Namib Desert: Deadweight

What is deadweight? Translated from the English-African "dead swamp." This is a clay bald spot with a radius of a kilometer on the Sossussflay plateau, surrounded by two hundred meter dunes. These are dead trees - withered, as if drunk. This is a completely alien forest (perhaps the most unusual of all where I happened to visit). And for the general public, it’s also the logo of the Snapseed mobile application (hello to instagramlers!). The desert is a real “asphalt skating rink”. Millions of tons of sand live their lives and move slowly, digesting all living things. According to the basic version, more than nine hundred years ago, the Tsochab River, which fed the valley, changed its course under the onslaught of impending dunes. The water was gone, and the trees were left to die under the indifferent sun. Deadweight now resembles the eye of a sand hurricane: inside there is a temporary lull, and on the sides there are walls of moving sand.

You can only get here by SUV. Park attendants zealously ensure that no one gets on their vehicles for fencing; asphalt road fits under the dunes, and then you change to jeeps.

Within half an hour, your jeep will gut the dunes, and you will bump your head against the bulkheads (young drivers love to hike). Then the jeep remains in the parking lot, and you go to the desert on foot ... An example of another clay valley, not as photogenic, and therefore not as untwisted as Deadly. The same skeletons of trees, the same drought-killed land.

This place is unique, nowhere else in the world is anything like it. Complete minimalism in the picture and a clear separation of plans. Twisted but well-read trees against the background of the dunes. Smooth "crocodile" soil underfoot ... All these are Deadwood's business cards.

Here you can wander for hours, looking for more and more new angles. In my experience, it’s best to come a little later than dawn, when the shadow from the dune on the left is drawn to the edge of the plateau, but the shadows from the trees will still be long.