Kalahari Desert
The Kalahari Desert covers over 360,000 square miles in Africa. Unlike many deserts, or even the common perception of a desert, it includes large areas of lush grazing land after rains fall. It’s a semi arid desert, not a totally dry desert.
It as the name, but the Kalahari Desert isn’t a desert by the strict definition. Some areas receive a great deal of rain – up to 250 millimeters of rain each year. But the rain isn’t dependable, that’s why it’s called a desert. The Tswana word is Kgala which means “great thirst” while the tribal name was Kalagare meaning a place without water.
The Kahalari Desert wasn’t always a sandy, dry place. Makgadikgadi, a lake, once covered the area. This lake spanned nearly 80000 square kilometers. By comparison all of the Great Lakes in the United States, five of them, cover about 244,000 square kilometers. It was also about 30m deep on average. The last of the lake drained about 10,000 years ago.
Survivor man filmed an episode in the Kalahari Desert when the host spent six days there. During his time there the surface temperature on the sand reached 107.6F, in the shade! Out of the shade, forget about it – 149°F. That’s a huge contrast to the temperatures at night. Cold in the neighborhood of 44°F. He didn’t know which one he liked less, the cold or the heat.
It’s important to stay hydrated when you’re in the Kalahari Desert. It’s necessary in normal places. But when it’s 140°F it’s even more critical. The survivor man did not have enough water. He resorted to every trick in the book to get some of this important resource. He built a urine still. He knows best. He also found a few drops of water in the roots of plants that he chewed. Dizzy and dehydrated, he stopped after six days. There’s no doubt that even Les, trained and prepared in survival in harsh environments, would have died in only a few more days.
That’s life in the Kahalari Desert. Would you want to go there?