Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
known as Urbock. South African beers like Lion, Castle and Black Label are also widely
available.
Although beer is the drink of choice for most Namibians, Namibia also has a few
wineries, including the Kristall Kellerei, 3km east of Omaruru. Here it produces Paradise
Flycatcher - a red blend of ruby cabernet, cabernet sauvignon and tinta barocca; colom-
bard; and prickly-pear-cactus schnapps (a good blast). South African wines are also
widely available. Among the best are the cabernet and pinot varieties grown in the Stel-
lenbosch region of Western Cape Province. A good bottle of wine will set you back
between N$80 and N$180.
Environment
The Landscape
It's the oldest desert in the world, a garden of burned and blackened-red basalt that spilled
out of the earth 130 million years ago in southwest Africa, hardening to form the arid
landscape of Namibia, the driest country south of the Sahara. Precious little can grow or
thrive in this merciless environment, with the exception of a few uniquely adapted anim-
als and plants, which illustrate the sheer ingenuity of life on earth.
Arid Namibia enjoys a wide variety of geo graphical and geological features. Broadly
speaking, its topography can be divided into five main sections: the Namib Desert and the
coastal plains of the south and central interior; the eastward-sloping central plateau, with
its flat-topped
inselbergs
(isolated mountains); the Kalahari sands along the Botswana and
South Africa borders; and the densely wooded bushveld of the Kavango and Caprivi re-
gions. Most famous of all are the scorched dunes of the impossibly eerie but always cap-
tivating Skeleton Coast.
The Namib Desert extends along the country's entire Atlantic coast, and is scored by a
number of rivers, which rise in the central plateau, but often run dry. Some, like the eph-
emeral Tsauchab, once reached the sea, but now end in calcrete pans. Others flow only
during the summer rainy season, but at some former stage carried huge volumes of water,
and carved out dramatic canyons like the Fish River and Kuiseb, where Henno Martin and
Hermann Korn struggled to survive WWII.
In wild contrast to the bleached-blue skies and vast, open expanses of most of the coun-
try, the Kavango and Caprivi regions are a well-watered paradise. Bordering Angola to the
