Salt Of The Earth

One of summer’s blessings is a swim in the ocean and salt on your skin. This strange mineral which can cure or kill has captivated humans since ancient times.

- Don Pinnock

Tasting the salt-laden spray on the beach in the West Coast National Park jogged the memory of tramping a salt pan at the other end of the country with an extraordinary man who is no longer with us.

In the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park Karel ‘Vet Piet’ Kleinmann was, and still is, a legend. Shortly before his death in 2004, we spent time together in a shed deep in the park. Each morning he would wake me up early to ‘read the world’.

Tracks in the pan told us about what had been visiting while we slept. Hyena, jackal and lion were easy, but Vet Piet saw so much more, his reading holistic. He could tell the time of night the spoor was made, the wind direction at that time, whether the animal was tired, injured, hurt or simply on the prowl. He read grass direction, leaf displacement and would sniff appreciatively to decode scat. He didn’t simply tell me, he acted out each animal, bird, snake or insect, reproducing their grunts, calls or buzz.

Animals use the hundreds of pans in the Kgalagadi as essential salt licks, which give the whole region its name. The term Kalahari is derived from the Kgalagadi word Makgadikgadi, meaning salt pans or great thirstland.