The Great Kalahari Desert
I'd walk the Kalahari Desert if they'd let me. Herds of springbok would race by, stotting in the insane and magnificent way they do, showing me how strong and healthy they are so I wouldn't even attempt to catch and eat them. Oryx would watch me carefully, then run off, and turn back to see what I'm up to again and again. Hartebeest and wildebeest would lie on the blond grass in the shade of trees, not too far from an ostrich taking a dust bath, and run away only if I got too close. My only problem would be the lions and the cheetahs.

Kgalagadi (local spelling of Kalahari) park rules are very strict, and I have managed to break some. It was particularly embarrassing when the park manager, with whom I had a very pleasant talk that very morning, had caught me sitting on the roof of our car photographing a cheetah with her cubs dining on a freshly killed springbok. He didn't fine me, though. If you ask me, I'd leave the getting-eaten-or-not decision to the park visitors. According to the rules, you are not even allowed to open a door, let along get out of the car. This posed a problem at one point when our car wouldn't start after a long photo shoot of a lion pride.




At dusk, the light doesn't reach the dunes any longer and they are pitch-black. Only the dry trees and shrubs break the dark horizon line with their thin silhouettes. The sky is bright orange, then white, and finally blue from its lightest shade to deep navy with only Venus shining brightly like a glam beauty mark in this early night sky.



bat-eared fox