Finding fairy circles and foxes on Namibia's sustainable desert safari

The desert safari that’s actively preserving the landscape – and its mysteries

NamibRand Nature Reserve in southwest Namibia (Martin Harvey)

After negotiating a shadowy pass between two expansive orange dunes, we roll out into a valley. Its steep walls are pockmarked with thousands of circles imprinted in the sand. They glint in the harsh desert sunlight like innumerable unblinking eyes.

Known as fairy circles, these sandy halos freckle a strip of land on the edge of the Namib Desert stretching 1,800km (1,118 miles) from Angola to the northwestern cape province of South Africa. Here, in the red sands of the NamibRand Nature Reserve in southwest Namibia, they are at their most abundant.

Curiously, scientists, despite decades of research, remain baffled by their cause.

I ask Tabita, our guide, for her theory. “I think it is God,” she says, lifting one hand from the Land Rover steering wheel and waving wildly in the direction of the valley walls. “If he decorated animals with stripes or spots, why not the sand too?”

Tabita is a Catholic convert. Her tribe – the Himba – has different ideas. According to one oral myth the circles are footprints of ancient desert gods, while another pronounces that a dragon living beneath the Earth’s crust breathes fiery bubbles which, when they hit the surface, burn the vegetation into near-perfect rings.

NamibRand Nature Reserve, a vast, privately owned reserve covering almost 200,000 hectares, has made it its mission to preserve these unusual phenomena and the desert landscape that hosts them.

In 1992, observing how the large-scale sheep farming common to the region and ever-increasing bouts of drought were destroying the delicate desert eco-system, Namibian conservationist Albi Brückner bought up a number of livestock farms to create the reserve. He cleared away dividing fences and built a simple tented camp, named Wolwedans, among the dunes. Once the blonde desert grasses had regrown and oryx (antelope) crisscrossed the sand again, he started to offer desert safaris to fund the conservation of the enormous area.

Sun seekers: Dunes Lodge uses solar power to stay sustainable

Wolwedans is now comprised of four camps, each designed to have minimal environmental impact: solar energy is used to power lights and fridges, vegetables are grown in a desert oasis, and water usage is carefully monitored. If guests overrun their allocated 50 litres, their supply, we’re told, is cut off.

We stay at the impossibly situated Dunes Lodge, where nine canvas-fronted rooms perch on marmalade-orange sand. Dunes roll in unbroken waves to every startlingly blue horizon.

Safaris here are not about ticking off the Big Five. We are awed, not by dangerous game but simply by winding a snaking course through these bewildering, beautiful, baking-hot lands. The animals we do see – oryx, ostrich and occasionally springbok – have learnt to go without drinking water, sometimes for up to a week. Their only moisture comes from the sea mist, which rolls in from the South Atlantic Ocean, dampening the desert grasses.

Magical mystery tour: fairy circles in the sand have baffled scientists

“To live in the desert you have to be clever,” says Tabita.

The fog-basking tok tokkie beetle stands on its head on dune tops to catch the fog, which drips down into its mouth, explains Tabita by way of an example.

We scramble out of the Land Rover and trace the feathery tracks of a golden mole and a pair of elephant shrews across a flat section of dune. We find a pale-skinned horned adder coiled, almost indistinguishable, between the dusty roots of a quiver tree.

Desertscape: Guided walks show off the dramatic colours of the dunes (Martin Harvey)

Early evening, having driven through the reddening dunes to a lookout point, we return to the subject of fairy circles. Scientists, says Tabita, believe the ring-like roots of poisonous euphorbia plants could be causing the bare circles.

Our conversation is interrupted by Tabita charging up a nearby dune in pursuit of a cape fox. We trail in her wake, our trainers filling with sand.

Another option, she says, once we’ve established that the wily fox is lost to its desert burrow, is the underground activities of termites beneath the sand. Several sand termite experts have been to the reserve, she says, yet their research has been inconclusive.

“It’s a mystery,” she concludes happily as the sun turns the dunes to the colour of paprika.

Seen in a different light: the Dunes Lodge at night

Along with its conservation efforts, the reserve funds the NamibRand Desert Research and Awareness Centre, where visiting zoologists and botanists have studied camel thorn trees, aardwolves and wedge-snouted lizards – along with scratching their heads over fairy circles.

If all this speculating gets too much, you can simply adopt a fairy circle. For NAD 1000 (£60), a numbered disk is placed on your chosen circle and you are given a certificate recording its exact coordinates. The money goes towards the continued conservation of the reserve.

“Alien landings?” says a guest at dinner. “Diamond mining,” says another. We’re seated out on the wooden decking; above, the sky is a rich, velvety blue. The stars twinkle like thousands of floating fairies, just waiting to land.

Travel essentials

Getting there

South African Airways flies to Windhoek, Namibia, from £774. Wolwedans is around 390km (242 miles) from Windhoek. Contact Wolwedans for transfer information or hire your own four-wheel drive.

Staying there

Wolwedans Dunes Lodge costs from £341, all-inclusive.