Deadvlei

A white clay pan with black dead trees standing on it, ringed by some of the highest dunes in the world, up to 300 to 400 metres, the tallest nicknamed Big Daddy. The Tsauchab river used to flood here and there was enough water for camel thorn to grow. Then the climate dried, the dunes marched across and dammed the river off, and the trees died of thirst about 600 to 700 years ago. They are still standing. They are not petrified or fossilised; the wood is simply too dry to rot, so what you are looking at is 600-year-old dead wood held upright by nothing but the absence of moisture. Salsola and nara still grow out there on morning fog. Namib-Naukluft Park; go at first light before the pan turns into an oven.