Get lost to find yourself

I've been travelling across Africa for years. It didn't captivate me at first sight, nor at first breath.

Several summers passed before Kenya struck, grounded, and changed me. Since then, the black continent resonates with me so intensely that it sets me to rethink, quietly rebel, and weep every time.

A sad, humble, cleansing, and thankful cry. Namibia revealed itself just as it is. Surprisingly developed (in urban areas), to my surprise.

Swakopmund, my favourite coastal town, feels like a movie set. On the other hand - a natural wilderness in countless dimensions. A true desert full of life. Not a colourful, bustling life, but the deep transition and essence of being.

Days when Madam Namibia surprises, amazes, challenges, gives chances, and rewards.

An impressive caravan of ten jeep-tents on wheels. Camps in the dust. Some with open-air baths under an indescribable starry sky passing overhead.

The Milky Way and shooting stars with water heated over wood and a hanger made from a branch of the giant tree growing in the middle of the Damaraland bathroom.

Roads stretching to the horizon and beyond without asphalt or potholes, with signs like 'warning! elephant crossing.' Campfire meals you cook yourself. From scorching days at +40° to chilly nights at +5° within a day, or being in shorts one night and layered with socks, a jacket, and all sleeping bags you can find the next, yet still chattering teeth from the cold. From still heatwaves to gusty winds, likely to whisk you away tent and all while you sleep.

Sossusvlei. Sands, gigantic dunes where you could easily give up the ghost (as it is +45° and rising) if you choose to climb them by foot at noon, but still ascend the sharp ridge to the top, then run tens of metres barefoot, sinking to the knees in soft sand down the steep descent to the dead valley, a dried-up home of long-deceased trees, frozen in time and space in a surreal landscape Big Daddy, Deadvlei. A raging ocean tenderly touching mountain-like dunes without swallowing them, inhospitable to those daring to cool off in its wild embrace Sandwich Harbour.

Jagged mountains from nowhere unto nowhere.

The splendour of sunsets and grandeur of sunrises over vast heaps of rounded rocks, as though a colossal elephant relieved itself, Spitzkoppe. A heavy leaden cloud hanging over the horizon freezing your breath, making you, while driving in a vest, suddenly gear up with every article of clothing you can reach to avoid freezing to death.

A ghostly ship stranded in the shallow ocean shore, home to ominous black birds Skeleton coast. The largest seal colony in its natural habitat - from love affairs to newborn nursing pups to decaying remains of old individuals, all succumbing to the bone-penetrating stench of urine and carrion, yet offering a panoramic glimpse of the entire life cycle, providing food for thought to any wandering mind Cape cross.

The hospitality of the Damara tribe, living among rock piles in the desert, graciously indulging my request to disguise me as one of them, despite our similarities lying beyond body contours and certain lavish areas, sharing a laugh over the result of this whimsical mutual challenge. The fleeting joy in otherwise deeply sad eyes of children and adults as I distributed food directly onto the dusty road while they tried to barter a passing piece of semi-precious stone or crystal, scraped from the lands around their huts, to eat and clothe themselves.

The colourful apparel of women on the roads, selling handmade shopping bags and rag dolls which resemble miniature versions of their creators.

The adventure of roaming alone with a paper map, with your house on wheels, through Etosha National Park, observing at arm's length elephants, leopards, hyenas, giraffes, lions, rhinos, oryx, zebras, gnus, ostriches, kudu, meerkats and all kinds of mammals and birds in their natural environment, which look at you with dignity, curiosity, and a touch of arrogance, reminding you that you are only a guest in their home and should respect their rules and way of living.

Riding an ATV headfirst down 50-metre steep sandy dunes, despite a panic fear of this action since all the poorly healed bones in your arms still ache from last year's crash with such a vehicle in another African desert, only for the guide to say you are too extreme and hard to follow in line.

Climbing spiky trees in the middle of nowhere on the way, just to prove to yourself you can.

Slipping into an odd abandoned town, resembling a graveyard of old cars inhabited by all sorts of cacti and succulents Solitaire.

Cooking dinner over coals from fresh ocean catch you've bought at a fish market you accidentally passed by.

Spontaneously deciding to watch a desert sunset from above and within an hour finding yourself on a small helicopter without doors, which could easily pass for a toy in a quirky children's corner and dragging along your two favourite culprits for why you are in these lands at all and seeing their eyes light up.

Often without electricity and typically without Wi-Fi, but rich in emotions and quick transitions between scenes and states, Namibia cannot be told. It must be lived.

Get lost to find yourself.