Riemvasmaak (pronounced ‘rim fus maack’) means ‘tighten the strap’ or ‘tied with straps'. Riemvasmaak is a rural community and settlement situated within the Kai !Garib Local Municipality (which falls under the ZF Mgcawu District Municipality) in the Northern Cape Province.
Early in the 1900’s the Bushmen who also lived in the area stole the community’s stock animals. These stock thieves were caught and tied to a large rock in the Molopo River with thongs or straps (called ‘rieme’ in Afrikaans). When the community people came to fetch the thieves the next morning, all they found were the straps left lying on the rocks. The name stems from this Afrikaans phrase!
The village has a 75,000-hectare community-owned wilderness that it maintains after being forcibly removed, in the 1970's. There are hot springs and canyons, which provide a sustainable ecotourism destination for this community.(LINK PROVIDED IN FURTHER READING). The mountainous area provide dramatic 80m granite cliffs and volcanic hot springs. Therefore, this area offers rugged 4x4 trails, hiking, and eco-tourism opportunities. The community has a rich history of forced removal and successful land restitution and marks the first time that land was restored to a community, after apartheid ended.
The saga started in 1973, when the entire community of 1 500 people was forcibly removed from this 70 000 hectares of land. Those with Xhosa surnames were sent to the Transkei in Eastern Cape; those with presumed Nama ancestry were sent to Namibia. Meanwhile, the land they had left was given to the South African military, to be used as a missile testing range.
The 'Riemvasmakers', as the community is now known, again suffered when they came back to their land. As there homes and school had been used as a target for missiles. The land was now littered with undetonated bombs and missiles. The scars are well on their way to being healed and the Riemvasmakers have added tourism, to their traditional income stream of livestock farming!
As this land is in the Kalahari Desert, Riemvasmaak has a starkly rugged beauty with unusual mineral deposits like translucent green fluorite – said to be a highly spiritual stone promoting clarity of mind – and a hot spring.
There is comfortable accommodation, several 4-wheel drive trails, a hiking trail and a mountain-bike route. You can request traditional dancing and meals too. But, the real attraction is the splendid isolation of this place, and the extraordinary rock formations, where gnarled roots wind their way around huge boulders.
"You feel as if you have come to a Biblical land, where life is stripped down to essentials and eagles fly like talismans of hope. The sheer mountain desert wilderness, between the Orange and the dry Molopo Rivers, approximately 57km from Kakamas and 170km from the Nakop Border Post and Abeam, makes this ideal...as explained in the Photo Caption."