Our visit to Sossusvlei, and in particular Deadvlei, was one of our most memorable experiences of our whole trip. The harsh, dry landscape was simply stunning!
The entrance to Sossusvlei National Park is in Sesriem, which in itself is a campsite, petrol station and little else. We first had to get a permit to enter the park, which was pretty painless. A further 64km of – thankfully! – tarred road would take us to the heart of the park and the famous Deadvlei.
We loved the drive; the scenery, the skies, the animals were amazing and the colours of the mountains changed with each passing kilometre. Our first viewpoint was Dune 45 – one of the biggest and certainly the most famous dune in Sossusvlei. We would argue there were some bigger ones, but Dune 45 had a few green trees situated right in front of it which added to its appeal.
Our next stop was in the heart of Sossusvlei and from this point onwards 2×4 cars were not allowed. Soon after we got on the 4×4 shuttle, it was evident why! It was extremely sandy and slippery and at times the sand was a few feet deep. After 5km we were dropped off in what seemed like the middle of nowhere. There was no-one else around (In fairness, what lunatic plans to walk two hours in the Namib desert at midday?!) so we didn’t even know in which direction to walk. The driver vaguely pointed in a direction and wished us good luck. And there we were, two lonely souls walking in the dead of heat in one of the driest and hottest places on earth.
We eventually identified life ahead of us
And then we saw Deadvlei. And for a while we forgot about the sun, the heat, the lack of factor 50 on our faces and we just stared at this incredible, indescribable and hauntingly beautiful place.
Deadvlei is a white clay area where once rain fell that caused thorn trees to grow there. However, these trees died 600-700 years ago and, due to the harsh sun, have been faded grey or black and because of the dry air have never decomposed either.
It is not often in life that you come face to face with scenery that literally stops you dead in your tracks. Or which forces you to exclaim “wow!” every five minutes. Deadvlei was this place. Understandably also a photographer’s playground, as there are so many opportunities for incredible photos that you can spend the whole day there. It was also incredibly quiet and at some point we were the only people for miles.
Unfortunately the heat of the scorching Namib sun forced us to walk back after an hour or so. Deadvlei is a very special place. While tourism is alive and well, it remains quiet enough to enjoy on your own and without the sore sight of tourist buses. I truly hope this doesn’t change in the future.
We had a quiet drive back and saw more gemsbok, springbok and ostrich. It really is quite amazing to see so much wildlife on a trip where you weren’t expecting to see much.
Before exiting the park, we had one final stop – Sesriem Canyon. The Tsauchab River has shaped the canyon over millions of years and today it is around a mile long and 30m deep. The early Afrikaans explorers in the region named the canyon after the fact that they had to use six (“ses”) leather straps (“riem”) tied together to create a rope long enough to lower buckets into the canyon below, in order to fetch water.
Oh wow! I never would have been able to stop taking pictures.