Niger: Rushing Sheep Home At Sunset

        Niger near Niamey. Naked boy rushing his family's sheep home at sunset.

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      Niger près de Niamey. Tout nu au coucher du soleil, un petit garçon ramène les             moutons de sa famille chez lui.

Belgium: A Farm In The Mist

Belgium. Wallonia near Ath. Misty farm

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Belgique. Wallonie. Ferme sous la brume.

Honduras: Roatan Island's Leisurely Pace

Honduras. Bay Islands. Roatan Island and Town.

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Honduras. Iles de la Baie. Ile et village de Roatan.

Belgium:Rain Has Its Own Charm

Belgium. Thieulain, near Leuze-en-Hainaut. Rainy day.

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Belgique. Thieulain, près de Leuze-en-Hainaut. Jour de pluie.

Bolivia: Stones Over Stones--A Llama Herder Shack.

                          

                           Bolivia. Andes Mountains. Altiplano near Uyuni. Llama herder shack.

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                     Bolivie. Andes. Altiplano. Hutte de pasteur de lamas.

Ecuador: Espeletias In The Mist

Ecuador. Andes Mountains. Paramo of El Angel (Carchi). Fraylejones (espeletias) in early morning mist.

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Equateur. Paramo d’ El Angel (Carchi). Fraylejones dans un brouillard matinal.

Bolivia: Altiplano's Laguna Verde Under Snow

Bolivia. Southern Altiplao. Laguna Verde (Green Lake)

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Bolivie. Altiplano. Laguna Verde (Lac vert)

Ghana: Rain Forest Majesty

Ghana. Near Kumasi. Rain forest road.

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Ghana. Route traversant la forêt.

Journey Among The Samburu

First few paragraphs of a 2,000-word story I wrote on a journey among Kenya’s Samburu cattle herders:      

Simon, my Kikuyu driver, is begging the attention of two Samburu moran languorously leaning on their spears.

         “Would you, for a fee, guide my friend around the Ldoinyolenkiyo Range?” he asks, pointing to me. “He came to photograph your people.” 

         But they keep their heads haughtily turned away, gazes lost in the distance. They have ignored me with even greater earnestness, looking through me when they could not avoid looking at me, as if I were invisible. Samburu morans, unmarried young Kenyan warriors, think of themselves as the salt of the earth. 

     “Let’s move on,” I say. “Those men don’t speak English.”

     And why should they? They look as their 19^th-century forebears may have appeared to Austrian Count Teleki, the first European to set foot here. But for a short length of red cloth wrapped about their loins and lifted on one side by a machete-like panga, which unveils their nudity when they move, they are naked like all Samburu. They love red, to judge by the way they also use it to dye their feather-topped hair and to paint their faces. Multicolored beads adorn their necks and chests.

     But I touched a raw nerve, for now the morans swing around.

     "Of course, we speak English,” says one, obviously shocked, but finally acknowledging my presence.

     "I am Leneemi," he says contemptuously, "and this is Lekerepes.”

He will go with me, he says, if I hire a third man.  A third man, he alleges, will be helpful if we run across murderous Somali poachers. A third spear will be of no use against powerful Somali firearms, but I accept, as tribal gregariousness will not be satisfied in smaller company. 

     They can provide three pack camels to carry our belongings, food, and water. Except farther north, few Samburu own camels, and then mostly for milk and status. Cattle is what they herd, and with great pride. Cattle give them meat, blood, and milk for food; hides to make thongs and to sleep on; horns from which to carve tobacco boxes; and manure to waterproof their huts against rare but violent downpours. Mostly, cattle give them prestige and wealth, pay for a wife, help a son get married, and pull friends out of need in times of hardship. 

     The Samburu also herd goats and sheep. They keep them close for milk and, rarely, for food. In times of drought, when they lose calves and milk, the smaller chattel becomes their last resort, for it reproduces quickly. But its care is the domain of women and children. It gives a man no importance.  

     Next morning, Simon leaves before sunrise, while I help my three new companions to load the camels.

Colombia: Barefoot Cowboy

Colombia. Llanos Orientales. Cowboys here ride horses barefoot.

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Colombie. Llanos Orientales. Les cowboys ici montent à cheval pieds nus.

Colombia: Barefoot Cowboys

Colombia. Llanos Orientales. Cowboys herding cattle to the corral where they will mark the new calves among them. Following tradition, all of the men ride barefoot.

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Colombie. Llanos Orientales. Cowboys conduisant un troupeau de vaches au corral où ils marqueront les veaux entre elles. Suivant la tradition, tous ces hommes montent pieds nus.

Colombia: Raining Over Restrepo

Colombia. Cauca Valley. Raining over Restrepo.

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Colombie. Vallée du Cauca. Restrepo sous la pluie.

Niger: Wodaabe Nomad Herding Zebus

Niger. Sahel. A sword to his side and hands resting on a stick across his shoulders, a Wodaabe (Fulani/Bororo) nomad takes his zebus to better pasture.  Unlike cattle people everywhere, who herd their cows from behind, the Wodaabe lead them, docilely followed by them.

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Niger. Sahel. L’épée au côté et les mains sur un bâton reposant sur ses épaules, un nomade Wodaabe (Bororo/Peul) mène son troupeau de zébus au pâturage. Contrairement à tous les vachers du monde il marche devant, pas derrière, son troupeau, qui le suit docilement. 

Philippines : Chocolate Mountains

Philippines. Bohol Island. Chocolate Mountains, so called for the color they take at a drier time of the year.

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Philippines. Ile de Bohol. Montagnes de Chocolat, ainsi nommées pour la couleur qu’elles prennent en saison sèche.

Argentina: Buenos Aires' San Telmo Antiques Market

Argentina. Buenos Aires. San Telmo Antiques market.

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Argentine. Buenos Aires. Marché d’antiquités de San Telmo.

Argentina : Buenos Aires' Caminito Street, Named After A Famous Tango

Argentina. Buenos Aires. La Boca. Caminito, a street named after a famous tango. The poor Italian emigrants there used to paint their houses with the ends of paint cans that ships left behind at the harbor nearby. There was never enough of one paint to do the job, so they used paints of different colors. At the time I took this picture the government was paying for the paint, whose multicolored effect attracted tourism.

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Argentine. Buenos Aires. La Boca. Caminito, une rue au nom inspiré par un fameux tango.  Les pauvres émigrants italiens qui y vivaient avaient coutume de peindre leurs maisons avec les fonds de peinture que les bateaux abandonnaient au port tout proche. Ils ne laissaient jamais assez de peinture d’une seule couleur, obligeant les propriétaires à user de plusieurs couleurs. A l’époque où j’ai pris cette photo le gouvernement payait maintenant la peinture, dont l’effet de sa diversité de couleurs attirait le tourisme. 

Patagonia: Riding Gaucho Taking Cigarette Break

Argentina. Patagonia. Chubut Province. Traveling gaucho taking a cigarette break.

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Argentine. Patagonie. Province du Chubut. Gaucho se reposant d’un voyage pour fumer une cigarette

Niger: Fachi Oasis--Not Much To Do After Sunset

Niger. Sahara. Fachi Oasis at sunset.

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Niger. Sahara. Oasis de Fachi au coucher du soleil.

Niger: Fachi Oasis

Niger. Sahara. Fachi Oasis

Niger: A Blessed Oasis In An Infernal Part Of The Sahara.

Niger. Sahara Desert. Tenere. Fachi Oasis, built of salt blocks. Fortifications used to defend the Kanuri population against marauding nomads.

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Niger. Sahara. Ténéré. Oasis de Fachi., construite de blocs de sel. Anciennement les fortifications protégeaient la population Kanuri des attaques de nomades.

Djibouti: Danakil Boy Herding Goats On Lake Abbe

Djibouti. Lower Awash Valley. Lake Abbe. Evaporation of mineral-laden water above faults created these limestone chimneys. Young Danakil (Afar) nomad herding sheep and goats.

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Djibouti. Vallée du bas Awash. Lac Abbé. L’évaporation d’eau chargée de minéraux au-dessus de failles a créé ces cheminées. Jeune nomade Danakil menant ses chèvres au pâturage.

Ethiopia: Blue Nile Falls

Ethiopia. Blue Nile Falls.

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Ethiopie. Chutes du Nil Bleu.

Colombia: Boiling Sugarcane

Colombia. Near Palmira (Cauca Valley). Boiling and reducing sugarcane juice to make panela, a raw sugar.

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Colombie.  Près de Palmira (Vallée du Cauca). Faisant bouillir et réduire du jus de canne dans la production de panela, un sucre non raffiné.

Colombia: Zebus-Herding Cowboy

Colombia. Near Obando (Cauca Valley). Driving zebus to pasture.

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Colombie. Près d’Obando (Vallée du Cauca). Menant des zébus au pâturage.

Colombia: Coffee Plantation Foreman

Colombia. Sevilla (Cauca Valley). Coffee plantation foreman.

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Colombie. Sevilla (Vallée du Cauca). .Superviseur d’une plantation de café.

America: Princeton University

Pennsylvania: New Hope At Dusk

United States. Pennsylvania. New Hope at Dusk.

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Etats-Unis. Pennsylvanie. New Hope au crépuscule.

New York's Arrogance

New York. Avenue of the Americas.

Adventures In The Marquesas Islands

Adventures In The Marquesas Islands

In 1982, assigned by National Geographic to produce a chapter of one of their upcoming books, Secret Corners of The World, I spent two months photographing the six inhabited islands of the little-known Marquesas Archipelago. Below the following photos, and dealing with Fatu Hiva Island, are the chapter’s first three pages.

French Polynesia. Marquesas Archipelago. Hiva Oa Island. 

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Polynésie française. Archipel des Marquises. IIe d’Hiva OA. 

Fatu Hiva Island. Hanavave Bay

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IIe de Fatu Hiva. Baie d’Hanavave

Fatu Hiva Island. Hanavave Bay at sunset

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IIe de Fatu Hiva. Baie d’Hanavave au coucher du soleil

Fatu Hiva Island

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Ile de Fatu Hiva

Fatu Hiva Island. Rim of ancient crater. Wild horse.

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IIe de Fatu Hiva. Bord d’un ancien cratère. Cheval sauvage.

Hiva Oa Island. Paul Gauguin's grave
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Ile d'Hiva Oa. Tombe de Paul Gauguin

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A setting full moon, flooding the ocean with silvery light, is outlining to the west a scene of nightmare: the island of Tahuata, a gigantic black fortress brooding over the waves. To the east her pallid brightness robs Mohotani of all mystery. Hiva Oa, which we left two hours earlier, sinks behind us; and moonset will come before we reach Fatu Hiva, most southerly of the Marquesas group. Already the east grows pale. On Tahuata the blacks and whites turn gray, and the phantoms vanish.

Our small fishing boat is leaping nimbly over the hard-pounding swell. My fellow passengers--four women from Fatu Hiva and a French official on a tour of duty--sit in sleepy silence.

The sun rises, and with it rise wind and waves. Whoever called this ocean Pacific? Three of the passengers are leaning overboard. A crewman sloshes bucketfuls of seawater on the deck to clean it, carelessly soaking my feet. "Are you a sailor?" he asks. "You hold well your stomach!"

I shrug off the compliment, for I am a landlubber who has taken a sea­sickness pill. A Belgian who has wandered over three continents and who has come to the Marquesas to sample a different wilderness. Having lived in Colombia for eight years, I have often stood on the South American shore of the Pacific and felt the pull of its horizon.

A Spanish mariner, Alvaro de Mendana de Neira, felt that restlessness four centuries ago. Sailing from Peru in 1595, he discovered Fatu Hiva and the three other southern islands of the group. Two hundred years would pass before the rest were discovered-by the Englishman James Cook, the American Joseph Ingraham, and the Frenchman Etienne Marchand. Of the ten notable islands, four-including Mohotani-are uninhabited today.

Four wave-tossed hours bring us to the tormented volcanic relief of Fatu Hiva. In its lee we enter quiet water, yet have a precarious landing at Omoa, the main village. As we anchor, a sleek outrigger races toward us, one man steering, two paddling. They take us ashore on the rush of a large wave-and we almost founder. Luckily, my photographic equipment is in watertight plastic bags. Yelling and bailing and pulling wildly on the pad­dles, our Marquesans get us back on course. In the shallows we all jump out to drag the canoe up the strand for unloading.

Unlike other isles of Polynesia, the Marquesas are not protected by coral reefs, and approaching them is often a delicate enterprise. Their isolation, rugged terrain, and lack of development increase the surprises they set in the way of seasoned travelers. I learn this at once.

Some spectators have quietly watched our arrival. One refers me, for accommodation, to the local shopkeeper and lends me a wheelbarrow to transport my baggage. Nobody cares to help me, even for money. So I trundle my luggage up the village's main alley, between two rows of lush gardens exploding with the colors of hibiscus and bougainvillea, past brightly painted plywood bungalows. I find my man in his well-stocked shop, and follow the girl whom he has told to show me a house.

"Here it is," she says, leading me into a rather grubby bungalow. "I will clean it for you." She says "pour toi," not "pour vous," for Marquesans do not bother with the formalities of French. And picking a broom from a dusty corner, she sweeps the floor, the curtains, the table, and the bed.

Two Frenchmen live in Omoa, and I meet them that day: They are, each in his own way, typical of white men who settle in the South Seas.

Lionel, in his early thirties, married a Fatu Hivan while serving in the French navy and has retired here to a rented house. Full of energy and dreams, he plans to build a house and cultivate land that his wife owns in a distant valley. "I work alone," he says. "I have so much time on my hands that I need no help. I want to buy a secondhand bulldozer to open a road to my wife's land. Then I will plant fruit trees and travel to Australia, the United States, and Japan to market my crop."

Yet the Fatu Hivans have more land than they can use, and live comfortably with little effort. How does Lionel hope to get his fruit picked one day? Have these islands not deceived him, as they deceive others?

Philippe, 27, sailed alone from France on a six-meter yacht two years ago. Now he is trying his hand at agriculture. But having no Marquesan wife, he has no land, and without money he cannot buy any. Indeed, much land is held jointly by members of very large families, and strangers with money may not find suitable land for sale. Mostly he works as a copra share-cropper--gathering coconuts, cutting them up for drying. One morning I follow him as he goes out to harvest wild coffee.

Leaving at seven, we climb for an hour over risky terrain, along a steep and muddy path overlooking a sheer drop, up a network of banyan roots clutching a 25-foot cliff, finally up a 20-foot rope. Then Philippe hacks his way to the wild trees to pick the scanty berries. He earns the equivalent of $15 for a 12-hour day. He makes much less on his other crops. Perhaps, as rumor says, it is unrequited love that keeps him here.

I rent an outrigger and sail along the cliff-bound coast to see the spectacular bay of Hanavave, also called Bay of the Virgins, where pinnacles of basalt guard the entrance to a high-walled valley. Shyly, women of Hanavave show me how they pound bark to make tapa cloth; and a young man agrees to put me on the way to Omoa, for I want to walk back across the highlands, remnants of two concentric volcanic craters.

He leads me to the foot of the inner cone and shows me the path. "You cannot get lost," he says. "Only remember, when you come to a fork, to take the path to the right. You should reach Omoa in a few hours."

I thank him and walk up--through mape forest, then over low ferns--the mountain trail which offers breathtaking views over the island and the sea. At the base of a deep canyon the houses of Hanavave shrink to the size of dice. The landscape is at once beautiful and somber, charged with foreboding. Like the other islands of the archipelago, Fatu Hiva once had a larger and happier population. Famines, intertribal wars, and above all the diseases brought by the white man wiped out 90 percent of it. And the dark valleys seem burdened with terrible memories.

I lose the sense of time and distance. When I reach a fork, I veer right and down through prickly shrubs. Across the valley, white goats balance on a narrow ledge to browse. Like other "wild" animals of the Marquesas--cattle, horses, sheep, goats, and cats--they descend from domestic stock introduced by Europeans. Below me, horses are grazing. At length I realize that I am following a path they opened, not a traveler's route.

I climb the mountain again. Another fork takes me on a new leg-chafing expedition to nowhere. Back on the ridge, a white veil of rain sweeps over me, torrential and cold. The path becomes slippery as I skirt abysses, then so overgrown as to be almost impassable. It turns into a narrow gutter, wide enough for one foot. To my right rises the mountain wall; bushes force me away from it. I stumble and fall against the shrubbery on the other side.

No, into a void! I see nothing under me except the crown of a tree. My heart jerks as I scramble for a handhold. I check my fall, and, with camera bag heavy on my arm and sweat cold on my skin, I pull myself back onto the trail.

Shaken, I return to open heights to orient myself. At last, through the pouring rain, I can descry my path far ahead. The light is dimming, but the landscape is so beautiful that I cannot make myself hurry. Suddenly, seven white cows appear on a hill. They charge toward me ribs against ribs, agile as fighting bulls. Luckily, they veer away. They are domestic stock--that is, they have owners--but they are dangerous. To kill them for the table is the work of a hunter. The great hunt for "barnyard" animals strikes me as characteristic of the Marquesas in its oddity.

New Jersey: A Smithville Facet

United States. New Jersey. Smithville at sunset. 

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Etats-Unis. New Jersey. Une facette de Smithville au coucher du soleil.

New York: Times Square Go-Go Dancer

USA. New York. Times Square Area in early sixties. Go-go dancer.

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Etats-Unis. New York. Times Square dans les années soixante. Boîte de nuit.

Brazil’s Amazon: Machete-Wielding Yanomami Woman

Brazil. Amazon rain forest. Yanomami indian cuts a path to an abandoned jungle garden where there is still some manioc to harvest. Her beby girl clings to her back without any help.

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Brésil. Amazonie. Femme Yanomami  s’ouvrant un passage à un jardin abandonné où elle trouvera encore un peu de manioc. Sa petite fille s’agrippe à son dos comme elle peut.

Brazilian Amazon: Yanomami Indian Warrior

Brazil. Amazon rain forest. Yanomami Indian holding bow and arrows. He covered his hair with bird's down.

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Brésil. Amazonie. Homme Yanomami empoignant arc et flèches. Il s’est couvert les cheveux de duvet d’oiseau.

Brazilian Amazon: Crab-Hunting Yanomam Woman

Brazil. Amazon rain forest. Yanomami  woman hunting sweet water crabs inside their holes in the ground.

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Brésil. Amazonie. Femme Yanomami chassant des crabes d’eau douce au fond de leurs nids dans la terre.

Brazilian Amazon: Giant Leaves Shield Yanomami Mother And Baby Against A Downpour

Brazil. Amazon rain forest. A Yanomami woman on a gathering expedition with other women seeks shelter from a  downpour under several large leaves.

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Brésil. Amazonie. Une femme Yanomami en expédition de collecte avec d’autres femmes et jeunes enfants se protège d’une averse.

Conversations With Ava Gardner, by Larry Grobel

Check my friend Larry Grobel's last book, Conversation With Ava Gardner http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00E2VK5CQ

Elephant Scare

 In 1992, at the end of a ten-day hike around the Samburu camps of Kenya’s Mathews Range with three Samburu morans and three pack camels, I needed someone to drive me back to Nairobi, the country’s capital. So at dawn the next day, with Leneemi, Lekerepes, and Lalaur, I walked to a lodge in the Kittchich National Park to use its radio. For a while we moved cross-country, then followed a dirt road. As we waded through a river a Samburu man caught up with us. He said he was a game warden, and he joined our march. Here is what I wrote in my diary that day.

     On the other side of the river the road climbs out of the valley, littered every twenty meters or so with the dropping of elephants that came to drink earlier.  They are so fresh that the urine in which some of them sit has not yet soaked into the dusty ground. The warden looks around warily.

     "This is a dangerous time to walk this road," he tells me in English. "I cannot avoid it because last evening I got permission to spend the night home after work under the condition that I would be back to the lodge before eight, but you should not have come this early. Generally the elephants keep away from the road, but in the morning and evening they use it to go drink. Last evening, near here, I was charged by one. I had accidentally banged a can I was carrying, and the noise enraged him. Though I literally flew down the road, he was much faster. I threw myself into the underbrush, zigzagged for my life, and cut back to the road again. Looking back, I saw the elephant hesitate, and give up his pursuit. If we see elephants, do not speak, do not make noise, tread carefully, and they will keep quiet."

     Worried by his words, I scan the bush around for a possible escape road. But there are no trees big enough to climb, and the bush is so closed and thorny that to try to run through it before an elephant would be offering myself to it on a silver platter. I have not resolved what to do in case of an emergency when, on our left, in a clearing not 20 paces away, stands a huge elephant.

     Anguish silences us as if we had just heard a fatal verdict. Looking to the left, we walk as if on eggs--I, on shaky legs. The elephant is feeding. Though he eyes us suspiciously, he does not move. He would make a great picture, I think. And that reminds me of all the times I have had, in the face of danger, similar thoughts though not the courage to act upon them. I survived each time only to blame myself later for my timidity.

     Thus I stop, and while the Samburu walk on, subtly shaking their heads at me in silent reproach, I slowly point my camera at the elephant. I click once, but even that minor sound irritates it, for it lifts his head, shakes its huge ears, and takes three steps in my direction. Horrified, I resume a cautious march. Trying to look immobile, I stretch my steps as much as I can. I try to hurry without haste. Fortunately, the elephant reverts to its browsing. As soon as I lose sight of it around a bend of the path, I run after my companions. Suddenly, perhaps to dampen any further wish to take elephant pictures, they have plenty of elephant stories to tell me.

     "I knew a man," says the warden, "who fell asleep in the bush. An elephant came by, dragged him to a tree, and beat it against it to pulp."

     "Many a Samburu," says Leneemi, "facing alone with his spear a pride of lions threatening his herd, has frightened it away, but those who have seen a single infuriated elephant trample to death twenty of their cows have had no alternative but to run for their own lives."

     As predicted by the game warden, our return through the park much later is uneventful. We meet only three morans on a strenuous eight-day round trip to Marsabit, to the north-northeast, to buy spears from the famed local smiths. Like Leneemi and Lekerepes, they were circumcised and became moran only some months ago. The spears they are carrying were lent to them. Those spears are their only luggage. Their only food will be the milk they will get in Samburu camps, their only water that which they will find along the way, sometimes at great intervals. In the desert, where they will walk one exceptionally long day without either milk or water, they will risk their lives.

Algeria: In Salah's Invading Sand Dunes.

Algeria. Sahara Desert. In Salah Oasis. Area invaded and destroyed by moving sand dunes.

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Algérie. Sahara. In Salah. Des dunes mouvantes recouvrent cette partie de l’oasis.

Belgium:Bruges' Holy Blood Procession

Belgium. Bruges (Brugge). Leading the Holy Blood procession.

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Belgique Bruges. Précédant la procession du Saint Sang

Afghanistan: Horse And Buggy Driver

Afghanistan. Kunduz. Man decorating his horse-drawn buggy.

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Afghanistan. Kunduz. Décorant  le cheval de sa calèche.

Afghanistan: Pashtun Boy

Afghanistan. Hindu Kush Mountains. Kuchi (Pashtun) nomad boy.

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Afghanistan. Montagnes de l’Hindou Kouch. Garçon de la tribu nomade Kuchi (Pashtoun).

Algerian Sahara: Ahaggar Mountains

 Algeria. Sahara. Ahaggar Mountains. Reg (stony plateau). Tuareg nomad.

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Algérie. Sahara. Ahaggar (Hogar). Reg (plateau rocheux). Nomade Touareg.

Bolivia_Quechua Fruit Vendor

Bolivia. Near Potosi. Village Market stall. Quechua Indian vendor.

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Bolivie. Près de Potosi. Marché. Vendeuse de fruits Quechua.

Belgium: Brussels's Sonian Forest

Belgium. Near Brussels. Sonian forest (Forêt de Soignes).

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Belgique. Près de Bruxelles. Forêt de Soignes.