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Skeleton Coast - 2001
Skeleton Coast - 2001
Jacek Pałkiewicz2006-06-18 23:04:01
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in the world. A vast landscape unfolds. Isolated pools blink sleepily at the bottom of the gorge, vague reminders of the mighty torrents of the past. And yet the water and the forces of erosion have compelled geology to give up its secrets. The oldest layers at the foot of the steep walls are believed to be about 2.5 billion years old.
By comparison, the gnarled camel thorn trees in the heart of the desert, in Sossusvlei, have "only" been around for 500 years. They were able to survive thanks to the Tsauchab River, a typical Namibian water course with a perennially dry, stony bed. In the middle of the desert, the Tsauchab "flows" into a vlei, a basin with no outlet. The soil is encrusted and scabby, littered with white salt crystals - evidence that in some distant past, there was water here. But today, it's only found at great depths, where the roots of the camel thorn trees manage to tap it.
The other miracle of Sossusvlei is the dune landscape: mountains of finest sand, shimmering in myriad shades of red from pale pink to rust. The Namib is said to be the oldest desert in the world, and its dunes the highest. But above all, it is beauty at its purest: the largest possible accumulation of very simple shapes combining incomparable elegance with intense brilliance.
"Place of dry water" is one possible translation of "Etosha," the name given to a 6,000-square-kilometer basin devoid of vegetation in the north and the national park that surrounds it. In primeval times, the area was covered by a lake, until the Kun-ene shifted its bed. It left a salt desert shimmering in the heat, creating the illusion of distant bodies of water projected along the line of the horizon. Sometimes, a herd of impala, all in a line like migratory birds, trot through the emptiness with a dreamlike slowness.
Initially, visitors to Etosha are gripped by the thrill of the chase. They want to see lions, cheetahs, a rhino if at all possible. The park
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See photographs from:
Namibia Gallery
