After the morning’s boat cruise (see Attack of the Pelicans post), we did some 4-wheeling over the sand dunes in the afternoon. Namibia is well known for the vast dunes, and this was our chance to see them up close and personal. We were glad for an experienced professional driver, as the above image shows […]
Namibia 7 – Attack of the Pelicans!
Today comprised of two special tours by Mola-Mola Safaris at Pelican Point in Walvis Bay. Each is interesting enough to be in its own post. This is the first of those two, with the second half coming tomorrow. We spent the morning on a half-day boat cruise. I know… yawn… I had not expected much from it […]
Namibia 6 – Sand Dunes, Microlights and Small Planes
Sossusvlei in the Namib Desert is famous for its vast sand dunes, and we spent the last two days photographing them from the ground and from two different modes of air travel. Though we are in a dry desert, we also got to see how quickly a storm can arrive, and just how quickly it can […]
Namibia 5 – Deadvlie
Another of the special destinations our tour enabled us to access outside of normal tourist times is the Deadvlei. This is a hardback clay pan, on which many dead camel thorn trees have stood for 600-700 years. These trees grew when a nearby river flooded briefly. Once the climate changed again, and the sand blocked […]
Namibia 4 – Kolmanskop
We spent one afternoon and then an early morning in the abandoned town of Kolmanskop, also called Kolmannskuppe (in German). A diamond was found in the area in 1908, which launched a full scale diamond rush, much like the gold rush of the mid 1800’s in California. The town nearly vacated in 1928, when a far […]
Namibia 3 – Rhinos & Cheetahs
Today was a short side-track from the landscape and night sky photography. We got to see a bit of wildlife up close and personal. On one drive into the scrub forests, we came across a very large white rhinoceros. These are quite rare, and we were lucky to find him. Above, you can see him […]
Namibia 2 – Quiver Trees
We have now joined the photo tour with Squiver that we came to Namibia for, led by Ryan Dyar. Internet in Namibia is very slow, and frequently non-existant. This blog has been waiting in our queue to publish, and is actually being posted 10 days into the trip. As such, we already have quite a bit […]
Photo Tour Travelers
Wow… Five countries (Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Georgia and Armenia) in six weeks. Mehmet Özbalci organized this tour through his company Fantastic Photo Tours, based in Istanbul, Turkey. We used him in 2016 for a tour of Turkey, and liked his approach so much that we decided to use him again for these countries. I thought we would […]
Armenia 4 – Dilijan
We continued our travels along the Silk Road, an ancient network of trading routes between China and the Mediterranean. Enroute to our next hotel in Dilijan, we stopped at the Orbeliani Caravansary, a structure where caravans on this Silk Road used to stop for the night. From the outside (upper left), it is rather unimpressive stone building, so we […]
Armenia 3 – Goris
Enroute to Goris, we got one last view of Mt Ararat behind the Church of Khor Virap, before it disappeared entirely behind a veil of clouds. As we approached this scene, there was heavy cloud cover overhead, and the monastery was obscured in dark shade. Watching the clouds, we saw the possibility of better light coming […]