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  • Day 69

    Desert sunrise - Deadvlei - to Naute Dam

    February 1, 2020 in Namibia ⋅ 🌙 18 °C

    I had to get up at 4.30am to get a hot shower and pack up my tent in time to board the truck at 5.30an to drive to a very large sand dune 45 which is supposedly the second largest sand dune in Namibia. We climbed the slipping desert sands for over half an hour up to top of the dune. It was quite a climb and the views over the surrounding sand dunes and huge flat valley floor wea quite breathtaking. This was the classic evocative desert views that one imagines when thinking of Namibia. We sat on the ridge of the dune at the top and watch the sun rise behind low clouds and over distant mountains. After admiring the ever changing colours of the sands from deep reds to browns and yellows for quite some time we made our way back down the dune which was much more fun than coming up and filled my shoes with sand. Breakfast was waiting for us as we returned with pancakes and toast made by Often, our driver, and Jemma, our tour leader. After breakfast, we headed for a visit to the highest dune in Namibia and possibly the highest in the world. We parked the truck and were driven to the bottom of the giant dune in safari jeeps. We didn't have to time or energy to climb the dune but walked out to a big open area below the dunes where 700 year old dead trees stood evocatively on an old, flat, sun baked valley floor. This was a very atmospheric and peaceful place with too many other tourists there for my liking bit I was able to get away from them to have a quiet moment to myself. There used to be a river running through this valley, but after a long drought 700 years ago, the sand dunes blew across the valley and cut off the river. The trees died and the trunks were preserved in their original form for all these hundreds of years. The scene gave one a sense of the passage of time.e with the dead trees and the shifting sands of the dunes. We walked back to the jeep taxis, admiring the views of the huge red and yellow sand dunes all around us, and got back on the truck for the next long leg of our journey. We continued on through dry desert landscapes and past long mountain ranges which seemed to get more and more varied and spectacular as we drove. There were long flat mountains with different coloured striated rocks and one amazing conical mountain with a thin rocky top.
    We arrived at our campsite next to the damn and lake in the early evening. After pitching our tents and pegging then down to secure them from the wind., we had a nice evening meal of vegetable and bean chilli as we watched the sun go down into a bright orange horizon, giving the clouds a fiery tinge. Hundreds of geese returned noisily to spend the night on the small islands in the lake. The dark descended and a few stars and crescent moon appeared between the clouds as we sat around the camp fire chatting. The night was extremely hot and it was difficult to get to sleep even with the outer tent removed and a hot breeze blowing. I slept between the light rain that occasionally fell through the tent during the night.
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