Denizens of Kalahari

DPA

We are not alone. Fluffy, sharp-featured little creatures scamper inquisitively over the red sand towards us. The meerkats are awake.
The sun shoots its fiery rays into the cold morning air, as we stand sleepily on the edge of the Kgalagadi Transfrontier National Park in northern South Africa, near the border with Botswana.
“Watch out for your ankles,” warns Jaco Reichert, who works for the Kalahari Trails Meerkat Sanctuary, which takes in meerkats who have been orphaned or in captivity.
Apparently Toto, a particularly chubby representative of his species, likes to take his grumpy morning mood out on the bare legs of unsuspecting visitors. The other meerkats sit up on their hind legs and stretch their bellies toward the rising sun.
“This is their morning coffee,” Reichert says with a grin.
The Northern Cape is South Africa’s largest province. At its narrowest point lies a narrow strip of land, squeezed in between Botswana and Namibia.
The desert-like sandscape of the Kalahari begins here with the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park. The indigenous animals can move freely across an area larger than Wales – no fence prevents leopards, gnus and jackals from crossing the national
borders.
Around 250 kilometres further south, the Orange River makes its way to Namibia. Here, the sand dunes give way to impressive rocky landscapes, while gorges and rapids accompany the path of the mighty river.
And, thanks to the water, this area far from the coast is one of the country’s most fertile wine-growing regions.
In the Augrabies Falls National Park at the Namibian border, giraffes, baboons and leopards live directly beside the thundering Augrabies waterfall.
In contrast, the Kalahari is barren and dry, with valleys and hills in a variety of earthen hues. The sands range from bleached, almost white in the valleys to glowing red on the dunes.
The vegetation is mainly spiky camel thorn trees and dry marram grass. Dried-out salt flats remain where former lakes have evaporated under the searing sun. Alongside tourism, salt mining is one of the region’s most important economic sectors.
In order to survive here, plants need special characteristics – the roots of the indigenous species of acacia reach down up to 100 metres into the sandy ground.
Thanks to a cooling system in their noses, the bulky oryxes in the region can survive body temperatures of up to 46 degrees centigrade. The animals grub out “oryx roots,” named after the antelope, which have a particularly high water content. They may taste incredibly bitter but they help prevent dehydration.
At the western edge of the park, hidden behind the dunes, is the “!Xaus” lodge. The exclamation mark represents a sound in the Khoekhoe language, which is produced by clicking the tongue. There are around 12 wooden huts here, connected by bridges.
“Dip the headlights!” our guide Melissa commands during one of the night safaris.
The cars have startled a couple of ostriches. If they look directly into the light, they are dazzled for minutes, making them easy prey, she explains.
Melissa belongs to the Mier community, an ethnic group who, along with the Khomani San, are the original inhabitants of the Kalahari. The young woman grew up on a farm in the nearby town of Rietfontein, before she started working in the kitchen at the lodge, eventually becoming a guide.
Along with Andries, a member of the San, she passes on her knowledge of the Kalahari as it was passed down to her.
The customs and the hunting techniques of the San and Mier have shrunk to memories. In the 1960s, the groups were driven out of the Kalahari and deprived of their traditional ways of life.
In the early 2000s, a court case led to the return of 50,000 hectares of land to the remaining communities, but with couple of generations lost, it was too late to resume the habits of the hunter and gatherer life.
So the lodge was set up in their territory as an additional source of income, with part of the proceeds going to the two communities.
A tourism consortium manages the accommodation, but most of the employees are from the San and Mier communities.
The current drought period in the Kalahari has already lasted almost four years. As a result, the animals throng around the few remaining watering holes.
By a kind of law of the jungle, the black-maned Kalahari lion has unrestricted drinking rights. If, during the melee, one of the spear-horned oryxes calls the ranking within the herd into question, this leads to fighting, in spite of the scorching heat. A trial of strength casting up dust in the haze of the timeless sands.