Southern Africa - Day 10 (Part 1)

Wednesday, 22 January 2020 - Namibia 

Today is another nomad day i.e. pack our bags and go someplace else where we will stay for another 2 nights. It’s nice once in a while to sit back and relax and not worry about packing and taking the bag up and down the truck. 

Today we headed west, our final destination for the day being the coastal town of Swakopmund. On the way I saw some oryx, springboks, ostriches, and ground squirrels. Then to my utter delight I saw 3 giraffes grazing on some trees😍. Unfortunately we didn’t stop for pictures.

We stopped in a small town called Solitaire for a short break. Then we joined a local expert (a descendant of a bushmen!) for an educational desert excursion. His accent is so cute, and full of expressions and clicks and snapping fingers. It’s really amazing how much he knew about the desert. For example, he is able to see the footprints of beetles, spiders, and other animals in the sand. The beetles’ and spiders’ footprints are so fine you could easily miss it but he is able to not only spot it, but also find the spider’s nest which is underground and hidden in the sand.

He showed us a type of desert plant which keeps its seeds inside and appears, to all appearances, dried out and dead. But when there is water, it opens and the seeds waits for the wind to carry them off. If there is no more water it closes again. They are able to remain ‘dead’ for up to 10 years until the rain comes. 

There is very little rain in the desert, only about 2 mm per year. So it is a very dry and hostile environment to live in. Previously only the bushmen were here and nobody else. Then in the 1940s westerners came here to farm a type of sheep known as the karakul. It was once known as the black diamond of Namibia because the skin of the baby sheep was worth a lot and became somewhat of a fashion statement in the western world. The sad thing is that to get the best skin, it was from babies who had to be killed 8 hours after they are born, before they took their first drink of milk from their mothers. How cruel human beings can be. There is simply no end to their cruelty. 

In 1972 there were strong protests against this fashion wear because of the underlying cruelty; apparently people who wore a piece of clothing made out of this material would have paint splashed on them. Serves them right. Due to overwhelming protests, it was finally banned. Nowadays there are cattle and sheep farming, and for this they dig the ground 200 m deep for water, to get about 1,000 litres a day. Under South Africa rule Namibia was known as South West Africa. In 1990 Namibia received its independence and tourism boomed.

The dreaded acacia tree (full of sharp thorns!!!) have no problems growing in the desert because their roots go very deep about 50 m, where there is water. There is a bush known as the stink bush. In September they have yellow flowers and it stinks; hence the name.