Namibia Day 3: Sossuvlei

​Today we visited the most famous and iconic place in Namibia, Deadvlei, a valley of trees that died over 100 years ago but are still standing in an isolated valley between two huge sand dunes.

Traveling in the southern part of Africa requires planning ahead to manage the heat! We were up at 5:30 so we could arrive before it got too hot. The first part of the drive was through a wide valley with high mountains on both sides. 

After an hour or so we entered the Namibia Naukluft National Park which covers more than 19,000 square miles, most of it sand dunes and arid plains.  We drove for another 45 minutes through a wide flat valley covered with dry grass and  a few trees (some alive & some dead), flanked on both sides by huge dunes.

There was an option to self-drive, but when the Park rangers mentioned taking air out of the tires, we wisely chose to take the Park shuttle instead. The “road” was similar to others we have seen recently, with multiple tracks, but in this case the difficulty and dust was enhanced by fact that the sand on the road was DEEP, 10 inches or more. The car would have to have been towed out!

Sossuvlei (which means dead end marsh) is the area at the very end of the valley that terminates in the endless sand dunes that are the Namib desert. We trekked to the top of one of the small dunes between two big salt pans, which was pretty exhausting in the soft sand, but we got the feel of what it was like and realized the bigger ones would exceed our capacity for enjoying the place.

One of the most significant parts of the Park, and reasons why it is a UNESCO Site, is the area where the famous valley of ancient dead trees are. Called Deadvlei, it was located between two huge dunes, known as Big Momma (720 feet) and Big Daddy (over 1000 feet). We learned elsewhere that most of the trees in the desert are very old even though they are not very large. These trees were over 900 years old when they died over a hundred years ago and many still standing, skeletal shapes starkly contrasted with the hard white surface of the salt pan, with huge dunes looming over them. It was very cool to be standing among them, and worth the difficult flog up the dune.  Fortunately, it was cloudy all day, so we didn’t experience the blazing heat this site is known for.

Before leaving the park, we stopped in to see Sesriem Canyon. This conglomerate sedimentary rock canyon was formed by the same seasonal river that formed the Sossuvlei valley area.  The walls were full of the large and small rounded rock that jutted out  from the surface, as well as the thousands of holes where other rocks had fallen out. Many birds were making use of the holes for their nests. It was so cool walk down into the canyon to see the crazy rock formations.

After arriving back at the Gondwana Desert Grace Lodge, we spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing by our own personal mini-pool and watching the light play on the beautiful dunes in front of us.