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Experience the Namib desert with the knowledge of your local tour guide as we track through our early explorer footprints. The most frequently visited section of the massive 49,000km2 Namib Naukluft Park has become known as Sossusvlei, famous for its highest dunes with apricot-colored sand dunes which can be reached by following the Tsauhab River valley. Sossusvlei itself is a clay pan set amidst these star-shaped dunes which stand up to 300m above the surrounding plans, ranking them among the tallest dunes on earth. The deathly white clay pan contrasts against the orange sands and forms the endpoints of the ephemeral Tsauhab River, within the interior of the Great Sand Sea. The river course rises east of Namib Naukluft Mountain in the Great Escarpment. It penetrates the sand sea for some 55km before it finally peters out at Sossusvlei, about the same distance from the Atlantic Ocean. Until the encroached dunes blocked its course around 60,000 years ago, the Tsauhab Rive once reached the sea, as the ephemeral river still does in the northern half of Namib. Sand-locked pans to the west show where the river previously flowed before the dunes shifted it
s endpoint to where it currently gathers at Sossusvlei. Roughly once a decade rainfall over the catchment area is sufficient to bring the river down in floods and fill the pan. On such occasions, the mirror images of dunes and camel thorn trees around the pan are reflected in the water. Sossusvlei is the biggest of four pans in the vicinity.
Another famous for its gnarled and ghostly camel thorn trees is Dead Vlei, which can be reached on foot with over 1.1km of sand. Dead vlei striking camel thorn trees, dead for want of water, still standing erect as they once grew. They survived until about 900 years ago when the sand sea finally blocked the river from occasionally flooding the pan.
Woodpecker Tour Safari is your greatest natural adventure in Namibia and is owned and operated by Mr. Elvis Nghimutina a National Tour Guide with vast knowledge of Namibian Fauna and flora. Great travel companion who enjoys sharing his knowledge and experience of 24 years with international travel.
Product ID: 59kHMa0K8H
