Travel Guide Vallée Des Welwitschias

The Welwitschia Nature Drive takes shape in a lunar landscape, dotted with these rare and solitary plants. At first sight, the desert landscape at the exit of Swakopmund seems to have been abandoned by any form of life. We enter the dusty whiteness of a flat and naked immensity. However, in this lunar landscape, solitary plants have found the strength to survive. Between the black granite rocks, decorated with grey or black lichens, some welwitschias spread out in the sun a circumference of more than 2 m. The two single leaves wrap around themselves while drying, but never stop growing, hence their nickname of "fossil plant". Two feet of welwitschias are estimated to be fifteen hundred years old. It is here that the name "living desert" of the Namib finds its most beautiful justification.