Southern Africa is host to two major inland river basins, the Okavango and the Cuvelai. Research on the landscape history of the Cuvelai has been patchy leaving many aspects of the basin’s functioning and structure poorly understood. This paper offers a collection of observations and ideas highlighting unusual features that obscure our understanding of the Cuvelai and its Etosha Pan. Among them are questions concerning the basin’s geographic limits, its sub-basins and their functioning, possible tectonic influences on deltas and the Kunene River, the effects of easterly winds, the settlement patterns of people, lunette dunes, springs and geomorphological processes around Etosha Pan, as well as environmental concerns. We hope that these questions whet the enquiring appetites of students and scientists to unravel more of the unusual structure and functioning of this rare environment. Keywords: Cuvelai, dust, Etosha Pan, Kalahari Basin, Kunene River, lunette dunes.