MONICA QUOCK CHAN / SPECIAL TO THE STAR-BULLETIN In the city of Okahandja, members of the cattle-herding Herero tribe march in the funeral procession of a former leading chief. The headdresses worn by Herero women symbolize bovine horns.

Namibia’s desert beauties

A peculiar sound begins to emanate across the Namib, the world's oldest desert.

Neither chirping nor yelping, it is nevertheless animal-like. We cup our ears, listening attentively.

"Can you hear the barking geckos?" our guide queries.

Did he say barking geckos? The geckos my husband and I have known have always been the silent, sticky-footed vigilantes of ceilings in tropical climes. Yet chattering geckos now serenade us as the Marble Mountains shed their fiery hues in the dissipating sunset light.

During our drive through Namibia, we encounter many more such wonders. Namibia is sparsely populated with slightly fewer than 2 million people covering 500,000 square miles, or four people per square mile. The result? Untrammeled land and blissfully empty roadways. From the vast Namib Desert to the wildlife haven Etosha National Park, nature's raw beauty exists freely.

No lights, no fences, no telephone wires; the route from the capital city, Windhoek, to the desert sanctuary of Sossusvlei appears to be an unending strip of dusty gravel. A local postcard puts it succinctly, portraying a lone Volkswagen Beetle on a remote stretch somewhere in rural Namibia. Its driver, no doubt a city slicker like myself, inquires incredulously, "Where are the people??"

MONICA QUOCK CHAN / SPECIAL TO THE STAR-BULLETIN A baby giraffe in Etosha National Park is curious about the tourists and their cameras.

After half a day of driving, Namib-Naukluft Lodge is a welcome sight, though still isolated on its own private reserve of more than 30,000 acres. As we approach, rock hyraxes scramble into boulder niches. Resembling groundhogs, the hyraxes are actually distant relatives of both the elephant and the manatee.

Night falls quickly, but there is one marvel left to observe. Hoisting an array of the latest camera equipment, Juergen, a fellow boarder, is ready to capture the night sky on film.

"Namibia is one of the best places in the world to see the stars," Juergen states. "Few lights interfere with the view, and the air is extremely clear."

Stepping out underneath the pinpricks of light covering the winter sky, I am surprised to see rain clouds up above, as it is Namibia's dry season. It turns out that these are not clouds, but the unraveling swath of the Milky Way. The sheer number of stars melts the constellations of the Southern Hemisphere into a communal sparkle.

MONICA QUOCK CHAN / SPECIAL TO THE STAR-BULLETIN Namib-Naukluft Park is home to the highest dunes in the world, reaching as tall as 1,000 feet. The largest Namibian dunes can even be seen by satellite.

World's oldest desert

Entering the park, we behold the highest dunes on earth. Towering nearly 1,000 feet, they undulate like waves in an ocean of sand. Gusts of wind carve outever-changing hollows in the yielding dunes.

Located 45 dunes from the Sossusvlei pan, the sinuous curves of Dune 45 snake their way across the cyan sky. Our four-by-four vehicle struggles for traction. Slowly we weave our way to Dead Vlei, an aptly named parched depression strewn with broken trees.

Life persists despite the barren appearance of the desert. The 100-foot-deep Sesriem Canyon at the edge of the park twists and turns, revealing water at its upstream end. Minuscule tracks lead to a group of tenebrinoid beetles. These insects, locally called toktokkies, obtain water from fog by lifting their rear ends upward. Condensed fog rolls down the toktokkies' bodies into their mouths, quenching their thirst.

Near Dead Vlei, we attempt to scale one of the massive dunes. Sand whips across our path as we painstakingly ascend the precipitous ridge. Each step we take causes thousands of tiny grains to somersault down like waterfalls on either side of us.

Barely able to see the summit past the clouds of peach-colored sand, we decide to take the fast track back, straight down the side of the dune. It's an exhilarating tumble, half loping and half sliding down the dune's face. We are proud of the exercise we have gotten, until on our way back we spy Namibian marathoners effortlessly skimming over the sand in the afternoon heat.

MONICA QUOCK CHAN / SPECIAL TO THE STAR-BULLETIN Elephants, such as this one in Etosha National Park, are able to eat as much as 660 pounds of food per day.

Local flavor

Smiling farmers approach the main thoroughfare in a donkey cart and pull up next to us, hoping to catch a minibus to town. The scarcity of traffic indicates that it could be an inordinately long wait, but they are not perturbed; they can always come back tomorrow. We, on a schedule, always on a schedule, press onward.

In the city of Okahandja, we sample the famous jerky, known as biltong, offered in flavors from prosaic beef to exotic springbok. Nearby is Lake Otjikoto, one of only two natural lakes in the entire country. Resembling an oversize well, its name means "deep hole" in the local Herero language.

Herero elders, adorned in sharp suits and bright Victorian dresses, stroll solemnly through Okahandja's streets. The headdresses of the Herero women represent horns and signify the importance of cattle to the tribe. One of the prominent Herero chiefs has just died; this is his funeral procession.

Besides the Herero, Namibia has 10 major ethnic groups. The Ovambo are the largest group with about 1 million, and the San are reputedly the oldest, having inhabited the land for some 25,000 years.

The San and Damara languages are interspersed with difficult-to-imitate clicking sounds, represented here by "?." A guide at the local Ombo Farm teaches us "thank you" in his native tongue: "?in ?a."

Ombo Farm houses the world's largest bird, the ostrich, in various stages of development, as well as Nile crocodiles. Lunch consists of ostrich egg, but only part of one, as each egg is equivalent to 24 chicken eggs.

After miles of arid landscape, the town of Tsumeb seems an almost decadent oasis with its leaf-laden trees and blossoming shrubbery. It is unusual to see this much greenery in one place, as Namibia experiences roughly 300 days of sunshine per year.

MONICA QUOCK CHAN / SPECIAL TO THE STAR-BULLETIN Fleet-footed springboks, also shown in Etosha National Park, will leap into the air when alarmed.

"Do you like Africa?" he asks curiously, circling around.

"Yes," I reply, "and Tsumeb is the prettiest town in Namibia."

The boy beams wordlessly, the smile illuminating his face as he wheels away.

Dusk has fallen by the time we arrive at Mokuti Lodge just outside of Etosha National Park. Startled by our headlights, a giraffe thrashes into the bush, dust swirling in its wake.

A wildlife sanctuary covering about 14,000 square miles, Etosha is the third-largest game reserve in the world, housing more than 144 mammal and 340 bird species.

The park derives its name from the 3,000-square-mile expanse in the middle of the reserve known as the Etosha Pan. Verdant after the drenching summer rains, the depression evaporates during winter into a lifeless, mirage-edged landscape.

Standing directly in the Etosha Pan, the cracks of dried mud zigzag to the horizon. Fifty miles across, the flatness of the pan appears to extend endlessly. The sun bears down, as if trying to suck even more moisture from the already thirsty land.

Yet it is this very dryness that makes game viewing in Etosha exceptional. The animals, seeking water, congregate around the 40 or so water holes in the park. An extraordinary variety of wildlife can be observed by waiting next to water holes.

From the elegantly horned oryx to the fleet-footed hartebeest, from the stately striped kudu to the delicate dik-dik, antelopes abound in Etosha. Gentle steenboks, black-faced impalas, spiral-horned elands and springboks round out the mix. These are joined by a plethora of other species: lions, jackals, elephants, giraffes, wildebeests, zebras, mongooses and the amusing warthogs that run with their tails held straight up in the air.

The birds are even more diverse, from the rainbow-colored roller bird to the go-away lourie and its eponymous call, from dancing ostriches to the world's heaviest flying bird, the 42-pound kori bustard. Also sighted are whitebacked vultures, booted and brown snake eagles, guinea fowl, cape glossy starlings, greater flamingoes, yellow-billed hornbills, spotted dikkops and marabou storks. Bizarre moringa trees, their silvery trunks sporting rootlike branches, ensure that the foliage of the area is not overlooked.

MONICA QUOCK CHAN / SPECIAL TO THE STAR-BULLETIN The lilac-breasted roller bird is the national bird of neighboring Botswana.

Close encounters

Our knowing guide, Salatiel, rapidly starts the engine, muttering, "I don't trust it."

Driving off hurriedly, we remember: This is not a zoo.

At our final water hole of the day, the giraffes are skittish, heading away in groups. Surveying the landscape intently, we see nothing until keen-eyed Salatiel points out a lioness, half hidden in the bush.

Suddenly a slinking leopard appears. Cautiously padding out into the open, it slowly approaches the water hole. It is so quiet we can hear the leopard eagerly lapping up the water, oblivious to the lioness now stalking her dinner.

The lioness is within a few yards of the leopard when the spotted feline unexpectedly raises its head, spots the lioness and dashes off. With a deep-throated growl, the lioness gives chase. The leopard barely outruns the lioness, sprinting into the forest where it can scramble safely up a tree. This time, it has escaped.

Our own exotic dinner awaits us at the lodge, without the need to give chase. Fare such as grilled ostrich and oryx steaks are served nightly. In the morning before we head off again, we enjoy slices of sweet guava and granadilla fruit, supplemented with the boiled maize meal staple, mielie pap.

Windy city

The central Post Street Mall contains a unique exhibit of 33 meteorites that fell in southern Namibia 600 million years ago. Nearby is the Omba Gallery and Crafts Center, housing a respectable collection of artwork and traditional crafts. One of the most famous local landmarks is a few blocks away, the lovely sandstone Christuskirche (Christ Church). Overlooking Zoo Park, we dine on homemade spaetzle noodles with springbok on the balcony of Gathemann Restaurant.

Heading to the airport, we savor our last Namibian road trip. The tire-flung gravel, the signs warning of warthog crossings and the refreshing lack of traffic have by now become familiar.

It is the open road that beckons to the traveler, promising a new experience around each bend. Namibia's roadways, traversing this unpretentious yet breathtaking country, do well to fulfill that promise.