Sossusvlei

The towering sand dunes of Sossusvlei

 As we left Swakopmund on Namibia's west coast, the cold grey mist continued to engulf the town until we thankfully reached the desert once again. Our next stop was the spectacular scenery of Sossusvlei which no amount of reading or research can prepare you for.

 Dune 45, more spectacular than its name.

Our accommodation was in a stunning location, isolated in a beautiful valley surrounded by rugged mountains but it’s the sand dunes that are the big attraction and sunrise is the time to witness their splendour when the colours are at their most vivid. It has to be one of the most beautiful places we’ve ever seen as these towering orange dunes rise 350m from the valley floor. Climbing what looks like a razor edge from the base is a fantastic experience and running down the steep sides is even better. Throw in some white dried up lakes and some old twisted  trees with the dunes as a backdrop and you’ve got yourself a surreal landscape which we stared at for hours and ran the camera batteries out.

Reluctantly we had to leave this wonderful place and it was a spectacular but long six hour drive south to the German coastal town of Luderitz, our base for the next two nights. Not only does it sound like a concentration camp, it was back in the cold grey cloud and our hotel, despite being a 4 star was clinical and cold. There was a certain irony that just a few hours previous our breath had been taken away by Sossusvlei’s scenery and now our breath was being taken away by the life draining out of us.

The ghost town of Kolmanskop

However, Luderitz does have a trump card. It’s the surreal ghost town nearby called Kolmanskop. A former diamond mining town which had a hospital, swimming pool and even a theatre but by the mid 1950’s with the discovery of more diamonds further south it began to lose its importance and eventually it was abandoned to the shifting desert sands. Today it’s a ghostly and bleak setting but fascinating to see such a prominent place slowly being eroded away and engulfed by the wind ravaged desert.