World's Most Remote, Inhospitable Places In Namibia

From the salt pans of Sossusvlei to the shipwrecks of the Skeleton Coast, Namibia is known for some of the most remote, inhospitable places on earth. And yet, on a tour of the country’s finest new lodges, Peter Browne finds these landscapes brimming with unexpected life.

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I assumed there would be silence in the desert; I was wrong. I thought that little of interest could survive in such a hostile place, but I was wrong again. Although I was born and raised in Africa, Namibia has changed the way I see the continent, and how I connect with it. It has rekindled the awe for Africa in me.

The Namib is the oldest desert in the world, an almighty sea of sand running for almost one and a half thousand kilometres along Namibia’s Atlantic coastline. With few roads running to it or through it, the desert is largely inaccessible, and almost entirely uninhabited by humans. Yet somehow life thrives there—in astonishing shapes and forms.

In the Namib, I was serenaded by duetting bokmakierie birds and entertained by prancing ostriches in black tutus. There were wild melons growing in the sand, some tiny enough to furnish a dollhouse, some as big as beach balls. I learned to recognise the shepherd’s tree, which gives offa smell like a sewer but can sustain everything from insects to human beings with its roots, berries, leaves, and bark. I watched Hartmann’s mountain zebras strut and snort on vast, open plains, and I tracked desert-adapted elephants across dry riverbeds.

My adventure began—as virtually all safaris in Namibia do—in the capital, Windhoek. There, I was joined by James Kydd, one of Africa’s finest private safari guides and a man with a profound love for wild, open spaces. Together, Kydd and I flew to Sossusvlei, a part of the Namib famous for its immense red sand dunes—some of the tallest in the world. As we flew over them, the supremely well-travelled Kydd told me Namibia is one of his all-time favourite places. Looking out of the aircraft window, it was obvious why.