The Lion with Human Toes

In Namibia we drove a long way to reach Twyfelfontein. We had a great tent as our lodging that night.

the road in and out
one great tent!

We spent the next afternoon on a guided tour of a UNESCO World Heritage site.

San guide at the site

Twyfelfontein, also known as /Ui-//aes, is the home of one of Africa’s biggest concentrations of petroglyphs. It’s an open-air gallery in the Namib Desert, with 1,000- to 10,000-year-old images carved on slabs of basalt. A petroglyph was sent to the National Museum in Windhoek in the early part of the 20th century, but otherwise the site is mostly intact.

giraffe, antelope, oryx, birds, human footprints
antelope hoof prints, rhinos, giraffe

San (Bushmen) hunter-gatherers had long lived in this area. They carved and occasionally painted animals they were familiar with or hunted. Lions and more than 200 giraffes and 100 rhino are depicted, along with hippos, ostrich, impala, elephant and zebra. And we were astonished to see shore birds and a seal!

giraffes, a hippo, and is that a seal on the far right?

The San had traveled across the desert to the ocean and back, recording what they’d seen and hunted there!

Along with figures with bows and arrows, foot and paw prints, some petroglyphs depict magical creatures. One engraving is of a lion with human toes, portraying a shaman who had crossed over into the animal world.

Lion, giraffe, water buffalo, antelope, rhino. Check out the human toes on the lion’s paws as well as the end of his tail

According to the explanatory signs in the Visitors’ Center and the excellent article https://www.africanworldheritagesites.org/cultural-places/rock-art-pre-history, “Rock art was the preserve of medicine people, or shamans, and had two functions: as a means to enter the natural world and to record the shamans’ experiences in that world. … The shaman’s vision became disturbed at the start of trance, and he would ‘see’ patterned flashes of light. Produced in the brain, these flashes are also known as entoptic images or images ‘in the eye’. They are depicted in the seemingly abstract geometric images in the rock art. Meanders, dots, lines, grids, spirals and whorls resemble entoptic or inner-eye images recorded in neurophysiological experiments. Although entoptic images are similar for all people in the world, the associations formed in a state of trance are contextual. The shaman fuses his hallucinatory visions with images of animals and other potent spiritual symbols.

…. Engravings of human footprints and animal tracks are frequently placed next to or inside tunnels, deep fissures and inaccessible surfaces, as if these indicate paths and entrances into the spirit world. It was believed that a shaman could move through solid rock, using entrances not visible to the normal eye. To the artist the rock face was not merely a canvas but rather a veil serving as the threshold to a parallel spiritual world.” [1]

The petroglyphs also provided practical information, like where to find watering holes.

the circles show the location of watering holes

The region is sere and beautiful in a severe way.

I’ve said this before, and will go on saying it: UNESCO World Heritage sites are for everyone who cares about our shared history and planet. Go visit!

NOTES: [1] https://www.africanworldheritagesites.org/cultural-places/rock-art-pre-history/twyfelfontein.html  For more information go to Info Namibia.com/ © 2024 Jadi Campbell. Photos © 2023 Uwe Hartmann. To see more of Uwe’s photos and pics from our trips go to viewpics.de.

My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys,  Grounded and The Trail Back Out.

Tsunami Cowboys was longlisted for the 2019 ScreenCraft Cinematic Book Award. Broken In: A Novel in Stories was semifinalist for the international 2020 Hawk Mountain Short Story Collection Award from Hidden River Arts and Finalist for Greece’s 2021 Eyelands Book of the Year Award (Short Stories). The Trail Back Out was the 2023 San Francisco Book Festival Winner for General Fiction, American Book Fest 2020 Best Book Award Finalist: Fiction Anthologies, Runner-Up for the 2021 Top Shelf Award, 2021 IAN Book of the Year Award Short Story Collection Finalist, and awarded a 2021 Wishing Shelf Red Ribbon. The title story The Trail Back Out was longlisted for the 2021 ScreenCraft Cinematic Short Story Award.

Click here for my author page to learn more about me and purchase my books.

 

 

Southern African Birds: At the Desert, the River Bank, the Salt Pan….

“Wherever there are birds, there is hope.” ― Mehmet Murat Ildan

There is something incredibly surreal — and very, very funny — to be out in a jeep in the sand dunes on the Namibian coast and see the world’s largest bird stroll by.

Ostrich, Sandwich Harbor

Uwe posted photos from our recent trip to southern Africa on his photography website. He now has an entire section dedicated just to birds of Namibia. http://viewpics.de/pics/Namibia/Birds  Here are some of his birds and their stories.

The ostriches were seemingly everywhere. They walk around in the Namib, the world’s oldest desert and one of the driest places on the planet. They hang out in flocks in Etosha National Park.

They hang out with other species, too. It’s safety in numbers, as well as combining forces against predators. The elephants provide their bulk and the impalas have keen hearing and sight.

someone’s got to keep an eye out for the lions

We saw hundreds of flamingos on the coast.

Flamingos, Walvis Bay, Namibia

When the rainy season arrives, the flamingos send birds north to see if the saltpan in Etosha Park has flooded yet. If the scouts don’t return, the rest of the flocks head north as well. Ann and Mike Scott in NamPower/Namibia Nature Foundation Strategic Partnership Newsletter No. 5: September 2010 had this to say: “Greater Flamingos are widely distributed in southern Africa with concentrations at flooded salt pans (during breeding) and coastal bays (during non-breeding). …at the central coast, they are concentrated at Walvis Bay and Sandwich Harbour. … Breeding occurs in large, typically mixed colonies on raised islands on flooded salt pan at Etosha …. Laying induced by extensive flooding and continued high levels increases chances of success.”

The birds migrate to this giant saltpan in Etosha once it floods. 1,100,000 flamingos were recorded in an especially rainy year!

Etosha Saltpan, seen in November 2023 before the rains. It is 4,760 km² in size, up to 129 km long and 72 km wide, and covers almost 25% of Etosha National Park

Uwe photographed this juvenile African openbill stork in Etosha.

I’ve saved my favorite photo he took of the Southern carmine bee-eaters for this post:

Almost everyone caught an insect

Here’s another bee-eater, this one in olive.

olive bee-eater

For the final image, I leave you with a species that birders and guides all get excited about: the lilac-breasted roller. Our guide was really pleased with himself that he got us close enough to this elusive bird for a photo.

the lilac-breasted roller IS stunning, isn’t it?

Much as I’d love to take credit for this post, it owes everything to my husband’s great eye and good camera equipment.

NOTES: One last comment about the flamingos: their other regular breeding site in southern Africa is Sua Pan in the Makgadikgadi Pans in Botswana. We visited Makgadikgadi a few weeks later. ©2024 Jadi Campbell. ©2023 Uwe Hartmann. Uwe’s photos of our trips and his photography may be viewed at viewpics.de.

My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys,  Grounded and The Trail Back Out.

Tsunami Cowboys was longlisted for the 2019 ScreenCraft Cinematic Book Award. Broken In: A Novel in Stories was semifinalist for the international 2020 Hawk Mountain Short Story Collection Award from Hidden River Arts and Finalist for Greece’s 2021 Eyelands Book of the Year Award (Short Stories).

The Trail Back Out was the 2023 San Francisco Book Festival Winner for General Fiction, American Book Fest 2020 Best Book Award Finalist: Fiction Anthologies, Runner-Up for the 2021 Top Shelf Award, 2021 IAN Book of the Year Award Short Story Collection Finalist, and awarded a 2021 Wishing Shelf Red Ribbon. The title story The Trail Back Out was longlisted for the 2021 ScreenCraft Cinematic Short Story Award.

Click here for my author page to learn more about me and purchase my books.

 

Our First Animal in Namibia: the Oryx

The first exotic animal we saw on our recent trip to southern Africa were oryx in the Namib Desert.

We drove on deserted and bad (and I mean really bad ) roads to Sossusvlei. The country is dry as a bone and empty of life. It’s stark, and forbiddingly beautiful.

a Zen landscape
some of the highest sand dunes on the planet

We settled in to our cabin. When we looked out the door, we were surprised and exited to see a couple oryx in the back, just a few meters away.

that’s me thinking, “yup, we’re on holiday”

The next morning we got up early to beat the worst of the sun’s heat and hike in to Deadvlei, a forest that petrified a thousand years ago.

Tourists come to climb the sand dunes.

Early morning is also a good time to spot oryx as they forage for plants and whatever dew has collected.  The oryx is one of the few species that actually lives here year round. Oryx can go for long periods without water. Both males and females grow horns that they don’t shed. It’s the official national animal of Namibia.

Their marks are striking, aren’t they? In such a sere landscape, their horns and stripes both stood out and blended perfectly with the scenery. We would see them again, gathered with other animals at watering holes in national parks. But Sossusvlei was the place where we got to observe oryx the closest, and on their own. What a great introduction to the wildlife of Namibia!

NOTES: ©2024 Jadi Campbell. Photos ©2023 Uwe Hartmann. Uwe’s photography and his photos of our trips can be viewed at viewpics.de.

My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys,  Grounded and The Trail Back Out.

Tsunami Cowboys was longlisted for the 2019 ScreenCraft Cinematic Book Award. Broken In: A Novel in Stories was semifinalist for the international 2020 Hawk Mountain Short Story Collection Award from Hidden River Arts and Finalist for Greece’s 2021 Eyelands Book of the Year Award (Short Stories).

The Trail Back Out was the 2023 San Francisco Book Festival Winner for General Fiction, American Book Fest 2020 Best Book Award Finalist: Fiction Anthologies, Runner-Up for the 2021 Top Shelf Award, 2021 IAN Book of the Year Award Short Story Collection Finalist, and awarded a 2021 Wishing Shelf Red Ribbon. The title story The Trail Back Out was longlisted for the 2021 ScreenCraft Cinematic Short Story Award.

Click here for my author page to learn more about me and purchase my books.

I’m back from southern Africa

Hi Everyone,

Uwe and I just got  home from 5 weeks in the sunshine. We drove around Namibia and Botswana, booked a shuttle to Zimbabwe with a day visa for Victoria Falls, and returned to South Africa for food and wine. We experienced something new every single day in this incredible part of the world.

You’ll be seeing and hearing lots about our trip in the weeks (and probably months) to come. The photos to come will all be from Uwe, but first he needs to sort through the thousands of pictures he took. For now, here’s an image of a pair of oryx grazing in Sesriem, Namibia. I simply stepped out the back door of our room and snapped a picture of them.

It was one of the best trips we’ve ever gone on.

NOTES: © Jadi Campbell 2023. Uwe’s photos of our trips and his photography may be viewed at viewpics.de.

My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys, Grounded, and The Trail Back Out

Tsunami Cowboys was longlisted for the 2019 ScreenCraft Cinematic Book Award. Broken In: A Novel in Stories was semifinalist for the international 2020 Hawk Mountain Short Story Collection Award from Hidden River Arts and Finalist for Greece’s 2021 Eyelands Book of the Year Award (Short Stories). The Trail Back Out was the 2023 San Francisco Book Festival Winner for General Fiction, American Book Fest 2020 Best Book Award Finalist: Fiction Anthologies, Runner-Up for the 2021 Top Shelf Award, 2021 IAN Book of the Year Award Short Story Collection Finalist, and awarded a 2021 Wishing Shelf Red Ribbon. The title story The Trail Back Out was longlisted for the 2021 ScreenCraft Cinematic Short Story Award.

Click here for my author page to learn more about me and purchase my books.

 

 

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