No one goes to the desert unprepared because it is a place of survival for the strong. This extremely dry expanse of land usually has no access to water. It is only living organisms well adapted for the deserts than can live there. However, it is not all deserts that don’t have access to a vast body of water such as the ocean.
Below are two deserts that are “neighbours” with the ocean:
Namib Desert
Along the Atlantic coasts of Angola, Namibia, and South Africa stretches the extra-ordinary Namib desert; a coastal desert where the desert meets with the Atlantic ocean.
Since the desert has been in a state of aridity for roughly 55-80 million years, it is considered one of the oldest deserts in the world. In 2013, the desert was granted a World Heritage status by UNESCO.
Namib Desert is not suitable for human inhabitation. However, a number of living beings such as ostriches, antelopes, rodents and birds have managed to adapt to this desert.
Namib desert features Namib-Naukluft National Park dubbed “Africa’s Super Park” by National Geographic. The park is the largest game park in Africa and the fourth largest in the world.
The park contains a surprising collection of creatures who manage to survive in the hyper-arid region, including snakes, geckos, hyenas, and jackals. The most prominent attraction in the park is Sossusvlei, a salt and clay pan surrounded by high red dunes, located in the southern part of the Namib Desert.
Atacama Desert
The Atacama Desert is a desert plateau in South America covering a 1,600 km strip of land on the Pacific coast, west of the Andes Mountains. With its high altitude, nearly nonexistent cloud cover, dry air, and lack of light pollution and radio interference from widely populated cities and towns, the Atamaca desert is one of the best places in the world to conduct astronomical observations.
Some of the other attractions include:
El Tatio Geyser Field
Over 80 active geysers are present at the El Tatio Geyser Field. It’s the third-largest geyser field in the world.
Salar de Atacama
Chile’s largest salt flat, Salar de Atacama, is just 34 miles south of San Pedro de Atacama.
Los Flamencos National Reserve
This gorgeous nature reserve includes a number of the Atacama Desert’s most impressive sights, including the Miscanti, Miñiques, and Chaxas lagoons and the Salar de Tara and Salar de Aguas Calientes salt flats.