What is Sossusvlei? Its horizon-tickling, rippling red dunefield is not known as the Namib Sand Sea for nothing. Even UNESCO has chosen to inscribe these towering star-dune edifices onto their World Heritage Site list. Among the tallest in the world, climbing them is a must-do. Tumbling down is even more compulsory, all 300-plus metres – especially Big Daddy, which looms over Dead Vlei and its cracked-mud floor, an improbable home to a forest of long-dead camelthorn trees. Namibian icons and must-sees on any African desert safari tour.
Sossusvlei is where you are likely to see large herds of gemsbok and zebra, as well as curious jackal and the largest flying bird – the kori bustard. Bring your photographer’s eye as you won’t be short of subjects on this undeniably unusual African safari tour. After a rare wet summer, you’ll be surrounded by fields of shimmering grasses, acres of unexpected green in the ochre landscape, fed by the fleeting precipitation. You may even see your own reflection in the water held by the white clay pan, a dead-end of the Tsauchab River, which otherwise meant to find its way to the Atlantic Ocean, just 50 km to the west.
