have flocked to the largest religious gathering in the world which lasts for 45 days in northern India. The festival commemorates the mythical conflict between gods and demons over a pitcher filled with the “nectar of immortality”. Devotees believe that taking a holy dip in the Ganges at this time washes away their sins and paves the path to salvation. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Garbage pickers collect ride on donkey cart while looking for recyclable materials at a rubbish dump in the outskirts of Baghdad, Iraq, August 23, 2016. Despite its huge untapped oil and gas reserves and steadily rising oil output and revenue, 23 percent of the population live below the poverty line, according to the Ministry of Planning. (Photo by Khalid al Mousily/Reuters)

Undated image released Monday February 17, 2020, by Irish Coast Guard showing the abandoned cargo ship MV Alta, that has washed up on the coast of County Cork, near Ballycotton, southern Ireland. The MV Alta is believed to have had 10 crew members aboard who were rescued by the US Coast Guard. Since September 2018, the ship has been drifting with no crew aboard, and it was last seen off the coast of West Africa before being washed up in southern Ireland during Storm Dennis. (Photo by Irish Coast Guard via AP Photo)

Women wear the traditional costume of the Alto Tio Diego carnival during the Women's Afro-Mestizo Carnival of Alto Tio Diego on February 11, 2024 in Veracruz, Mexico. Alto Tio Diego is a small town near the State capital Xalapa where every year inhabitants celebrate their traditional carnival. Women of the town demanded a special day for them to parade and few years ago, they started to do it by walking through the streets wearing traditional costumes and masks (mostly of animals) but the attires have evolved to more modern characters. (Photo by Hector AD Quintanar/Getty Images)

A crane loads logs at the Novoyeniseisk wood processing plant, with the air temperature at about minus 20 degrees Celsius (minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit), in the town of Lesosibirsk in Krasnoyarsk Region, Siberia, Russia, February 16, 2016. The plant exports timber to Europe, Northern Africa and Asia. The Taiga, also known as the boreal forest, on the coast of the Angara River and Yenisei River is one of the main areas for the industrial cutting of wood thanks to the high quality of the Angara pine. Open air work continues all year around regardless to temperatures which can drop to minus 52 degrees Celsius (minus 61.6 degrees Fahrenheit), according to employees. (Photo by Ilya Naymushin/Reuters)

In this February 27, 1984, file photo, singer Placido Domingo laughs with members of the Rockettes at New York's Radio City Music Hall. The singer and dancers met while rehearsing for Channel Thirteen's “Gala of Stars 1984”. Nine women in the opera world have told The Associated Press that they were sexually harassed by Domingo, one of the most celebrated and powerful men in opera. The women say the encounters took place over three decades, at venues that included opera companies where he held top managerial positions. (Photo by Steve Friedman/AP Photo/File)