Strange miracles occur in the Namib Desert. Life blossoms here, amid scenery so striking, it strums your heartstrings. Mysterious ecological events leave ragged rings in the arid grasslands, and desert-adapted creatures lead improbable lives in the sand. Occasionally, individuals bob into view: a tenebrionid beetle scuttling across the dunes, or an oryx moving with slow-motion gait in the shimmering heat.
In their beauty, the landscapes themselves are miraculous. From the most basic of raw materials — sand streaked with iron oxide — nature has crafted something extraordinary. Blurred by shadows and textured by breezes, the dunes glow with subtle, shifting colours. Distractedly, I gaze at them, pondering names for each shade. Bitter apricot. Tigerbelly. Wise man’s gold.
An animated snatch of conversation between my high-spirited guides, Boetie Mbunga and Kinere Kake, snaps me back to the here and now. It’s early morning, and we’ve wandered out of camp, keen to decipher some of
