Tag: Sossusvlei

Sunup was at 6.30 am and we were first in line at the gate for the 4.45 opening except they actually didn’t open until five. It took one hour to get to within 4 kilometres of Sossusvlei. From here the road is only suitable for 4WD or feet. We only had the latter and it took us a good hour to trudge across the sometimes gravel but mostly sandy track. So after all that we missed the fucking sunrise over Sossusvlei!

But we there are plenty of other dunes on the way and the sunrise was still pretty good, as was the light as we got to Sossusvlei.
But it was more than just that.
Being out there with only the occasional Gemsbok for company (there was another couple, but they gave up after 20 minutes), surrounded by these spectacular shaped dunes changing colour before our very eyes was incredible.
Sossusvlei itself is without doubt the home of the most dramatic dunes. It has two as a backdrop one of which stands like a giant curly lock of hair, a semicircle with a tail supported by a mountain of red quartz sand grains.
This is the dune!
We spent an hour taking photographs, wondering around, eating our breakfast and just enjoying being the only privileged humans in what must be one of the world’s most special places.

That was until the buses arrive laden with camera carrying, overweight and loud tourists.
I have absolutely no objection to people seeing the world through a coach window, I believe they’re missing a lot a lot but I respect their choice. What I can’t understand is that insistence that some of them have to touch everything. In this instance they head straight for the dunes and walk along its finely sculptured ridge destroying the moment and changing its shape forever. Not massively of course because the dunes are constantly shifting their sands anyway and I suppose no damage is really being done. ……….But it’s the principle! Being on the dunes cannot be any better than just being there and seeing it untouched and undisturbed by the destructive feet of people who will climb down, get back into their bus and then ask “what’s next” as if it was something to tick off their list of ‘must-see’s in Namibia’.

We left them to it and walked to Deadvlei a kilometre away.
Deadvlei was equally as impressive but in a different way. A flat crusty white pan dotted with dead black trees of varying shapes and sizes against a backdrop of the sidewall of a huge dune. No finely sculptured sand shapes here just an impressive mountain range of dunes surrounding this eerie scene. And it was hot too! I set up the tripod and dripped sweat over the camera and the crunchy soil. Probably the first drop of fluid the pan had seen for who knows when.

We still had the 5 kilometre walk back in this heat. By now there was almost a continual stream of 4WD vehicles and buses following the track. Not one of them stopped to offer a lift!
Even the occupants of a Landcruiser that got bogged and I offered a hand, drove on past us once free. Back at the car we found out why! There’s a shuttle!! A small bus takes people back and forward to Sossusvlei for N$50(US$5) return or N$30(US$3) one way. No good for sunrise (it doesn’t start until 8) but would have been great for the return. If only we had known we thought, sweat stinging our eyes, our bodies crying out for liquid and legs weak from dragging them across the thick sand.

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The Desert is inhospitable place when it’s sunny & hot, when it’s raining and windy and still hot it’s pretty much the same. We had a day and a night to kill before our next booked accommodation at Sesriem (I’ll get to that later) so we found an obscure camping ground called Betheseda on the way and put up the tent ready to just relax. Our ‘neighbour’ was a young Uni. student called Jane who looked like she was here to stay for a long time, judging on the permanency of her tent and the number other occupants like dogs, chickens and turkeys who were obviously quite at home in an around her tent.

I checked out the swimming pool thinking that a swim and a doze by the side would wile away a couple of hours. Unfortunately it was empty.
Oh well, we’ll just crash by the tent I thought. Well the only thing that crashed was the weather. A thunderstorm came from nowhere and within minutes we were sitting inside the tent hoping our weight would prevent it from taking off and listening to those big drops of rain peppering the canvas walls. Finally we risked leaving the tent when the thunderstorm moved on but now the wind had changed direction and was a hot gusty son of a bitch which made everything dusty and uncomfortable and didn’t ease up until nightfall (at least we got a peaceful night’s sleep).

One of the disappointing things about budget travelling is the amount of planning you have to do! Having left a career that incorporates planning as an essential tool, I had sort of hoped that we wouldn’t need to do it much. The trouble is if you don’t plan then you could go wrong and miss out on something worth seeing or experiencing or possibly have to wait for another chance which means that you may be in the wrong place to sit around and then get bored and spend money!

For example we had to plan how much time we spent in Swakopmund so that we can get back to Windhoek to catch the tour to Botswana and get dropped off in Victoria Falls and then we have to decide how much time we spend in Zimbabwe, before getting to Malawi and Tanzania etc etc. But I guess it’s a lot better than having to plan what I’m going to say at the next Sales Meeting about sales for the month, strategies, KPI’s, WCA’s and other ‘exciting’ topics.

Back on the road again and the rain had left big lakes of water covering the gravel road. We (I say we but it was really me, Sue got out of the car to watch) managed to navigate through two of the three consecutive temporary water holes without mishap. The last one was a bit scary as the car began to slow the deeper it got but ‘Peter Brock’ here was equal to the challenge.

Sossusvlei is arguably, Namibia’s greatest natural attraction. It’s basically a 32,000 square kilometre area of sand dunes in the Namib Desert. But that doesn’t do it justice. Some of the world’s largest and most spectacular dunes are found here and Sossusvlei is merely the most accessible site. The German word vlei means pan and that is what Sossusvlei is, a huge dry pan set amongst 200 metres high dunes 69 kilometres from the civilization.

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Civilization is the Sesriem campsite, located on the Namib Naukluft National Park boundary. We had already worked out that if, like all keen photographers, we wanted to see these dunes at sunrise, we had to stay here. Access to the park gate is through the campsite. The park gate opens at 5 am the camp gate two hours later, so stay anywhere else and no sunrise! Of course for those not interested in getting up real early, there’s plenty of choice of accommodation, but they’re all quite a few kilometres from Sesriem let alone Sossusvlei.

Nothing wrong with Sesriem though. A huge big complex with huge wall lined sites. Each site was luxurious as campsites go with a water tap, a bin, a shady tree, a BBQ and a garden bench. Our site was right at the edge of the place almost in the desert, well actually it’s all in the desert, we just had a closer view. It has a pool, a bar and a shop. The former two came in real handy after our first look at the dunes.

In the extreme heat of the afternoon when really a siesta underneath a shady tree would have been better we drove down along the white dusty, sandy track. But it was worth it. We didn’t have time to go to Sossuvlei and get back before the park gates shut at Sunset, so we headed for dune 45. Dune 45 is the nearest high dune, which is 45 kilometres from the park gate. It stands almost on it’s own, rising from the flat pan around it, glowing red and brown in the bright sunlight which was rapidly being diffused by the sand laden wind.

Hiddenvlei, a sort of mini Sossuvlei but hidden by the many dunes behind dune 45 was a 2 kilometre walk away and the trip was notable for the thousands of pinpricks from the grains of sand that were now being propelled at us by the ever increasing gusts. Trying to take photographs was a challenge. Forget the tripod it was all I could do to stand still, let alone the hope the pathetic little thing that we had lugged with us would.

In some ways it was quite exhilarating, to be there virtually all alone amongst these sandy giants that shift shape in quite short periods of time. Apparently these dunes differ from the their more famous counterparts in the Kalahari and the Sahara in the fact that they are constantly being remodeled by the remorseless wind. Certainly we could see evidence of this before our very eyes as tiny particles of the colourful quartz sand spilled over the crest and down the leeward side. This side is called the slipface for obvious reasons and gives you the classic picture that Hollywood and others have served up as a backdrop for their countless desert blockbusters over the years.

By the time we got back it was dark and we ready to eat and smooth the sides of our parched throats with a couple of ales from the bar. We didn’t stay around long though. We had to be up at 3.30 am!

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