Happy New Year to all the Steemit Community!!!
Namibia is a country of amazing things. The second-least densely populated country in the world is also one of the newest, and is home to some of: the largest dunes, the darkest skies, the oldest cultures, the biggest conservation areas in Africa, the world's last rhinos and the most complex languages on the planet!
Our first stop is to go up Dune 45 and it’s not for the faint-hearted. We had to start early round 4:30am. We started early because the dunes are at their most picturesque then. This allowed us time to reach the park gate when it opens at sunrise. This means we’re the first to arrive at the popular Dune 45 and we got right on with it even with no breakfast to start the trek up the ridge. With each step the soft sand gives way under our feet, sliding us halfway back again.
The rising sun causes one side to glow a blazing red, while the other is entirely in the shadows. As the sun rises higher in the sky, the setting appears to level as the shadows disappear. It’s tough, tiring, and long, but eventually we reached the top of Dune 45. Taking in all the amazing view from above, the orange landscape of Sossusvlei is some of the most irreplaceable background I have come across. It shows just how isolated and secluded this part of the world is; no high-rises here, just views as far as the eye can see. Once fulfilled we run down this famous dune, I don’t think we were allowed to do it but after seeing a 60 year old breaking the rules I had to join in because you only live once! At the bottom we enjoyed a hearty breakfast before catching a 4×4 transfer into Sossusvlei, here we spent time on foot visiting the pans at Sossusvlei and Deadvlei.
In the Namibian language, "Sossus" means "a gathering place for water". "Vlei" is Afrikaans for "a shallow lake". Among the soaring red dunes of the Namib Rand, just outside Sossusvlei, lies the haunting and spectacular Deadvlei. The name Deadvlei means dead marsh (from the English dead and the Afrikaans vlei). What once was a marsh is now a dried white clay pan, surrounded by some of the highest sand dunes in the world. With tree skeletons, hundreds of years old, lost in the middle of the desert, it’s not surprising that the Deadvlei has been nominated as the 8th Wonder of the World.
It is believed that the clay pan formed more than a thousand years ago, when the Tsauchab river flooded after heavy rainfall and created shallow pools of water. In this area camel thorn trees began to grow. But after around 200 years, the climate changed. Drought struck the area. The sand dunes that infringed the area soon blocked off the Tsaucheb river and any water from the once moist marsh.
Of course with no water to feed, the trees they all died, but they did not disappear. The climate was so harsh the trees dried out instead of decomposing, and the desert sun charred them into blackened bones, never to disappear from the earth. Now all that remains are 900 year old tree skeletons trapped in a white clay marsh, set against red rusted dunes and a brilliant blue sky. It looks like a forest frozen in time.
