Then I discovered they are indefinable places of immense stillness, vast silences which spread and fill the air with a million noises, places where the stars are bigger, the moon brighter, the colours more intense and the light cleaner. They are also bloody hot, freezing cold, uncomfortable, dirty, dangerous places filled with scorpions, adders, vipers and cobras, the thorns on the plants would rip your heart out in a second and, in most African deserts, bandit warlords control your destiny. I have been in many deserts in Africa. The Ogaden and Danakil Deserts of Ethiopia, the Namib, Kaokoveld, Damaraland, the Kalahari, the Northern Frontier District of Kenya and its Kaisut, Dida Galgallu and Chalbi Deserts. This is one of the most bewildering landscapes in Africa.
Every vista is different.
No matter where you look, there's another view. Around the next corner, you could be on another part of the planet. The mountains soar and tumble, the plains stretch into heat waves that vanish in a lost horizon. The rocks are a hundred different shades of red, ochre and orange, and several shades of black. The Orange River is an almost obscene winding oasis of lush green and soothing waters hugging the northern and eastern borders of the park in a foetal embrace.