lashonharangue
Driving inland from the coast toward Damaraland, we started to gain elevation and soon noticed a change in the geography.
I imagined Mars might be like this area.
On The Road – lashonharangue – Namibia – Part 4Post + Comments (11)
by WaterGirl| 11 Comments
This post is in: Namibia, On The Road, Photo Blogging
Driving inland from the coast toward Damaraland, we started to gain elevation and soon noticed a change in the geography.
I imagined Mars might be like this area.
On The Road – lashonharangue – Namibia – Part 4Post + Comments (11)
by WaterGirl| 9 Comments
This post is in: Namibia, On The Road, Photo Blogging
We next drove from Sossusvlei in the south of the Namib-Naukluft National Park to Swakopmund. The route took us first east, then north, then west to the Atlantic coast.
Swakopmund was founded back in 1892 when Namibia was a German colony. The town has a fair amount of German colonial architecture and I heard several German speaking tourists walking around the town. The next morning we drove a short distance down the coast to Walvis Bay for a boat tour.
The bay is home to a large population of Cape fur seals. They haul out on a sandbar called Pelican Point that separates the Atlantic Ocean from the bay. The sandbar goes on for many kilometers. There is a lighthouse but it is not at the end of the sandbar. When it was built in 1932 it was. But over the subsequent decades sand has blown in from the desert inland and now the end of the peninsula is several kilometers further.
On The Road – lashonharangue – Namibia – Part 3Post + Comments (9)
by WaterGirl| 16 Comments
This post is in: Namibia, On The Road, Photo Blogging
We got up before sunrise to drive from our lodge into the heart of the Namib-Naukluft Park. 4WD vehicles are mandatory and our guide Jeremia partially deflated the tires to aid traction in the sand. The desert is considered to be the oldest on earth and is one of the most popular destinations in Namibia. It did not disappoint.
This photo of an oryx was taken from our vehicle just before sunrise. The sand is red due to the iron oxide content.
On The Road – lashonharangue – Namibia – Part 2Post + Comments (16)
by WaterGirl| 19 Comments
This post is in: Namibia, On The Road, Photo Blogging
In May of 2022 my spouse and I traveled to Africa and spent nine days in Namibia, one of the driest and least densely populated countries in the world. We flew into Johannesburg, South Africa, stayed overnight at the airport, and then flew to Windhoek (the capital of Namibia). The next day we were met by our guide/driver Jeremia Mwapopi and began our adventure. He said we were his first guide job since the start of the pandemic. Driving southwest into increasingly sparse terrain for about six hours, our destination was Sossusvlei.
Along the way we were excited to see our first baboon sitting on a fence. It seemed pretty bored with the passing vehicles.
On The Road – lashonharangue – Namibia – Part 1Post + Comments (19)
by WaterGirl| 30 Comments
This post is in: Albatrossity, On The Road, Photo Blogging
We are world travelers again this week! This week are treated to one day in Tanzania with Albatrossity and the rest of the week in Namibia with lashonharangue.
WaterGirl mentioned in the comments last week that she would be fine with just looking at the landscape images from Tanzania, even if there were no birds or animals. So I will try to include some, although you all need to know that it is well-nigh impossible to aim a camera anywhere in Ngorongoro Crater and not find an animal somewhere in the picture. The next few weeks will be images from our first full day in the crater. I took over 1100 pictures that day, reprocessed over 100 of them, and now have to whittle those down to a number that won’t numb you all in the next weeks. Here goes!
As previously mentioned, the crater floor (at 6000 ft above sea level) is a grassy plain (with a couple of lakes) of about 100 sq miles. The crater wall (the blue band at the top of this image, rises up 2000 ft from the floor, and will be in every landscape picture taken there. Here are a few critters as well as the landscape: Cape Buffalo (Syncerus caffer caffer) and a male Ostrich (Struthio camelus). One of the buffalo, as seems to be typical for this species, seems to be taking offense at the presence of our vehicle. As you probably know from watching Marlin Perkins on Wild Kingdom in your misspent youth, this is a dangerous and short-fused creature, and kills several hundred people each year. Click here for larger image.
On The Road – Albatrossity – Ngorongoro Crater 1Post + Comments (30)
by WaterGirl| 11 Comments
This post is in: Kenya, On The Road, Photo Blogging, way2blue
Continuation of our visit to Takwa Beach on Manda Island to observe a sea turtle hatch. I still don’t know how the farmers/ex-poachers knew exactly which day these guys would bust out…
The little guys spread out, seemingly oblivious to their nest mates…
On The Road – way2blue – Lamu, Kenya in 2021, 8 of 8Post + Comments (11)
by WaterGirl| 10 Comments
This post is in: Kenya, On The Road, Photo Blogging, way2blue
The day before, Carol stopped by our breakfast table to say a turtle hatch was expected on Manda Island the next day. Did we want to see it? She explained that her original approach to saving the sea turtles was to dig up the eggs buried on Shella Beach and bury them on the resort property. Her daughter mentioned that it was essential to stack them exactly how they’d been layered in the nest. Carol subsequently established a conservation trust and implemented a more direct way to protect the turtles. Carol set up the Lamu Marine Conservation Trust < www.lamcot.org > in 1992 to protect endangered sea turtles. Since then the project has grown to also educate local children and the community on the importance of protecting the environment, to clean the beaches, and work to set aside locally managed marine areas.
A group of turtle watchers hopped into power boats and headed to the large mangrove channel on Manda Island. We hopped off the boats, walked through a bit of muck to dry land, then headed toward that white smudge of dunes in the distance.
On The Road – way2blue – Lamu, Kenya in 2021, 7 of 8Post + Comments (10)