The Klein Karoo is beauty in its rawest form...
Beyond the Outeniqua Mountain range awaits a landscape which is in complete contrast to the green abundance of the Garden Route. Welcome to the semi-arid scrubland of the Klein "Little" Karoo. Despite its barren appearance the Klein Karoo is surprisingly fertile and most of the plants, like the indigenous mountain aloe, have intricate survival mechanisms to store water sand prevent evaporation. Towering mountains provide an impressive border to this unique region, which create the most scenic drives from any direction into the Klein Karoo. The Klein Karoo soothes the senses - desert spaces broken by glowing red hills, brooding silences punctuated by a haunting ostrich call.
The Klein Karoo, also known as Kannaland, is a weird and wonderful place. Over the millennia strange events have occurred in and around this little desert and the margin between fantasy and reality has become very thin indeed. From the moment you set foot in the Klein Karoo, images appear like mirages in the desert.
Klein Karoo means little desert - a desert with its own fertile Cango valley. Cango is the Khoi word meaning a watered place between hills. Gamkaskloof, the Valley of the Lions, is otherwise known as The Hell, but is often described as heaven on Earth. In Oudtshoorn, a Jewish family found a New Haven and called it Little Jerusalem.
Route 62 is the longest wine route and home of Bacchus, the God of Wine. While Gaia, Goddess of Earth offers healing to those who bathe in the hot waters that spring from the belly of the earth, dwelling of Hades, God of the Underworld. In 1996, Venus, the Sea Goddess, made her appearance in the little desert as an illusive mermaid. Weird and wonderful - strange but true!
Could it be that the name Kannaland has secretly cast a spell over the hills and valleys of the Klein Karoo? Or perhaps the witch that flew over the peak at Towerkop outside Ladysmith charged all that lives and breathes with her magic? Those who know, say that the name Kannaland came from the word Kanna, the Khoi word for Eland. But more intriguing is the connection to the Kannabos vygie (a succulent) used as Kougoed (something to chew) by the KhoiSan. The roots of this plant were popular among the Khoi as a mood-enhancer, causing hallucinations. Another strange creature the Golden Camel Bird (ostrich) developed an insatiable appetite for the plant. The feathered icons are flightless and possibly of reptilian origin - some call them an unsolved mystery!
In Kannaland realty provides a wealth of information to feed myth and legend, and it is interesting that the Afrikaans word "kamma", means, "fantasy".
Origins of the Mermaid
In ancient mythology, water is the symbol of the mother of life and healing - it maintains life and it destroys life. The Klein Karoo is a beautiful example of nature using water as a symbol of destruction and a tool of creation.
When the Klein Karoo was submerged between the ocean 650 million years ago, nature created a magical subterranean world of caverns, adorned with the most beautiful flowers and dripstone formations. Man discovered the caves during the 18th century and named them the Cango Caves. Two centuries later in November 1996, the Oudtshoorn district was declared a disaster area when the real world was literally washed away by a huge flood. This time nature arrived as the destroyer disguised as the mermaid! Ostriches, cattle, trees, crocodiles and furniture rushed through Meiringspoort to the Indian Ocean. It was announced that a Mermaid was stranded in the Klein Karoo and had found a safe haven in the CP Nel Museum.
The arid plains of the little desert are a rich source of Mermaid stories and African folklore. Since time immemorial the ancestors have tried to protect their children by warning them not to play near waterholes lest the water may drag them in. In African mythology a variety of water spirits appear as water people and water animals. In 1875, the legend of the mythological creatures that reputedly lived beneath that water at Eseljagtspoort near Oudtshoorn was secured from an old Bushman named "Afrikaander" by a farmer, Mr D Ballot from Molensrivier. The rock paintings at Eseljagtspoort of various mermaids, led to much speculation that artists were depicting mermaids.
