Sossusvlei / Namib-Naukluft National Park
45
kilometers from the park entrance at Sesriem, Dune 45 is not the largest dune in the Namib Desert. In
my opinion, it is not the most beautiful, either. But it is certainly the most famous. The "swoosh" in
the top of the dune is easily the most recognizable landmark in the park.
You can drive up to within 30 meters of the base of
the dune. Once there, the hard, crusty surface of the floodplain gives
way to sand immediately. There is no gradual transition--there is a
literal dividing line that you step over to start climbing the
dune.
You can climb Dune 45 in about 40 minutes.
It's pretty tough, especially if you are the first one there for the
day. You climb the ridge because that is where the slope and the sand
are easiest to negotiate. The first one on the dune gets the privilege
of breaking in a trail up the ridge. The more footprints are embedded
into the ridge, the easier it gets to climb.
From the top, you
get a view into the dunescape that will blow you away. It is humbling to
see this landscape. You want to jump inside the vista, like a
little kid who has found the world's biggest sandbox. You want to take a
swim in the sand sea. It's so incredible.
If you
want the classic photo of Dune 45 (like I have above, to the right)
with no people in the shot, get there early or late. Otherwise,
there are typically at least 3 or 4 trucks parked at it's base with tourists
trying to climb to the top. I have found that the dunes of Sossusvlei do
not adhere to the classic landscape photography rule about light. Dawn
and Dusk are not necessarily the best times for photography. The photo
above was taken at about 4:30 in the afternoon (after the daytime rush of
tourists, but before the sunset watchers had climbed).
Like a
ritual prayer meeting, Dune 45 gets crowded at sunset with people. You
re-climb the mountain of sand a half hour before sundown, with the evening
wind picking up...Sand is whipping up the sunny side of the dune at about
30-35 miles an hour, totally erasing the tourists footprints from the day's
activities. As you reach the top, you strech out your arms and lean
into wind. Your body is suspended over the steep slope of sand.
If you sit at the top, you get sandblasted. The the lowest foot or
so of your body gets pelted relentlessly. You can open your eyes
and see, but the tingling of the sand against your legs will get too
painful after 30 seconds. The sun ceremoniously disappears behind the giant dunes that
are further within the Park.
To be completely accurate, the
park is Namib-Naukluft National Park, and Sossusvlei is just a dried-up
lakebed and campsite inside the park. Dune 45 is not at Sossusvlei, but
rather halfway between Sesriem and Sossusvlei.
Sossusvlei
itself lies 8 kilometers beyond the end of the road. It cannot be
reached without a very, very hardy four wheel drive truck. Furthermore,
one must be experienced in the art of driving in sand. You should better
bring some sand grills and a shovel for an emergency dig-out. How do you
know when to stop driving through the sand? You will know! You
absolutely cannot drive any further into the desert than Sossusvlei.
From this point, 1000 foot tall dunes surround you on all sides, save the
narrow floodplain that you drove to get here. The dead vlei (lake) is
flat and rock-hard.
At Dune 45, I thought that I had seen the most
beautiful place in the world, but Sossusvlei was ten times the experience as
Dune 45. Here at Sossusvlei, you are at the deepest point within the
park. Not too many people can make it all the way to Sossusvlei--they
either do not have the proper truck, or they are not willing to walk 8 km
through the sand to get here. So you have the whole place to yourself.
The dunes at Sossusvlei are much larger and much,
much more difficult to climb. It took us 1 1/2 hours to get to the vista
where I took this photo. We could have walked the ridge,
which meanders its way through the picture, but it is probably about 3
miles long. Distances are impossible to judge because of the complete
lack of perspective.
An
adrenaline junkies dream town. Swakopmund is a convenient place to stop
through if you are travelling between Namib-Naukluft Park and Etosha Pan
Park. This town doesn't have anything particularly beautiful or
scenic. Although it is surrounded by sand dunes, they are not as
dramatic as what you can
see at Sossusvlei. But these dunes are not protected by a National
Park or a nature reserve--they have been set aside as a recreation area. Here
is where you can rent quad bikes (ATVs) and go racing
through the dune fields at top speed. You can go sandboarding--exactly like snowboarding, only
there are no chair lifts. You have to climb 300 feet
up the dune for every run down the slope. You can go skydiving or
ultralighting over the desert.
It's a great place to go and
do all those things that would have been really cool to do at Sossusvlei, but
are prohibited because it is a protected environment.
Just North of Swakopmund (about 35km) is the Cape Cross seal colony.
A fascinating place if you study biology, but for the rest of us, it was
perhaps the most foul smelling place on earth. I cannot even begin to
explain the stench that eminates from a seal colony during the birthing
months.
Fish River Canyon is supposedly the
second largest canyon in the world, after the Grand Canyon. It was
impressive, but it does not touch me in ways that other places in Africa
do. Personally,
I would skip Fish River Canyon, and opt to spend more time in Sossusvlei and Swakopmund.
The trail
to the bottom of the canyon is closed from November to March (Summer) because
of the extreme temperatures and lack of water. We were there in
December, and were not
able to hike it. I suppose that if I could have hiked the canyon, it
would have changed my opinion about the place.
One of
the great game reserves of the world. Etosha Pan is huge, but the
wildlife is extremely concentrated within a small area. The defining
feature of the landscape is the massive, 20km wide, 70km long Etosha
Pan (a "pan" is a dry, salty lakebed). The pan marks the northern
boundary of an oasis within the desert. With numerous year-round waterholes, the oasis is teeming with all the big game: lions, leopards, cheetahs, gnu,
buffalo, elephant, giraffe, gazelle, etc.
Visitors to Etosha Pan can either camp, or stay in
bungalows at the 3 protected camps within the park boundaries. Due
to its size, and the lack of wildlife near the edges of the park, it is
not practical to overnight outside of Etosha and travel in daily.
Consequently, accomodation is limited and it sells out rapidly. You
should plan on camping, if you cannot make reservations early. Each camp
has an artificially created, lighted waterhole, and hides from
which you can watch the wildlife. These hides become a gathering
point for both tourists and creatures after dark when many animals come to
bath and drink.
Unfortunately, we had very poor luck at
Etosha. In 2 days at the park, we didn't see much of anything beyond the
usual suspects (giraffe, gnu, buck, buffalo), which we termed "lion food" or
"leopard food". It was a horrible set of timing. A storm came
through Etosha the afternoon when we arrived, which saturated the ground with
water. This meant that the animals didn't have to go to a permanent
waterhole to drink.
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