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One small spark was all that was needed to trigger the eruption. The atmosphere was thick with anger, people crowded around the buildings, hundreds of men and women. Some held stones, others carried iron rods. The police commander’s calls for a peaceful dispersal were answered by boos and whistling. Suddenly a stone banged onto the roof of a police vehicle. The spark. Shots rang out, people screamed and fled in panic, a shower of stones clattered onto the police and vehicles, one of which burst into flame.

Fascination with the wild horses in Namibia’s south-western Namib Desert is compelling. Their origin was shrouded in mystery for decades. Their habitat, the inhospitable plains around Garub, is anything but a paradise. In more recent times they have become a tourist attraction. Every year thousands of visitors watch in awe as the horses arrive with thundering hooves and flying manes to quench their thirst at the trough at Garub. They are all the more touched when in years of drought they see emaciated tired creatures... Why? Does nobody come to the rescue?

The wild horses have lived in the Namib Desert for nearly a century, being tempered by the desert conditions, forming the resilient Namib breed. The horses initially lived in the Sperrgebiet. Garub was an important source of fresh water in the desert and access to its borehole water ensured their survival. Jan Coetzer served as the unofficial custodian of the wild horses from the time he began to patrol the area for Consolidated Diamond Mines (CDM) in 1966/67. He took an active interest in the horses until he left the area in 1981, checking up on the borehole at least once a month.

Shipwrecks along the Skeleton Coast testify to the hazards of navigation without modern instruments. The Woermann Line, which operated scheduled shipping services to the German colonies in Africa until the First World War, lost several ships off the southwestern coast, among them the “Gertrud Woermann”. The ship ran aground near Port Nolloth in 1903. At the time the Woermann Line was the largest private shipping company in the world and immediately bought a replacement vessel, the “Gertrud Woermann II”. She set sail on her first voyage to Africa in June 1904.

“Beware of falling meteorites!” The warning on a sign on the way to the meteorite on the farm Hoba, some 20 km west of Grootfontein, is in jest of course. It has been almost 80,000 years since a meteorite fell from the sky and hit this spot. But there is a grain of truth in the banter. According to estimates the earth is hit by approximately 500 meteorites per year. Most of them are rather small. The Hoba meteorite, on the other hand, is a chunky fragment weighing tons. It is likely to have caused a violent tremor when it crashed into the earth. 

The new hotel of the Gondwana group, The Delight Swakopmund received its first guests on 1 November. The very first ones arriving were Mr Freddy Frewer and his wife Carola from Windhoek. They are staying at The Delight for a week and are more than satisfied: "The ambience is fantastic, the breakfast 100 percent and the staff is very attentive," says Freddy Frewer. "We are enjoying our stay to the fullest." "And the colours", his wife adds. "They are so beautiful and bright."

Guests of our accommodation centres always marvel at the opulent and appetising buffets with their large selection of fresh salads, dairy and meat products. Our secret has a name: Gondwana Self-Sufficiency Centre (SSC). It is a farming operation which keeps chickens, pigs and cattle and also runs hothouses, a butchery and a smokehouse. The SSC is situated at the Kalahari Farmhouse on the outskirts of the village of Stampriet, east of Mariental in the middle of the Kalahari Desert. Now in summer the SSC is a Garden of Eden. 

He was Reichskommissar and Landeshauptmann of German South West Africa and left a remarkable legacy to the former colony: Curt von François is recognised as the European founder of Windhoek and Swakopmund. A monument was erected in his honour in Windhoek depicting him in the Schutztruppe uniform. Few know that von François was not only a soldier but primarily a talented cartographer and researcher who contributed significantly to the development of the former German colony. 

It is a virus with many names. 2007 it was called swine flu, in 1978 it was the Russian flu and in 1918 the Spanish flu. But whatever the name, this virus always spells death. Its worst outbreak was during the final months of the First World War when it raged worldwide, massively aided by the military. It even makes its way to the remote little hamlet of Aus and thins out the ranks in the POW camp, among the guards as much as among the prisoners. It happened around this time, 92 years ago.

Although you may think that minibus taxis, buses and bakkies are the modern means of transport in an ever-expanding Africa, on the dusty roads of the Namibian interior, far from crowded cities, the donkey cart is one of the quintessential Namibian forms of transport. The many gravel roads that bisect rural Namibia are arteries in the vast country, ideal for this transport of old. Donkey carts convey people from village to village, to wells and clinics, and transport children to school.