Journey to Sossusvlei

It was time for the road again after our enjoyable stay in Swakopmund. After a good cooked breakfast, we prepared and lunch for the road and then headed off down a very cool coastal road towards the desert landscapes of our next camp. We travelled through flat, open desert sands for many miles as the sun began to appear from the morning mists of the coastal road. We headed inland and mountains began to rise up from the desert. The geology was very interesting. We travelled through a mountain range of slate like rock. We rose above a dried river valley with baboons and an oryx down in the valley, still able to gain enough moisture from the trees and plants growing on the valley bottom. The stratified yellow rock had been folded up at an angle by immense geological forces. We passed down into wide desert valleys with mountains in multicolours of rocks. Red sandstone coloured mountains rose before us on the dusty bone shaking road. Then mountains with yellow bottoms and dark brown tops that made them look like they were in the shadows of clouds. Dark grey mountains passed by. A long ridged mountain escarpment was a sandy yellow colour with a dark band of rock running right along the upper middle of it. The mountains also came in all possible shapes and sizes. There were two mountains with flat tops and other jagged ranges with pointed tops. We passed an open flat plain with widely spaced trees and saw a group of ostrich, oryx and a small herd of zebra.
We stopped off at an unusual roadside bar and shops with old cars slowly rusting in the desert sands with a mountain backdrop. There was a very tame ground squirrel by the car park which delicately took peanuts out of my hand.
We turned off the main road and into our large campsite, Sossusvlei Dune Camp Sesrium, in the desert sands within impressive backdrop of mountains and sand dunes. I put my tent up in blistering heat and went for a cool drink in the bar. I then went for a swim to cool off in a lovely small swimming pool under a tree with a big social weaver birds nest and views out to the mountains. Small birds flew down and drank from the water on the wing as I swam. It was my cool group's turn to cook the evening dinner and I felt the responsibility of the group cooling on of my recipe ideas, Boston bean pot, which was quite stressful cooking for 14 people. The meal went down well with most but the added dijon mustard was too hot for some.
After dinner we drove to a small canyon nearby. It was an interesting canyon with steep side and carved out of the surrounding mudrock which was filled with other stones and pebbles and must have been part of a river delta millions of years ago. We walked back to the top of the canyon and watched the sun go down behind some fire edged clouds. The sky then went a deep red. above the distant mountain ranges. We drove back to camp in the dark and saw baboons move through the desert scrub and low trees. Venus rose in the sky near a bright and waxing crescent moon. Back at the camp the stars shone brightly in their endless multitudes as the milky way arched overhead. It took a while to settle for sleep with people talking in nearby tents, but I did manage to drift off in the cooling night with the stars twinkling through the netting of my tent. I regretted my decision to put up my tent early as the desert sands had blown into the netting of my tent and fell down into the tent as a dusty rain through the night.Read more