I suppose I’m missing our long distance travel destinations where you embrace the unexpected. We travelled in South Africa and Namibia in 2008. I tried painting this several years ago and was determined to try again. Think I’ve improved on the first attempt. Just realised that I forgot to add close-ups photos of the land.
Nothing prepares you for the expanse of the Namib desert . Sossusvlei is a blanket term for the area which includes the haunting and spectacular Deadvlei. The name Deadvlei means dead marsh (from the English dead and the Afrikaans vlei). What once was a marsh, is now a dried white clay pan, surrounded by some of the highest sand dunes in the world that have literally rusted over thousands of years, giving them their fiery complexion. What is more eerie are the 900 year old charcoal tree skeletons (petrified acacias) trapped in a white clay marsh.
It doesn’t sound that appealing, but this vista has to be one of the most dystopian on the planet.
And all is still… very still and yet so beautiful. It is indeed the land that time forgot