Path to Sossusvlei

It's rather amazing that I haven't posted more on the Namibia Trip of Mystery, although since then I've led a student trip to India, faced down the travel challenges of a pandemic, fought the crushing sadness of being dumped, transferred all my classes to online, wrote a ton on my Aeneid chapter, and survived (so far) the Great Isolation. Come to think of it, I guess it's not that surprising. Nevertheless, I need to get more of the Namibia material up.

Here are some pictures of the path to Sossuvlei, that amazing spot with the centuries old dessicated trees surrounded by the monstrously huge (some over a thousand feet high) sand dunes. Sossusvlei was the place, more than any other, that drew me to Namibia in the first place. As Steve Wehmeyer likes to opine, if there's a desert I will find it.

And you can see Big Daddy, the biggest sand dune in the background. It's over a thousand feet high, and it's all sand, not sand covering a smaller stone mountain.

And another view, giving you a sense of the incredible beautiful desolation.

Yeah, the climb just about did me in, and I didn't get anywhere close to Big Daddy. You can see Sossusvlei itself to the right of the picture. In about a hundred yards or so I bailed and headed down.

And a shot about halfway down the dune.

And a shot of the parched earth of Sossusvlei, as I made my way down the fine, reddish shifting sand.