Journeys
Sossusvlei, and the red dunes of the Namib
The Namib is thought to be the oldest desert in the world, and at Sossusvlei its dunes are among the highest anywhere, great curving ridges of red sand that glow at dawn above white clay pans and the dead trees of Deadvlei.
By Walter Pellow2 November 20264 min read
Namibia's Atlantic coast is lined for more than a thousand kilometres by the Namib, a narrow desert that runs from the Orange River in the south almost to Angola in the north. It is thought to be the oldest desert on earth, arid or semi-arid for tens of millions of years. The cold Benguela current offshore brings almost no rain but frequent fogs, and the creatures of the desert have adapted in remarkable ways: beetles that stand on the dune crests at dawn to catch the fog on their backs, and plants that live for centuries on what moisture they can find.
In the heart of the Namib-Naukluft National Park lies Sossusvlei, the most famous place in the desert.
The dunes
Sossusvlei is a clay pan surrounded by enormous dunes, some of the highest in the world, rising well over three hundred metres above the desert floor. Their colour, a deep red-orange, comes from iron oxide coating the grains of sand, which have been blown inland from the coast over thousands of years. The older the sand, the redder it is.
The dunes are star-shaped and crescent-shaped, with long knife-edge crests, and at sunrise, when the low light falls on one side and leaves the other in deep shadow, they are one of the great sights of Africa. Climbing one, such as Big Daddy, the highest around the pan, or the more accessible Dune 45, beside the road in, is hard work in the soft sand, and best done early, before the heat.
At sunrise, they are one of the great sights of Africa.
Deadvlei
A short walk from Sossusvlei is Deadvlei, the dead marsh, a white clay pan surrounded by dunes and dotted with the blackened skeletons of camel thorn trees. Centuries ago, the river that fed the pan was blocked by dunes, the water dried up and the trees died. The air is so dry that they have not decayed, and they still stand, dark against the white clay and the orange dunes, under a deep blue sky. It is one of the most photographed places in Namibia.
Nearby, Sesriem Canyon is a narrow gorge cut by the Tsauchab river, whose name is said to come from the six lengths of leather rope that early settlers needed to lower a bucket to the water below.
On the road between the dunes and the coast, the tiny settlement of Solitaire, little more than a petrol station and a bakery in the middle of the desert, is famous among travellers for its apple strudel. North of it, the Kuiseb Canyon cuts through the desert, the hiding place of two German geologists who lived there for more than two years during the Second World War to avoid internment, a story told by one of them in The Sheltering Desert.
Beyond the dunes
Most journeys through Namibia combine Sossusvlei with the coast and the north. Swakopmund, on the coast, is a seaside town of German colonial buildings, a reminder that Namibia was German South West Africa until the First World War. Nearby Walvis Bay has a lagoon full of flamingos. To the north lies the Skeleton Coast, with the Cape Cross seal colony, home to tens of thousands of Cape fur seals.
Inland, Damaraland is a region of red mountains and desert valleys, home to desert-adapted elephants and, at Twyfelfontein, thousands of ancient rock engravings, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Further north, Etosha National Park is one of the great game parks of Africa, centred on a vast salt pan, where in the dry season the animals gather around the waterholes in large numbers.
The tours
Explore Worldwide's Namibia Lodge Safari, eleven nights, starts in Windhoek and travels through the Namib Desert to Sesriem, Sossusvlei and the Sesriem Canyon, then Solitaire, the Kuiseb Canyon, Walvis Bay, Swakopmund, Cape Cross, the Brandberg mountain and Damaraland. It runs from April to December.
Explore's Upgraded: Highlights of Namibia, thirteen nights, takes in the southern Kalahari, Sossusvlei and the Namib-Naukluft, Swakopmund, Walvis Bay, Damaraland, Cape Cross, Twyfelfontein and Etosha. Just You's Namibia: Tribes and Natural Wonders, thirteen nights for solo travellers, visits Windhoek, Sossusvlei, Swakopmund, Damaraland, Twyfelfontein, Etosha and Okahandja.
The best time to visit is from May to October, the dry winter, when the days are warm and clear and the nights cold. Summer, from November to March, is very hot in the desert. Wherever you stay, get up for the dawn at Sossusvlei: the colours of the first hour are the reason to come.
By Walter Pellow, the name Atlas & Passage’s editorial team writes under. Prices and dates in the trips below come from the operators and can change.
