Africa Travel Guides

Posts Tagged ‘desert’

It is estimated that the San people should be around 50,000, distributed in 10 families or groups that live across the Kalahari. Each village has a chief who is going through family inheritance. Among the groups there are no political territorial links of any kind, but a culture and a network of very close and complex relationship. As in other ancient cultures that we can find in the world, women are engaged in gathering and hunting men, defined as a nómanda or semi-nomadic people. Although this form of life has been distorted enough by the increased contact that these villages have with modern society, whether for tourism or for the countless becoming that have occurred in the history of settlers and colonized.

We also met with the Khoikhoi, a town that extends beyond the border with Botswana in the Kalahari Desert.

Khoikhoi means “men of men” and although they are defined as another relative of the nomadic people Khoisans, has some unique characteristics that identify it: the Khoikhoi are added stones in burial mounds at their cemeteries every time they go, and these have enabled Anthropologists discover the migratory movements of such people. Moreover, without achieving a complete religion, believe in a higher power that comes from the East (hence their graves are oriented in this direction), the existence of the soul after death and in many worship nature.

The Kalahari Desert, with more than 700,000 km2 occupying part of several southern African countries (Botswana, Namibia, South Africa ..), is an essential destination for travelers entranced by the desert and of course, eager for adventure … not forget that we are in Africa.

In the Kalahari desert we can find an amazing wildlife rodents, antelopes, giraffes and lions.

The first foreign explorer who got through it was David Livingston in 1849. Caravans had worse luck after trying to reach Angola by this country and died of thirst. Perhaps, before leaving someone should have informed them of what the word “Kgalagadi (Kalahari in tswana):” great thirst. ”

In the Kalahari desert we have a unique nomadic people: the khoisans, or Bushmen, the name they were called earlier by the South African white population.

Few hunters with spears, poisoned still pursuing their prey in the Kalahari Desert. Contact with other cultures has made this town to settle and is dedicated to agriculture and grazing.

The Sahara is the world’s largest desert, located in northern Africa, it extends 1610 km across the continent and has a width of 5,150 km from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea. Its total area is over 9 million square kilometers, of which only 207,200 are partially fertile oases. It spans the territory of the following countries: Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Western Sahara, Mauritania, Niger, Libya, Egypt and Chad, although it is known that this great desert expands and contracts to regular cycles, so that its borders with the different territories are not very consistent.

The Sahara has great mountains and plains of sand and stone which are vast expanses of sand dunes. At intervals, in the midst of aridity, are some oasis with water. Sweltering heat is sometimes followed a severe cold, unleashing violent winds very loaded with dust and sand that sweep the floor dragging everything is subject and dry vegetation. These winds are followed by long periods of absolute calm. In the great desert, are the hottest places on earth, temperatures have been recorded up to 76 º C and 58 º C in the shade, but at night it cools rapidly, causing a very wide temperature range. The relative humidity is usually less than 10% and in some places the rain falls once every 10 years.

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And that’s the landscape we discovered in the morning: the dream! (The cliffs in the background are part of the forbidden zone).

We market the next morning only when accompanied by a Bedouin in the logistics team: our guide did not see fit to come with us. Still, I was quite shocked to the casualness of it, someone very young who thought primarily to party. Nor had he bothered to greet us at the airport, he will move for us to say goodbye on the last day.

We are moving to the new White Desert where we will hike the afternoon. The training that we find in this part are even more beautiful than those of the former White Desert. Read the rest of this entry »

The White Desert is a limestone region invaded by the sand, probably the site of an ancient sea It consists of two zones, the old and the new White Desert, the first being the oldest geologically and the new, more spectacular.

Before turning to the White Desert itself, we stopped in a small oasis, a rarity in this particularly dry (there is virtually no vegetation in the desert, not even at the bottom of the wadi where there is no acacia). It is not far away the traces of graves which our guide told us that they are Roman (or at least to Roman times). Read the rest of this entry »

We finished the evening with a stroll through the oasis, in which we were able to see an operation which we often hear about but rarely see it (if not there at the right time): fertilization palm trees by the female flowers of palms males.

The next morning we leave for the desert. And before the White Desert, the Black Desert in which we stopped after a few miles drive away. These pinnacles (the photo is taken from the highest of them) are apparently of volcanic origin there. Read the rest of this entry »

The photograph allows time to realize how urbanization encircles the site.

After this introduction, towards the desert. Indeed, we have 400 km of road to go to the oasis of Bahariya – I failed to mention that this trip is not exactly a ‘journey on foot. ” It must be an hour’s drive before leaving the greater Cairo (the modern residential area of Oct. 6 – a reference to the “victory” against Israel in Egypt in 1973 – on the horizon which we still see dawn, miles during the peak of the pyramid of Chephren). Can you pass along a railway cutting the iron ore produced near the oasis of Bahariya, and some oil wells. This portion of the desert is not the most entertaining as can be seen on the next picture.

And contrary to what I know in Algeria, Niger and Mauritania, the desert of Egypt is an absolute desert, virtually devoid of vegetation!

Our destination for tonight is the oasis of Bahariya, or more precisely the location of Baouiti in the latter. This site contains some curiosities Read the rest of this entry »

Egypt has become a commoditized destination, but it is still possible to visit it differently. For proof, this ten day trip I made in April 2005, and mainly devoted to the desert: the unique White Desert first, a central region of the country combining immaculate sand and chalk. And also a series of oases, and a few temples and archaeological sites located outside the Nile Valley. And still to finish, the monuments of Luxor traveled visitor free.

The journey is obviously on the charter flight, bound for Cairo. Several surprises await us in the descent flight: first our guide did not see fit to greet us on arrival. He just called me through the driver’s mobile phone to give us the start time of the morning. We were rather surprised by the cold call, as I have not used cell phones, and also the focus of my interlocutor, Read the rest of this entry »