Greetings, Earthlings

I’ve just returned from Sossusvlei, a sea of sand dunes that you would more expect to find on Mars than here on lovely old Earth. After five days in Swakopmund I was itching to get out and do something, and the apricot-red dunes are what Namibia is famous for. I think they are actually the tallest sand dunes on Earth.

I rented a car here in Swakop, trusting my friends that a 2WD car would be sufficient to get me down there. Indeed it was, but my god did that car take a beating. It’s a gravel road the entire way—5 hours of uneven gravel—and seeing as how it was a rental car I wasn’t exactly cautious with my driving (sorry, Avis). In addition to the normal roughness of gravel roads, every few kilometres they have these big dips to allow for drainage in flash floods. Since everyone drives about 120km/hr on these roads, I honestly think I got air once or twice..

I drove through some of the most barren and desolate terrain I’ve ever been through. In three hours of driving I think I saw one or two other cars, and you can see them coming for miles and miles away by the dust trail following the car.



The drive is pretty in parts, too. They call the coastline here the Skeleton Coast on account of so many ships wrecking here over the years because of the thick fog and nasty currents. This shipwreck was from less than a year ago.



I camped down near the entrance to the dunes, and took my chances on showing up without a reservation. They let me camp there, but sequestered me to the dusty patch of sand between the bathroom and the road. Not exactly ideal digs, but once again the sunset that evening was incredible. I met a cool South African couple who let me share their fire. What would have been ideal is if they had let me share their stove, but conveniently they had just run out of fuel. I forgot a stove, so I’ve been eating PB&J for the last two days. I thought there might be a store at the campsite with food, but alas this is Africa and I should have been wiser. (View from the campsite, below)



I got up early to drive out to the dunes for sunrise. The scenery is truly surreal. These sand dunes stand up over 1000 ft in some places, and you could be forgiven for thinking they are actually mountains, as I did when I drove in the evening before. There’s basically a 200-mile “sea” of sand dunes between Sossusvlei and west out to the Atlantic. Where I was is the easternmost edge of that sea.







The Namib is the oldest desert in the world (I think), so the sand has been eroded into this really fine grain, almost like a mist. When you pick it up and throw it, it stays in the air for a long time and gets blown hundreds of feet. The small grains also mean death for cameras, so I could only pull out the camera at certain parts because the wind was blowing. It's also really fun to run down the dunes. You hike up the ridgeline, and then bomb down the face on one side or the other. Because the sand is so fine, you never actually see your steps. You're just sort of followed by this wave of silky smooth sand, almost like a mini avalanche.

I just got back to Swakop after a long drive home, and I'm tired so I'm going to sign off. think I’m going to head home for a quick shower before going out for one last night here. Heading to Windhoek tomorrow (more on that later).