Sossusvlei Sand Dunes

On our drive down to Sossusvlei, which is desert with huge sand dunes that you can't miss when coming to Namibia. Anywhere you look at pictures of Namibia, you'll see those red dunes. We stopped at Dune 7 outside of Walvis Bay and struggled to the top, where we got some excellent views of surrounding dunes. The real treat was running and jumping and rolling on the way down. Sand gets everywhere! We had a nice scenic drive through the Nauklift mountains to our campsite, where we enjoyed a fire and utter emptiness. We stayed outside the town of Solitaire, which is the smallest town in Namibia, which is really saying something. It basically consisted of a small restaurant and shop and a petrol station. It was early to bed that night because we awoke at 430 am to pack up camp and drive to the dunes for sunrise.

The Sesrium/Sossusvlei park opens its gates at sunrise, which was 6:30 am. The dunes were incredible. The morning light hits them just right so that they look a gorgeous orange/red color. We stopped to take plenty of pictures of the landscape and of the game they had, which I was unaware of beforehand. They had lots of springbok and gemsbok and jackles. Visitors are allowed to climb one dune, Dune 45. We were the first people up that dune in the morning. It was hard going up, but the view of the surrounding dunes and mountains was breathtaking. One magazine said it would "spiritually recharge your soul for years to come". Again we spent time taking photos and enjoying the scenery. We began our descent the same way we came up, but veered off onto the backside a little ways from the bottom. Again, it was so fun running and jumping down a dune. That is, it was fun until I started going a little too fast and the tip of my boot caught on some sand and I face planted at the bottom of the dune. Dan lost it laughing as Adam rushed to make sure I was okay. I hurt nothing but my dignity. But my camera was okay! I cradled that thing and it was the only thing I was worried about hitting the ground. Luckily I only escaped with a bruise or two and a load of embarassment. Someone always has to fall though, right?

We fussed around the dunes for a little while longer, but then hit the road again because we had a long drive basically across the country to Harnas Wildlife Foundation. However, the road we took out of Sossusvlei proved a little too tricky for our low-clearance Nissan sedan. It was a gravel/dirt road through the mountains. At first it was great; beautiful mountain passes and even (a serious highlight!) wild Mountain Zebras. These hare different from the more numerous and popular Burchell's Zebra, they have thinner stripes and their stripes go all the way down their legs. I never thought we would actually see some, but there they were on the road. And boy did they run when we came around the corner. The zebras in Etosha do not move for cars, so it was neat to see these wild ones. Soon though, there were some small river crossing. And then more, slightly larger river crossings. There were numerous times where we all thought our car was stuck in the water and wouldn't be able to cross. Dan fantastically maneuvered every one of them as we all held our breathe, literally. Seriously, it was one of the stickiest situations any of us had gotten into. We would probably still be on that road if we had gotten stuck. But our little Nissan pulled us through. We reached Harnas late at night after another fog and dust filled dirt road leading up to the gates. A long treacherous, but beautiful day on the road.