Incorporating the local residents as partners in both the hospitality industry and the conservation operation completely changed the narrative and prospects of their communities. For the first time ever, the people here had opportunities to find employment, receive training and develop their potential. People who knew this land better than anyone in the world, who previously had to kill off predators to protect the desperate attempts at keeping livestock and were easy targets for cunning poachers with deep pockets who needed a hand on the ground, now had agency to protect the golden geese that brought them employment, economy and so much pride. And nobody was more equipped to do so than the inhabitants of this land.

My new foreign friends’ excitement at the sight of a couple of giraffes humbles me to the privilege of living in a country where wild, exotic animals are almost taken for granted. I look with new eyes and see, once again, the magnificence.

“A herd of giraffes is actually called a tower of giraffes,” Bons says.

No, we didn’t know that.

Bons whips out a classy sunset cocktail bar in the middle of nowhere. The sun drops like the curtain after a spectacular stage production. We toast to new friends and the wonder of the wilderness around us.

A chilly winter ride back to camp sends us to our rooms for hot showers and proper padding before dinner.

In the luxurious canvas-and-stone tented rooms, everything is, yet again, just so. Lush bedding, colours and textures, light fixtures and power sockets are all exactly where you need them to be, as effortlessly elegant as nature itself.

We meet up for dinner, warm water bottles for our laps. Our waiter, Water, is attentive and intuitive to our every move. My companions and I are at a loss for words yet again. How can a kitchen and a cook produce such exquisite, wonderfully prepared, beautifully presented dishes so far from civilisation? Ingrid Noeh Tewes had brought her two young adult daughters to Africa in celebration of her sixtieth birthday. “We knew it would be wonderful, but we didn’t expect this. We could never have imagined this…”

To see the beautiful and worldly youngsters equally moved by what they have seen and experienced makes me wonder what exactly it is about this place that transcends age, nationality, culture and experience.

Perhaps this particular corner of the earth is one of the last outposts of pure existence. It resonates with the soul and affects you on a cellular level, an existential, carnal recognition. It is not for everyone. It is not a zoo. Or a game park for instant gratification.

You work hard to see one of the last remaining desert- adapted black rhinos. A whole day’s excursion with an expert guide and the devoted Save the Rhino Trust trackers might secure you a single, or if all the stars align, two or three sightings. It requires having lunch in a dry riverbed (tables, tablecloths, cold wine, gourmet picnic – not an inconvenience by any measure), driving for hours and hours over rough terrain, looking, waiting. It demands tremendous respect and obedience, once located, following the tracker in a single file, only as far as they know you can safely go without disturbing or provoking the rhinoceros.

Exhausted and euphoric, the visitors attempt to relay their impressions of the day back at camp. Sophia has taken thousands of photographs, but not enough. “I don’t want to leave,” she tells her mother.

Me neither.

Around the fire, where the chef is busy with another five-star barbeque on the grid, Bons tells us stories of growing up in Damaraland. How, as young boys, they would taunt the rhinos, the bravest earning himself the lion’s share of the other boys’ dinners.

Now, when he speaks about these last remaining free-roaming animals with a price on their heads and the very real and continuous threat of their disappearance, it is with reverence and passion. It is evident that he loves his job and he really, really loves his rhinos. “You do not know the difference that you make by being here, investing in our communities, how our lives have changed…”

After a lifetime of living here, he still cannot stop photographing animals, sunsets and trees. He shows us reels and reels on his phone with unwearied enthusiasm. He has seen it all and he keeps on seeing.

Ingrid gives up trying to hold back the tears as the staff sing to us, here under the stars, moving, clicking their special vernacular sounds, humming and dancing. Angelica with the angelic voice. Water with the ready smile and shining eyes, excited that he is learning to drive with the prospect of following in his uncle Bons’ footsteps to become a guide. The spell of Damaraland and Desert Rhino Camp stayed with me for days after I returned. It changes me every time. Yet I think it changes you back to your selfest self.

Perhaps when the world was created, the dust that I will return to be was already there, waiting for me. Maybe we are all ancient. And I am Damaraland. TN