Windhoek is the country’s geographical heart and commercial nerve center in the Central Highlands, with an ethnic mix of people. Namibia is one of those dreamlike places that make you question whether something so visually orgasmic could actually exist.

Harsh and inhospitable, yet austerely beautiful, Namibia is essentially a desert country. Along its Atlantic coast, the Namib stretches, parched and raw; to the east lies the Kalahari, arid and forbidding; in its central escarpment, mountains like jumbled Palaeolithic axes rise, while in the north water may occasionally turn green a landscape normally aching with drought. Yet, for all who appreciate the unique, this mysterious land in Africa’s south-western corner is a singular place in every part of its existence.

Here are flora and fauna, which have developed sophisticated techniques of survival. In the face of an uncompromising climate, in a “wilderness,” zebra, elephant, and giraffe, and a host of exotic birds and insects co-exist with such rarely seen creatures as the Namib Golden Mole.

Here are the Bushmen, so perfectly in harmony with their environment, the Kaokoland dwellers, on whom the 20th century has hardly impinged, the Owambo, who more than most have embraced both the ravages and the rewards of the modern world, the Khoikhoi, the Nama, the Herero… here too, are the legacies left by generations of colonial powers who came in search of wealth and glory.