News

Anyone who has spent an evening in the Namib Desert or in the Kalahari must have heard the loud call of a barking gecko, especially during the summer months. Most visitors think that a bird must be responsible for the repetitive keck-keck-keck-keck-keck sounds. But it is a gecko, about six centimetres long, which lives in a burrow of up to a metre with numerous tunnels and at least one escape exit.

The finalists of the Responsible Tourism Awards 2019 with the focus on responsible waste management were presented in Windhoek on 1 March 2019. In the Accommodation Establishment category Kalahari Anib Lodge has made it to the final, together with the Desert Rhino Camp (Wilderness Safaris) and the Wolwedans Dune Camp. In the Tour Operators category the Top 3 participants are Sense of Africa, Pack Safari and Wild Dog Safaris. The winners will be announced at the Namibia Tourism Expo in June this year. 

The personal Bible of the legendary Nama-leader Hendrik Witbooi is back in Namibia - after 126 years. The official handover took place during a State act on 28 February 2019 in Gibeon in southern Namibia. Gibeon has been the Witbooi family’s place of residence since the 1840s. A few years earlier they and other Nama-speaking followers had emigrated from the Northern Cape, South Africa. 

On 13 February this year (2019) it became official: Namibia’s African penguins on Halifax Island off Lüderitz are dying from the dreaded influenza A virus subtype H5N8. Up to February 18th a total of 345 birds had been found dead on the island. The carcasses were burned.

President Hage Geingob appointed a 15-member commission of inquiry to look into ancestral land claims of inhabitants. The German construction company PolyCare opened its brick-making factory outside Windhoek. Namibia’s central bank kept the repo rate once again at 6.75 percent. Fuel prices also remained unchanged during February. Inflation dropped to 4.7 percent in January, down from 5.1 percent in December, the national statistics agency announced on 13 February. 

Many tourists visiting Namibia love the local cuisine with sizzling steaks and grilled spare ribs coming from free-ranging cattle straight “from farm to fork” as advertised by the country’s largest meat-producing company. Namibian livestock is hormone-free, and the beef is a highly sought-after product locally and overseas. 

The incessant chirping in the blistering midday heat is unbearable and almost painful. And yet the insects that produce the deafening high-pitched notes are rarely spotted. Many people know the sound but have never seen a cicada.