The following two days we spend in the national park of Sossuslvei, which is known for its unique high, red dunes – depending on the measurement type they are even the highest dunes in the world. When we arrive around noon at the campground at the park entrance, we also come across the first traces of our Czech fellow travelers, they are in the booking list namely one line before us, but for the previous night, so presumably they are already gone … – yes with the data protection it is not so far here, you can actually always read when checking in, who is currently on the campsite Winking smile
From the campsite a 60km long road leads to the main attraction of the park, the dunes of the Deadvleis and the Sossusvleis. Both are dried up flood basins of the river “Tsauchab”, which still extends in the “Sesriem” canyon at the park entrance and can manage to flow between the dunes and flood the so-called Vleis in case of particularly heavy rain. Since this did not happen in the last years, the basins are currently dried up, nevertheless trees can be found on the dried up areas and offer a great photo scenery between the several hundred meters high dunes. We drive the route twice, at sunset and again at sunrise and experience the wonderful atmosphere of the warm light in the deep red shining dunes.
After 5 p.m. and before 11 a.m. the temperatures are also bearable, in the morning it is even really cold – especially if you climb a dune barefoot Smile – which we of course enjoy extensively. We are particularly impressed by the morning sun in Deadvlei, which has not been flooded for so long that all the plants have died. But since it is too hot and dry, the trees no longer wither and simply stand like black, mummified skeletons in the vlei – surrounded by the dunes.
But not only the dunes, already the drive into the vlei is a little experience. The last five kilometers it is no longer a road, but simply a drive on the partly dozens of centimeters deep sand. It’s a good thing that we chose the car with four-wheel drive, without it there would be no getting through here. And even with it, it takes a good portion of courage to drive at full throttle through the soft, deep sand. On the way back in the evening we have to help a stuck Japanese out of a jam. On the way there we see how he gets stuck, but to our incomprehension nobody helps him to get the car free again. The cars coming towards us must have ignored him, and even when we try to dig him out, a ranger just drives past us without batting an eye. Since the park is closing soon, we finally pack him into our car and take him to the campsite. The next morning his car is then freed by park rangers, the hole dug by his car is clearly visible. Unfortunately, a somewhat sobering experience and we have to think back a little to Kenya, that would have been unthinkable there.
We continue via the coastal towns of Walvis Bay and Swakopmund to the Spitzkoppe…