Deadvlei

Backblip #13

So many choices for blips today! Well everyday really but we really managed to cram a lot in today. We were up before the crack of dawn as we'd decided to climb up the famous dune 45 for sunrise. We also couldn't wait to get back in the car and out of the wind! It was crazy windy while we were down there!! And because we are tough girls that are used to roughing it we didn't have a tent and consequently got sandblasted overnight! I received an extreme facial overnight and woke up with sand in all the wrong places!

It wasn't any better on the dune either - in fact it was worse! Like walking through a hurricane of flying sand! And if you stood still you almost got blown backwards! I consider myself pretty fit but this was really tough, particularly as we were climbing it as fast as we could in time for sunrise ... of course the sun beat us again!But we were quite close to the top when it made it's appearance.

After making the much quicker descent we headed out towards Sossusvlei. Was it windy out there? You bet! We parked in the provided car park and caught the 4x4 'shuttle' out to the vlei's. The first stop was Deadvlei, pictured here. What an amazing, rather haunting place. Deadvlei is a white clay pan located near the more famous salt pan of Sossusvlei, both of which are inside the Namib-Naukluft National Park, along with dune 45. It's name means dead marsh and is given because of all the dead trees frozen in time in the pan. I must say I preferred Deadvlei to Sossusvlei, which was still beautiful but doesn't really have the 'wow' factor. After a well earned lunch we relaxed for a bit before going to explore Sesrium Canyon and Elim sand dune.

Tomorrow we make the long drive back to Swakopmund!