Merit Prize Winner: “A Well Earned Rest in the Sahara”. This photo of Moussa Macher, our Tuareg guide, was taken at the summit of Tin-Merzouga, the largest dune (or erg) in the Tadrat region of the Sahara desert in southern Algeria. Moussa rested while waiting for us to finish our 45-minute struggle to the top. It only took ten minutes of rolling, running, and jumping to get back down. The Tadrat is part of the Tassili N'Ajjer National Park World Heritage area, famous for its red sand and engravings and rock paintings of cattle, elephants, giraffes, and rhinos that lived there when the climate was milder. Photo location: Summit of Tin-Merzouga, Tadrat, Tassili N'Ajjer National Park, Algeria. (Photo and caption by Evan Cole/National Geographic Photo Contest)

A child falls sleep while people take part in the 35th India Day Parade in New York August 16, 2015. (Photo by Eduardo Munoz/Reuters)

People watch a competitor riding a homemade vehicle without an engine on a 300-metre-track during the Red Bull Soapbox Race in Amman, Jordan September 4, 2015. (Photo by Muhammad Hamed/Reuters)

People take part in The Color Run in Brussels, Belgium September 6, 2015. The Color Run is a five-kilometre, untimed race, held in cities worldwide, with the aim of promoting healthy living. Participants are doused from head to toe in different colors at each kilometre. (Photo by Yves Herman/Reuters)

People dressed as zombies participate in a parade for World Zombie Day 2016 in London's West End, Britain on October 9, 2016. (Photo by Splash News and Pictures)

People walk past a New Year fir tree made of toys at a park in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, Russia January 2, 2017. (Photo by Ilya Naymushin/Reuters)

People wearing loin cloths pray after they bathe in ice-cold water outside the Teppozu Inari shrine in Tokyo, Japan, January 8, 2017. (Photo by Toru Hanai/Reuters)

People in Mexico wave at U.S. Border Patrol agents on horseback patrolling the U.S.-Mexico border fence near San Diego, California, U.S., November 10, 2016. (Photo by Mike Blake/Reuters)