Sundowners west of Khorixas, Namibia

Soaring with a flock of gulls over the aquamarine waters of South Africa’s southern coast.

Poaching has long been a problem in Uganda's Murchison Falls National Park. As recently as the early 1970s, 20,000+ elephants are thought to have roamed the area. By the mid-1990s, the number had dropped to less than 300. This old girl had gotten her trunk caught in a poacher’s snare, eventually amputating the end of it.

Where DO you get your lashes done? An Angolan Giraffe browses in the eastern portion of Namibia's Etosha National Park. Despite their long necks, giraffes have the same number of cervical vertebrae as most other mammals, including humans, seven.

A group of school boys ferries across the White Nile. Paraa, Uganda.

A young girl prepares to wash clothes along the edge of Uganda's Lugogo River. Average per capita water consumption in Uganda is about 15 liters per day. (Per capita water consumption in the U.S., by comparison, is nearly 600 liters per day.) Even this small requirement demands that many women and children must spend hours each day acquiring and transporting water, often on foot over distances of many kilometers. This is just to meet basic requirements for drinking, cooking, and cleaning. This can have widespread effects on childrens' attendance at school, as well as their ability to devote time after school to studying. The long-term impacts on Uganda's future generations is enormous...

It doesn't matter where you're from, what color your skin happens to be, or how much money you have. Joy and wonder are human capacities everywhere. Lugogo Swamp, Uganda.

For families living on the southwestern shore of Uganda's Lugogo River, crossing to the northern side can mean a trip of 60 miles or more by road. A steady stream of water taxis provides an alternative. Each round trip requires poling a distance of nearly two miles, laden with men in business suits, families of four, or entire motorcycles.

The Shoebill is massive, standing as much as five feet tall. There’s a fairly limited number of places they can be seen running in a narrow strip from South Sudan through Uganda, the Congo, Rwanda, and Tanzania to end at the Bangweulu Swamp in northern Zambia. None of them are particularly easy to get to. Lugogo Swamp, Uganda.

A troop of olive baboons basks in the relative airiness of a forest road. After driving for an afternoon through thick jungle, you can begin to see how they might crave a little vitamin D.

Budongo Forest Reserve, Uganda.

Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda.

Need to regain a since of humility? This is your place. Namib Desert.

The ancient camel thorn trees of Deadvlei are thought to have died in the 1300's when the climate shifted and 1,000 foot tall red dunes diverted the path of the Tsauchab River a couple of kilometers to the north. The desiccated limbs of the camel thorns have stood motionless, pointing skyward ever since. Europeans had yet to colonize the Americas at that point, and the Ming Dynasty was just beginning in China. I wonder if we'll still be around in another 700 years... Hopefully the trees still will be. Namib-Naukluft National Park, Namibia.

The Fynbos of South Africa's Western Cape, a region one-sixth the size of Colorado, are home to more than 9,000 species of plants, 6,000 of which are endemic. They're also stunningly beautiful. Here, stars are sprinkled across a midnight sky in the hill country north of Botrivier.

A narrow trail leads into the Fynbos. Near Botrivier, South Africa.

A gemsbok trail leads off into the scant shade of a camel thorn tree. I know, … the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, but apparently the heat makes 'em a little woozy. Namib Desert.