Sossusvlei is one of the top 2 most visited places in Namibia. It’s a massive national park in the desert, filled with huge sand dunes. We got up at 6am, groggy and tired, and headed out to watch the sunrise. We drove out through the desert, where everything is barren except for a few small shrubs here and there, trying desperately to cling to life. How can anything survive out here? And then, in the distance, we see two ostriches strolling through the emptiness. Wow. Unreal.
Eventually, the emptiness of desert, becomes sandy, and then the dunes start. We climb a giant dune (which is super hard because walking through sand is slow and exhausting, but doing it uphill is even worse) and sit down, gasping for breath. The views from the top are absolutely nuts. The dunes are this magical orange hue, and when the sun finally comes out, everything just looks magical. We sit there for a long time, utterly blown away by it all.
Eventually, we scamper down and start driving to the next spot. There is a place here called Deadvlei. This is an ancient lakebed that has dried up. The trees that lived here all died 900 years ago, but because it is so dry there, they haven’t decomposed, and just remain there, skeletons of the past. It’s an otherworldly sight. These dead trees in the white ground, with the giant orange dunes behind them. We wandered around, totally mesmerized and taking a zillion photos, unable to stop.
Eventually, we came back to camp. Later that night, we tried to start a fire to cook our dinner. The fire looked like it was starting ok, but then fizzled out. Dammit. We were too tired from our early wake up to deal with it. We gave up and ate in the camp cafeteria instead. I had Gemsbok for dinner. Tasted super good. Eventually, we go back to our campsite… only to find that our fire had somehow sprung back to life and was fully going. Wtf!! Are you kidding me? But we’d already eaten, so we put it out and went to bed.
