Video of vintage car wrecks outdoor display in Solitaire, Namibia
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Travellers are often delighted to find the village of Solitaire in the area that borders the Namib Naukluft Park, in the midst of the gravel plains of the Namib. Solitaire exudes a sense of warmth, and it is comforting for travellers to see other people, even if they are strangers, in the Namib.
Name
"Solitaire" is the name of the group of card games for one player only. It also refers to the solitude of the area and the town in the middle of the vast Namib Desert. We can only speculate that the name refers to the only means of entertainment for settlers in this lonely village.
History
Until 1848 the area that surrounds what is now Solitaire was called Areb, and was unused. In 1848 Willem Christoff van Coller bought 30,000 ha from the South West Administration to farm Karakul sheep. Mr. van Coller first built a small 2 room cottage and later added the main farm house, a stone kraal adjacent to the farm house and constructed a dam across the Tsondab river.
Sometime in the late 1840's Van Coller built the shop, which is still in use today. The shop also acted as the regional post office. In 1851 a church was added, making it one of the older churches in Namibia. An organ was put in the church in 1879.
When motorised transport replaced ox wagons, a hand-operated petrol pump was installed in front of the shop. In 1968 the farm 'Solitaire' was sold to Mr. Maritz. Today Solitaire is well-known for one individual: Moose, the informal 'Mayor' of the town, and a master of the culinary art of preparing 'Apfelstrudel', the German version of apple pie. Sadly, Moose died in 2014.
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