Today we drove about 475 kilometers, mostly on the B1 and the B4. We visited the Quiver Tree Forest in Keetmanshoop, the Cole Lithoparium at the Alte Kalkofen Lodge, and stopped at the horse blind near Aus to see the herd of wild horses.
You can really start to grok the term “deserted” in Namibia.
Here there are huge swaths of desert crisscrossed with empty roads, sometimes obscured by shifting sand dunes; power lines flitting by mile after mile, sociable weaver nests in desiccated acacia trees, and maybe a lone oryx in the distance.
Namibia has the second lowest population density in the world (after Mongolia), and is the driest country in sub-Saharan Africa. And it’s fucking incredible to be here.
It’s day two and we’ve got almost two weeks of freedom ahead of us. Driving south on the B1 toward Keetmanshoop, our first stop is the Quiver Tree Forest, or Kokerboomwoud in Afrikaans. It’s a collection of these eponymous giant succulents related to aloes. Quiver trees got their name from the San people who would use the branches as quivers for their arrows. Here, the trees grow among bulbous dolerite rock formations, and among the rocks live dozens and dozens of adorable rock hyraxes. It’s like Kurt Vonnegut took one of his landscapes from The Sirens of Titan and plopped it down in southern Namibia.
Oh yes, this is a real animal and s/he’s got teeny tiny little tusks. Rock Hyraxes are closely related to elephants.
I didn’t set out to put a theme to this day, but next we’re turning on to the B4 and headed to the Cole Lithoparium to see another kind of unique Namibian succulent.
I remember back in the day when I had to walk uphill both ways to the Home Depot where the only succulent available was boring old aloe, but now you can find a huge variety of succulents like string of pearls, donkey tails, and living stones.
Lithops burst onto the casual collector scene within the last decade or so and fandom has reached a kind of fever pitch in the U.S. among us modern plant ladies (and gentlemen). No succulent collection is complete without at least one little lithops these days.
The Cole Lithoparium itself is the “biggest registered collection of Lithops in Namibia” and consists of two little greenhouses behind the Alte Kalkofen Lodge. When we arrive it seems deserted save for a couple of chickens, but a woman appears wearing work gear and points to the back where we can find the greenhouses.
Lithops are wholly endemic to southern Africa and come in several varieties boasting colors and patterns that mimic their natural surroundings. Inside the lithoparium we find pink, orange, and green varieties, some flowering, others splitting open to reveal new leaves.
You could spend 10 minutes or an hour depending on your interest and come away happy you visited either way. This place is clearly a labor of love and I’m honestly moved to see the care that they’ve put into collecting and caring for these rare little living stones.
Continuing down the B4 we finally get to the town of Aus where we check in to our little orange house on the hill. It’s a total steal for $150 a night – we get a two bedroom home with a full kitchen and backyard patio with a braai (The South African term for a barbecue grill).
There’ still plenty of time before sunset by the time we get settled in so we drive 20 kilometers down the road to Garub where we can get a view of wild Namib horses at the watering hole there. This herd of feral desert-adapted horses has been living in and around Aus for over a hundred years and is now considered a unique breed, the Namib Desert Horse.
Maybe it’s all the Wild West media I’ve absorbed in my life, but there really is something beautiful and moving about seeing wild horses being their free horsey selves in the middle of nowhere.
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