Kalahari Desert in Africa

360,000 square miles in Africa are part of the Kalahari desert. It is somewhat unique to a desert in some places frequent rain results in lush vegetation. Indeed, it is considered a semi-arid desert, unlike the super-arid deserts such as Atacama desert, which receives only about one millimeter rain each year. 

While the Kalahari desert is called a desert, it isn'ta true desert. Some parts of desert receives about 250 mm of rain annually. It is not regular or reliable rainfall which gave the area its name.The Tswana word is Kgala which means "great thirst" while the tribal name was Kalagare meaning a place without water. 

The Kahalari Desert was not always a sandy, dry place. It was once part of a lake called Makgadikgadi. Sea covered a large area of 80,000 square kilometers. By comparison, all the Great Lakes in the U.S., five of them, covering about 244,000 square kilometers. Makgadikgadi was about as big as the largest of the Great Lakes, Lake Superior. It was also around 30m deep on average. The last of the lake drained about 10,000 years ago. 

Les Stroud, Survivorman from the TV, spent six days in the Kalahari desert filming one of his episodes. During his time on the sand surface temperature reached 107.6F, in the shade! The sun was as high as 149F. It is a huge contrast to the temperatures at night. At the lowest, Survivorman had to sleep in 44F cold. He did not know which one he liked less, the cold or heat.

One of the key aspects in order to survive in a desert as Kalahari desert trying to drink enough water. It is generally true. It may be a matter of life and death in 140 ° Fahrenheit dry heat.Water was hard to come up with the bereaved husband. He made a number of things to try to gather the important resource. One was to provide a urine still where he could catch all the water from his urine. Waste not want not. He also found some Kalahari desert plants, with a lot of water but the roots were chewed as it corresponded to only a few drops. He called it ends after six days, dizzy from lack of hydration. Six days was the most that trained survivalist could take.