One of the great joys of travel is to discover something that's both so unlikely and life-affirming that its mere existence makes you smile.
Such was the case in Solitaire.
Solitaire, Namibia, gives new meaning to the expression "in the middle of nowhere." It's about halfway between Rehoboth and Sesriem Canyon, 35 miles north of the Tropic of Capricorn -- you know: in the Kuiseb Ephermeral River Basin, if that helps you place it.
It is a very hot, flat and sandy place on the edge of the Namib Desert, with some mountains rising in the distance, a few cacti and low, scrubby plants, trees and bushes. And that's about it.
A sign with an image of a meerkat and the words "Dead Slow" suggest that there might be some animal life around somewhere.
Solitaire owes its lively existence to an apple crumble recipe. It is a mighty and awesome apple crumble recipe, worthy of every hyperbolic gush and sublime observation ever uttered by an Iron Chef judge.
About 40 years ago, when he was 24, Moose MacGregor immigrated from Zambia and somehow decided that of all the places in the world, he would put down roots in Solitaire.
At the time, Solitaire was little more than a general store. But Moose, who had trained as a butcher, felt the tiny community needed something nicer to go with afternoon tea than the rather tasteless cakes sold at the store. He managed to find enough apples that had made their way into that corner of the desert to begin experimenting with apple pie.
Today, MacGregor and a small staff bake and sell about 450 pounds of apple crumble per day "in season" -- that is, when tourists might be heading beyond Sesriem Canyon to Sossusvlei to climb the impressive dunes in Naukluft Namib National Park in what Unesco calls the Sand Sea. It's a reasonable conclusion to say that MacGregor's pie, in part, powers most of the ascents up Dune 45, Big Daddy, Big Mama and other Sossusvlei sand hills.
MacGregor, who is almost always in residence, is a sunny man with a long ponytail and a white hat reminiscent of the one the great Cajun chef Paul Prudhomme used to wear. And MacGregor, like Prudhomme, shows some evidence of indulging in a fair amount of taste testing.
Quality control is important.
In addition to the crumble, the bakery also sells a dozen other baked goods, including a fair amount of his marble cake and "moose bread," which is characterized by a variety of different seeds.
A hotel has sprung up next to the bakery along with some Wild West ghost town landscaping, and a series of other entrepreneurs have tried their hand at making Solitaire a true roadside attraction. One collected abandoned cars and placed them around the grounds, where they serve as playground pieces for local children while their parents wait hopefully in the shade of the bakery patio for rides in functioning cars. A stacked tower of rusting, dull-colored wheels reflects an attempt at sculpture.
Paul Simon wrote sadly and ironically of "days of miracle and wonder" and "lasers in the jungle" on his "Graceland" album, recorded in neighboring South Africa during the apartheid period.
Thirty years later, Moose MacGregor has the antidote to that nightmarish vision with a true African miracle and wonder: apple pie in the desert and a dream fulfilled.
Email Arnie Weissmann at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter.