There’s More to Namibia than Angelina Jolie

Surreal days and starry nights in southwest Africa.

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A MALE OSTRICH—8 feet tall and wide as a Hum mer —galumphs in front of our van as we shudder over a hardpan track in the ancient Namib desert. “You don’t want to hit one of those mother-roonies,” shouts our driver, swearing in German.

Ostrich sightings are just one of the hallucinatory joys of travel in Namibia. At a distance, they look like thatched huts floating on spindle sticks. When accelerating to a lope, they could be escapees from Jurassic Park.

During my stay, no sights or howls or sagey smells repeat to reinforce reality. I see a lagoon of flamingos from Out of Africa. I see grizzled colonials from The English Patient. I expect my passport to be stamped Dream State.

And I have no urge to wake up.

Even when I am bit by a meerkat——well, actually, a meerkitten, a youngster the color of toast. He appears, chasing his tail, and seems startled to find a gaggle of humans sitting in camp chairs, enjoying a bush lunch in the shade of a thorn tree. I say hello, lowering my hand and smiling, until I see pinpricks of blood. The only alcohol in sight is a German beer, so I dip a napkin and press tight.

“T.I.A.,” our guide, James McKenzie, says pleasantly, which is especially nice since it is his beer. “This is Africa.”

From day one, James, a native of South Africa, has admonished us not to expect things to run as smoothly as in America. When luggage goes awry or departures are delayed, when there are inexplicable bumps in a menu or itinerary, he shrugs: “This is Africa.”

THE OTHERWORLDLY JOURNEY begins as our 50-passenger aircraft, northbound from Cape Town, crosses into the former German South- West Africa. To the east lie fiery red dunes, the highest on Earth; to the west, a broad bolt of Atlantic blue; below and dead ahead, the shimmering white of salt flats and bleached sand.

The airstrip at Walvis Bay is equally surreal. We climb down portable steps into crackling dry air and a noonday sun so bright the runway smears into the desert. Ripples of heat blur the tires. The pilots emerge, seeming to walk without legs. It is most likely a mirage, but still . . .

Ten of us pile into a van bound for Swakopmund, a coastal town of 35,000, founded by German colonials in 1892. They say you can drive 50 miles in Namibia without seeing another vehicle. The only one we pass is a rusty Volkswagen bus, deep-sea fishing rods strapped to its roof and arching in the wind.

Midway between Walvis Bay and Swakopmund, the driver points toward the seaside enclave of Burning Shore. “That is where Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt hid out before their baby, Shiloh, was born in 2006. They chose Namibia because it offers peace and quiet and no paparazzi. You will see.”

More than half the size of Alaska, Namibia ranks with Mongolia among the least-densely populated lands on Earth. With few major roads, and only one nonstop flight a day from Cape Town to Walvis Bay, it is relatively easy to track comings and goings.

But there is more to Namibia than Pitt and Jolie, even though they put the place on the global map for millions of Hollywood fans.

Dunes drift in the ruddy Sossusvlei, erasing footprints in minutes. Sparrow weavers hang hundreds of gossamer nests, as fanciful as Japanese lan terns, from the boughs of a single acacia tree. The desert outpost of Solitaire (population 7) claims to be the smallest town in the Southern Hemisphere. The mayor, a man named Moose, runs the gas station, ga rage and general store, selling Eskimo pies and spouting information.

“You never know,” he grunts, banging the cash register. “No one here at all this morning. Suddenly the whole world pulls in.”

The whole world being two vans, three motorcycles, a bus and a Land Rover.

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