Namibia’s sand sea – the coastal Namib Desert – becomes a UNESCO World Heritage Site

This week’s Friday Photo celebrates Namibia’s “Sand Sea” – the Namib Desert , as today it has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Namib, at over 30,000 square kilometres, is incomprehensibly large, and virtually all of its water comes from the thick, daily fog that loiters across the coast. But the desert is not a static environment; the dunes shift, desert-adapted life burrows beneath the burning surface to reach the cooler sands below. The burning sun, unobstructed by clouds or trees, paints with light and shadow on the sloped surfaces – the rust red walls, the white clay floors, the dark, hardy camelthorn trees.

MORE INFORMATION

• The Namib Desert is vast and largely inaccessible; one of the best ways to view it is from the air. Here’s a gallery of my aerial shots of Namibia.
• The luxury, sustainable Wolwedans Lodges and Camps are located in the NamibRand Nature Reserve. Read my recent post about their incredible environmental efforts in the middle of the desert.
• Namibia’s only other UNESCO World Heritage Site is the ancient bushmen rock engravings and paintings at Twyfelfontein. Here’s the blog post I wrote for the Namibia Tourism Board about Twyfelfontein – one of Africa’s largest concentrations of rock art.