Lost City of the Kalahari

ABOUT

From the University of KwaZulu-Natal Press title listing:

In 1956 seven amateur adventurers set off from Natal in a decrepit 5-ton truck named “Kalahari Polka”, on the “craziest expedition ever to enter the unknown”.

Its goal: “to make archaeological history” by locating a mythical Lost City in a remote range of mountains deep in the Kalahari Desert. Included in the party was Mr Alan Paton, acclaimed author of Cry, the Beloved Country, chairman of the newly-formed South African Liberal Party and a leading political voice of his time. The expedition was the inspiration of Sailor Ibbetson, a charismatic adventurer who was obsessed with G.A. Farini’s 1886 book, Through the Kalahari Desert, in which the Lost City ruins were described.

Lost City of the Kalahari is Paton’s hitherto unpublished account of the odd adventure. Recounted with dry, self-deprecating wit and supplemented by hand-drawn maps, provisions lists, photographs, 8mm film stills and other fascinating memorabilia from the period, this entertaining travelogue brings to life the quirky cast of characters, rough discomforts of the journey, tedium of unvarying landscape, vast desert vistas, and encounters with “wild Bushmen” and other Kalahari people. And through it all, emerges Paton’s own deep love for the austere landscape that “one can never have too much of because it is like breathing.”