SOSSUSVLEI AND DEADVLEI

The various towering purple dunes of namib-naukluft country wide park inside the critical namib barren region is a place referred to as sossusvlei. It's miles a odd and alien panorama. The wealthy crimson dunes that surround the place owe their hue to age -- over thousands of years, the sand has actually rusted.

Sossusvlei is a huge, flat, salt-blanketed expanse with a dense and compact layer of clay in the subsoil. Whilst dry, sossusvlei is difficult and arid, and when wet, because it gets every 5-10 years while fed through the tsauchab river, it turns into sticky and plastic. The region is the river's final vacation spot. Even in the wettest of years, the water soaks into the salt/clay pan, giving the location its nickname: "area of no go back." altogether the blue sky, crimson dunes, and white pans make a hanging vision, paying homage to movies including "the autumn," "the mobile," and "metallic sunrise."

Close by is yet every other "region of no return" this one even older, and plenty extra useless than sossusvlei. Called dead vlei or "useless marsh" (vlei being afrikaans for a type of marsh), it's far observed many of the tallest dunes in the international -- some attain 1,312 ft excessive, which is nearly as lofty as the empire kingdom building. Useless vlei changed into once like sossusvlei, with the river draining into it nourishing barren region life and even bushes. However not. A few 900 years ago the weather dried up, and dunes reduce off dead vlei from the river.

It have become too dry in useless vlei for the bushes to even decompose. They absolutely scorched black inside the sun, monuments to their own destruction. The bushes, now over a thousand years old, form a barren forest. The place, however, is not entirely without life. Salsola shrubs and clumps of nara melon live alive through subsisting off of morning mists. It's miles a forty four-mile drive from the park gates to the dunes of sossusvlei and lifeless vlei. One of the many reasons to head is to experience the sunrise (or sunset) over the huge red sand dunes of the namib wasteland. The skies are some of the clearest in the world.