The Namib Desert
The Namib Desert is a world of stark beauty. It is believed to be about 80-million years old, the oldest desert in the world. The desert is mesmerising in its seemingly eternal yet ever-changing sunlit expanses. The surface of the Namib juts ever-skyward in massive, undulating, twisting and shifting dunes. The salt pans and mud flats tell an unfinished story – they are relics of rivers that failed to reach the ocean and never will. The dunes of the Namib are interspersed with dry pans, like Sossusvlei.
Sossusvlei, in the Namib Desert, boasts the highest sand dunes in the world. These dunes are generally referred to as "Star dunes” because of their star shape which is caused by multi-directional winds moving the sand on the crests back and forth according to the wind direction. These winds are often very strong, and cause the dunes to "smoke" – a fine shower of sand flying off the crest that can make the dune look as though it is on fire.
Sossusvlei is surrounded by 300m high dunes, with some dunes reaching a staggering height of 350m. Some of the orange dunes at Sossusvlei seasonally reach a crest height of about 960 metres above sea level, with the vlei itself at an altitude of 570m. These Sand Dunes are among the most spectacular in the world. Few sights can compare to the view from the top of one of these dunes. Sossusvlei is situated in the heart of the 300km long and 150km wide sand sea in western Namibia.
Underground streams cross the wasteland. Their secret course is marked by an unexpected green mantle, daring its way through the fiery, inhospitable sand. The streams reach towards the far-off shores of the ghostly Skeleton Coast, the graveyard of hundreds of ships. This desolate coast is named for the mariners who miraculously survived the wrecks only to succumb to the desert.
At the entrance gate to Sossusvlei, the meandering Tsauchab River has cut a 1.5km-long gorge through the multi-layered rock conglomerate that underlies the desert sands. Thirty metres deep and in places less than two metres wide, the canyon holds small amounts of water all year round. About once every 10 years, exceptional rains flood the gorge, with the water eventually flooding the pans at Sossuvlei, 55km to the south-west. Thereafter, the water disappears underground, finally emerging at Naribis and Conception Bay on the coast. Remarkably, several fish species, species, live in the pools.
Join Afro Ventures on one of these exciting safaris through the Namib Desert:
