The 65km drive out to the dunes in an open vehicle was brutally cold, 4*C with a windchill at 80kph works out to be frigging cold. Had a good breakfast with the group and then walked up Big Daddy, tallest dune here or the world apparently, 246 metres and took 46 minutes up.
From up there it is a panaromic view of Deadvlei and surrounding dunes.
Sossusvlei actually had some water in as you can see in the picture below which is a rarity.
Got back at 3pm and chased down a cyclist I thought was Hendrik, a Belgium guy we met in Mozambique in April, but it wasn't. Christian was just told that both campsites were full and they couldn't squeeze him in, which is totally bullshit, everyone accommodates cyclists.So told him to pull into my camp which he did, he's been cycling for 14 years now and there's not much he hasn't seen or hiked. He cooked us dinner in his tent which is like three feet tall, and shared a great meal with me.
While in the shower I met another guy that didn't have a campsite and happened to have met Christian a few days earlier, so I told him to stay aswell which he did with his girlfriend, Ursula. They broke out their oozing utensils and the next minute we were all chowing down around the Camel Thorn Tree fire (Kameel Doring sounds so much better ).
Gotta challenge the highest sand dune claim. That one I stayed on during Peru Dakar with the 4x4 club lunatics is supposed to be second highest in the world and it took us well over an hour to drive up it. 2080m above sea level....
ReplyDeleteJust to clarify, there were 15+ motors and people kept getting stuck so maybe we could have got up faster... If you were driving lololol. Remember that stage in Argentina in Dietrich, the 2wd who pissed all over the 4wd locals?!
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