Thursday, February 9, 2012

Listen to the drums of Africa


From the turbulence of the Great Rift valley to the Namib Desert, the rainforests of central Africa, the wetlands of the Okavango Delta, and the contrasts of Southern Africa ,where the Bushveld savannah pushes towards a long, rugged coast line, Superb Africa Safaris reveals the Continent in all its many contrasts and moods. The Animals of Africa, from the mighty Elephant to myriads of tiny insects, endless columns of migrating Wildebeest to the increasing endangered wild dog and mountain gorilla are captured in moments of tenderness, action and savagery by some of Africans top wildlife photographers.

Vast desert landscape, the impenetrable forest floor of the Central Africa jungle the power of the tumbling Zambezi or the golden grassland of the Kalahari are also given their place in their wild, together  with the tribal people of Africa in their natural surrounding.

The recurring themes of the African Continent –the constant struggle for the survival. the tenancy if the lif amid the proximity of death, the capacity of ,man to both destroy protect, the harmony of nature in all its life forms and throughout, the visual impact of Africa its unique space, light and beauty –rise to the surface of the book through page after page of dramatic, telling images accompanied by a compelling text.

LISTEN TO THE DRUMS OF AFRICA. Hear the women’s voices soft, now low the men, voices of  Africa, voices from Desert, the mountains and the sea, harmonizing. The laugh, they clap, the shout for joy, they sing the grass of savannah as they wait for the rains.Soon, from the mountains and desert come the smell of dust and the first drops falling. Across the plains the Zebras are thundering, and in the high fever trees the wind is calling deep on deep.

Africa the land of sunlight, space and splendor, land of Elephants, Lion,Leopards,and giraffes stamps her imprint on your soul like nowhere else on Earth. Kilimanjaro, Sahel, Karoo, Kalahari, Zambezi, Congo, Ngorongoro, Nile, Sahara, Victoria Falls, Serengeti – her very names are powerful evocation  of the wilderness and that longing that is in all of us for the wild. Perhaps n our highways, in our cities, we have forgotten our needs  for space light and silence, our need for the wild. 

That wildness is in Africa, like the pattern of a fiery sunset, wild honey on the mountain side, or the glimpse of leopard in the mopane trees, Africa was born, the Yoruba people of Nigeria maintain, where everything was wasteland of marsh and moving water, where only the children of lesser gods played on spider webs strung across the void, Ol-orun, the most high, arranged for solid ground to be put in its place, sent the chameleon with his big rolling eyes to observe it all, and the world was created.  

MUCH of Africa is a high plateau sitting on a single shield of ancient rock, which in places is 3500 million years old, At one stage it was linked to South America, India and Australia as a vast super continent called Gondwanaland. Now, Africa,  the worlds second continent, is linked to Asia only  by a narrow strip of land. It is a landmass thirty million square kilometer in area and 8000km long, the same length as Central and South America together.

Africa has more nations than any other continent. The Sudan, slightly smaller than India, is the continents largest country, but jungle-thick Zaire is almost as big, while Ethiopia, Angola, Niger, South Africa and Mali are each five times the size of the United Kingdom. The Nile in South Africa is the worlds longest river, Kilimanjaro, the snow capped symbol of Africa’s space and light is at 5895 meters above the sea level, the worlds highest free standing mountain, THE Sahara once the savannah of game, is today the worlds largest desert.   

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