Swakopmund

We spent a couple of nights and a day in Swakopmund, truly one of the stranger small cities we've ever visited. It feels like the city on the edge of nowhere. A tidy town almost barren of vegetation, it appears out of the desert like a cardboard village in a children's pop-up book. Perched on the cusp of the Namib and the South Atlantic, it has two weather systems--blinding sun and obfuscating fogs--which can alternate at any time. The likes of rain and snow do not visit here. We used the downtime to get a few items for our nuptials and to chat with the locals at the barbershop about Mark's beard, Sarah's Herrero wedding gown, the origins of the "Baster" culture, and Angelina Jolie's famous baby-delivering visit to the town. Then in the afternoon we went for a scenic flight.

Too high to spot the rock art or the elephants, too low to miss the weather, we were treated to a nonetheless memorable display of the interaction between desert and ocean. As the flight went on, a late afternoon fog began to roll in, first obscuring the ocean, then the coast, and then encroaching on our approach to the landing strip.

Below us the dunes were still vivid in the late light,

but by the time we landed, on visual flight rules, we were the last plane into Swakopmund for the day. Another, unluckier, small group of tourists had their scenic flights diverted to a landing strip 60 kilometers away. Once more, we were reminded that even today this geography is to be admired but not to be trifled with.