Among the towering red dunes of Namib-Naukluft National Park in the central Namib Desert is an area known as Sossusvlei. It is a strange and alien landscape. The rich red dunes that surround the area owe their hue to age -- over the thousands of years, the sand has literally rusted.

Sossusvlei is a wide, flat, salt-covered expanse with a dense and compact layer of clay in the subsoil. When dry, Sossusvlei is hard and arid, and when wet, as it...

Sossusvlei (sometimes written Sossus Vlei) is a salt and clay pan surrounded by high red dunes, located in the southern part of the Namib Desert, in the Namib-Naukluft National Park of Namibia. The name "Sossusvlei" is often used in an extended meaning to refer to the surrounding area (including other neighbouring vleis such as Deadvlei and other high dunes), which is one of the major visitor attractions of Namibia.

The name "Sossusvlei" is of mixed origin and roughly means...