Our start came early again, as usual. Fortunately, Erika and I were sleeping well in the tent now. Exhaustion helps with that.

We were even better at getting camp packed up this time, and were easily able to hit our planned 8am departure time. We had a date with the dunes, and Erika, especially, was excited.

The dunes were all I really knew about Namibia before this trip, and that’s because Erika has long wanted to come see them. It’s the main reason we were here, so this was the day we’d most been looking forward to.

Day 5

Day 5 was finally a “light” driving day, with all our driving up front in the morning. Our itinerary was:

• Drive to the town of Sesriem
• Enter the national park, and drive out to where the dunes are
• Back to Sesriem where we’d camp for the night

The drive to Sesriem was 160 kilometers of, again, all dirt roads. It took all morning, but it took us through some spectacular scenery. The drive was beautiful enough, but then, seemingly suddenly, lying just before you are the vast, glowing orange sands of the desert.

As you approach it, the desert seems to just begin immediately—like you cross a line, and suddenly the brush and rock we’d been driving through converts instantly to the orange sand. In reality, the transition takes a little longer, but only just.

The closer we got to the desert, the more animals we started seeing. Gemsbok were everywhere. We even saw a road sign warning you to watch out for giraffes, which got Erika incredibly excited. Sadly, we didn’t spot any giraffes that day, though.

Eventually, we pulled into the “town” of Sesriem. Sesriem isn’t much more than a gas station, a couple camp sites, the national park entrance, and a couple other buildings. It’d been a while since we refueled, so we did that now, then entered the national park, paid our admission, and started the nearly hour long drive out to the dunes.

This stretch of road in the park is paved, for some reason. Maybe Namibia is trying to make their number one tourist attraction more accessible, but if so there’s much more to do, because there aren’t any other paved roads for hundreds of kilometers in any direction. So you’re taking dirt roads to get there.

At any rate, it was lovely and I wasn’t about to complain.

The road runs 60km to its end, at Sossusvlei. Sossusvlei has kind of become short hand for referring to the entire area, but in reality it’s a single place, a large salt pan in the middle of the desert. The entire drive is surrounded on both sides by enormous, towering orange dunes, and various points of interest lie along the road. Elim Dune, which is close to Sesriem; Dune 45, so named because it’s 45 kilometers from Sesriem; then the three vleis, Sossusvlei, Deadvlei, and Hiddenvlei.

Our first target was Deadvlei. At the end of the paved road is a parking lot, and from there you could walk to Deadvlei, but it’s a few more kilometers. Alternatively, there are infrequent shuttles that will take you back and forth between there and a closer parking lot. Alternatively, if you have a 4×4, you can drive yourself to this closer parking lot.

Guess who had 4x4s?

This was one of the highlights of the entire trip.

The road was all soft, deep sands, sometimes spreading out in very wide clearings. Erika drove in, and I drove the way back out. “I’m in a jeep commercial!” she enthused, as she bounded over the swells of sand. It was a blast!

Erika drove us, giggling ecstatically, to the parking lot for Deadvlei. From there… well, it’s not entirely clear where to go. The guidebooks say it’ll be signed, but we didn’t really find that to be the case. There were one or two other cars at the lot, but at the time we didn’t see any other people. So we set out in what seemed to be a reasonable direction into the sands, and were soon proven correct.

Deadvlei is also an enormous salt pan, that apparently used to be an oasis in the desert, before the river that fed it dried up. What was left, then, was a huge salt flat, spotted with dead, petrified trees. The bright whites of the salt, the dark twisted forms of the trees, and the fiery orange of the dunes combine to create unique, mind-blowing scenery, and easily beautiful pictures.

Wandering the flat, it feels vast and remote, despite being really just a few hundred meters from the parking lot. You’re surrounded by gigantic dunes on all sides, including the largest dune in the area, the hilariously named Big Daddy.

It was an awe inspiring area, and despite the intense sun and heat we could have stayed longer.

But we had more places to visit, so it was back to the trucks!

Next, we wanted to continue down to Sossusvlei. It’s a little further down the 4×4 only road, so Erika took us the rest of the way there, to get her full jeep commercial experience.

Sossusvlei itself… well, we didn’t spend much time there. Like Deadvlei, it’s a huge salt flat, though it lacked the stark scenery that Deadvlei had, what with the petrified trees. Plus, we wanted to get over to Hiddenvlei to have a closer experience with the dunes, and it was getting late. So after a couple minutes, it was time to continue the jeep commercial, and make our way back to the paved road. The fun way.

Hiddenvlei is a third salt flat, and lies… well, “hidden”… 4 kilometers from the parking lot, amongst the dunes. This was even less signed, so once again we set off confidently but blindly into the desert, spotting footprints every now and then to give us a clue. I had visions of us lost in the desert.

We never went all the way to Hiddenvlei, but the joy of this walk was that it took you up and down some of the massive dunes. Climbing them, walking along their ridges, watching the winds twist the sands and erase your footprints behind you… it was magical. You don’t have to walk far from the car before all sight of the car vanishes, and you feel like you’re in the middle of nowhere. It is, literally, awesome.

We couldn’t get enough of this. The photographic opportunities are endless, and the feeling of remoteness is indescribable. We saw no one else while we were out in the dunes, it was just the four of us, and it was incredible.

It being just the four of us, with no one else in sight… well, we couldn’t help but make a little love.

And get a little frisky.

Whew! Is it the sun that’s hot or is it just me?

Anyway, we took as much time as we could to enjoy this unique, once-in-a-lifetime sort of experience, before reluctantly making our way back to the cars, hoping to get to camp and actually set up in the daylight for once.

The good spirits continued at camp that night and we had a wonderful evening relaxing. With our dinner, we had wine that we’d picked up that day, and spent the meal talking about our amazing experiences so far.

I loved how remote and desolate our dune hiking was, completely removed from people. But I’m so glad we could share it with our good friends.

Next Time, On Namibia Travels…

The gang craves more outdoors time, and goes on a long, beautiful hike… but deep in the hike lies terror, and they face their toughest challenge yet.