Travel with Simon on my Namibia road trip as we head out into the sand dunes at Sossuvlei to see the biggest dunes on earth. See how not to avoid getting stuck in the sand! On the way back to camp at Sesriem we will stop for breakfast at Dune 45.
On day 10 of our Namibia roadtrip we are heading out into the sand dunes at Sossusvlei in the Namib Desert to watch the sunrise.
The Sossusvlei road from the the campsite at Sesriem is through thick sand, if you don't want to get stuck then park your car at the 2x4 car park and take the shuttle. It's cheap and runs about every 15 minutes in open safari vehicles with super flat tyres.
There are a number of dunes you can visit on the way back including Dune 45 (Big Daddy) which is possibly the most photographed individual dune and great for sunset (for viewing the sunset itself rather than the sun setting over the dunes). Another famous dune worth a visit is Dune 5 or Elim Dune.
Sossusvlei forms part of the Namib Naukluft park, but don't get confused, the Namib Naukluft is a very large park and to see the red sand dunes at Sossusvlei or to see Deadvlei you must enter through the park gate at Sesriem. The camp ground known as Namib Naukluft is some 100km away in a different section of the park entirely.
Getting up in the morning, heading into the desert, watching the sun. Now here's what can happen
if a. you don't let your tyres down, b. you don't really know what you're doing. Now the people who
rented this car are helpfully pushing, while one of the shuttle drivers is helpfully driving them
out. So you're using the technique of wiggling the wheel, keeping it steady but not over-accelerating
it, because if you push too hard on the throttle the car just gets sunk deeper and deeper in.
Not how you want to start your morning, but a good bit of exercise I guess.
There we go. Now down to the most sandy part, he doesn't stop here, he's still not
got good traction. You've got to keep it going, wiggle that wheel, make him get a little further
ground, and now we can go off and just, well, take the car. Honestly he's going to stop on
some further land to pick him up. Now you see the other car demonstrating
that you can get through quite easily. Embarrassing, good it wasn't me.
Well here I am in the Namib Desert, and to get here, well not specifically here, but this morning's
routine to see the Namib Desert was like this. I woke up at 5am. 5am! It was dark, it was cold,
I was in bed, I was comfy, but if you want to go in and catch sunrise in the desert,
you've got to get up early. So 5am rise it was. Packed away the sleeping bags,
packed away the roof tent, had a quick breakfast that I prepared before yesterday, had a drink,
and then drove into the desert. So I drove, trundled in there, dark, half asleep,
obviously carefully watching where I'm going. There was an oryx right across the road in front
of me, it was really beautiful, a bit scary, woke me up a little bit. Then you park the car,
then there's a little hut, and it's like now 6, 6.10 in the morning, and there's a very cheerful
lady in the hut selling tickets to the 4x4s who then transfer you from the 2x4 car park to the
4x4 through a thick sandy patch. Now if you've got a 4x4 you can drive it if you want, but a lot of
people get stuck because, you know, if you don't know what you're doing don't let your tyres down
so it's $150 Namibian dollars and that's to transfer there and back, and these shuttles
run between the 2x4 and the 4x4 car park which is just outside Sossusvlei itself,
the big sand dune, and they run all day. Every 15 minutes they shuttle backwards and forwards,
about eight of these shuttles go round and round and round, just up and down,
and these guys have super low tyres so they trundle through, ten people can go on there,
but there doesn't need to be full, they basically go up and down all the time.
These drivers, well they must be good at driving in sand, they drive this every day. How many times
do you do this trip every day? Every day here, more than 50 or 60. 50 or 60 times a day, but you
never get stuck? No, no, no. So hopped on that, got on there, got to the 4x4 car park, hopped off
there, and then went and climbed a sand dune and watched the sunrise over the desert, and that is
what people come to Sossusvlei for, and then you suddenly see all these sand dunes that you've been
driving through before, you can suddenly see them, because you're driving in the dark before,
and you're in the middle of the desert suddenly, you wake up, light comes up,
and yes, beautiful colours as it changes on the sand, and you see all the beautiful curves
of the different sand dunes, you can climb up as high as you like, there's some pretty big
sand dunes there, I think the biggest one that you can climb is about 350 meters high. Climbing
in sand is a lot more difficult, if anybody's walked on the beach, you know how difficult it is to walk
on soft sand, well then put that in a huge pile 300 meters high and start climbing on it, it's a
lot tougher than it looks, so you're best getting rid of your shoes, I mean, shoes, because sand
goes in everything, so flip-flops or kick off your shoes, climb up, it's quite a task though,
and then when I made my way back, on the way back there's a dune called Dune
45, which is 45 kilometers from Cessna, very original, and it's a bit of a strange sand
dune, because it's a Barchan dune, which is a type of dune that stands alone, it's not linked
to other sand dunes, which most Barchan sand dunes are, so this sand dune is a big sand dune,
I think 130 meters high, moves, moves something like 20 meters a year as the wind blows it
backwards and forwards, it's a very beautiful looking sand dune, because it's so well defined
and so separate from the others that you can actually see a whole sand dune, so I stopped
there on the way back as well, had a little climb up there, light was still nice for me,
and now I'm heading back to camp to get some well-deserved rest, it's getting 5am,
not really having a proper breakfast, I stopped here, had some more breakfast on the way back,
then I'm going to go back have something to eat. Now what I might do, instead of actually
bothering to cook for myself because it's hot and I don't want to get the fire out,
I'm going to drive to Solitaire, which is about 76 kilometers back where the road towards
Swakopmund and Anvinto that I took yesterday, but there's a particularly good bakery,
there's a bakery, very good bakery, very famous bakery, does a very good apple pie or apple
crumble, but I was thinking I could pick up either a meal there or some rolls to go with the chicken
I cooked yesterday, but I'm going to go and investigate Solitaire, there's a garage,
curio shop, bakery, and I'll go and see what that's all about. In the meantime, enjoy the desert!
