Into the Deserts of Namibia, Part 2: Sossusvlei

Story and Photos by Libor Pospisil.

In the first part of the series, I traveled to Sandwich Harbour, the yellow desert on the coast of Namibia. My next journey through the country took me south. I drove along the dusty roads to Sossusvlei, where the deserts turned orange and red. The landscapes are not only the most iconic ones in Namibia, but also some of the most spectacular ones in the world.

Part Two of a Three-Part Series:

As I was sitting in the van returning from Swakopmund to Windhoek, I began planning a trip to the south of Namibia to see the deserts of the country’s interior and the Fish River Canyon. Not wanting to join a group tour, I called a local agency to inquire about perhaps engaging a driver or guide for three days. The response surprised me: “You think there is a long line of people waiting to drive you around? You know this is a small country, right?” I lowered my head in shame. The agent concluded: “Just rent a car and go by yourself. It’s easy.” I caved. When we reached Windhoek, I went to the car rental agency Namibia2Go, whose team made it easy indeed. They offered anything from a basic yet shiny SUV, my choice, to a jeep with camping gear.

With God on gravel:  I picked up supplies in Spar, the go-to Dutch supermarket, which has a web of malls across Namibia. From Windhoek, I drove south along the paved trunk highway. The journey was smooth until I hit a checkpoint. The policeman on duty looked over my documents and asked about my itinerary. I hoped that his parting phrase, “May God stay with you,” was just a common courtesy. Soon, the route turn off the paved highway onto a gravel road toward my first destination. Anxious to follow the insurance contract from the rental company, I deflated the tires before speeding up on gravel.

Here, the capital city and small highway towns were far behind me in another world. The gravel road meandered among farms, which covered immense plots of arid land. Then the hills began, and the road traversed over mountain passes with views of barren landscapes dotted with rock formations. My initial reluctance to rent a car in Namibia was in part due to the left-side driving in the country. But here on the generously wide gravel roads, I met cars in the single digits.

Along the way, I had flashbacks of drives through the American Southwest. These stopped, however, when I made it to the quintessentially Namibian place—Sossusvlei on the eastern edge of the Namib Desert.

Oryx and nobody: In what was a pattern by then, the name Sossusvlei combines Sossus, the Nama-language word for “dead-end,” and vlei, the Afrikaans word for “valley.” Incredibly, Sossusvlei belongs to the same gigantic Namib-Naukluft National Park as Sandwich Harbour. The vast park area covers sand dunes from the western shore all the way to the deep interior. However, driving between those two ends of the park can only be done by circumnavigating the entire park territory.

It was late afternoon already, but I wanted to get a sneak peek of Sossusvlei. I drove to the Elim Dune right behind the park boundary. I left my car in a large lot that was completely empty and climbed up the dune. The red sand appeared incredibly vivid at that time of the day. Since I was the only human around, the surface of the dune displayed perfect grooves made by wind and a smooth edge. The symmetry almost made me feel guilty about leaving my traces on the virgin surface. I had the dune all for myself. Only when I returned to the car did I notice living creatures. A spider leaving its tiny traces on the sand, and then an oryx, with its long horns, braving the heat on the plain.

 

Stars and trees:  It was only after reaching my lodge for the night that, once in conversation with others, I realized how few humans I had come in contact with during the day. Namibia is a vast, safe space for introverts, and even the oryx I saw at the Elim Dune was entirely on its own.

The lodge offered dining at a campsite a few miles out, which I drove to and began eating the obligatory meat meal. Nightime fell and Ziggy, one of the workers began chatting about what appeared above our heads—a black dome filled with shiny stars, which absolutely lived up to travel cliches about observing a night sky in the desert. Turning my head in all angles, I was overwhelmed. I asked Ziggy if he would show me the Southern Cross. That was easy for him, and what followed were stories about other star clusters above. “How do you know all those things about stars?” I asked. “Nothing special. I just used to sit outside with my grandfather and his friends at night. They kept talking about the stars, and I listened.”

In the morning, I inquired whether the lodge had a day tour into the Sossusvlei. I had heard it might require some driving on the sand. No tour, but Ziggy was going to Sossusvlei with a few colleagues in case I wanted to join. “Yes, of course!”

Once on our way, I asked a few usual touristy questions: “Are dangerous animals around here?” Ziggy seemed to know what answer would satisfy me. “Yes, we have a leopard occasionally in the area. Last year, we found the skeleton of a calf up on a tree near the lodge. That’s how we knew the leopard was around.” My interest encouraged him to continue. He pointed to a solitary tree we were passing. It had an extended branch from which a gigantic sack of dried grass was hanging. I had stopped at a similar tree the day before to see it close up and to take a picture. Ziggy said: “That’s a nest built by small birds. The ones you see flying in and out. They take many years and many generations to build it up.” It was impressive indeed. “But never walk under the nests.” “Why?” I gulped. “There is often a patch of grass underneath with a cobra hiding there. It’s waiting for a birdie to fly low.”

Little wonders:  I was chatting with Mathias, one of Ziggy’s colleagues in the car as we entered Sossusvlei. We drove past the Elim Dune, and soon, more and more red sand surrounded us. Ziggy stopped at a seemingly random place. We took a few steps from the car, and he looked around, asking: “So, what happened here overnight?” He pointed to the traces in the sand leading in possible directions created by animals of all sizes. “From this, we see who walked where. We call it the morning paper.”

His eyes zoomed in on a particular path, and his finger followed it. A few interruptions in the tiny traces made his search difficult but eventually, he found what he was looking for. He picked up a straw of dry grass and, with clinical precision, stuck it into the sand. He angled the straw, and incredibly, it opened a tiny lid made of sand, glued together from below using white silk. The lid was about half an inch in diameter. Under the lid, we could see a tight tunnel. “This is where the spider-lady lives,” Ziggy said. He was talking about the white lady spider, a species almost exclusively found in the Namib desert. “The trace leading here was a male who approached her at night. For mating, they must tap on the lid in a special way. If they mess up, she eats them!” After we finished with the related jokes, I realized that nowhere else but in the Namibian deserts have I paid such attention to nature’s little wonders.

Ocean of red: Driving deeper into Sossusvlei, we paused at larger dunes, which usually had names. One was Dune 45, whose name counts kilometers from the park entrance. Dune 45 reaches more than one hundred meters (three hundred feet) at is peak, and some early visitors were already climbing it. We, however, kept going until we reached the tallest dune of Sossusvlei. The dune is called Big Daddy. and its height is reported at 325 meters (1066 feet). As we were about to climb it, the others in our group voiced their relief the sky was cloudy. But I was upset that I couldn’t see any blue.

We took our shoes off quickly on the loose sand. From the previous days, I knew that climbing a sandy slope was hard, but I was still surprised by how challenging Big Daddy was to climb. My long legs and perceived good shape were no help. Every step upward moved me only slightly as the foot slid down sharply. Mathias, who was younger, ran up easily, and Ziggy, roughly my age, walked much faster without sweat. First, I climbed with the young ladies from our group, but soon, we all spread out along a never-ending dune edge that kept pointing upwards.

The walk was so long that the clouds had time to disperse. I got my blue sky when I emerged at the top and reunited with our group. We were taking pictures of each other, and Mathias encouraged me to pose with my right-hand fingers visibly pointing downward, but my thumb separated from them at a right angle. “Your hand will look like a map of Namibia that way.”

We were the only ones up there, with other tourists coming much later. We had moments to stare at the ocean of dunes below, their shades ranging from orange to red. Intriguingly, Sandwich Harbour and its yellow dunes were visible and not that far away, just a few dozen miles. In the view of Sandwich Harbour, the colors morphed from yellow to red over the distance as the iron coating of the grains of sand became more prominent. Why the inland desert has more iron is not clear. There are scientific studies and hypotheses—suggesting that older dunes may have accumulated more iron—but there is no definitive explanation.

Ziggy ended our stay at the top with, “Let’s run down there,” pointing to a white plain among the dunes below. That sounded like fun. Mathias ran first, and only when I watched his figure become smaller and smaller on the sandy slope did I appreciate how high we were. It is easy to lose a sense of scale on the dunes. I ran down, too, and although it was much easier than the ascent, it took me some time.

Dead beauty:  I was wrong to think Big Daddy was that day’s highlight. Walking across the white plain  at the bottom of Big Daddy extended my sense of exhilaration. The plain is called Deadvlei, a completely Afrikaans name meaning Dead Valley. It looks like what the name says, but is composed in a way that would shame even the most creative artist.

In the distant past, the valley was lush with trees that flourished thanks to a stream of water feeding them. The wind destroyed the valley. It blew sand into the stream and progressively cut the valley off from its water source. The muddy bottom dried out, turned white and cracked the plain into a mosaic of thousands of pieces. Most intriguingly, the dried, leafless trees are still there, with blackened branches.

The composed scene of a white floor with black trees was stunning, but then, surrounding it with the red walls of Big Daddy and his arms, combined with a bright blue sky above, was fit for an impressionist artist. If there is one iconic picture of Namibia, it is undoubtedly Deadvlei.

Canyon and meat:  Our last stop was Sesriem Canyon, a narrow gorge of sandstone, about thirty meters deep (a hundred feet). It was carved by a creek that does not completely dry out because it is shielded from hot air above by the canyon walls. We walked down to the canyon floor, and Ziggy took us to pools of standing water: “This is where baboons come to drink.” We roamed the canyon a bit longer, and I kept looking at the rock formations full of clefts. Those were the only cool hideouts for animals that do not dig tunnels in the sand.

We made it back to the lodge and I decided that for dinner, I would give my body a break from the cycle of heavy meat. I asked for green salad from the menu. As I began to crunch on the leaves, I soon noticed black, dry squares. “What is this?” I asked. “Biltong from oryx,” was the answer. Well, the salty biltong made the salad tasty, so I just gave in.

I departed the lodge the next morning, heading for the very south of the country. I had to leave behind the new friends I had just made. I came to Namibia to savor solitude, and yet, I felt sadness when I was in the car on my own again.

Upcoming Part 3 of the Namibia series:  At the end of my trip, I finally made it to the Fish River Canyon. The deserts along the way, however, ended up being even more intriguing than the place I came to Namibia to see.

IF YOU GO:  Sossusvlei –

• Visitor information https://www.sossusvlei.org/about/
• Among many lodges, this is the one where I stayed https://the-elegant-collection.com/desert-lodge.html
• If your lodge does not organize a tour of Sossusvlei, here you can book a jeep trip to the dunes: https://www.sossusvleilodge.com/sossusvleiexcursion.html