The Kalahari Desert covers over 360,000 square miles in Africa, which is more than 3 quarters of Botswana and parts of Namibia and South Africa. Unlike many deserts, or even the common perception of a desert, it includes large areas of lush grazing land after rains fall. In fact, it’s considered a semi-arid desert, unlike the super dry deserts such as the Atacama Desert which receives only about 1 millimeter of rain each year.

While the Kalahari Desert is called a desert, it isn’t a true desert. Some areas receive a great deal of rain – up to 250 millimeters of rain each year. However, the rain is sporadic, so 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 Kalahari Desert wasn’t always like this. It was once part of a lake called Makgadikgadi. This lake was 80 thousand square kilometers. By comparison all of the Great Lakes in the United States, five of them, cover about 244,000 square kilometers. Makgadikgadi was about as large as the largest of the Great Lakes, Lake Superior. It was also about 30m deep on average. The last of the lake drained about 10,000 years ago.

Les Stroud, the Survivorman from television, spent six days in the Kalahari Desert filming one of his episodes. 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. At lowest, the Survivorman had to sleep in 44F cold. Pick your poison.

Drinking water is important in the Kalahari Desert. It’s necessary in normal places. But in 140F heat and dry air dehydration can take place in a hurry. Survivorman ran into a severe lack of water. He tried everything to gather some. One was to create a urine still, where he could capture all the water from his urine. Waste not want not. He also found some Kalahari Desert plants that kept a lot of water, but the roots had to be chewed so it was the equivalent of only a few drops. In six days he was ready to return to civilization. Even the survivor man wouldn’t have lasted much longer.

That’s life in the Kalahari Desert. Or is it death?