From Etosha on our way to the coast. We slept in Khorixas, a little village in the north. From Khorixas we drove to Swakopmund right through the desert of the Namib Naukluft Park. This was a distance of 580 km and the roads were getting worse.
The first place worth seeing was Petrified Forest. We
were the first visitors that day so the administrator had to open
his office for us. He asked us to sign in:"Can you use your
own pencil because I haven't one..."
200 Million years ago there was a big forest on this place. Because of changes in the climate the forest disappeared. The trees petrified and became fossils. They still look like living trees very much, inclusive knots, but they feel as cold as stone.
The picture shows a treetrunk surrounding by parts of a petrified tree. It looked like a grave and in fact, it is a grave. On the foreground is a Welwitschia. In Namibia - the only place were it lives- they call it a fossil plant. It can survive an extreme long dry period. The Welwitschia on the picture is over 100 years old.
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