The Desert Express from Swakopmund to Windhoek
I love the desert.
It is perhaps because I was born in the dreaded ‘burbs’ of London, house after house with nobody knowing their neighbours’ names. Desert is about as far from that life as you can get and I relish the space and freedom.
Namibia has lots of it; desert and space, and is one of my favourite southern African countries. It epitomises ‘safari’ in its meaning of ‘journeying into the wilderness’, but since the country is so large and all the natural wonders so far apart, you need time to safari in Namibia.
This usually requires a lot of road travel, and even if you are not driving, the heat and dust, (which somehow manages to penetrate into the car and even through zipped bags), is pervasive. So, when I was invited aboard the Desert Express from Swakopmund at the coast to the capital city of Windhoek, I had no hesitation in accepting. Especially as I had already done a thousand kilometres by road and the sand had by then wormed its way into every crevice of my body.
