At the evocation of icy landscapes, Africa is not the first place that comes to mind. The modern relief of Southern Africa is generally considered to be a result of uplift and counteracting erosion. We show that some of the modern relief of this region is due to fossil glacial landscapes – striated pavements, valleys, and fjords – tied to an ice age that occurred ca. 300 Myr ago. We focus on how these landscapes have escaped being erased for hundreds of millions of years.