Greetings!
Many million years ago, the earth in the middle of Namibia lifted up about a thousand meters. It's called the great escarpment. What storms traveled east from the Atlantic crashed into that wall, eroded it and caused both a slope of eroded rock, and a river flowing back to the Atlantic.
The winds in this area flow like the water and the storms - east to west, and west to east. Paralleling the beach, these dunes built to huge proportions, and created a virtual sand dam on the river a few miles from the beach. A reservoir of water existed and life blossomed.
That lasted a while, until a line of dunes east of the dam created another one upriver. That dried up the first, and it became the "dead pan" we hiked to this morning.
Local trees, dated at 800 years old still stand in the pan, and provide some nice seats in the amphitheater of majestic views.
Tomorrow, we have another long drive north and west to the coast of Namibia. I may get to actually dip my toes in the Atlantic.
To see the rest of the photos we took today, click on
Monday, Desert Camp, Sossusvlei, Namibia.
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