In the southern part of the Namib desert, around Aus, you will find herds of wild horses. Horses would not normally reside in areas with such a dry and warm climate, so they must be imported from somewhere but stories as to where they come from are diverse. The stories range from those about a baron at Duwisib castle, from diamond explorations and to being imported as war horses. Anyway, have the horses survived the harsh conditions for more than a century, found their place and is beautiful to look at.

To see the hourses, you can visit the artificial waterhole at Garub, where many of them go to drink. There you’ll also meet wild Oryx’es and Ostriches, which also is adapted to the dry and hot desert climate. In the road there are road signs about horses entering the road, but large trucks, transporting Manganese between the port of Lüderitz and South Africa are still passing by, in rapid speed, not taking notice of the animals in the road.

Klein Aus Vista

Klein Aus Vista was our “safe heaven” when we lived in Lüderitz. It was a place to “get away from it all”. Away from the people, wind and cold weather of the coast and into the peaceful and warm desert scenes, with birds, oryxes and horses. Really a place to get peace. 

Previously we used to live in the rustic Geister Schlucht cabin, inside a narrow valley, with self catering, but this time we stayed at the Eagles nest chalets, with breakfast at the restaurant at Desert horse inn included. To get there, we drove in a sandy road, alongside horses trees and sand up to the edge of the Aus mountains, where the cabins almost were lost of the eye, being built of the same rocks as the landscape surrounding them.

We were lucky to get their best cabin, furthest away from the road and with beautiful view, the “Eagles view”, and one morning we actually had an eagle right above our cabin. Outside our porch we saw traces of horse hooves in the sand and we had a wonderful open view over the sandy hills, mountains and sunset.

Since we last was in the area, Klein Aus Vista has become a “Gondwana lodge”, with higher prices, but also a very high quality on the services, so it was definitively worth it. The view and peacefulness is the same as before, but they’ve got an excellent restaurant and even a swimming pool, shaped like a horse shoe. They also had a small curio shop, a bar and possibility for arranging activities as walks or mountain-bike trips in the mountains nearby areas.

We could also order “braii and breakfast packets”, so that we could barbecue at the cabin in the evening and watch the stars rise instead of driving home from the restaurant in the dark. That also gave the opportunity of having a lazy morning at the cabin, looking at the landscape, watching birds, ostriches, horses and sandy slopes towards the mountains, while the sun colored the landscape.

Aus village

The small settlement of Aus is quite nice. It has a petrol station, a small hotel, a church and some houses. It also has some remarkable rocky cliffs, looking like the side of a face, with a nose, chin and cheeks. A real landmark, when seen from the mainroad towards Lűderitz on the way from Keetmanshoop. 

When we left Lüderitz in 1998, Aus was the first place, in the about 100 km stretch into the country, that we were allowed to leave the main road. The deserts between Luderitz and Aus belonged to the prohibited diamond area Sperrgebiet, and there were large signs that anyone leaving the road would be prosecuted. Coming to Aus thus really gave a feeling of freedom and liberty.

In 2008, much of the area was proclaimed a national park, as the diamond area moved further south towards Oranjemund, and entrance restrictions are no longer as strict as before.