GROOTFONTEIN and Mariental are two of Namibia’s older towns, the former 459 km north-east of Windhoek and the latter 269 km to the south.
Both situated on routes to better-known tourist sites, other destinations and neighbouring countries, serve as commercial hubs for surrounding urban centres and farming communities.
Generally, on a journey that takes one through one of these towns, it warrants no more than reducing speed and a sideways glance, on odd occasions for a comfort break or to refuel the vehicle.
Recent longer stays spurred me to delve a little deeper and see what the towns offer domestic and foreign tourists. What I discovered was rather interesting.
Proclaimed a town a century ago in 1920, Mariental initially served as a railway stop between Windhoek and Keetmanshoop. The town is named after the wife of the area’s first colonial settler, Hermann Brandt, who in 1890 bought land from Nama chief Hendrik Witbooi, to farm.
The administrative and commercial capital of the Hardap region supports mostly agriculture-based or supported industries that developed in and around the town. This is an arid region and generally receives little rain, so increasingly farming is moving towards game farming.
Other than the nearby Hardap Dam that attracts visitors, especially in years when rains have been plentiful, unfortunately, Mariental on the edge of the Kalahari Desert does not feature on the country’s tourist destination list, but there is a unique landscape, fauna and flora to explore.
Unlike Mariental, Grootfontein is an upcoming tourist destination with more things to do and places to explore in and around it.
Derived from the Afrikaans word “big fountain” in 1885, it served as a settlement for about 40 Boer families, who moved from South Africa to Angola in the late 1870s, but unable to come to terms with the Portuguese administration, left Angola.
Places of historical significance or natural beauty in and around the treed town, include the grave of Axel Wilhelm Eriksson (24 August 1846-5 May 1901) – a Swedish ornithologist, settler and trader. Eriksson came to this part of the world in 1866, just short of two decades before Germany established its colony of German South West Africa in 1884.
In 1871, with another Swede, Anders Ohlsson, he established a brewery at Omaruru. Eriksson’s business was built on long-distance trading between southern Angola and the Cape Colony. His activities gained much respect from a wide range of communities, including the indigenous people and European settlers. To the Herero, he was known as Karuwapa Katiti translated “the small white person”.
After Eriksson and his wife divorced, he married a Herero princess and the couple had a son, Jacob.
At Grootfontein close to the fountain that gives the town its name, there is Tree Park with its collection of exotic trees. For admirers of trees, north of the town on Keibeb Farm there is a baobab tree regarded as the largest of its kind in the commercial farming area.
A historic fort from the German era, built in 1896, houses the Grootfontein Museum where exhibits include a mineralogical collection, an ethnical display, implements to make ox wagons, utensils used in the Kavango region and an exhibition featuring the German colonial Schutztruppe.
About 24 km from Grootfontein the Hoba meteorite is also worth a visit. Never moved from where it fell, the estimated mass is more than 60 tonnes the largest known one in the world. The name “Hoba” comes from the Khoekhoegowab word meaning “gift”.
Although I did not visit any of the sites at Grootfontein or Mariental, as work precluded me from doing so, I plan to do so soon.
* Danny Meyer is reachable at danny@smecompete.com
