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The upper part of the massive bleached skull rests on the waves formed by the fine sand which the wind incessantly moves around the plain. Barely one hundred metres away the Atlantic Ocean crashes onto the beach. Nobody will ever know when the crocodile came ashore at this particular spot of the Skeleton Coast. It will also remain a mystery why the huge reptile crawled onto the beach right here, seven kilometres south of the Kunene River’s mouth, and perished. 

Kori Bustards are common in Namibia and often seen walking across grasslands looking for food. They eat anything from grasshoppers, caterpillars, locusts, dung beetles and termites to scorpions, solifuges, lizards, bird eggs and nestlings – as well as snakes.

It is the third year in a row that a property of the Gondwana Collection has reached the final of the Responsible Tourism Awards. In 2018, the Namib Desert Lodge is competing for the prestigious award. The other two finalists in the Accommodation Establishment category are Grootberg Lodge and Damaraland Camp. In the Tour Operators category, which includes shuttles, car rentals and the like, the three finalists are Abenteuer Afrika Reisen, Wild Dog Safaris and Ultimate Safaris. 

A camera trap at a waterhole on Uli Trümper’s farm Safari captured a lappet-faced vulture together with a black-backed jackal on 29 January this year. The clearly visible plastic tag on the vulture revealed that the bird was ringed about nine years ago. Pictures taken by other camera traps also prove that the vulture was successfully rehabilitated and that it is in good condition. 

Last week, we launched our #itsup2us campaign at the Delight Hotel in Swakopmund. The Gondwana Collection Namibia has adopted a “Zero waste to Landfill” goal together with our partner in this venture – Rent-a-Drum (RaD) who originally adopted this initiative. 

They often appear in huge flocks and descend on waterholes like a cloud. In their thousands they invade fields and destroy harvests – from Senegal across to Ethiopia and down to southern Africa, where vast swarms are on the move in search of food and for nesting. They are the largest population of a single bird species on the planet. Experts estimate their numbers at 1500 billion birds after a breeding season. We are talking about the red-billed quelea. 

The discovery of over 500 million year old small fossils in southern Namibia, are today supporting scientific research of living organisms that dwelled on mega-continents like Gondwana, Pangea and Rodinia. Namibia’s southern mountain ranges near Aus provide fascinating fossil finds – witness to dramatic happenings like the Cambrian Fauna Explosion eons ago. Renowned international scientists are currently researching these fossils. Would you like to know more? Read on.