The wild horses of the Garub have run free in the desert for almost a century. Watching the legendary herd grazing on the tall golden grass of the plains is an exhilarating experience. Like the mustangs of the Wild West and the brumbies of the Outback, these horses of the Namib are untamed, unbound, unbroken by man.
We come across the wild horses of Namibia at a water hole in the middle of the desert. Scattered across the stony plains in the noonday sun, they are too many to count. After good summer rains, there are many foals. With lustrous reddish-brown coats for camouflage, they blend unobtrusively into the sandy, ochre landscape of the Namib.
Spellbound, we watch a herd of about 170 wild horses flitter across the shimmering plains like a mirage against a hazy backdrop of blackened koppies and the distinct peak of "Dick Wilhelm", 1 505 metres high. A skittish stallion ambles over to our jeep on the ridge to check out the intruders. In the sweltering heat, Wild Horses, an evocative old Rolling Stones song, spins around and around in my head.
Wild horses were first sighted on the Garub in the 1920s. Posters in a rustic wooden lookout suggest there are as many legends about their origins as horses. Historians debate whether the horses were shipwrecked on the Skeleton Coast in the late 19th century, runaways from Namibian stud farms, or the descendants of German and South African cavalry horses dispersed in desert battles during World War 1.
"The grass hasn't been this high since 1976," explains Piet Swiegers, our knowledgeable guide and host. "We've had the best summer rains in 30 years. The horses foal in times of plenty."
Pointing out horses called Calypso and Millennium, Swiegers says most of the horses have been named by biologist Telané Greyling.
Greyling has identified three main bloodlines in her research into the gene pool - Cape Boerperd, Hackney, and Trakehner - the last of these imperial descendants of Prussian stock bred by Baron Hansheinrich von Wolf at the Duwisib stud farm in the early 19th century.
The horses of the Namib are hardier than any domestic breed. Evolving over the decades in extreme desert conditions, only the toughest survive. The horses visit the water hole every 30 hours or so in scorching summers - and at intervals of up to three days in winter. They graze day and night, 17 out of 24 hours, compared with the French horses of the Camargue that graze for 13 hours.
Since many horses starved to death during a drought, man now intervenes to provide food and water in such times of crisis. Today, rangers monitor the horses - and make sure the tourists keep a safe distance.
Listening to the whinnying of wild horses, I recall Horses on the Camargue, Roy Campbell's tribute to "the stallions of the wilderness with white tails smoking free, long streaming manes and arching necks".
The great South African poet writes: "In a shroud of silence like the dead, I heard a sudden harmony of hooves, and, turning, saw afar, a hundred snowy horses unconfined, the silver runaways of Neptune's car."
The Garub feels like a forbidden frontier. Magical signs on the road to Luderitz warn motorists of the presence of wild horses. Other unusual signs warn the public not to enter the "sperrgebiet", the huge prohibited diamond area that runs south all the way to the border on the Orange River.
The proclamation by the German colony of the no-go zone in 1908 had an unintended result - creating a sanctuary for the feral horses, protecting them from hunters, horse-catchers and farmers.
Diamond legends run as freely as wild horses though the history of Aus.
We came across the rusty remains of a vintage Hudson Terraplane automobile in the veld at Klein-Aus Vista, our guide's old family farm. Piet Swiegers spun an incredible story about the old relic from the 1930s - of how diamond smugglers taking the back roads out of the sperrgebiet were killed in a shoot-out with police detectives led by his grandfather. You never know what you'll find when you delve into diamond country.
Visitors find out about the wild horses and desert attractions at the brand-new Aus Info Centre and village museum. For decades, travellers have stopped over at Aus, the southern gateway to the Namib desert.
Meaning "fountain of snakes" in the Nama dialect, Aus is an oasis on the long road from Keetmanshoop to the coast. This outpost is a key point on the new Gondwana desert route that runs in a horseshoe from Windhoek down to the Fish River Canyon, then by way of Aus through the Namib back up to the dune sea of Sossusvlei.
"The Aus River ran 14 times last year - for the first time since 1983," says Piet Swiegers.
Our guide is one of the three brothers who run the Desert Horse Inn at Klein-Aus Vista on their farm.
City slickers looking for a sanctuary should head for Eagle's Nest, nestled in the Aus mountains at 1 400m above sea level. Carved out of massive granite boulders, the eight natural rock chalets offer breathtaking views of the Gondwana Sperrgebiet Park, a vast new 510km2 wilderness area that is renowned for its rare flora and fauna, dramatic landscapes and hiking trails.
"This is one of the 20 most important biomes in the world" says Swiegers, who trained as a zoologist, established an ostrich farm in Florida and now spearheads the tourist industry of Aus.
On a sunset drive through the park, he explains that Aus lies at the unique botanical crossroads between the Dune Namib and the Succulent Karoo. The great Namibian desert ends to the north of the road to Luderitz, the Karoo begins south of the road, and the horses run wild in between, beneath the stars of the southern cross.
Returning through the atmospheric Geisterschlucht (ghost valley), we come across koppies ringed with dry-stone ramparts, built by the German Schutztruppen to hold back an invading force of 10 000 South African troops with 8 000 horses camped on the plains of Garub in March 1915.
The lonely war cemetery is filled with the iron-crosses of the German soldiers who died in the internment camp at Aus in the Great Spanish flu epidemic of 1918.
The wild horses that roam the plains are like the ghosts of these brave cavalry officers, staying true to the spirit of the great wide open.
- Howe was a guest of Namibia Tourism Board. See Namibia Tourism Board