Hot spot: Life in stone

Richard Madden marvels at the surreal landscapes, charismatic locals and amazing wildlife of Namibia

On the face of it, deserts don't have much going for them. Devoid of life, and with dunes stretching to infinity, they also pose the insoluble problem of how to remove all that sand from your tender bits.

I was once lucky enough to visit the world's largest desert, which was one of the most memorable experiences of my life. In most people's book, though, Antarctica doesn't count. A desert may be technically defined as a place where more water evaporates than falls as rain, but for most of us, sun, sand and scorpions are the defining characteristics.

Stereotypes rarely stand the test of first-hand experience, and Namibia is the supreme example of this rule. On the face of it, the contrast with neighbouring Botswana, where my wife Sarah and I have spent the past three months, could hardly be more stark. We have swapped the Okavango Delta and its rising floodwaters for their desiccated polar opposite. Already, however, we have been amazed by the animal life - lions, elephants, rhinos, ostriches, giraffes and a menagerie of desert antelope. It's as if the sheer challenge of this environment has attracted some of the world's most exotic inhabitants.

During our first week at Little Kulala Camp, in the south, I visited the salt pans at Sossusvlei, which are surrounded by the highest dunes in the world on the borders of the Namib, the oldest desert in the world. After Botswana, it was like wandering out of a story by Kipling into a painting by Dalí. It is certainly the most surreal landscape I have ever seen: rust-coloured 300m-high dunes towering over dried-up lake beds the colour of cream.

Spaced out across the pans are the fossilised remains of ancient trees, their branches like the wands of skeletal wizards turned to stone by the wicked witch of the desert. The only things missing are Dalí's melting clocks.

A few days later, we found ourselves floating at sunrise over these same dunes in a hot-air balloon, the silence broken only by the intermittent bursts of the burners. It was as serene above as it was surreal below. The dunes now looked positively reptilian, their sinuous shapes slithering towards the ghosts of shipwrecked sailors on the nearby Skeleton Coast.

On the adjacent plains, we spotted herds of galloping oryx (gemsbok), their lengthened shadows like two-horned unicorns in hot pursuit. If they had sprouted wings and flown up to join us, it would hardly have been a surprise.

Farther north at Damaraland Camp, we have been tracking the endangered black rhino. Namibia was the first country to incorporate environmental protections into its constitution, and local communities have the right to manage their wildlife through communal conservancies, working together with safari-camp owners who create jobs and provide a source of income to fund schools and dig wells.

Accompanied by four trackers, our group of six headed off into the hills, a Martian surface of red boulders punctuated with acacia thorn and regular splashes of the silvery euphorbia bush. As always when I'm on a walking safari into the domain of potentially lethal wild animals, a frisson of fear clutched at my vitals.

Although the guides carried rifles, a rhino charge conjures images of rolling tanks and eviscerating bayonets. Best avoided if at all possible. And then suddenly there they were. A mother and adolescent under an acacia bush just 50m away. We all stood transfixed in silence, our only movement the rising curve of rictus grins.

Rhinos have bad eyesight but an acute sense of smell, and even though they were upwind of us they soon caught our scent. Almost immediately, we could sense that they were more afraid of us than we were of them. This sense of vulnerability was strangely moving. Were it not for our guides' rifles, there could only ever be one winner. This is, after all, an animal weighing up to two tons with the body armour of a starship trooper.

Not to mention that horn. Ah yes, that horn. It seems such a cruel trick of evolution that such a potent weapon - with absolutely no health or sexual benefits to humans - should be the very reason these extraordinary creatures are in danger of being wiped off the planet. I only wish it was the keratin in my nails that was worth R1000 a gram.

Serra Cafema Camp, my current location, is one of the most remote camps in southern Africa, lying in the extreme northwest of Namibia on the banks of the Kunene River on the border with Angola. Here in this unremittingly harsh, but strangely hypnotic, landscape live the charismatic Himba people, famous for the beauty of their womenfolk and the elaborate leather and beadwork of their traditional tribal clothing.

In the early '90s, in a break from her work as a safari-camp manager, Sarah spent three months driving through Namibia in her ancient Land Rover and met the Himba many times, always speaking fondly of these encounters. But she was concerned that their strong cultural identity might have been eroded in the intervening years. Serra Cafema leases the land on which the camp is located from the local Himba communities and trains and employs villagers, with the ultimate vision of making the camp wholly Himba-staffed, Himba-run and Himba-owned.

Guests are encouraged to visit villagers, learn about their culture and buy their handmade crafts and traditional necklaces.

One community, high on a desert plateau, consists of 10 or so tiny wooden huts in a circle around a wooden cattle kraal. By our third visit, Sarah had already struck up a strong rapport with the matriarch and, after an abortive, but hysterical, attempt to milk the cattle, she was invited inside one of their beehive-shaped huts.

Clutching my video camera, and after obtaining the correct permissions, I followed them into the gloom, where the embers of a charcoal fire were burning. As my eyes adjusted to the light, the matriarch placed a few embers into a small leather cup while crushing a dried plant over the top. Moments later a delightful waft of scent filled the room.

It soon became apparent that the Himba use the crushed herb (a desert edelweiss) as a deodorant. Then, without warning, she proceeded to fan the smoke under her skirt. After all, she seemed to be saying, you never know when the menfolk might come knocking. Nobody found this more hilarious than the matriarch herself and, as I shook with laughter, it was all I could do to keep my camera steady. Himba culture, we decided, is still in the rudest of rude health. - © The Daily Telegraph