thephotosocietyのインスタグラム(thephotosociety) - 6月19日 03時12分

Photo by @momatiukeastcott/@thephotosociety | In the huge expanse of Makgadikgadi Pans in central Botswana there is a small rocky mound once surrounded by an ancient lake. It is called Kubu Island, and since in Setswana kubu means a hippopotamus, perhaps this old lake used to be kind to the biggest of all aquatic African mammals. The salt pans form the driest and the most desolate part of the Kalahari Basin but after rain they turn into a lake of still blue water.

We arrive late, welcomed by a family of big-bellied baobabs growing on the rocky ridge. Some are several thousand years old but they do not develop sequences of growth rings and no one knows how old they really are. If I were a Bushwoman, I would know this tree had once offended gods who grabbed it by the top and planted it upside down, so its convoluted roots became the sky-scratching branches. And that if I ever picked its flower I will be torn up by lions. Yet if I soak the tree's seeds and drink the infusion, all crocs will avoid me forever.

There are no crocs in this arid realm. The evening sky deepens into a pewter soup with shimmering lights of the Milky Way. We find a baobab hugging the most stars, and John follows the spectacle while I play a luxurious animal and rest in the desert breeze.

At dawn our baobab is glowing ruby red. Its trunk is scarred by the blowing sand and some of the broken branches, heavy enough to flatten any living thing passing under their falling weight, litter the ground below: a battlefield of growth and gravity. This is a magical time, with the colors saturated and strong, and in the strong lights and black shadows of Africa, such moments are rare. I stroke the tree. Its bark is smooth, like a column of steel, and as I rest against it I feel the night's coolness radiating from the trunk. Here, in the raw center of the country, all is silent, remote and self-contained. And when the sun emerges, all the birds -- did I mention the birds? -- go silent, too. ©Yva Momatiuk

#Botswana #baobab #stars #nightsky #rocks #desolate #tree #silence #MilkyWay

[BIHAKUEN]UVシールド(UVShield)

>> 飲む日焼け止め！「UVシールド」を購入する