These 1000-year-old trees in the desert look like a dreamscape

Namibia's Deadvlei appears like a Salvador Dali painting. It's surrealism by nature. An isolated forest of blackened thorn trees cast eerie shadows on white clay pans, encircled by soaring ochre-coloured dunes, complemented beautifully with a blue sky. I'm beholding this arresting sight in the Namib Desert - considered the world's oldest desert, dating back 55 million years - as part of a G Adventures tour across southern Africa.

To escape the heat and the legwork, I take a thrilling open jeep ride along soft sands to marvel at this bizarre work of nature. It is one of many attractions in Namib-Naukluft National Park, part of the UNESCO World Heritage Namib Sand Sea. The landscape formed as temperatures dried up, cutting the area off from the river. The arid pocket became too dry for trees to decompose. Now blazed and appearing frozen in time, its 1000-year-old trees are one of the country's most photographed sights.