Capt. Daley's Sea Stories Namibia Expedition Mowani Mountain Camp 2 of 3 30 March 2011 Mowani Mountain Camp nestles amongst huge boulders within the Twyfelfontein Conservancy on a high spot commanding distant views over the ancient landscape. The luxury tents are built unobtrusively, so as to ensure minimum impact on the natural environment. The stilt like supports of the tents ensure that very little excavation was needed in order to create this special oasis. Much care has been taken with the design of the public areas, creating the impression of an African Village. There are plenty of ways to relax at Mowani. There is a unique pool deck, lodged between the boulders where you can soak up the sun whilst enjoying a refreshing drink. The Boma of Mowani is the ideal setting to reminisce over the day's excursions, and plan the next day's events, whilst sitting around the warmth of the fire. Mowani also offers superb food and dining facilities. The meals were excellent. (c) Capt. Gregory C. Daley, 2011 info@captaingreg.net http://www.captaingreg.net These photos have been resized up from their original images. The original images are 5616 pixels by 3744 pixels with higher resolution. If you would like a copy for your personal use, please email me and I will email the original image to you at no charge. If you wish to purchase an image for commercial use, the charge is $ 100 USD per image. Contact me at info@captaingreg.net
A beautiful lourie in flight
Generations of mankind have come and gone, but this tree has stood here for centuries.
Damaraland has a totally different look and feel than other areas of Namibia. Namibia has many different faces.
The milk from this cactus is poisonous. Be careful where you go for liquids in the desert.
The guard at the front gate of the camp was a very happy, energetic person.
You can see how they use stilts on the tents to minimize the impact on the land. The camp is quite a facility all things considered.
Elephants had to make several changes to adapt to the harsh environment of the Namibian desert. The African Deser4t Elephant has shorter legs than normal elephants and can go much longer without water. They are brown in color rather than grey.
It is difficult to understand how an animal this large can survive in the desert. But here they are.
They use dirt to cool themselves by insulating their skin from the radiation of the sun.
Twyfelfontein (Afrikaans: uncertain spring), (Damara/Nama: jumping waterhole), is a site of ancient rock engravings. It consists of a spring in a valley flanked by the slopes of a sandstone table mountain that receives very little rainfall and has a wide range of diurnal temperatures.
The name Twyfelfontein refers to the spring itself, to the valley containing the spring, and in the context of traveling and tourism also to a greater area containing nearby tourist attractions: the rock engravings, the Organ Pipes, Burnt Mountain, Dorros crater, and the Petrified Forest.[7] The World Heritage Site covers the area of rock engravings.[
And it has been that way for a very long time.
The site has been inhabited for 6,000 years, first by hunter-gatherers and later by Khoikhoi herders. Both ethnic groups used it as a place of worship and a site to conduct shamanist rituals. In the process of these rituals at least 2,500 items of rock carvings have been created, as well as a few rock paintings. Displaying one of the largest concentrations of rock petroglyphs in Africa, UNESCO approved Twyfelfontein as Namibia's first World Heritage Site in 2007.
Sandstone rocks at Twyfelfontein are covered by the so-called desert varnish, a hard patina that appears brown or dark grey. Engravings were made by chiseling through this patina, exposing the lighter rock underneath. The indentations were created over the course of thousands of years. The oldest engravings might be as old as 10,000 years, and the creation of new works probably ended by the arrival of pastoral tribes around 1000 AD.
This little guy is not a petroglyphs, he is real and alive. He is camouflaged so well.
Additionally, the site contains rock paintings at 13 different locations, with depictions of humans painted in red ochre in six rock shelters. The similar occurrence of rock paintings and rock engravings is very rare.
This is the Lion s Mouth rock formation.