Karoo

The Karoo, meaning "great thirst land" in Afrikaans, is a remote semi-desert area that covers about a third of South Africa's total land area (while in the Karoo, I probably saw more than 100 times the number of stars in one night as I had previously seen in my life). This part of the country is very sparsely populated with only small towns. One of these towns, with a population less than 100, is Matjiesfontein, built by Jimmy Logan in the late nineteenth century. While far from any other development (Cape Town is 150 miles away), Logan developed the town as a health resort and built the Lord Milner Hotel. Matjiesfontein has not changed much in the past hundred years; as such, it has the peculiar charm of not being touched in our increasingly globalized world, with the benefits and costs that come along.