Because when the leaves are gone their branches look like roots reaching into the sky the Bushmen have a legend that said that the god Thora somehow grew to dislike having baobabs growing in his garden and threw them over the wall of Paradise onto Earth below. Even though they landed upside down the baobabs kept on growing.
Some people believe that if you pick the flower of a baobab you will be eaten by a lion, but if you drink water in which baobab seeds have soaked you will be protected from crocodile attacks.
Bushmen's belief is supported by the fact that young baobabs look so different from the grown ones (even the leaf is different) that bushmen believe that there are no baby baobabs, so they have to come from somewhere else.
Here is a picture with a car to give a scale
If you want to see baobabs I would recommend going to Musina (Limpopo Province, South Africa) and along the N1, South of Musina, for at least 30 kilometres the baobabs are plentiful, or along the R572 west of Musina.
I also went to see the Sunland Baobab which is reputed to be the largest baobab.
For scale I am in this picture. See, it is a pretty big tree (47metres in circumference)
And they even have a bar inside the tree.
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