Sossusvlei

This part of Namibia is quite possibly both the most amazing and the most bizarre place I've ever visited.  The Namib Desert is reputedly the oldest desert in the world and home to some of the tallest dunes in the world.  These enormous sand dunes are bright red, especially in the early morning light before black oxidation spots begin to emerge.  Between some of these dunes are clay pans, the largest of which is appropriately called "Deadvlei," where there used to be water and live acacia trees.  The trees are still there, but they've been dead for around 900 years.  [I may have gone overboard with the zeroes in a couple postcards I sent, apologies!]  Because they're protected from the elements by the huge dunes on either side, the tree carcasses remain in place even though they aren't petrified.

We stayed at a lodge pretty far away from the park itself, and arrived to/from Sossusvlei in a six-seater Cessna -- which was pretty fun in and of itself.  The scenery at the lodge is stunning, not dunes but wide open plains punctuated by the occasional rock mountain.  The lodge specializes in horseback riding, so we went for a sunset ride our first day at camp.  There are a surprising number of animals living in the desert despite the dearth of water: springbok, oryx, ostriches, and jackals, as well as a couple types of birds, ants, snakes, and the biggest crickets I've ever seen (one had to be at least 5 inches long; it was easily as big as the lizards eying it).

Still, everything was overshadowed by our dune excursion.  After we took copious pictures of the dunes in the early morning light, we hiked up part of "Big Daddy," a 300-meter dune, then walked down the side of it.  Hiking up wasn't as bad as I'd anticipated -- others had gone before and if you walked carefully in the footsteps of the person before you and kept your feet flat, you wouldn't sink down in the sand very far.  Coming down was very fun because you're basically wading through sand in a way that feels very comfortable despite the steep downward grade.

In short, it's a unique and pretty amazing place.

More pictures later, plus I'll link Vijay's (far superior) pictures once he posts them.