We were supossed to leave early in the morning the next day after the sandboarding/ATV'ing for a town called Sesreim, which is the gateway to the Namib Naukluft National Park, in hopes of seeing the sunset from the top of Dune 45. We had a late start because our truck needed to get a tire fixed, so when we finally left around 11am, we were in a mad rush to get there. Dune 45 is creatively named because it is 45 km south of Sesreim, and 45 dunes north of Sossusvlei. It is popular to climb because there happens to be a parking lot just at its base. We parked and started up the dune to beat the sun. Climbing up dunes was not easy, especially for the person in front who was making tracks for everyone else. We made it to the top, but the park actually closes at 6:30 and all vehicles need to be out by then, so since we were 45 minutes into the park at Dune 45, we didn't have time to see the sunset. So when we got to the top, we only had time to sit and take pictures of nearby dunes for about 15 minutes before we had to get back and race out of the park. Not the most relaxing day, but we were returning the next morning to see the sunrise from the same dune.

Getting up at 4:45am the next morning, we drove back out to Dune 45, climbed up, again, and watched the sunrise. Boy was that a cold walk, but worth it. We walked down the dune and had breakfast at its base, and then left to explore the dunes around Sossusvlei.
Sossusvlei is what they call the sand dune whose base is a basin for water when it rains, which last happened in 2001. Since the dunes are constantly moving with the wind and repositioning themselves, Sossusvlei is not always the same dune. The previous Sossusvlei (about 900 years ago) is now called Dead Vlei, where there are trees that have been dead since the water drained from the pan and now is a flat bed of calcium deposits. I absolutely loved walking in and around the dunes - it was like being in a painting. I used up my entire 256mb xd card in 5 hours of walking, and from the looks of the trucks driving through the sand, walking was the right choice.

We also had a guide for a few hours that told us about the animals that live in the desert and how they adapt to having little to no water. Yuri was a japanese woman that came to Namibia 7 years ago as a tourist, fell in love with the place and stayed to be a guide in the desert. She walked around barefoot in the sand and she was so enthusiastic about the dunes and the insects and went prancing around from bush to bush capturing bugs and lizards for us. At the end of the walk, her closing line was "Thanks for coming! Hope you enjoyed my office!" Not a bad place to have an office.