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Category: Americas and Eurasia and Africa

Reading the signs (in northern Namibia. #1 in series)

Published February 19, 2023 by Pelidoug

Reading the signs (in northern Namibia. #1 in series)

 

 

 

The photo (copyright Doug Spencer, taken on 08 November 2022) shows a typical northern Namibian shebeen.

Signage in northern Namibia often provides visitors with delight…and/or surprise, confusion, bewilderment…

You’ll find no superb photography in this single-image series; almost everything in it was shot “on the fly”, through the window of “our” bus, as it zoomed past one one of many thousands of owner-operated businesses.

All were small, in reality.

However, their signs often “talked big”…

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Waterhole at night, Etosha, northern Namibia (3 of 3: giraffes)

Published February 17, 2023 by Pelidoug

Waterhole at night, Etosha, northern Namibia (3 of 3: giraffes)

 

Giraffes harvest most of the water they need from the leaves they eat, so they do not need to drink every day.

However, they do need to drink.

On that occasion, the current world’s longest necks are “not long enough”.

As every lion and crocodile knows, the only occasion when it is a good idea to “move in for the kill” on an adult giraffe is when that giraffe is drinking.

Every giraffe is acutely conscious that his or her “killer kick” defence system is entirely disabled whenever s/he has to splay his/her legs to enable his/her neck to reach down far enough to make drinking possible.

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Waterhole at night, Etosha, northern Namibia (2 of 3: rhinos)

Published February 14, 2023 by Pelidoug

Waterhole at night, Etosha, northern Namibia (2 of 3: rhinos)

 

 

Five rhinoceros species (within which are eleven subspecies) still walk “our” planet’s surface.

All are in trouble; their total number is lower than ever before in human history, and they now walk “freely” only within a tiny portion of their former range, in discrete populations in various National Parks and “Reserves”.

Diceros bicornis, commonly known as the “black” rhino, is the smaller, now rarer – and allegedly, more ornery – of the two African species.

It and Ceratotherium simum – the so-called “white” rhino – are in fact both grey.

The fifth night of November 2022 was a good one for rhino-watchers at the Okaukuejo waterhole; the rhinos’ demeanour was not at all ornery, and they broke only wind – loudly.

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Waterhole at night, Etosha, northern Namibia (1 of 3: elephants)

Published February 12, 2023 by Pelidoug

Waterhole at night, Etosha, northern Namibia (1 of 3: elephants)

 

 

Etosha National Park is one of Africa’s largest and finest national parks.

Okaukuejo is the southernmost of its six major “camps”, and its main administrative centre.

By day and by night, Okaukeujo’s waterhole offers visitors oft-superb, comfortable, relaxed and close wildlife viewing.

As this three part series illustrates, the night of 05 November 2022 was very rewarding.

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Okonjima sunset (with “astounding” musical bonus)

Published February 8, 2023 by Pelidoug

Okonjima sunset (with “astounding” musical bonus)

This post’s musical bonus really is astounding, I think.

November 4 2022, at Okonjima, was one of the most rewarding days of our lives.

The immediately-preceding post’s leopard encounter was its most electrifying moment, but we also saw another leopard, giraffes galore, cheetahs, many other animals, and some beautiful country.

Circa 7 pm, we adjourned to a hilltop, to enjoy “sundowners”…and/or the actual sundown.

I took the featured photo at 7.06 pm.

The other images, below, are in chronological order.

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Lila (the leopard) returns to her kill.

Published February 6, 2023 by Pelidoug

Lila (the leopard) returns to her kill.

 

This post is the “morning after” sequel to the one that showed Lila stashing her “prize”, shortly after she had killed a Red Hartebeest calf, late in the afternoon of 03 November 2022.

I took the featured image, above, at 7.55 am on 04 November 2022, when we returned to the relevant tree.

As you can see, Lila’s kill was quasi-intact, still “safe” in the tree’s canopy.

“When will Lila return to it?”, we wondered.

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Survival epic’s relics, 80 years later: Skeleton Coast, Namibia

Published January 27, 2023 by Pelidoug

Survival epic’s relics, 80 years later: Skeleton Coast, Namibia

 

The mangled – but not rusted – metal object pictured above has sat on one of the world’s most “desolate” beaches since shortly after 29 January 1943.

It is an engine cowling from a Lockheed Ventura bomber which plunged into the nearby Atlantic on that day, off Namibia’s Skeleton Coast.

A short distance inland – as you can see, above – is the western edge of the world’s oldest desert’s “sandsea”.

That Ventura, several other planes, a number of ships, and a land-based convoy’s extraordinarily arduous/audacious mission were all part of an amazing true story of shipwreck/s, a  plane-crash, and herculean rescue efforts.

MV Dunedin Star’s demise resulted in far fewer deaths than did RMS Titanic’s, but the smaller vessel’s end-story is, arguably, the more “titanic”.

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Sleepless rust, explained: Skeleton Coast

Published January 25, 2023 by Pelidoug

Sleepless rust, explained: Skeleton Coast

Also starring a fine example of “sleepless rust”, this post’s featured image is much easier to “read” than was the immediately-preceding, teasing post’s.

Obviously, here, you are looking at a shipwreck.

No reliable figure is even possible, but it is generally reckoned that Namibia’s Skeleton Coast is the world’s largest “ships’ graveyard”.

At least several hundred vessels – quite possibly, more than one thousand – have succumbed to its “treacherous” mists, turbulent waters, “carnivorous” rocks.. and to its utter remoteness.

For several centuries, sailors who outlived their ship would, inevitably, soon share its fate – on a shore where rain hardly ever falls and no rivers permanently flow.

Until well into the 20th century this was a place no road reached, and where no humans lived.

Even so, whales have provided far more of the Skeleton Coast’s skeletons than have ships and sailors.

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