3 Day Sossusvlei Express

There is the option for a leisurely start this morning as we are only leaving Swakopmund in the middle morning. Your guide will make contact with you for a brief pre-departure talk and let you know the exact time of departure.
If you choose not to have a lie in then Swakopmund offers many opportunities to keep us busy during our morning here. The town centre is small and easily explored on foot but there are also many extra, optional activities available.
For those with a love of adrenaline quad biking and sandboarding is a very popular if you fancy careering down the slip face of a sand dune at 60 km per hour. Our guide will discuss all the options with you in advance and will be able to facilitate any bookings that we would like to make.
Departing Swakopmund at 11h30 we head east into the desert. We first cross the Namib gravel plains, large areas of flat and seemingly barren terrain broken up by huge mountain inselbergs. We have two mountain passes to traverse this afternoon, first is the mighty Kuiseb Pass and we follow the road from the top of the mountains, dropping steeply down into the canyon carved over eons by the Kuiseb River on its way to debouch into the ocean at the port town of Walvis Bay.
We climb up from the banks of the river and over the pass, travelling through the mountain peaks and on to the second, smaller canyon of the Gaub River, a tributary of the Kuiseb. We emerge from the mountains onto a flat road and almost immediately we cross the Tropic of Capricorn at 23.5 south degrees. There is a signpost at this auspicious spot and we stop along the road for photos. Onwards again to our destination for today, Desert Camp, located very close to the National Park entrance at Sesriem which is the gateway to the dunes at Sossusvlei. We aim to arrive in the late afternoon and there will be time for a short walk to see the sun dip below the impressive Naukluft Mountains.