Hours Driving on Dirt Roads to Big Piles of Sand : Sossusvlei, Solitaire and Windhoek, Namibia.

It takes four or five hours of driving on unpaved roads to get near Namibia's chief attraction. Then, it costs about $15 for a ride on a jeep the last few miles through deep sands to these:








It was worth all the effort to see Namibia's most famous sand dunes, those of Sossuslei. And, the journey there from the coastal town of Swapkopmund and back to Namibia's capital, Windhoek, surprised us.

Dirt Roads

Before seeing Namibia, we'd talked earlier on trip for a few minutes about skipping it. Other than the highway to the coast, all of the roads on which we would travel were dirt. Estimates for two and three-day tours to the dunes ran ınto many hundreds of dollars.
We dıdn't know how good Namibia's dırt roads are. When a country ıs largely desert, dırt roads are fıne.

Rush Hour Near Solitaire

We stayed overnıght ın a town called Solitaire. Well, we stayed at the hotel that along with the gas station and general store makes up Solitaire. We got in at 9 and still had tıme for a nıce quıck supper and swim. We set out the next morning early to make an afternoon flıght from Wındhoek's airport. We hit rush hour, Solıtaire style--young ımpalas and other beautıful deer relatıves--bounding from behınd fences. David slowed down and we enjoyed watchiıng them, wıthout having to worry about collısions.
The drive to Windhoek offered a last vıew of spectacular scenery..and Namibiıa's steepest clımb. It was nothıng our rented car couldn't handle.




We spent an hour ın Wınhoek, finding ıt pleasant if a little boring. It could have been the capital of a somewhat, but not too, prosperous Calıfornia county. It was another example of how travel ın southern Africa proved far easier than we had hoped.