Hotazel Accommodation

Set on a bush-covered, featureless plain in the Northern Capes Kalahari, Hotazel is home to Samancors Mamatwan open-quarry manganese ore mine and sinter plant, and Wessels underground manganese ore mine and railway terminus. The town is 60km northeast of Kuruman on the R31 road. The town of Hotazel was once a farm where surveyors looked around and said it was As hot as hell out here. It then became a small village after strong reserves of manganese were found here and a mining company set up shop. Today it stands out as having one of the oddest names for a town in South Africa.

Although the name suggests it is the hottest place around, Hotazel is not the hottest place in the country. Weather charts for the area register 37 degrees Celsius on the top end of the scale – and a chilly 3 degrees Celsius at the bottom. But there are towns all over the Karoo and Kalahari where winter temperatures drop well below freezing, and the summer heat brings figures that top 45 deg Celsius.

The reason for the founding of the town of Hotazel was that a water diviner looking to source an subterranean stream found manganese-bearing black rock underground here and a mining company then bought the farm. Hotazel lies deep in the Kalahari, which in itself is a San Bushman derivative word of Kgalagadi, meaning the waterless place. The nearest town to Hotazel is Kuruman, known as the oasis of the Kalahari. The spring-fed Eye of Kuruman feeds the town its water and is also the main tourist attraction. For those with a love of history, there is the Moffat Mission nearby, which recalls the days of the famous London Missionary Society man. It is also where the explorer missionary David Livingstone was based for some time.