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Namibia has some of the world’s tallest sand dunes, but outfitter Volker Jahnke negotiates them with aplomb. “I’ll never be stranded,” he says. “There’s always a way out—deflate your tires a bit, read the dunes, try again.” 4 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC TRAVELER | MARCH 2011 PHOTO CREDIT PHOTO CREDIT ‘‘ sand dune in a 4x4 truck, aiming JUST POINT YOUR VEHICLE straight down and go,” Volker Jahnke says to me, his voice gravelly over the two-way radio. “But don’t stop and don’t turn the wheel,” he cautions, “or you’ll roll like a melon.” I’m perched atop a skyscraper-high down. All I see is a sheer drop of sand and Jahnke’s Land Cruiser at the bottom, looking like a Tinker Toy. Around me stretch miles of golden dunes, rolling in waves to every horizon, like a scene from Lawrence of Arabia. I’m in the heart of the great sand sea of Namibia in the southwest corner of Africa. It’s Day Two of a one-week, four-wheel-drive expedition into an area known as the Sperrgebiet—German for “prohibited zone”—a diamond-mining concession controlled by De Beers that was off limits for nearly a century. A few years ago the government made this area a national park, opening it for guided tours on a limited-access basis, one group at a time. Outfitter Volker Jahnke is one of a handful of tour operators permitted to lead visitors into the prohibited zone, a place few have been privileged to see. At this moment, our group of five—Jahnke, his two drivers, photographer <strong>Frans</strong> <strong>Lanting</strong>, and I—are the only people in an uncharted desert wilderness of 10,000 square miles. For seven days, this expanse, for all practical purposes, is our own private Africa. Space sets Namibia apart. It’s a country of epic landscapes and cinematic beauty spread across an area nearly twice the size of California but with only two million people. A population density of a mere seven people per square mile may contribute to the relaxed spirit—and freedom to explore—that you find here. There aren’t many places in Africa where you can fly into the capital (in Namibia, it’s Windhoek), rent a four-wheel-drive vehicle, and strike off on your own to discover the country. Travel in Namibia is relatively easy—and safe. I first came here in 1989, six months before the country won its independence from neighboring South Africa. To the outside world, Namibia’s TRAVELER. NATIONALGEOGRAPHIC. COM 5
future looked uncertain. But those living here were optimistic: I met United Nations troops taking game drives in Etosha National Park—Namibia’s most famous attraction—because, as one Egyptian soldier told me, “It’s so peaceful here, there’s not much for us to do.” Peace prevailed (and continues to this day) as the new nation began shaping its future in quiet but groundbreaking ways, including writing provisions for environmental protection and conservation of natural resources into its constitution—the only nation in the world to do so. On this return journey I find a still young country—only 20 years old—that’s beginning to leverage Namibia’s unique history and unforgiving terrain to establish a sustainable model of tourism. “First gear, high range, now go,” says Jahnke, as I accelerate down the dune in what feels like a vertical plunge—my head nearly knocking the windshield. Waves of sand crest over the hood as I plow an avalanche that gains size and momentum, vibrating and growling, as I pick up speed. “You’re in a real Niagara Falls!” Jahnke radios over the roar of the sand. “Brake gently, gently till you get to the bottom—then floor it to the top of the next dune!” he urges as I churn past, focused on every word, hands tight on the wheel, utterly thrilled. Jahnke, a sturdy Namibian of German descent, knows how to navigate this land of superlatives, which can test his ingenuity at every turn. We’re in a desolate reach of the Namib Desert, which extends 1,200 miles along the coast of the South Atlantic Ocean. It’s said to be the world’s oldest desert, its dunes among the tallest—some topping a thousand feet—which Jahnke tackles with confidence. He has been leading 4x4 trips into some of southern Africa’s wildest lands for nearly a decade—while remaining a fierce defender of the desert. “I once turned back a group when I saw a Jägermeister bottle Guests at the rustic Wolwedans Dunes Lodge in the NamibRand Nature Reserve huddle against the desert’s evening chill. Opposite, from left: Zebras approach a water hole in the reserve, while a staffer at Wolwedans, known for its attentive service, offers guests a warm smile. 6 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC TRAVELER | MARCH 2011 fly out the window,” he recalls. “I made them wait in town for a day to decide if they wanted to continue on my terms.” Jahnke calls his customized Land Cruiser Strandwolf, or “coastal wolf,” for the elusive brown hyena that haunts the dunes and beaches. As we wind a snaking course through the dunes, he shares tales of wildlife survival. “Animals here—oryx, ostrich, springbok—must go without drinking water,” he says. “We have fog-basking beetles that stand on their heads on dune tops to catch fog and let it drip into their mouths. When it’s really cold, I’ve seen jackals lie on the beach and let the wind cover them with sand for warmth with only their noses sticking up.” He shakes his head and laughs, “It’s Africa! Adapt or die!” A FORCE OF NA TURE brought diamonds to Namibia from South Africa. For a hundred million years, they washed down the Orange River to the sea, along what’s now the border between the two countries. From the mouth of the river, the cold Benguela Current from Antarctica carried the diamonds north along Namibia’s coast, where diamond deposits were first discovered in 1908 near Lüderitz, Jahnke’s hometown. “In some places, the diamonds were just lying on the ground,” he tells me one evening around the campfire, “and the miners collected them by the handful.” In one way, diamonds were the desert’s best friend: Within months of their discovery, the prohibited zone was declared along nearly half the coast of Namibia, from the South African border 450 miles north. Security was ironclad: No one entered but the miners. And because the zone extended 62 miles inland, the sprawling desert interior we’re crossing has been virtually untouched since 1908. It remains little explored. We smell salt air as we caravan toward the setting sun. On top PHOTO CREDIT of the final slope we reach an astonishing view—towering dunes at a cattle post frequented by lions, cheetahs, elephants, and, to pitching down to the wild seas of the South Atlantic, golden sand him, the most dangerous—rhinos. “When a rhino smells you, it meeting midnight blue waters, as far north and south as the eye hides, and, if you come close, it charges,” he says. “But they’re can see. We plunge down the dunes to the beach and set up camp poor at turning, so you must run fast, turn quickly, let it charge in a sheltered depression, circling our vehicles against the wind. past you, then climb a tree. It happened to me many times.” I drift off to the thunder of pounding surf and the hiss of waves After Namibia got its independence, Angula returned to school rushing ashore. Tonight, all the diamonds are in the sky. and eventually landed a job with Wilderness Safaris, known for hiring locals and forming revenue-sharing partnerships with “LISTEN,” says naturalist Abisai Angula, “you can hear their communities. Angula worked his way up from maintenance wings.” We’re standing in a natural amphitheater so quiet we can discern the sound of air whistling through the feathers of two crows swooping overhead. It’s a perfect July morning during the tourist season in Namibia’s most popular visitor attraction after Etosha National Park, and no one else is here. We have left the prohibited zone to tour Sossusvlei, an area of parched white pans of cracked clay ringed with thousand-foot-high dunes—the tallest in Namibia—featured on postcards and guidebook covers. I’m hiking with Angula, a young guide from nearby Kulala Desert Lodge, which, with its own gate to the park, gains us entry well [ ] worker to guide, getting trained in astronomy, geology, current affairs, and other subjects. His company, along with other outfitters, is pioneering a tourism model that values local empowerment, a I DRIVE conservation ethic, and authentic DOWN THE DUNE experiences for visitors. More hikers appear on the IN A NEARLY VERTI- slopes of the dunes, trudging up CAL PLUNGE. WAVES in staggered lines. As each hiker reaches the top, the hard slog OF SAND CREST gives way to pure pleasure— OVER THE HOOD AS I some running downhill with wild PLOW AN AVALANCHE abandon, whooping and laughing, others rolling, slip-sliding, THAT VIBRATES or high-kicking their way to the AND GROWLS. bottom, all in their own avalanches of apricot sand. By sunset most of the visitors before the crowds arrive. have left, and I hike out to Sossus- “Long ago the San people, or vlei’s namesake pan. Like Dead Bushmen, followed the river here,” Angula explains, “and found it Vlei, it’s set inside a crown of dunes, but this pan is alive—dotted full of plants, birds, and animals. They called it ‘Sossusvlei,’ which with hummocks of nara and framed with green-leafing camel means ‘the place where water gathers.’” But the river changed thorn trees, their sprawling boughs arching down to the ground, course, and now only an eerie grove of skeletal camel thorn trees festooned with half-moon–shaped seedpods. The water is here, remains on the pan we’re exploring, called Dead Vlei. The trees are somewhere below ground. I sit quietly in the middle of the pan, carbon-dated at 600 to 900 years old and too dry to decay, Angula and as the last vehicle leaves, an after-hours cast begins to emerge. tells me, monuments to the power of water, given and denied. First springbok step out onto the pan—three, six, then ten—to Above us, we see the first visitors climbing the ridgelines of browse the nara. Then two oryx appear and a trio of ostrich, feath- the highest dunes, tiny figures silhouetted against the sunrise. We ers flouncing. A jackal trots down with a jaunty gait, pied crows hike to the sand flats beyond Dead Vlei, where Angula shows me glide past, and, as I leave just before sundown, a pale chanting man-high mounds of nara bushes. “Animals and people love to eat their fruit,” Angula says. “The San used to cover the bushes with goshawk perches on a dune, scanning for prey. the wings of an ostrich they killed for meat, to prevent animals “TIME TO LEA VE,” says Conrad Brain, banking the Cessna from eating the fruits.” over the dunes. As we circle to climb away, I see why: A sandstorm Angula learned about wildlife early. As a boy, he tended livestock is surging down the valley toward Sossusvlei in a roiling white TRAVELER. 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Page 1: The native San people of Namibia tr
Page 5: Giraffes were reintroduced to Namib

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