Namibia 2009 - seven-day, six-stage, 250-kilometer footrace across southern Namibia.
(all information care of RacingThePlanet )

Quick Facts about Namibia:

• After Mongolia, Namibia is the least densely populated country in the world (2.5 persons per km²).
• Summer temperatures in the area can reach 40°C during the summer, and in the winter, frosts are common.
  
• The Namib Desert is considered one of the oldest deserts in the world, having endured arid or semi-arid conditions for at least 55 million years after the Atacama Desert.
• The Namib Desert is a broad expanse of hyper-arid gravel plains and dunes that stretches along the entire coastline, which varies in width between 100 to many hundreds of kilometres. Areas within the Namib include the Skeleton Coast and the Kaokoveld in the north and the extensive Namib Sand Sea along the central coast.
• The name of the Namib Desert, formed from immense sand dunes and a lunar landscape, derives from a word of the Nama language that means "immense".
• Although the Namib Desert is largely unpopulated and inaccessible, there are year-round settlements at Sesriem, close to the famous Sossusvlei and a huge group of sand dunes, which at up to 340 meters high are among the tallest sand dunes in the world.
• The Namib desert dunes have developed during many million years. It's believed that the origin of these dunes is due to the great amount of sand transported, in million years, from the Orange river in the Atlantic Ocean.
• The Fish River Canyon, the location of part of RacingThePlanet: Namibia, is the second largest canyon in the world.
  
  

The course:

Namibia 2009 will take place in southern Namibia encompassing the famed Fish River Canyon, the second largest canyon in the world, which is up to 550 meters deep in several areas. The course will begin around Keetmanshoop, in a desert region across ankle twisting boulders, stones and soft sand in an area which contains one of the toughest trails in southern Africa. Competitors will traverse mountain ranges and into the Wegdraai Valley, into slot canyons, over the Hunsberg Mountain Range into the Arimas Valley. Competitors will cross the Rekvlakte sand flats ending in the town of Luderitz, but not before facing the Skeleton Coast and 30 meter high sand dunes.