Sensational Sossusvlei, Namibia
“Picture me,” says my Oshiwambo-speaking friend as she poses against the deep, rich terracotta sand of Big Mama dune. Sprawled out and dressed in bright yellow and blue, she merges into the surrounding colours in their vivid tug for control of the paintbox.
Below us lounges Sossusvlei, a dry pan that receives a belly of water only in years of exceptional rainfall. Sossus is the Tsauchab River’s final destination and resting point on its curtailed journey to the sea. When in flood, the Tsauchab rushes through the narrow Sesriem Canyon, carving away walls and tumbling branches as it surges through the riverbed on its way to the pan. The Namib Desert claims the sandy gateway and a sand-dune sea surrounds the desolate and striking pans.
Considered to be the oldest desert in the world, the grandaddy desert hugs the coastline of western Namibia, bosom buddies with the cold Atlantic Ocean and the Benguela Current that brings in the fine life-giving mist from the icy waters.
A multitude of desert-adapted creatures survive in this land that receives less than 100 millimetres of rain a year, and for some areas just a sprinkling dream of raindrops. All-wheel drive tenebrionid beetles motor with agility over the shining sand, the fog-basking beetle being one of the better-known ones, positioning itself to catch the early-morning moisture that drips down its body into its mouth. Also omnipresent is the tok-tokkie beetle, which taps its abdomen ‘tok-tok, tok-tok’ to attract a mate.
The shovel-snouted lizard that lifts its legs high off the searing sand, ‘white-lady’ spiders that line their tunnels with silk, side-winding snakes, and golden moles that swim through the sand leaving wave-trails, are a few of the creatures that have mastered survival skills in the barren land. Springbok lick the moisture off the hardy plants, proud gemsbok with long-straight horns withstand the heat of the day by catching breezes on sand dunes, the shallow veins in the nose acting as a cooling system of the blood on its journey to the brain. Black-backed jackals meander with dainty steps around !nara bushes as they look for smaller prey.
The cool of the night is the time when the animal world emerges and in the morning delicate tracks decorate the honey-coloured sands. In a land where we clumsier beings wouldn’t survive a day, the plants and animals have learnt the desert rhythms and hold the innate wisdom needed to survive the harshness of the shifting sands.
Sixty kilometres from Sesriem Campsite, the entrance to the Namib-Naukluft Park, Sossusvlei is one of the prime destinations in Namibia for a ‘must-do’ once-in-a-lifetime experience of supreme desert beauty. The park gates open at sunrise and a queue of cars awaits the chance to drive into the strange desert world as the emerging sun colours the dunes in coppers and golds, before it reaches its sizzling midday zenith.
It is worth the early wake-up from the busy campsite or surrounding lodges, while owls still hoot and the Southern Cross dips into the horizon. The night sky transforms into blue as orange and pink tinge the borders where it caresses the land, and a few stars hang jewel-like in the fabric of dawn. Such an introduction puts you in the frame of mind to change perceptions, to slow down and open your being to the language of the land and the elegant and unusual beauty of the desert. Reverence and awe are commonplace in the Namib Desert.
En route to Sossusvlei, Dune 45 is a popular dawn or late-afternoon stop where trudging up the spine of the 120-metre-high sand dune gives unsurpassed views of the surrounding scenery as it transforms into a marvellous medley of colour. Continuing on, a soft mist rises, sensuous dunes catch sunrays in dapples, swirls and dollops of light, gnarled dead trees are etched with a texture embossed by time, and a green line of trees marks the route of underground water. Reaching the parking lot and entrance to Sossusvlei, a soft sandy five-kilometre 4x4 track leads to the pan. A shuttle service is available for a safe drive to the vlei.
“Picture me, Ron, picture me,” says my Namibian friend as she poses against the gnarled camelthorn trees in the adjacent Deadvlei, once a pausing point for the river, and now a mind-bogglingly beautiful clay-encrusted pan with a scattering of dead trees surrounded by apricot-coloured dunes. The ‘vlei’ or pan draws you in with an intensity that can only be absorbed in minute doses as you shake off the city and twenty-first century and open yourself to Namibian charm.
The sand is already 'egg-fryingly’ hot as we walk back to the vehicle, full with Sossusvlei sensations and stimuli. Lizards and tok-tokkie beetles glimmer against the iron-rich particles of sand and butterflies look for the shadowy caverns of rocks. Driving back to the civilisation of our lodgings, through the gauntlet of sand dunes, senses ping with out-of-the-ordinary arousal from the slumber of everyday mediocrity, awakening sluggish senses to desert magnificence.
Source: http://www.flamingo.com.na/index.php?fArticleId=587
www.DuneGuide.com
Below us lounges Sossusvlei, a dry pan that receives a belly of water only in years of exceptional rainfall. Sossus is the Tsauchab River’s final destination and resting point on its curtailed journey to the sea. When in flood, the Tsauchab rushes through the narrow Sesriem Canyon, carving away walls and tumbling branches as it surges through the riverbed on its way to the pan. The Namib Desert claims the sandy gateway and a sand-dune sea surrounds the desolate and striking pans.
Considered to be the oldest desert in the world, the grandaddy desert hugs the coastline of western Namibia, bosom buddies with the cold Atlantic Ocean and the Benguela Current that brings in the fine life-giving mist from the icy waters.
A multitude of desert-adapted creatures survive in this land that receives less than 100 millimetres of rain a year, and for some areas just a sprinkling dream of raindrops. All-wheel drive tenebrionid beetles motor with agility over the shining sand, the fog-basking beetle being one of the better-known ones, positioning itself to catch the early-morning moisture that drips down its body into its mouth. Also omnipresent is the tok-tokkie beetle, which taps its abdomen ‘tok-tok, tok-tok’ to attract a mate.
The shovel-snouted lizard that lifts its legs high off the searing sand, ‘white-lady’ spiders that line their tunnels with silk, side-winding snakes, and golden moles that swim through the sand leaving wave-trails, are a few of the creatures that have mastered survival skills in the barren land. Springbok lick the moisture off the hardy plants, proud gemsbok with long-straight horns withstand the heat of the day by catching breezes on sand dunes, the shallow veins in the nose acting as a cooling system of the blood on its journey to the brain. Black-backed jackals meander with dainty steps around !nara bushes as they look for smaller prey.
The cool of the night is the time when the animal world emerges and in the morning delicate tracks decorate the honey-coloured sands. In a land where we clumsier beings wouldn’t survive a day, the plants and animals have learnt the desert rhythms and hold the innate wisdom needed to survive the harshness of the shifting sands.
Sixty kilometres from Sesriem Campsite, the entrance to the Namib-Naukluft Park, Sossusvlei is one of the prime destinations in Namibia for a ‘must-do’ once-in-a-lifetime experience of supreme desert beauty. The park gates open at sunrise and a queue of cars awaits the chance to drive into the strange desert world as the emerging sun colours the dunes in coppers and golds, before it reaches its sizzling midday zenith.
It is worth the early wake-up from the busy campsite or surrounding lodges, while owls still hoot and the Southern Cross dips into the horizon. The night sky transforms into blue as orange and pink tinge the borders where it caresses the land, and a few stars hang jewel-like in the fabric of dawn. Such an introduction puts you in the frame of mind to change perceptions, to slow down and open your being to the language of the land and the elegant and unusual beauty of the desert. Reverence and awe are commonplace in the Namib Desert.
En route to Sossusvlei, Dune 45 is a popular dawn or late-afternoon stop where trudging up the spine of the 120-metre-high sand dune gives unsurpassed views of the surrounding scenery as it transforms into a marvellous medley of colour. Continuing on, a soft mist rises, sensuous dunes catch sunrays in dapples, swirls and dollops of light, gnarled dead trees are etched with a texture embossed by time, and a green line of trees marks the route of underground water. Reaching the parking lot and entrance to Sossusvlei, a soft sandy five-kilometre 4x4 track leads to the pan. A shuttle service is available for a safe drive to the vlei.
“Picture me, Ron, picture me,” says my Namibian friend as she poses against the gnarled camelthorn trees in the adjacent Deadvlei, once a pausing point for the river, and now a mind-bogglingly beautiful clay-encrusted pan with a scattering of dead trees surrounded by apricot-coloured dunes. The ‘vlei’ or pan draws you in with an intensity that can only be absorbed in minute doses as you shake off the city and twenty-first century and open yourself to Namibian charm.
The sand is already 'egg-fryingly’ hot as we walk back to the vehicle, full with Sossusvlei sensations and stimuli. Lizards and tok-tokkie beetles glimmer against the iron-rich particles of sand and butterflies look for the shadowy caverns of rocks. Driving back to the civilisation of our lodgings, through the gauntlet of sand dunes, senses ping with out-of-the-ordinary arousal from the slumber of everyday mediocrity, awakening sluggish senses to desert magnificence.
Source: http://www.flamingo.com.na/index.php?fArticleId=587
www.DuneGuide.com
posted by Crowdog at
11:51 AM
