I took this photo in Tarangire National Park in Tanzania in the summer. We watched quietly from our Cruiser whilst the pride dozed gently in the sunny afternoon. These two sisters were squished together under a tree so sparse that I wondered why they sat so close, given how little shade it afforded. The great lazy lion in the background had the better idea of sheltering under a large and cool canopy.
When I travelled to Istanbul I carefully decided which museums I would visit on each of my three days, because it was such a short trip and I didn't want to miss out on anything. Imagine my disappointment, then, upon my arrival at the Carpet Museum on the Monday only to remember that it was closed, and that I had missed my chance through poor planning. I met this small, sleepy cat outside the locked door, and she somewhat took the edge off my carpet sadness.
This was in Simba camp on the cold edge of the Ngorongoro crater. The stork posed perfectly amidst his baskets from the kitchen, and I expected him to flap away any moment to deliver sky children to expectant parents. One of the chefs wanted to take my photo with the bird after this, and encouraged me to step closer and closer to it - and that thing has a cruel beak and vulture-like gullet that scared me, so that I look very awkward and full of frightened elbows.
I met these four Maasai boys on the way to the Serengeti, when we stopped so that poor Erica could vomit underneath a shady acacia tree. I gave them the rest of my big bottle of water and some biscuits. They had just come from a circumcision "party" - someone else's - and wore the traditional face paint for such an occasion. The boy on the left was called Lowassa, and I bought a little bracelet from him patterned with the Tanzanian flag, which I wore for months afterwards. Their skin was very dark and I didn't know the technique for photographing black skin in bright sunlight, but I rather like the contrast.
Four perfectly-aligned flamingoes in Ngorongoro.
I love this photo. It's certainly not the best of all the many, many pictures I took of my favourite animal, but I am deeply fond of it because this was the first elephant I had ever seen in the wild, and that is something worth preserving.
I took this very poor-quality photo in the Museum of Islamic and Turkish Arts in Istanbul. The reason it is so out of focus and blurry is because it was forbidden to take photos there, and although I respected the rule until this moment, I was so overawed by this object that I couldn't resist, and I did my best to surreptitiously capture its beauty in a dark room without using flash. It is a small area of the cover of an illuminated Qur'an from the Safavid Empire in Persia, and had been illuminated in the early 16th century. The paintwork and geometric detail on and inside of all the Qur'ans in this room was mind-boggling. I have since learned that some of these books are going on tour and will be displayed in the Smithsonian’s Arthur M Sackler Gallery from February 2017: they are definitely worth a visit if you are in the area.
On the long and steep hike up Table Mountain, which I started from the city of Cape Town at sea level, I came across this sign on the pathway. It was a hot and dusty morning, and I hadn't brought enough water with me, so when I saw that it read "23.7km to go" I nearly fell over. It turned out that was for the bikers. Even so I was climbing for another two hours after this, but the view at the top made it all worth it.
I met this Maasai couple and their dusty desert dog at the same place as I met Lowassa and his friends. I talked to them in English and they replied in Swahili, and we understood each perfectly despite having no common language. At one point I looked down and found a soft Mr Potato Head in the dirt. Further inspection revealed it had once come from Qatar Airways, although how he arrived underneath a tree on the lonely Serengeti road was unknown. I gave him to the couple and they were utterly delighted with him.
This was taken in Lake Manyara National Park at the hot springs. There was a walkway out onto the water from where we could see four distant hippos bathing in the warm waters. On the walkway there were several large school groups, and it was very busy. I spotted this jaunty Peter Pan posing right on the end of the pier and I would have liked to show him his portrait, but when I arrived at his resting place he had merged with all his schoolmates and I was no longer sure who he was.
This is a good example of why you don't go wandering into long African grasses.
A hat and a cat. The little kitten lived at Panorama Camp, overlooking Lake Manyara and living the life of Riley. I named him Samwel in honour of our excellent guide. The hat I found at Seronera Camp, squashed, lost and dusty, but obviously well-loved and well-travelled. I adopted it and took it on my travels in Tanzania and Istanbul, and now it lives here with me in London, and so I managed to help it along its adventurous life on behalf of its previous owner.
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