Photos showing the beauty of deserts

The Trees of Deadvlei – Petrified Witnesses of Namib Desert

At the end of the funnel reaching into the big red dune giants of Namib Desert, that is Tsauchab River, is a place that could not be more unreal: the Deadvlei. The white clay pan is the stage of petrified acacia trees being up to 500 years old. Trees being so typical for the landscape of the Black Continent.… Read More

Dasht-e Lut – World’s hottest Desert

Iranian Dasht-e Lut is the world’s hottest desert. In 2016 satellites measured unbelievable 78.2°C, what is the highest ever calculated surface temperature on Earth. Our planet’s heat pole is a UNESCO World Heritage and impresses with sand dunes being up to 450 metres high as well as the rugged surreal rock landscape of the Kalouts… Read More

Witnesses of a Global Empire – Persepolis & Naqsh-e Rustam

Once the Persian Empire was one of the largest of the ancient global empires and existed long before our time reckoning has started. The ruins of its former capital Persepolis as well as the tombs of Naqsh-e Rustam tell of that period. For about 200 years it united areas reaching from North Africa to Indus River and involved Caucasus as well as the Kazakhstan steppe.… Read More

Dune 45 – Sunrise above Namib desert

The giant red dunes of Namib desert belong to the worldwide tallest of its kind. They pile up at Sossusvlei, were Tsauchab River disappears in the sand of Namibia. Only one of those sand heaps may be climbed, that is the dune at kilometre 45. It rises up some ~170 metres high and is built by 5-million-year old sand deposits of the Kalahari.… Read More

Surfer paradise at Timanfaya volcano – Out and about Lanzarote

On Lanzarote and neighbouring La Graciosa the volcanic origin of the Canary Islands is most apparent and youngest. In 1730 a gigantic eruption started, tore the Earth open and created within 6 years only an exceptionally extraterrestrial appearing landscape. Lanzarote’s way of growing wine in the lava desert is unique worldwide and complements fish and seafood like hand and glove when sitting at the Atlantic shore watching some first-class surfers taking the waves… Read More

Kolmanskop Ghost Town – Diamond Fever in the Namib Desert

Against the background of the imperial endeavours of Great Britain and France, Germany’s colonial adventures started late. One of those liaisons, that even today sparks a yern to see distant places, is German South-West Africa, nowadays Namibia, where at the turn of the century diamonds got found. The story of that boom tells Kolmanskop; the once richest settlement of Africa existed only to wring the gem stones from the desert but is now an abandoned ghost town being reconquered by the sand of the Namib… Read More

Lüderitz – Germany at the Edge of Namib Desert

A city in the middle of nowhere, being surrounded by millions of tons of desert sand and directly at the shore of the Atlantic. A city that braving the elements preserves the architectonic heritage of the Wilhelmine era and standing for world-class oysters. All that is Lüderitz, located at the ocean on Namibia’s west coast… Read More

Epupa Falls and Kunene – The Land of the Himba

Where Kunene River plunges some 40 metres down at the Epupa Falls and where it gently fondles southern Angola, there begins the land of the Himba tribe. Their homeland’s ruggedness and drought has a bizarre mysticism being likewise exotic as the nomad tribe that is living half naked but always adorned under the scorching African sun… Read More

A hot Night in Hukuntsi… Stories from Kalahari Desert

Magic Kalahari, a land of contrasts – up in the north, where Okavango River seeps away, it can be as green and lush as it can be red brown and dry in the south. Being spread over several ten thousands of square kilometres it is home to one of the world’s largest game population.… Read More