Saturday, May 31, 2014

Colombia: Noanama Family, At Home In The Rain Forest


   Noanama Family sharing a quiet moment together in their tambo, a large wall-less hut    on stilts above the Docordo Rver in Colombia’s Choco rain forest
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Friday, May 30, 2014

Colombia: Noanama Hunter In Choco Rain Forest




Early morning, on a hunting expedition, a Noanama man is walking a narrow Choco rain forest path. His ancient rifle was homemade and he does not trust it. When spotting a monkey in a tree he keeps the rifle away from his face, lest it explodes in his eyes. 
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Thursday, May 29, 2014

Colombia: Watching A Rain Forest River Flow


Lit by the warm light of a setting sun, a Noanama girl sitting at the edge of her family’s wall-less hut raised on stilts is dreamily watching the Docordo river flow below in Colombia’s Choco rain forest.

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Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Colombia: Green Is The Rain Forest's Color

Watching her feet as she walks though muddy terrain, this Little Noanama girl is carrying plantain from her family’s rain forest garden in Colombia’s Choco Department. The strap holding the plantain on her back comes from a strip of tree bark. The forest gives the Indians all they need to survive comfortably.
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Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Sahara: The Salt Caravan Must Never Stop

Between Bilma and Agades, in Niger’s Sahara, the wells are so far apart, and so much happens along the way of the Tuareg caravans, that they can never stop until men and camels must rest for the night. But as interminably as the caravans plow forward, they never reach the next well before the men are half dead of thirst and dangerously dehydrated.
     Many things delay them. Here they come upon scattered blades of grass on which they must release the camels,which will help spare the straw the camels carry and must feed on every morning.
     Next day, after spending hours gathering the widely scattered camels, the Tuareg discover that two of them are missing. They release the lot again and go hunting for the lost two, taking all day. By then the water goat skins are hanging nearly flat from their makeshift tripods--water of which the Tuareg never bring enough, preferring to load the camels with more salt.
     Farther along the way a camel breaks a leg and must be butchered. Or a sand storm keeps everyone lying under blankets for as long as three days (the storms abate at night).
     Another reason why the caravan must never stop is that, if it did for as little as a few minutes, the camels would gather together, rub sides, throw down the breakable salt cones, and leave the Tuareg poorer for it.

In 1965 I traveled for 22 days across the Tenere, one of the Sahara’s most dangerous regions, with a Tuareg salt caravan. At the salt pits of Bilma, an oasis in Niger, hundreds of Tuareg, among thousands of camels, were wrapping salt cones in straw mats and preparing for the long return journey to their camps in the AÏr Mountains.
     Not one group accepted my company. They all said that a European was not prepared for the agony of hunger, thirst, and fatigue they would live, and that they would rather not have to bury my bones in the desert’s sands.
     I was on my first National Geographic assignment, and there was no way I could say amen to this. Had I had money to offer the Tuareg, they would probably have removed their objections. But I did not. And I was only at the beginning of a four-month stay among the Tuareg.
     As I was untested by National Geographic, the editors had given me only enough money to fly from New York to Europe. From there, traveling overland, I had been struck by a knee infection that had nailed me for two weeks in a small Algerian oasis’ flyblown hospital. Still unable to walk at the end, I had had to resign myself to seek medical help in Brussels, my home town, where I lost another two weeks. I flew this time—both ways, as I feared to reach the caravans’ departures too late.  
     Fortunately, by the time I reached Bilma I had already spent two weeks traveling on camel back with a Tuareg man to photograph Tuareg tribes around the Sahara’s  Ahaggar Mountains. A year earlier I had spent a month with two Tuareg brothers, traveling on camel back between Agades, in Niger, and Tamanrasset, in Algeria.
     I have a passion for languages and learn them easily. With the help of a lexicon I had learned enough of the Tuareg language to communicate with them without the need for an interpreter. And I knew all I had to know about camels and desert life.
     After finding an undermanned group of nine men and 102 camels, I offered them to join them as a working member of the caravan who would give priority to caravan work over photography.
     That proved irresistible and they accepted. My story appeared on the cover of National Geographic’s November 1965 issue. The magazine paid all my past expenses, besides a generous fee and an invitation to keep adventuring in their name. Over the years I would live a total of nine months among the Tuareg, three times for National Geographic and once for a children’s book.

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Monday, May 26, 2014

Sahara: The Long Way To Water

Water here, in Niger, in a Saharan Tuareg camp, is no more than a mirage on the distant horizon. This Tuareg boy is on his way to ask relatives living in another tent for a drink of water—in case, unlike his parents, they haven’t run out of water as well.

The well is far from camp. An hour or two each way, riding a donkey. Plus the hours-long wait in line behind other nomads watering vast herds of camels, sheep, and goats.  Not a daily trip. In fact, to delay the chore the boy’s family often drinks only milk during a day or two after running out of water. Forget taking a bath. The scorching sun is what takes care of germs.


The Tuareg and other nomads always camp far from wells. It protects their privacy. And their animals find nothing to feed on over wide areas around wells.  The daily passage of herds cleans them of the tiniest shoot of grass.

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Sunday, May 25, 2014

Niger: Camel-Riding Blue Man Of The Sahara


I photographed this Tuareg man of the noble Kel Rela tribe near the Sahara’s well of In Abbangarit in Niger. Though he was holding a leather whip, he rarely used it.

Tribesmen in Arabia and other parts of the Sahara saddle their camels over or behind the humps, legs dangling on each sides, which leaves them little control over the animals other than through whips.


The Tuareg saddle their camels in front of the humps. This allows them to rest naked feet on their camels’ necks. To make camels kneel down they only need to apply repeated downward pressure on the camels’ necks. To accelerate the pace of camels into a gallop they only need to apply repeated forward pressure to the camels’ necks. Such control helps the Tuareg to be the world’s best camel riders.

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Saturday, May 24, 2014

Sahara: Nap In A Tuareg Tent







Having spent the night far from his family’s tents, watching over his camels, this noble Taitoq Tuareg man of Niger’s Sahara Desert brought the animals back next morning to be milked. While he is resting, two of the family’s boys keep an eye on the camels browsing at some distance. Later that day, the man will take the camels back to the better pasture until the following morning again.
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Friday, May 23, 2014

Kenya: Sunrise On A Samburu Zebu Herd Being Moved To Pasture


Sunrise in Kenya’s Mathews Range is seeing a Samburu elder and two members of his family driving their zebu cows to pasture after milking them. The milk was all they had for breakfast.

I spent eight days walking with three Samburu men and three pack camels to photograph the Samburu.
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