Mapungubwe National Park, Limpopo, South Africa
HLT is in Namibia, and came down to visit. We drove up to Mapungubwe National
Park, which is in SA right on the border with Botswana and Zim. It's
extremely beautiful here, and seriously different than anywhere else in SA --
first time we saw baobobs, and there are a ton! But the main attraction is
actually human history: the Kingdom of
Mapungubwe was a large empire based here around 1000-1200 AD. They were
large, and sophisticated -- it's very famous for a golden rhino which shows
that they were quite far ahead of what archaeologists had thought African were
capable of doing at the time. It was a kingdom with a government structure,
agriculture, a city, and so forth. But not much is known, because there is
resistance to doing excavation at the site.
It's a good drive away from
Gauteng, but unique and really worth a visit.
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Henry ThroopLast modified 12 Jul 2019
