Travel Guide Sesriem - Dunes De Sossusvlei

The Tsauchab River, born in the Naukluft Mountains, carved its bed through the sand of the Namib Desert. In the middle of the 19th century, it still reached the Atlantic Ocean. But it dried up, and the dunes of Sossusvlei made an insurmountable barrier to it. As soon as you enter the park, this wide valley sinks into the desert and makes its way through a tangle of red, pink or ochre sand dunes, depending on the time of day, at the foot of which hundred-year-old erioloba acacias(camelthorns) stand proudly. Less known than Sossusvlei, this part of the park has a more subtle charm than the dune seas, as the sand is constantly mixed with the golden granite hills. On the vast plains graze oryx, springbok and ostriches. The further west you go, the deeper the sand becomes, the tighter the dunes become. At 4 km from the site of Sossusvlei, only 4 x 4 can continue on the track (a shuttle is provided for those who do not have one, N$ 180 per person for the round trip); we also sometimes see tourists fill the few kilometers on foot by sinking in the red sand. The site itself is a basin with bleached soil, a dry lake. In years of heavy rains (quite rare in this region), Sossusvlei fills with water, forming a lake visited by many birds in the middle of a sea of sand (an event!). Dead Vlei, a bowl with a hardened soil and a whitish salt crust, differs from Sossusvlei by its isolation from the riverbed. As its name suggests, the Dead Vlei never receives water from the river again. Skeletons of trees frozen in the white basin give an impression of desolation. The Sesriem Valley is best visited early in the morning for a sunrise in the dunes or a few hours before sunset, because the rest of the day the sun can be very, very hot.