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Les Eclaireurs Lighthouse

I had an awesome time in 2006 travelling around in the heat of the Atacama Desert and the coldness of Patagonia. A visit to Ushuaia (Tierra del Fuego, Argentina), and the surrounding areas, brought home the remoteness and harshness of Patagonia. It was in Ushuaia that I became aware of ships heading to the Antarctic, and I’d made a mental note to someday visit the Antarctic. In 2007, I’d made that note a reality by embarking from Ushuaia to the Antarctic across the Drake Passage. But in the meantime, I was discovering delights such as that shown in this photo of Les Eclaireurs Lighthouse in the Beagle Channel near Ushuaia.

Woman’s Bridge in Buenos Aires

It was 2006, and it had been several years since I had last visited Buenos Aires, so it was good to venture out and explore the place. Wandering along the docks of Puerto Madero, and enjoying the music and food of this fascinating district, I spotted a distinctive and elegant structure which I didn’t recognise. On closer inspection, I discovered that it was a rotating pedestrian bridge named El Puente de La Mujer or Woman’s Bridge. Now, I had made the rookie mistake of keeping a polarising filter on my camera lens most of the time which had the effect of creating very dark and uneven skies in a lot of my photos. However, in this close-up of the bridge’s central steel needle, the contrast between dark and light is dramatic to say the least, but which I think works.

Dead trees of Deadvlei

A unique view of the dead, desiccated trees of Deadvlei in Namibia which I photographed in August 2015.

“Deadvlei” from the English word “dead” and the Afrikaans word “vlei” for marsh. It was once an area fed by the Tsauchab River where trees and other plants flourished. Perhaps 600-700 years ago, maybe 900 years ago, the changing climate and encroaching sand dunes conspired to cut-off the water supply, killing-off the trees and most of the plants.

Today, visitors are greeted by an eerie but spectacular sight. Illuminated by the brilliant blue skies, a white clay pan is surrounded by rust-coloured sand dunes which are reputed to be some of the highest in the world at over 1,312 feet (400 metres). And the trees; dead, desiccated, and scorched black by the sun. Truly a forest of the dead.