If some sands remains in your shoes then Namibia awaits you back…this is what I always tell to my new-found friends on the way back to the airport…And I see tears in their eyes….because Namibia’s sand rests not only in your shoes, but has ingrained itself deep in your soul and heart.
In a little poem Emily Dickinson uses the image of the desert as a symbol for a romantic far land:
With thee, in the Desert –
With thee in the thirst –
With thee in the Tamarind wood –
Leopard breathes – at last!
Land of thirst, land of animals...Namibia hosts the oldest desert of the world, the Namib Desert 80 million years old, with some of the highest sand dunes,
and the largest expanse of sand in the world, the Kalahari.
Rusty dunes of Namib witness its age, coppery coloured sword dunes of Kalahari witness its windy exposure.
And travelling in Namibia means to have the sand in your shoes, in your cloths, in your mouth every day. Your luggage will give you back sand for years.
Every time you will feel these sand grains in your hands, your memories go back to running down the dunes, sunsets with a Gin Tonic in your hand, an elephant blowing sand from its trunk, San people hiding ostrich eggs, roaring dunes, dunes meeting the ocean… Martian landscapes on earth.
All the above is part of an unforgettable journey in Namibia.
Sand is memories of Namibia!