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According to African folklore, Leopard stopped sharing his meals and started to hide his kill in trees because Jackal and Hyena weren’t reciprocating his generosity. One of the best remembered fables of the ages is, however, “How the Leopard Got His Spots” in the “Just So Stories” where Rudyard Kipling spelled out the benefits of camouflage. Leopard looked “like a sunflower against a tarred fence” when he entered the forest from the veld until the Ethiopian kindly painted the five-dotted rosettes which cover the leopard’s coat to this day.

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. 

“Congratulations!! You scored 5 Eco flowers (92%)!!” Gondwana’s environmental officer, Quintin Hartung, who accompanied the Eco Awards Namibia inspectors to Kalahari Anib Lodge in late November 2017, rejoiced with the lodge management and staff at the fantastic score. 

The lighthouse stands out on Swakopmund's "skyline". The citizens of the coastal town are proud of it and it features prominently in the old and new municipal coat of arms. Nevertheless it is rarely mentioned by sources on the history of Swakopmund. Is that perhaps because it was part of a project that failed? 

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. 

On 2 February, the Gondwana Collection welcomed Three Wheels Co, a group of travel bloggers attempting to create a world record! The three gentlemen hail from all over the world. Travis Bluemling is the US, Chris Parkes is British-South African, and Ross OC Jennings is the Scotsman who aims to play the bagpipes in every country across the globe.

At the southern end of the Fish River Canyon, a mineral-rich hot spring encircled by rugged mountains has attracted people for centuries. It was known from the earliest times by the Nama who went there when sick to be healed by the rejuvenating waters. /Ai-/Ais is the Nama word for ‘very hot’. Groundwater heated up in the Earth’s crust rises to the surface at about 60˚C in passages created by the deep fault systems found in the canyon.