The Thousand-Year-Old "Dead Marsh" of Namibia

Following our climb of Dune 45 in Sossusvlei, Namibia, we head to Deadvlei, or the "Dead Marsh"--a patch of once-watery and fertile ground that dried up around a thousand years ago, leaving trees behind that have essentially mummified in the extremely arid environment, never decomposing. It's a ghostly and beautiful place, reached by a short hike under the beating sun of the ancient Namib desert. The excitement wasn't over, though, because that night the dark revealed perhaps the most magnificent stars either of us had ever seen...