Day 7 The Dunes that
Swallowed Kolmanskop
Today, we got out early and drove just out of Luderitz a few
km and followed the signs to Kolmanskop.
I had been looking forward to this part of the trip for several years, since I did a photo
workshop with a guy named Tony Sweet up in Sedona. He was talented and very hip and also showed
us some of his photo work from a workshop he led here in this ghost town in the
middle of nowhere in Namibia.
It was all that I had hoped for in terms of rare photo
ops. You don’t find abandoned homes,
stately in their day, aging in the wind and filling with wind-whipped sand just
anywhere. Again, the word “otherworldly”
comes to mind.
The town was established in the 1930’s as the center for
diamond mining. It operated much like
Dhahran did for Aramco’s oil, with a few twists. The one that sticks with me from the old
photos displayed in the former gym, is one of men, rags over their mouths like desperados
robbing a stagecoach, on their bellies in the sand, side by side, 80 abreast,
crawling Army style. What the hell are
they doing?
Why, looking for diamonds, of course! The gems were so plentiful, that they simply
sat on the surface of the sand, or just below.
And this was a very cheap way to gather the little shiny rocks.
These workers lived in concentration camp-like barracks, had
to poop through a strainer so that any diamonds they may have swallowed, attempting to smuggle them out, would
be returned to the Company, and they were customarily fired after two years, seen as
security risks and the next crew was hired to start crawling through the desert. Wow.
Apparently, some of them also went so far as to cut incisions in
themselves and try to hide diamonds in the wound. Desperados indeed!
The town was abandoned in 1955. And the houses and various buildings, even
the swimming pool was left to the harshest of elements, which are clearly
winning the battle at this point. But
the ghostly buildings do make for fine photos.
I hope.
The Sperrgebiet, Forbidden Zone, stretches up and down the
Namib coast for many hundreds of km and inland another 100 or so. It was established by the German government
in 1908 and prohibited ANYONE from entering.
Why? Diamonds. Lots and lots of diamonds. And when the Germans lost control of the
country after WWI, the new mine owners, De Beers and Co., were able to keep the
Zone fiercely forbidden, as it remains today.
The area is being turned into a national park, slowly,
slowly, but one can only enter with a difficult-to-procure special permit and
on a guided tour. Wouldn’t want you
scuffing your shoes in the sand and turning up somebody’s engagement ring,
would we now. Diamonds on the Soles
of YOUR Shoes? I should say not.
While the mining companies were concerned with the extraction
of diamonds, as so often happens, they didn’t care much of a damn about the
effect upon the environment. So, the
tailings and destruction are now being, in their words, "replanted. " I’m thinking, “With what? Fresh rocks?”
Anyhow, the good news is that by fencing off that huge tract
of land for over a hundred years, the wildlife was protected and just today on
our drive to the beach we saw a large herd of oryx and also springbok grazing
nonchalantly just on the other side of the barbed wire fence.
Day 8 Puttin' on the Lude-Ritz
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| Luderitz goes Hollywood |
Three days in Luderitz is probably one too many, even for the
determined traveller. But I wanted to
keep things slow and easy and unrushed.
Our third day in L-ritz, we filled by driving north, driving south, and
walking the few streets we had missed up to now.
To the north is Agate Beach.
Don’t get your hopes up, we found no agates, though we did drive along
the Sperrgebiet fence and see some wildlife staring back at us. And on a warmer afternoon, with less wind, it
would be a perfect place to dip your tootsies and let the kids make
sandcastles.
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| Luderitz seen from the perch of the Goerke House |
To the south is Diaz Point.
Bartholomew Diaz sailed the ocean blue in 14 hundred 97. He was he first European to set foot on the
Luderitz coast and, as was the routine, planted a cross everywhere he
went. There is a replica in concrete
atop a small peak near where he is believed to have landed. Also a lighthouse, a few houses, a small café
(closed), and several structures that I can only describe as bohemian beach
shelters.
Each one had its unique style, but they all shared some
characteristics: about half made of stone, partially used old rope as a sort of
screen for some of the walls, had old fish nets as roof and floors, had cooking
areas (braai, in Afrikaans), sitting areas inside and out, and were very,
eco-friendly, welcoming, and cozy. In
addition were two beached boats, which had also been re-purposed into living
spaces.
On the 20 km drive back to town, we saw numerous flamingos
(Falmingos, if you live in Ras Tanura, an inside joke), and a wrecked ship that
gave me another subject to turn my lenses to.
Back to our BnB, which was great, by the way, and we hoofed
it to the highest point in L-ritz, the Goerke House and the church. The church, is well, just a church. The House was a chateau-looking structure fit
for Bavarian royalty as it looked down upon the loyal subjects below.
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| Goerke House |
In fact, it originally belonged to the chief engineer of the
diamond company back in 1909. It has
been preserved as a museum and remains pretty much as it was, judging from the
photos, though the furniture is not original, it IS period stuff from the turn
of the last century. It’s good to be
Chief Engineer. Though, I gather the
wife wasn’t as impressed and turned-tail back to the old country after a year.
We sat for the second night with our guest house hosts, Beata and Gunther, and over gin n tonix, got their story, which was a
toe-curler. Ready? They are originally German (did the Gunther
give it away?) and came to Namibia to escape the rat race and follow their
dream of starting a game farm next to the major national park, Etosha. They accomplished this while raising four
kids and seeing after assorted rhino, giraffe, and kudu when they weren't mending the fence, drilling the water well, raising a few veggies, milking he chickens, all that live off the land stuff.
After many years, the kids all moved away, back to Europe to
study, and found no interest in maintaining the game farm. Fine.
So, they sold it and went back to Denmark and bought a 26-meter boat, combination sail
and motor. The plan was to sail, just
the two of them, all the way back down to Africa.
They had all kinds of adventures along the way, use your
imagination. But the wildest was when
they were captured by Nigerian pirates and held captive for 14 days. It seems that Gunther’s two German Shepherds
(what else) saved their lives. Not because
they barked so much at the pirates with their guns and pangas (machetes), but
because these pirates have a belief that this particular breed of dog is the
reincarnation of ancestors and any harm to them brings harm on the
perpetrator. Had Gunther chosen poodles
instead, well, I hate to think of the outcome.
Anyhow, these pirates also weren’t all that swift. They asked for a ransom of $800. The next day, Gunther brought them their
money. They wanted more, of course. He stalled a few days, and then brought some
more. Gunther says, “They could have
just killed us and taken all the money and the boat, but they never figured out
that the money was coming from our cash box on the boat. They just thought it appeared magically.” In the end, I think the constant barking of
the ancestors, er, I mean, Shepherds, got to the pirates and they set our hosts
free.
The boat lies in the Luderitz harbor, a victim of a cruel
storm that cracked it in half. Not to be
deterred, they found this old derelict property that we are calling home for
three days, the former Masonic Lodge in Luderitz, built, like everything here, in 1908, bought it, and have been
re-furbishing it for the past three years.
They are still improving it and doing some very cool things with
recycled materials they find on the beach or buy as scrap. Chairs made of plastic fish boxes. An old mast cut in half and used as a table
and pole to hold up the sail that covers their little outdoor bar area we were having happy hour in. Oyster poles used as a wall. An old door used as a headboard. Great people.
Upon check-in with Beata, we asked about restaurants for
dinner. She said, well there are
two. Two. Yes, only two. We tried them both, Barrels Pub and Ritzy’s
Restaurant and found that Barrels was the better choice for night #3, and we
both ordered Flintstone-sized eisbein, pork hocks. Yum.
Sitting in Barrels I got the sense that it was kind of like
Rick’s in Casablanca, “Everyone comes to Rick’s.” And the mix of characters sharing tables was
a short film of locals and tourists mixing in the rough, bush bar atmosphere of
Barrels. We had live music the one
night, a guy with a guitar and a laptop that accompanied him playing all those backing
tracks. I guess after Bob Marley tunes,
“Hotel California” may be THE most played song on Planet Earth.
And, finally, in Diamond Country we found ourselves
constantly looking down as we walked, hoping, hoping, hoping… for that one diamond that
went unnoticed and was somehow uncovered by the constantly blowing sands. Every shard of broken whiskey bottle glass
starts to look like…wait! Do you see
what I see?
Day 9 A Day in
Hel-meringhausen
Today was mostly just a travel day. An hour on a B Road. 2.5 hrs on a C Road, with a stopover for the night in
Helmeringhausen.
Let me list the highlights of this town, not a town so much
as really just a gas station and this rough-hewn hotel/restaurant:
2. They have a rough-hewn hotel and restaurant.
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