A Dry, Dusty Middle of Nowhere...

The Namibian desert can be a strikingly forlorn place...

But it's beautiful too. Here are the dunes at Sossusvlei (my sister, me, Michael):

And here are the Naukluft mountains. (We hiked the Olive Trail, which follows a dry riverbed at the bottom of a canyon. This is one of my all-time favorite hikes.)

A thought on hiking:

I would bet that many Africans shake their heads in bewilderment at the fact that westerners walk (e.g. "hike") for fun. In other words, for many of us, walking is such a novelty that we actually go out of our way to do it. Imagine that! Spending time and money to go out for a walk, with no purpose other than enjoyment...whereas, of course, most people around here do it out of necessity, to get them from place to place. It's a strange world, my friends. A strange world...