Those of you who have wished for real-life chocolate mountains, your "fantasy" dream may soon be realized!
The chocolate look-alike mounds in Bohol, Philippines, appear to be large piles of everyone's favorite indulgent dessert, but they're not. Apart from the fact that they resemble the meal we eat at a certain time of year, these hills have nothing to do with chocolate.
While it's a bummer that tourists won't be able to stroll up to these mounds and take a bite out of them like Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, they're just as mysterious and exciting as a vast field of sweets.
Thousands of neat, conical mounds can be found throughout the Philippines' Bohol region. They're encased in lush green grass that turns brown in the summer, giving the region the appearance of a box of chocolates.
The strange environment is surrounded by myths and legends, the most renowned of which concerns a pair of feuding giants. Experts can't agree on how these mounds originated, but they all believe it was due to Mother Nature's handiwork.
For good cause, the Chocolate Hills have been dubbed the "Eighth Wonder of the World." Although many experts have quite solid justifications for why they exist, their cause for existence isn't necessarily one that has been validated.
This field of chocolatey-looking mounds stretches far beyond what the eye can see and appears to go on forever, yet visitors who arrive outside of the Philippines' dry season may be disappointed...
These hills only turn chocolatey once a year.
The Chocolate Hills have a green, mossy hue during the wet season and anytime outside of the dry season. They're still quite a sight to view year-round, with over a thousand hills spread out across an area of more than 50 kilometers.
The vastness of these hills stretches into various towns, including Batuan, Sagbayan, Carmen, and, of course, Bohol. The shape of these mounds attracts attention because they appear to have been purposefully planted, however none of these fields are man-made.
While specialists have their own perspectives on the Chocolate Hills, the Filipinos have come to their own conclusions. These hills, according to folklore and myth, were formed by two giants who threw mounds of earth at one another during a passionate argument.
As the fight became more intense, they began tossing stones and sand, which is claimed to have formed the surrounding region. While some residents accept the legend and others do not, it is an intriguing topic to consider.
Many residents believe the legend is nothing more than a children's bedtime story, while others believe there is some truth to it, albeit not much.
Two other, less well-known legends surround the genesis of the Chocolate Hills. Some think the hills were formed by the tears of a giant, which helped sculpt the limestone rocks.
Some people believe the mounds are dried-up carabao dung, which is an even unusual story. If any legends are believed at all, this is the least believed of them all.
The true tale is found in the composition of the hills, and specialists believe there is a scientific cause for the hills' presence rather than just giants. It's thought that limestone was broken down over time by intense rains and erosion, and that this breakdown is what gave rise to the Chocolate Hills.
While this notion would have occurred long before human memory or the ability to record such experiences, a second scientific hypothesis regarding the region exists.
Some scientists believe the hills are the consequence of limestone being broken as a result of tectonic plate movements, and some even believe the field was originally home to coral reefs that erupted as a result of a geological shift.
Regardless of whatever idea is correct, there's no doubt that these hills are worth visiting at least once.
Source: msn.com, TheTravel.com
