Quiver tree forest - Giant's Playground
The quiver tree - or "Kokerboom" in Afrikaans - is especially native to the hot and dry south of Namibia.
The one meters high plants belong to the group of succulents. They adapt themselves to the extreme environmental
conditions by store water in their trunk. Quiver trees blossom the first time after 20 to 30 years and can
become 300 years old. The Kokerbooms are located on stony hills spreaded in a wide area near Keetmanshoop.
The area belong to the campground of the same name.
Because we arrived relatively late, we had only few minutes to make some photos before the sun set. Next
morning after a long cold night, we stand up early to use the warm morning light for snapshots. The sunrise
has some advantages for shooting photos. There were less people in the "wood" than in the evening and the
rising sunlight lets the trees, or better the aloes, appear in a special beautiful light. All together we
have shot approx. 2 films and the most therefrom have a good quality.
Still before we had the breakfast, we drove farther to the 5 km distant Giant's Playground. Here gigantic
sandstone blocks piled up in a mess and it looks, as if a giant had played with it. There is a marked loop
road similar to a labyrinth. We didn't find the exit immediately and walked for a while in the circle,
always along the same places. To leave the marked way and to walk on his own initiative along the stone
blocks, is inadvisable.
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