Jolita Janutenaite Uthe. Photo by Michele Zousmer.

By Sonja Piontek, guest contributor

The desert is still black as the women begin walking. No sunrise yet. No horizon. Only the crisp silence of the Namib and the soft sound of boots pressing into sand somewhere beyond the reach of sight. Headlamps flicker across the dunes like distant stars fallen to Earth. It is Jolita Uthe’s birthday.

Step by step, the expedition moves forward in a quiet line, led by two participants that are guiding the team through the first section of the day. Thick fog takes over a dawn that never fully has the chance to appear, swallowing what little visibility tries to emerge. It becomes impossible to distinguish where the desert ends and the sky begins.

And then, as it gets slowly brighter something extraordinary happens.

A vast arc of white light appears in the distance — suspended somewhere between the dunes and the horizon, framing the exact direction in which the women are headed. Ethereal. Almost unreal. Powerful. Spiritual. The group refers to it simply as “the light portal,” overwhelmed by the sheer beauty, depth, power and impossibility of the moment.

For more than an hour, the luminous arc (which days later they find out is a fogbow, a rare natural phenomenon) hovers ahead of them, quietly guiding their way — deeper into the desert, deeper into themselves.

“For me that was the moment where I felt a change, almost like a past left behind, and now we’re walking into this vast space of whatever life has to offer,” Jolita said. 

Originally from Lithuania and now living an accomplished international life in science in Iowa, Jolita joined the all-women Namib Desert Expedition searching for something hard to fully explain. Part challenge. Part inner reset. Part spiritual threshold. And perhaps, without fully realizing it at the time, part exactly the rebirth that she found.

In the surreal silence of the Namib, it genuinely feels like stepping from one reality into another. “When we walked through that white rainbow, it was such a releasing feeling that indeed I went from one world and came out into another world,” she reflected later.

The symbolism became impossible to ignore. A birthday. A desert crossing. A doorway of light appearing inside the fog. Jolita spoke about the experience as a rebirth. “Yes,” she said quietly afterwards. “It felt like I was being born into a new chapter.”

The Namib Desert Expedition is not a luxury retreat. Nor is it another wellness escape curated for social media. It is a physically and mentally demanding crossing through one of the harshest and most breathtaking landscapes on Earth.

The journey takes 10 days overall and over the course of five days, a carefully selected group of international women traverse 75 miles through the ancient Namib Desert – navigating towering dunes, relentless terrain, ever-changing temperatures, exhaustion, silence and the emotional exposure that comes when modern distractions disappear completely.

Jolita repeatedly speaks about becoming fully immersed in the present moment. “There weren’t thoughts in my mind,” she said. “There were just feelings, just deep gratitude.”

I am an entrepreneur, author, former director of marketing for BMW Asia, global keynote speaker and the creator of the Namib Desert Expedition. Having lived in six countries and spoken on stages in more than 50 around the world, I push beyond conventional ideas of leadership and transformation. I have a deep belief that human beings are capable of far more than they imagine.

I created the expedition not to guide women to their limits — but to show them what’s possible beyond. Some journeys test your limits. This one reveals your true strengths.

The expedition is unlike anything else in the world: part extreme desert crossing, part human transformation. What makes the experience especially transformative is not only the incredible landscape, but the collective strength of the sisterhood. The Namib is vast enough to make people feel insignificant. Yet, it also magnifies human connection. 

“I think without everybody — all of us — it would have been very difficult to cross the desert,” Jolita explained. “But we stuck together helping each other out. There is something so beautiful about women from all over the world from such different backgrounds coming together and supporting each other in that journey.”

The physical challenge itself was relentless. On one particularly steep dune, Jolita remembered standing at the summit breathing hard after the challenging climb. “And then I thought: This is the biggest sandcastle ever.” And smiled.

Descending requires surrender. “You have to trust the sand,” she explained. “Confidence not only in my legs, but confidence in the Earth.” That idea, to surrender instead of control, became one of the expedition’s deepest lessons for her.

The desert does not respond to force. Fighting the dunes only exhausts the body faster. The only way forward is rhythm, adaptability, humility and acceptance. Ironically, that acceptance creates peace. “I used to worry a lot and be sad about certain things. But I feel so peaceful now,” Jolita reflected after the expedition. “Even when things don’t go as I want them to go, I now have this feeling that all is well.”

For her, the expedition validated something she had intuitively felt before even before setting the first step in the sand. “When I first saw the ad, I just felt so excited,” she said, “Something inside me was telling me, ‘This is it. I need to go.’ And I am deeply grateful that I allowed myself to listen to my intuition.” 

Now, afterward, she understands the expedition was exactly what she needed.

Jolita was still processing the magnitude of it all as she hugs her desert sisters and boards the plane back to the U.S. When she saw the first drone videos she thought: “Oh my. I’m actually in this group. It’s not something from television. It really happened. And I was part of it!”

And maybe that is the true power of the Namib. Not simply that it challenges people physically. But that it removes them from ordinary life long enough to encounter themselves differently. Out there in the vastness, accompanied by silence, sisters and sun, something deep shifts. And it lasts.

About the Namib Desert Expedition

The Namib Desert Expedition is an international women-only desert crossing through the vastness of the world’s oldest desert. Over five of the 10 days of this journey, participants trek 120 kilometers through the Namib Desert — an area inaccessible to the public and only enterable with special permits.

The expedition is led by Sonja Piontek and supported by Namibia’s desert professionals, including a logistics crew, catering team and an expedition doctor. Custom camps are set up each night in spectacular desert locations, with participants sleeping in individual tents under the stars. The next women’s expedition is scheduled for May 2027, with the first team members already confirmed. www.namibdesertexpedition.com.

The first-ever Desert Men Challenge will be in October 2026 – a format created specifically for men. www.desertmenchallenge.com. 

Sonja Piontek is an author, keynote speaker, entrepreneur and the creator of the Namib Desert Expedition. More on Sonja Piontek www.sonjapiontek.com or sonja@sonjapiontek.com.