Sossusvlie Desert

There is a wonderful quiet rose red glow to this whole Sossusvlei Desert. The guide tells me that Sossusvlei means valley at the end of the river.



The sands of this desert come a long way around from the Kalahari Desert in Botswana. They these orange red sands flow over 1000 kilometers with the summer rains down the Gariep (Orange) River to the Atlantic. The sands are then pushed north a few hundred miles by the coastal current to Swakopmund where the northwest winds push the sands 55 kilometers overland in to this place.




There is a place called the Dead Place. It is where the river used to flow but is no more. The river changed directions about 800 years ago and left the stumps of these trees.





Here I found the Dune Turtle Beetle, the Formula-1 beetle that is exceedingly fast and hard to catch on camera as it races the heat over the dunes, and the Sharp-shovel-snouted Lizard.




Dune Turtle Beetle



Formula-1 Beetle




The Sharp-shovel Snouted Beetle. This guy can bury himself very quckly at the first shadow of danger.