Gnu/wildebeest are bona fide antelopes.
However, as the Blue Wildebeest’s scientific name – Connochaetes taurinus – suggests, most human newcomers assume that wildebeest are bovine beasts.
One CommentCategory: miscellaneous
The Namib is generally considered the world’s oldest desert; certainly, it is many millions of years older than the Sahara.
Some of the Namib’s dunes are uncommonly stable, exquisitely coloured, remarkably tall.
Contrary to common belief – and to claims made by promoters of various African and Eurasian deserts – the world tallest dunes are not in Africa, nor Arabia, nor China; by a considerable margin, they are in South America.
The Namib’s “sand sea” is, however, singularly beautiful, most especially around Sossusvlei.
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Arguably, this particular oxymoron nicely describes Phacochoerus africanus – the common warthog.
Ugly Beauty is also the title of an unequivocally beautiful composition by one of jazz’s greatest composers.
This post’s kneeling hero was neither injured, nor pious, and although the fire in this image was part of a lovely dinner experience, warthog was not on the menu.
read more“Ugly Beauty” – warthogs rule, ok? (#13 in Namibia single-image series, with musical bonus)
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Khowarib Gorge is one of very few Namibian places through which water flows, visibly, “permanently”.
This post’s (Tunisian) musical bonus was doubtless inspired by larger waves, dancing somewhere else entirely, but Anouar Brahem’s Dance With Waves dances well with a desert river’s rippling.
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Photo was taken a few hundred metres upstream of Epupa Falls.
At 6.37 am on 11 November 2022 I was standing on the Namibian side of the Kunene River.
In Angola it is the Cunene; above, you are looking at both nations…and the moon.
The Kunene and the Orange (which is the border between Namibia and South Africa) are the only two of Namibia’s rivers that “permanently” have water flowing – above ground, visible – all the way to the Atlantic Ocean.
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Day becoming night – or vice versa – is especially beautiful in an arid or semi-arid region where edifices and artificial lighting are nowhere visible, or barely present.
Namibia has a great many such places.
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Terns are particularly lovely in flight… or when hovering, intently.
The pictured individual is a Caspian tern, I think; s/he was our post-lunch highlight at Cottesloe yesterday.
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Australians’ 2022 views on taxation – and on taxation “reform” – are “informed” by a confusing array of truths, lies, twaddle, insight, credulity, chicanery, chutzpah, self-interested opportunism (sometimes naked, sometimes disguised) , rank hypocrisy, timidity, virtue-signalling, obfuscation, indifference, compassion, cruelty, ignorance, knowledge, and honest uncertainty.
The featured image is (Jon) Kudlelka’s cartoon for the 08 October 2022 edition of The Saturday Paper
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As Pelican Yoga regulars already know, I generally prefer wild places, wild animals and plants, untamed, “in the wild”/ au naturel.
That said, I would never wish to forgo the pleasures afforded by exotic plants, as cultivated in both “Botanic” and domestic gardens.
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Q: why did many expensive lenses cross oceans, and the lenses’ owners then get up so very early on a crisp Rajasthan winter morning?
A: they wanted to secure a “good” position on a rooftop in an unassuming Thar Desert village.
The more meaningful answer has to be seen to be believed…as you will see in Pelican Yoga’s next two, lavishly-illustrated posts.
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