Sossusvlei

Honeymoon - Day 27 & 28

After having breakfast at Namib Naukluft Lodge, we were on the road again, going to the last stop of our honeymoon - Sossusvlei. 

Sossusvlei was the place that Mr. B really wanted to visit in Namibia, and of course Mrs. B had never heard of this place before doing research for our honeymoon 😆 (Like pretty much everything else)

We checked in at the NWR Sossus Dune Lodge and dropped our bags, then Mr. B couldn't wait to jump back into the car and do some dune-seeing. 😉 

Elim Dune was our first dune as it's the closest to the entrance. It's not challenging to "climb" up there and it was a good start. 

Honeymoon silly shot 😆 

​As we drove along the paved road (yup, unlike the roads going to Sossusvlei, they actually invested in paving a road that leads up to various dunes), we saw more and more dunes. Some small, some big. Some low, and high. Some were in S shape, and some were in star shape (in the case of winds coming from different directions).

Our next dune was Dune 45. We were guessing (me asking this question in fact) how the name came from. I asked Mr. B if it's because it's inclined 45 degrees (I admit that it's quite a nonsense guess) 😅 Mr. B on the other hand thought they just simply put a number to every dune, and that one was number 45.

I'm a more romantic and imaginative (i.e. unrealistic) person while Mr. B is more logical and realistic and focuses on practicality. His as-a-matter-of-fact tone and the unromantic "answer" naturally made me raised my eye brow 🤔 (if not rolling my eyes 🙄)...

Anyway, we reached Dune 45 and parked. Around 8-10 people were on the dune. We saw some of them had taken off their shoes, and so we did the same - we had our shoes on when we walked up the Elim Dune, and that resulted in Mr. B's shoes filling with sands (well, a good way to bring authentic souvenirs back).

As soon as we started walking up, I announced that I would only go up to halfway and not to the top. It's quite exhausting but not unmanageable, yet the height was freaking me out. Mr. B attempted to comfort me by saying that I wouldn't get hurt/die even if I would fall.

My counterattack was: I know that I most probably wouldn't get hurt if I took an extreme roller coaster ride, but it doesn't mean that I wouldn't be scared to death. 😏

Despite Mr. B's size, he walked up much faster than I did.  

When I looked to the left, it's like this. The slope on the side is steep.  

That was mean, I know. But I was just so so frightened! That's exactly what Mr. B couldn't understand - in general I'm very excited when I go on glass-bottom stuff like the Tower Bridge in London, and tower in Auckland and Melbourne, and really really wanted to go to the glass bottom bridge at the Grand Canyon (sadly we didn't go to that bridge because we couldn't fit it in to our schedule). So he just couldn't understand why I'm scared of height. 😒

Frankly, it's not super high. But each step I put forward made the sands around my foot fell to the side...and as we walked up, the "path" was getting more and more narrow...plus there's no fence...

This was the best that I could do...Couldn't move any further up...so I stopped at this point and sat down

Although I wasn't at the top, I felt that I was already quite high up... 

I did try to push myself to slowly go up more and more, and just stopped when I was almost at the top because my feet wouldn't move anymore. I was glad that Mr. B went on and completed this for us. Meanwhile I couldn't stand to stand up so I sat down to rest.

That's the way we came up from...Panicking how to go back down... 

Mr. B went up to the top and took a picture of me. He might not have seen it but my feet were shaking involuntarily. 😖

While Mr. B was climbing up to the top, I took more pictures of the surroundings to distract myself...

The break proved to be good, as I was more courageous when I walked back down 😉 I even proudly told Mr. B that I could go down myself without his help. Hearing this, he went down to the ground in what seemed like 5 steps! 

Mr. B went down to the ground with lightening speed, leaving me up there moving slowly down in baby steps. The white dot in the picture was me 😅

Here's a closer look

Alright, time to go back to the lodge before the gate is closed. We went to bed early as there's a sunrise tour the following morning!

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This morning we got up at 4am and had breakfast at the lodge before setting out for our sunrise tour. It's a tour organized by the lodge and needed to book in advance. It took almost an hour to drive to our destination. Since it's dark, there's nothing to see so we just slept. There were two other couples in the tour.

As soon as the guide killed the engine, he said, "Today the weather is very...together!"

"Together"?!?! So I asked Mr. B and he heard the same thing. 😂 What does that mean? I couldn't help laughing!

We got down the vehicle and saw the sign 'Deadvlei'. Yay! Finally were here! We walked in the dark for a while...and the sky started to light up a little bit...I was wondering what's happening as we were supposed to watch sunrise?!

The Deadvlei sign at the car park. Took this when we left (it was too dark to take pic when we arrived)  

The tour guide stopped, observed the sky, and said it should have been cleared by then...so he thought we wouldn't see the sunrise. Great news for a sunrise tour! Since it's so cloudy, he asked if we would still want to climb up the dune to take a look. Everyone said it's ok. Nobody seemed to be disappointed. 😆 The guide told us that this kind of weather only happens a few times a year, so we were very lucky.

Since we were already there, we walked towards Deadvlei...It's misty. I didn't know how it's supposed to be, but it looked very mysterious and cool to me!

Walking towards Deadvlei...A place that is famous for its dead trees 😄 

Black and white was just right for this place in this special misty morning!  

This was supposed to be the dune that we walk up to watch sunrise  

We stayed for an hour or so and had breakfast with the group. Through the conversation we got to know that the other two couples - from UK and France - had flight delays and the British couple still hadn't gotten their suitcase. No wonder they were dressing like summer when it's 6 degrees! One really shouldn't judge other people without trying to understand what's going on.

On the way back to the lodge, the guide was telling us about the dunes like Big Papa, Big Mama and Dune 45. Apparently, it's a national park and so the government numbered all of the dunes. So, right, Dune 45 is just number 45! 😑 Speechless...

The tour ended when we're back at the lodge. After packing, Mr. B decided that we should go back to Deadvlei. We drove to the end of the paved road and parked. From there, we took a "shuttle" (fee applies) to Deadvlei. The drive was less than 10 mins, but you can't go in unless you have a 4 wheel drive (or on foot). Don't forget to buckle up! It's bumpy!

While waiting for the shuttle we saw this overnight hotel bus that had a German license plate. Not entirely sure how it got here.  

There were significantly more people than in the morning - of course, the NWR Sossus Dune Lodge is the only lodge that's within the gate, so you can only go on a sunrise tour if you stay at that lodge (That's the reason why we still booked that lodge even when it's pricy and the service was bad). If you stay in other places, you'll need to wait for the gate to open at 5:30am. By the time you reach Deadvlei, it'll be around 6:30am.

With a clear blue sky and a rather strong sun, Deadvlei looked very different! But either way it looks very unreal Haha!

Here's a 360 degree video of Deadvlei when we went back for the second time - when it's "normal" and showing very vivid colour.

It's an amazing experience to be there at Deadvlei, no matter it's foggy and misty or when it's at its normal self. If you have the energy and time, you could climb up the dunes nearby to get a better view.

Our honeymoon is almost coming to an end...We'll soon go back to our reality...😓

We've driven back to the Namib Naukluft Lodge to stay for the night...Then tomorrow we'll head back to Windhoek, and from there we'll fly "home" to Frankfurt...