Only the Himba, hardy nomads of Kaokoland, and the
fleet –footed predators such as the elegant cheetah survive in the lava backed
mountains, mighty dunes and ancient pebble plains of southern corner of Africa.
Under the searing heat of the sun, the desert of sand and rock does not stir.
Waiting like a gecko, motionless. Above, the sky is an eternal blue, sealed by neither
horizons nor heavens, and to each turn the arid landscape shows no sign of
comfort or hope.
A few animals, reliant only on scarce and precious water or
natures own resourceful confidence; make a home of the desert. The beauty they
share is a harsh, severe beauty, a beauty sculpted form light and space and
austerity. Their home is a barren wilderness, a land burnt brown by the sun, a
land, they say, God made in anger.
The dry thirst land that stretches inland from Namibia’s
Atlantic shore is a vast, harsh desert that was formed 80 millions years ago.
In some areas the sweeping winds have sculpted classic dunes and furrowed fields
of red sand; in others the land seems to be
huge and inhospitable, a place where you would not expect to see
any form of life. Nature, however, is
enormously resourceful.
In Damaraland, an arid region adjoining the bleak
and hostile, skeleton Coast, a number of animals which are commonly associated
with the green African bush have, in one
way or another, adapted to life in the harsh ochre sands. These include
elephant, rhinoceros, bottom, and giraffe, left, the remnant populations of
herds which have been forced into the desert by diminishing habitats and the
constant threat of poachers.
For an animal which so revels in water, the desert
is hardly an easy place for an elephant, drinking, to exist. Elephant are
members of the Proboscides order, those animals with long, flexible, prehensile
trunks, which elephants use to suck up water to squirt into their mouths, or to
spray over their bodies to cool down.
The arid region of the southwest has many ironies.
As the fog rolls in from the cold South Atlantic Ocean each night into the dips
and hollows of the dunes, the parched Namib becomes the world’s most famous
humid desert. When the summer rains come, long sand rivers and bone dry canyons
transform into raging torrents for a few blessed hours each year. Meanwhile, in
the North, the natural springs surround Africa’s largest, driest and saltiest
pan, the Etosha.
The springs and woodland scrub of the pan attract
thousands of animals. Different animals all have
different drinking times in Etosha. Kudu and Eland like a pint or two in the
morning, zebra are normally lunchtime imbibers, elephant prefer late afternoon,
while giraffe will grace any gathering. Lion drink at night and hyena in small
hours after midnight.
Tall, severe – looking secretary bird (Sagittarius serpentarius) take their name form the spring quills they have as head and tail feathers. They feed mainly on insects, but will also eat small mammals, snakes and other reptiles. These they lance with their bill, and then stamp on to soften up before swallowing whole.
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