A Lyons adventures in Namibia: Last Day of Trip

After our experience with the flat tire, we drove the 80 km to Maltahohe where we had the full-size spare tire (which was without the rim) we had in the car installed. Never like to drive on one of those small, temporary spare tires longer than you need. Maltahohe was a small town with one gas station that had a small one-person tire repair shop. Based on the town's location and the unsurprised expression on the mechanics face, I suspect that they get lots of customers with flat tires. Fortunately, the road transitioned from gravel to pavement at this point.

We then drove the last 100 km or so to the Bagatelle Kalahari Game Ranch which is 40 km outside of the town of Mariental. The drive through this area was primarily very flat range land used for grazing cattle, goats, and sheep. Change the vegetation to sage brush and it would be like driving through rural Nevada. This part of the country is one of the primary areas where the government implements its land reform policy. The policy is designed to address some of impacts of colonialism and apartheid by returning landownership to qualified blacks. It is based on a "willing seller, willing buyer" philosophy where the government will buy land from the private white owners and then give it to black families whose ancestors where displaced under colonial rule. Each family gets a plot of land (the ones we saw appeared to be 10 acres or so) to farm or ranch - kind of like homesteading. Unfortunately, the farms we passed had corrugated metal shacks for housing and too much livestock for the size of the plots which have been overgrazed. Unfortunately, a lot of these farms will be unproductive in not too many years.

Mariental itself is the heart of the commercial scale agricultural region called the Hardap Scheme. It was the first area that we saw large, sprinkler irrigated crops similar to the US. They grow a lot of citrus fruit, corn, and crop vegetables. It is controversial because of all of the water that is used.

Bagatelle Kalahari Game Ranch is situated on the far western edge of the Kalahari desert. The ranch was the most touristy accommodation that we have stayed at so far in Namibia. They had horseback riding, a Sans or Bushman village replica, a restaurant where a springbok antelope wandered around, etc. It was also the most expensive place that we have stayed. We rented a private bungalow that overlooked the Kalahari desert. It was built on stilts to overlook the sand dune - similar to a beach house.

View of Kalahari from the room - There was a water hole right in front

The Kalahari desert, at least in this area, consists of low red sand dunes covered with savannah types grasses. The red sand is actually what is transported by the wind and erosion to make the dunes seen in Sossusvlei.

The Kalahari Desert

We went on a 2-hour hike in the morning through the desert. We saw springbok and a few other types of antelope but there was not a lot of active wildlife to be seen. We saw a meerkat crossing the road while we were driving but none actually while on our hike. They live in underground burrows that have mounds of dirt at the entrances. This is what they sit on to observe. The mounds are scattered around the desert. At first we thought they were termite mounds but I guess the termite mounds are only found farther north.

Meekcat Burrow and Mound

We also found a very interesting weaver bird nest.

This is the Weaver Bird that builds the nest
You can see why they call it a thorn tree!

An interesting tree. Note the large tap root in the center.

You can even get married in the middle of the Kalahari desert.

Our trip ended with a 240 km drive back to Windhoek (all on paved roads). So, over the course of our trip (800 km) we saw terrain that varied from the desert dunes of Sossuvlei...