Namib-Kalahari | In search of ||Khauxa!nas

To most of us Namibia is synonymous with places such as Etosha and Sossusvlei, and unfortunately the southeast of the country is often overlooked. But do yourself a favour and head in that direction, suggests Barnie Louw. You may even chance upon a lost city …

Roberto Rastapopoulos* and his posse of villains would have loved it here, I muse during a hilltop stroll among the stone walls of the Lost City of Namibia.

This mountain stronghold, in the foothills of the Great Karas Mountains, some 170 km southeast of Keetmanshoop, is exactly where Rastapopoulos and other super scoundrels from the storybooks of my youth would have yearned to build a gangster base.

It’s well hidden, darn difficult to reach, and you can see for miles in every direction − the ideal setting for a secret base where, unhindered, you and your fellow crooks can plan world domination and other evils.

Even the place’s name sounds exotic and mysterious − ||Khauxa!nas. I can see it in my mind’s eye: “Roberto Rastapopoulos’s secret gangster hideout, ||Khauxa!nas.”

I’m not so sure whether the Namas, credited for building the place, had such grandiose plans as world domination, but one thing’s for sure: they picked the spot so well, the military might of the colonial Germans are still searching for the hideout.

Standing here, you know you are one of only a handful of people who have had the privilege of experiencing the oldest urban settlement in Namibia first-hand.

And don’t forget about the myths and legends about the stronghold: no one can say for sure when and by whom ||Khauxa!nas was built. And that being the case, isn’t ||Khauxa!nas perhaps the famous (infamous?) Lost City of the Kalahari of the braggart traveller Gilarmi Antonio Farini?

There are just too many similarities between his description of the Lost City of the Kalahari and what remains of ||Khauxa!nas …

But whoever built ||Khauxa!nas had to be heat resistant − or Teflon covered. At the Rietfontein-Klein Menasse border post, some 150 km northeast of here where we entered Namibia a few days ago, the customs guy told us the mercury has been known to hit a high of 56 °C in the sun outside his office.

Fortunately, we aren’t here in high summer, because then, if the customs man is to be believed, it is so hot the trees traipse along after the dogs for some moisture …

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