Artist German Vinogradov acts in the performance of the burning of installation, devoted to Maslenitsa, or Pancake Week, a pagan holiday marking the end of winter, in the village of Nikola-Lenivets, Kaluga region, Russia, February 17, 2018. (Photo by Maxim Shemetov/Reuters)

A brown bear cub by the Khailyulya River in north-east Kamchatka, Russia on July 24, 2021. (Photo by Yuri Smityuk/TASS)

Yang Estrada, 5, plays with a crab on the street in La Panchita, Cuba on May 28, 2022. (Photo by Alexandre Meneghini/Reuters)

Klara Bleyer of Team Germany competes in the Artistic Swimming Women's Solo Technical Preliminaries on day one of the Fukuoka 2023 World Aquatics Championships at Marine Messe Fukuoka Hall A on July 14, 2023 in Fukuoka, Japan. (Photo by Marko Djurica/Reuters)

A classmate of Palestinian student Lian Al Shaer, 10, who was killed in recent Israel-Gaza fighting, reacts to Al Shaer's picture as a new school year begins, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on August 29, 2022. (Photo by Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters)

A Palestinian youth throws rubber tyres over a fire during a protest in Gaza on July 26, 2023. (Photo by Saher Alghorra/Zuma Press Wire/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

A body of a victim lies trapped in the debris after an earthquake hit, in Kathmandu, Nepal April 25, 2015. Rescue efforts in Nepal are intensifying after nearly 2,000 people were killed on Saturday in the worst earthquake there in more than 80 years. Many countries and charities have offered aid to deal with the disaster. Seventeen people have been killed on Mount Everest by avalanches – the mountain's worst-ever disaster. Meanwhile a powerful aftershock was felt on Sunday in Nepal, India and Bangladesh, and more avalanches were reported near Everest. (Photo by Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters)

Merit: A Night at Deadvlei. The night before returning to Windhoek, we spent several hours at Deadveli. The moon was bright enough to illuminate the sand dunes in the distance, but the skies were still dark enough to clearly see the milky way and magellanic clouds. Deadveli means “dead marsh. The camelthorn trees are believed to be about 900 years old, but have not decomposed because the environment is so dry. (Photo and caption by Beth McCarley/National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest)