Tag: Namib Desert

In this part of the Namib – its western edge, adjacent to the Atlantic’s “skeleton coast” – its dunes are often generally-lighter in colour than are those further inland and further south.

Here, also, variations in colour and texture are more readily-evident/common on the dunes’ surfaces.

Their “sands” are not all of the same kind, colour and density; accordingly, winds “sift”, “sort” and shift them, differentially.

The results are oft-exquisite: “sand mandalas”, sans any human role in their creation.

I especially love what happens when shifting sands meet rocks and/or riverbeds; they, too, are far from “uniform”.

Absolutely nothing “artificial” is going on here, and you are indeed looking at one of the least-rainy places on our planet – a few kilometres in from the “Skeleton Coast”, on the Namib’s western edge.

Presumably/perhaps, there is a rock barrier below the dune on which I stood, at 10.24 am on 14 November 2022.

(dolerite “dikes” are a common landscape feature, above ground, in northern Namibia)

In any event, the “surprising” mini-forest in front of me could not survive on light and fog alone!

For quite some time, in the distant past, the Hoarusib River must have carried a lot more water, a lot more often, and had much more erosive power.

This post’s, the previous post’s, and the next post’s photos were all taken within the space of a very few minutes.

Their vantage points were not at all far apart.

This is a place where a very selective view can create a highly misleading impression.