I woke to the gentle prodding of a flight at-tendant asking me to raise my windowshade for the landing in Windhoek. I com-plied, and was immediately assailed: a boltof white fury forced my eyelids to contractin submission, never to open again. Or, atleast, not until it was time to deplane.

A road trip across Namibia is an educa-tion in its own right, filled with trials, popquizzes and even the occasional all-nighterspent stargazing. Thanks to my brief forayinto sightlessness, my schooling had begunbefore I even touched down.

Lesson 1. The Namibian sun is everybit as potent as you’ve heard.

At midday, the formidable orb that lightsthe Namibian sky blazes so fiercely that thelandscape resembles an overexposed pho-tograph. Slipping on a pair of sunglasseshas the effect of adding an Instagram filter,retouching the panorama with definition,warmth and saturation.

Namibia has been called the Land GodMade in Anger — or, less poetically, theGates of Hell — but I wonder if the LandGod Forgot About might be more accurate.On a road trip through more than 1,500

miles of its stark terrain, it seemed asthough Namibia’s blueprint had been care-fully conceived but abandoned midthought:dried-out riverbeds left thirsting for water;rolling savannas devoid of vegetation; tow-ering mounds of sandy dunes shifting aim-lessly for millenniums, waiting to besculpted into something permanent. Andplenty of space, but few humans to fill it. Na-mibia is more than twice the size of Ger-many, but with just over two million people,it’s one of the least densely populated coun-tries on the planet. It’s austere, charred, for-saken — and that ferocious sun certainlydoesn’t help its case. God blessed Namibia

with plenty of light, but didn’t bother be-stowing many places to find respite from it.

And yet . . . God wasn’t completely ne-glectful, either: In few places can an earthypalette appear so kaleidoscopic. What couldhave been a drab monochromatic topogra-phy is instead beguiling, with shades ofwhite, red and brown galvanizing under theearly morning and twilight skies. The sunbegins to relent by late afternoon but re-fuses to slip away timidly, putting on anelectrifying show and dominating even inits final moments. If aurora borealis glowedscarlet and saffron instead of green and

A Namibian Road TripA seven-day journey by four women through a surreal landscape yields awe-inspiring sights, and hard-won lessons.

By SARAH KHAN

CONTINUED ON PAGE 6

Tourists walk up and down theSossusvlei dunes inNamib-Naukluft National Park.

JOÃO SILVA/THE NEW YORK TIMES

SUNDAY, JANUARY 31, 2016

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DISCOVERY ADVENTURE ESCAPE

10 PURSUITS Samba in the spotlight for Carnaval in Rio. 5 HEADS UP In Toronto, board games are on the menu. 8 EXPLORER The centrally isolated slopes over Mad River Valley.

the Beaux-Arts building is decorated withazulejos, the exquisite blue and white tilesfor which Portugal is famous. A short walkfrom the station are two establishments pa-tronized by Porto’s sweets-loving citizens.Confeitaria Serrana, a family-run bakeryfor over 40 years, serves the city’s best bolade Berlim (1.10 euros, or $1.16 at $1.06 to theeuro), a dose of custard sandwiched in asugar-dusted roll. At nearby Cremosi, thesuperb local gelato comes in boozy flavors,including port and gin and tonic. Combinethe two to make the frozen version of thecity’s signature drink, the porto tónico.

•2 4:30 P.M. PORT SHOPPING

Major port producers have their ware-houses in Vila Nova de Gaia, on the southside of the River Douro, but you’ll get amore thorough grounding in the local tippleby delving into the wine shops on the Porto

Stunning 18th- and 19th-century buildings,new indie bars and restaurants and a laid-back vibe, facilitated by the excellent wine— it’s hard to find anything to dislike aboutPorto. Its walkable center is crammed withcobbled streets and balconies adorned withflowerpots, and the city’s love of food anddesign is apparent in concept stores andtrendy restaurants offering innovativesmall plates. An ideal day in Porto combinesboth the grandeur of its history and its veryup-to-the-minute cool.

Friday•1 3 P.M. TRAINS, TILES AND TREATS

Most visitors arrive by train, and it’s worthtaking the time to examine the São Bentostation. Over a century old, the interior of

side. Run by the knowledgeable andfriendly Marco Ferreira and Célia Lino,Porto in a Bottle specializes in port fromsmall producers. Touriga Vinhos de Portu-gal is another worthwhile stop, offeringsamples of three ports for five euros and agood selection of Portuguese wines. Forthose who are more interested in samplingthan shopping, Vinologia offers a choice ofport flights (35 euros) that come with ashort introduction to the many varieties.

•3 8:30 P.M. MODERN PORTUGUESE

As one of Portugal’s rock star chefs, JoséAvillez is a household name. His first Portoventure, Cantinho do Avillez, draws touristsand locals for its creative dishes that com-bine techniques drawn from molecular gas-tronomy with the ingredients that definePortuguese cuisine. The lascas de bacalhau

36 HoursP O R T O, P O R T U G A L

From its Beaux-Arts station to cool bars serving its signature drink, a charming city combines the best of old and new.

DANIEL RODRIGUES FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

By NELL McSHANE WULFHART

Porto at sunset, with the cathedral at left and the Dom Luís I bridge at right. CONTINUED ON PAGE 11

6 TR THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, JANUARY 31, 2016

C M Y K Sxxx,2016-01-31,TR,006,Cs-4C,E1

blue, it would look a little something like aNamibian sunset.

2. As soon as you’ve booked yourflight, book your 4-by-4.

After consulting a map, I narrowed downa circuit encompassing the mighty Sos-susvlei dunes, the quaint beach town ofSwakopmund, and the notorious SkeletonCoast — it is said it is so named because it’swhere ships and whales come to die, stud-ding the shore with their sun-bleached re-mains — before veering inland, through thephantasmagoric mountainscape of Dam-araland, back to Windhoek.

It’s a well-trodden route, but you’d neverguess it. Another feature lacking in Namib-ia: good, tarred roads. Barring a few majorhighways, most of Namibia is linked by jar-ring dirt thoroughfares of variable quality,which means a four-wheel-drive is a requi-site if you’re brave enough to drive. Since Iwas traveling in August, Namibia’s peaktravel season — winter months translate topleasant daytime highs in the 80s and 90s —4-by-4s can be in short supply. My friendsSabiha, Safiyyah, Aadila and I secured a sil-ver Toyota Fortuner, and we learned rightaway why it was indispensable. At the outerlimits of Windhoek, the highway clocks outwithout notice, giving up and giving way toan endless sandy ribbon. We christened ourcar Dusty.

3. A group of women road-trippingthrough the brutal terrain is anunusual sight.

We set off from Cape Town over SouthAfrica’s Women’s Day weekend. It was a fit-ting tribute to girl power, but from hotelstaff to gas-station attendants to fellowtravelers, people we encountered seemedpleasantly surprised by the makeup of ourentourage — and occasionally a bit con-cerned.

It’s no breezy girls’ getaway; Namibiahas cemented a reputation as a masculineundertaking. The sides of the roads wereflecked with shredded tires, making mewonder how much rubber had succumbedto the ravages of Namibian gravel. Butwhile we might have been the first group tohit Namibia’s desert to a soundtrack of“Barbie Girl,” “Heaven Is a Place on Earth,”“Sweet Child O’ Mine” and assorted Bolly-wood tracks, testosterone is not a require-ment to go hurtling down rugged terrainwith a plume of dust billowing in your wake.Case in point: Charlize Theron in last year’sadrenaline-filled “Mad Max: Fury Road,”which was filmed across this harsh land-scape.

4. Sleep at thousand-star hotels.From Windhoek, we drove four hours

through an alternating backdrop of feature-less plains and undulating hills beforetaking a break. To call Solitaire a townwould be generous; its popularity stemssignificantly from the very fact that it ex-ists, since gas-station sightings are lesscommon than a mirage in Namibia’s hinter-land. Solitaire bloomed on the horizon justwhen we needed it, and we lingered over aslab of Moose McGregor’s Desert Bakery’sfamous apple crumble. The town sign,proudly proclaiming a current population of81/ 72/ 54/ 92, is a hit with tourists, artfullysurrounded by rusting car wrecks embed-ded in the dirt.

That night we checked into the NamibDune Star Camp. Nine solar-powered cot-tages are perched atop the dunes, and eachqueen-size bed comes on wheels so it can berolled out onto the deck for the evening.Namibia’s skies continue their theatricswell past dark: From bed, I tried to discernconstellations, marveling at how explorerslooked to the skies for centuries to navigatecontinents and oceans, when I can’t tell thedifference between shooting stars and air-planes. That night, I slept swathed in a glit-tering blanket of stars, with the sound of thewind whistling through the dunes remark-ably reminiscent of the ocean.

5. If you get the opportunity to rundown a dune, take it.

“Do you have a rope?” the man asked usby way of greeting the next afternoon. We’djust arrived at the Sossusvlei dunes, anhour in from the Namib-Naukluft NationalPark entrance, and were deflating our tiresto make our way through the last few sandymiles of off-roading. The shuttles that fer-ried less intrepid visitors were runningtheir last rounds, and it was clear that thispark staffer didn’t have much faith in theabilities of four women in a 4-by-4. He ges-tured to another Toyota Fortuner, stuck inthe velvety sand barely 50 feet away. “We’refinishing up for the day,” he warned. Hismessage was clear: if — when — we got intotrouble, we were on our own.

We sailed past Dusty’s kinsman founder-ing in the dirt, revving into our destinationin 15 minutes. But that wasn’t the hard part.

Ascending to heights of more than a thou-sand feet, Namibia’s ancient dunes areamong the tallest in the world. “They looklike mountain ranges,” Sabiha had re-marked when we first spotted them on thehorizon. I’d admired the hulking red peaksfor a moment before I realized “they” werethe very dunes I’d traveled this far to be-hold.

All around us, ocher sands rose in sinu-ous curves toward sharply chiseled ridges.The Namib Desert is the oldest in the world,and at 1,066 feet, Big Daddy, the tallest dunein the area, is the one we chose to conquerthe next morning. We plunged into the pow-dery slopes, sneakers absorbing sand at ev-ery step, and reached the summit in an hourand a half. Tawny silhouettes cascaded adinfinitum around us, and directly below, atthe foot of a near-vertical drop, lay the noto-rious Deadvlei: the desiccated clay pan, or“dead marsh,” a sprawling expanse of petri-fied white earth studded with carcasses ofacacia trees crisped into charcoal stumps.The effect is macabre, surreal, like a Dalípainting come to life — except it’s utterlydevoid of life. The fastest way to get a closerlook is to sprint all the way down, and that’sexactly what I did, kicking up an avalancheof dust with every stomp.

“That was at least a double black dia-mond,” said Sabiha, sinking contentedlyinto the sand.

6. Know how to change a flat tire (or atleast how to hail for help).

6b. Always spring for tire insurance.That afternoon we pressed on northwest

from Sossusvlei toward the Atlantic coast —but first, an age-old rite of passage. EveryNamibian trip has at least one flat tire writ-ten into its destiny; we met our fate an hourout of Walvis Bay. The sun was gliding awayfrom us, so we saved time by playing thedamsels-in-distress routine everyone ex-pected of us, knowing that four women witha flat wouldn’t be stranded for long. A cheer-ful Austrian family in a passing campergamely helped us out.

What they couldn’t help with: salvagingthe tire. Not opting for tire insurance turnedout to be a costly oversight.

A refreshing change from the desert, theseaside towns of Walvis Bay and Swakop-mund are perpetually cradled in a mistyembrace. In Walvis Bay, we watchedflamingos wading in the lagoon, their flashyfuchsia brightening the gloomy day. Half anhour north, Swakopmund is a mini Bavaria-on-the-beach, complete with cakelike Ger-man colonial buildings in pastel shades. Butits genteel environs belie the area’s statusas Namibia’s adventure capital — opportu-nities for sand boarding, parasailing and ex-treme dune driving abound. One morningwe went on a guided tour to Sandwich Har-bour, where the dunes spill into the ocean;the next, we tried quad-biking, spending anadrenaline-fueled hour on an all-terrain ve-hicle thrashing a loop through the desert.

7. The moon lies about 20 miles east ofSwakopmund.

If you ask for directions to the moon, youare likely to get blank stares. We realizedthis on our way out of Swakopmund, search-ing for an area marked simply on our mapas Moon Landscape. From faux-Germany,we were on a mission to faux-outer space.

“Are you sure they didn’t just mean . . .this?” I asked Safiyyah as we drove in cir-cles, gesturing to the same barren terrainwe’d been seeing throughout Namibia. “No,this isn’t what the moon looks like!” sheshot back.

When we finally found it, the scenery wasas lunar as advertised. Safiyyah pilotedDusty into an otherworldly, crater-riddledsetting, a rocky canyon marked by outcrop-pings rippling for miles in the distance. Justwhen you think Namibia’s terrain is unlikeanything on earth, it goes celestial on you.

8. Namibians can be a trusting people.We returned to Earth by way of Cape

Cross, a remote outpost that’s home to a tidylodge, a smelly seal colony and little else,driving along a road lined with testamentsto Namibian ethics. The fields surroundingthe highway shimmer with salt crystals,and enterprising souls have meticulouslygathered and cleaned the most beautiful,displaying them on makeshift, unmannedstalls. Prospective shoppers pull over, se-

lect their favorites, consult a price list anddrop the appropriate amount into a peanutbutter jar, presumably to be collected in thefuture. This honor system would neverwork in neighboring South Africa, wherethe next car would pull up and empty the jar,taking all the crystals for good measure.But with a population about the size ofHouston scattered over a land mass biggerthan Texas, parts of Namibia manage to re-tain the quirks of a virtuous small town.

A Namibian Road Trip

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

SARAH KHAN, a frequent contributor to theTravel section, is based in Cape Town.

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100 MILES

NAMAMIBIA

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Top, dunes in Namib-NaukluftNational Park, in the Namib Desert.Above, from left, rusted car by thesmall settlement of Solitaire; theroad (what there is of it) toSandwich Harbour; and an old fuelpump in Solitaire. Top right,flamingos in the lagoon in WalvisBay, and a sign for the SkeletonCoast, a national park with atreacherous coastline.

THE NEW YORK TIMES

TR 7THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, JANUARY 31, 2016

C M Y K Sxxx,2016-01-31,TR,007,Cs-4C,E1

Cruising onward through Skeleton CoastNational Park — a cheerful skull and cross-bones welcomes you at the gates — wecounted two cars in three hours. I’m anavowed teetotaler, but I couldn’t help butwonder if anyone has thought to take a shotevery time they pass another car in theseparts; it would seem a benign enough drink-ing game that even the driver could safelypartake. For more of a buzz, though, youmight want to have a sip every time you spy

something unusual at the side of the road:upside-down sedans tanning their bellies;an abandoned oil rig rusting in the sun; awheel-less wheelbarrow; a solitary leatherboot; shipwrecks bobbing in the sea. Driv-ers should sit that game out.

9. Always yield to elephants.Driving in Namibia is not for the easily

distracted: A high tolerance for monoto-nous roads and an ability to focus as an un-

interrupted terra-cotta canvas unfurlsaround you is imperative. It’s not uncom-mon to brake for an oryx sprinting acrossthe highway. The heat warps your vision,convincing you that puddles exist in placesthat haven’t seen rain in months or that thescorched asphalt is vaporizing in the sun.

From the coast we turned inland towardDamaraland, home to curiously shapedmountains that conceal millenniums-oldrock carvings, creating an expansive open-

air art gallery. Stops to view etchings atTwyfelfontein, Namibia’s first UnescoWorld Heritage site, and the aptly namedOrgan Pipes rock formation meant weended up driving the final 150 miles of theday in the dark. The dodgy roads are chal-lenging enough in the blazing sun, but atnight they’re positively treacherous.

Safiyyah and Aadila had just dozed off inthe back when two shadowy giants loomedfrom the bushes, and the occasional ele-phant-crossing sign I’d noted with amuse-ment became all too real. A few seconds ear-lier and we might have gotten a trifle tooclose for comfort; a few seconds later andwe would have missed them entirely. Butour timing was perfect. We stared, en-tranced, as the pair lumbered over a fence,blurring out of focus as quickly as they’dcome in. Predictable is one attribute Godleft out of His Namibian plan.

10. Namibia gets under your skin.And your nails. And inside your nostrils,

behind your ears, around each hair follicle,between every fold of your suitcase. Nomatter how much I shook off my clothes orscrubbed my skin, I found traces of the dis-tinctive red earth for days after I left — adusty diploma I inadvertently carried backas proof of my graduation from Namibia’stests. Namibian soil is the souvenir thatreappears when you least expect it, bring-ing with it a sand storm of memories.

WHERE TO STAY

Namib Dune Star Camp,Hardap; gondwana-collection.com; doubles from1,374 Namibian dollars, or $86at 16 Namibian dollars to theU.S. dollar, per person, includ-ing breakfast... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Kulala Desert Lodge, Sos-susvlei; wilderness-safaris.com;doubles from 2,059 SouthAfrican rand, or $130 at 16 randto the dollar, per person, includ-ing breakfast and dinner... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Egumbo Lodge, 42 KovamboNujoma Drive, Walvis Bay;egumbolodge.com; doublesfrom 2,400 Namibian dollars,including breakfast... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The Stiltz, Am Zoll, Swakop-mund; thestiltz.net; doublesfrom 1,897 Namibian dollars,including breakfast... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Cape Cross Lodge, C34, northof Henties Bay; capecross.org;doubles from 1,115 Namibiandollars, per person, includingdinner and breakfast.

WHERE TO EAT

La Brocante, Macadam Street,Windhoek; facebook.com/labrocante.vintage. .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Joe’s Beerhouse, 160 NelsonMandela Avenue, Windhoek;joesbeerhouse.com... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Anchors at the Jetty, Water-front, Walvis Bay; facebook.com/anchorsatthejetty. .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Tug, Swakopmund Jetty area;the-tug.com... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Slowtown Coffee Roasters, 9Altona Haus, Swakopmund;slowtowncoffee.com... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Bojos Cafe, 13 Daniel Tjon-garero Street, Swakopmund;facebook.com/Bojos-cafe-149659088459558... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Moose McGregor’s DesertBakery, Solitaire.

CAR RENTAL

A four-wheel-drive is a must forNamibia’s roads. We rented aToyota Fortuner for seven daysfor about $550.

WHAT TO DO

Sossusvlei, Sesriem Gate,Namib-Naukluft National Park;sossusvlei.org; admission 60Namibian dollars per person... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Sandwich Harbour four-wheeldrive tour, Laramon Tours,Walvis Bay; laramontours.com;1,000 Namibian dollars perperson, including light lunch... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Quad biking, Desert Explorers,Swakopmund;namibiadesertexplorers.com;excursions from 400 Namibiandollars per person... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Twyfelfontein, Damaraland;admission 50 Namibian dollarsper person... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Organ Pipes, Damaraland;admission 40 Namibian dollars.

IF YOU GO

From left: Zebras run along thegravel road between Sossusvleiand Walvis Bay; the beach nearSandwich Harbour; sealsgathered at Pelican Point; andthe Moon Landscape on theoutskirts of Swakopmund.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY JOÃO SILVA/THE NEW YORK TIMES