“Slow”. A calm cow in the messy streets of Jodhpur. Photo location: India. (Photo and caption by Matthias Troeger/National Geographic Photo Contest)

“Cub”. In the colony of penguins in South Georgia. (Photo and caption by Ondrej Zaruba/National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest)

ATTENTION! All pictures are presented in high resolution. To see Hi-Res images – just TWICE click on any picture. In other words, click small picture – opens the BIG picture. Click BIG picture – opens VERY BIG picture.

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)

Unforgiving temperatures of up to 60℃ (140℉) beat down on these saltminers on a daily basis. The mines, situated in the Afar Triangle in Ethiopia, stretch across 38,000 sq miles and at their lowest point are more than 300ft below sea level. Joel Santos travelled to capture the area’s dry, brutal beauty. Here: Dromedaries and donkeys are used to transport the salt. (Photo by Joel Santos/Barcroft Images)

An actress performs in a puppet theater show at an UNRWA school in Burj al-Barajneh in Beirut May 14, 2015. The Arab Puppet Theatre Foundation (APTF) is touring the 68 schools of the UN refugee agency's UNRWA and performs for all 39,000 Palestinian students in Lebanon, in a project with UNICEF and UNRWA. (Photo by Mohamed Azakir/Reuters)

A swarm of starlings flies over the Altare della Patria monument (Unknown soldier) in the city centre of Rome during sunset, on November 27, 2018. (Photo by Vincenzo Pinto/AFP Photo)

A tourist take a photograph of a sulphur lake in the Danakil Depression on January 23, 2017 near Dallol, Ethiopia. The depression lies 100 metres below sea level and is one of the hottest and most inhospitable places on Earth. Despite the gruelling conditions, Ethiopians continue a centuries old industry of mining salt from the ground by hand in temperatures that average 34.5 degrees centigrade but have risen to over 50 degrees. (Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images)

A Nihang' or Sikh warrior performs “Gatka”, an ancient form of Sikh martial arts, during a Fateh Divas celebration a day after the Hindu festival Diwali, in Amritsar on November 5, 2021. (Photo by Narinder Nanu/AFP Photo)