Luderitz and Kolmanskop

We travelled south then north from Ai-Ais along the South African border, along the Fish River, fortunately it was not flooded.  It was stunning scenery with the mountains and the river, which had water in it.
Luderitz, which was a very important port in the 1800's was bought for 100pounds and 200 rifles.  They then found diamonds lying on top of the sand and the boom began.  At first, they crawled along the sand (commando crawl)  and picked up the diamonds.  Then they had to dig for them.  Between 1908 and 1914, they removed over 5 million carats of diamonds.   Now they "dive for diamonds"  where they suck up the ocean floor and sieve for the diamonds.  They built a town, Kolmaskop in the middle of the desert.  They had grand houses, a bowling alley, butcher, ice making shop, dry goods store, a 220 bed hospital with an Xray machine and a theatre which had acts brought in from Germany.
There was  large dining room, champagne bar for the ladies and smoking room for the men.  There was a school.  It had electricity and a train line was built in 10 months.  There was a seawater swimming pool (the water was pumped from the ocean 35km away).
There were a lot of bachelors working there and they would take pictures of the palm trees in Swakopmund.  They would send them to their girlfriends in Germany enticing them to come.  The ladies would show up in fur coats, having no idea how harsh the climate was.  The men would pay the ships captain to drop them off in the dark, so they could not see how desolate it was.  Most of the ladies went back to Germany.  It was almost abandoned when they found a richer diamond deposit on the Orange River in the 1920's.  The last 3 families finally moved out in 1959.
Now the desert is taking it back, it is really eerie to walk through the buildings that still have fancy woodwork and floors, but are being buried in sand.
Luderitz has to be one of the windiest places on earth.  It is quite cool, had to wear a coat in the evening.  It serves as a port, mostly for fishing and the diamond boats.
Cheers Kim and Dan

 Kolmanskop, one of the houses slowly being buried in sand

 jelly fish, dozens are washed up on the beach every day

 George Haus built by one of the men who made a lot of money in diamonds, he and his wife only lived here for 2 years, the view is stunning

grand staircase in one of the houses, the woodwork was amazing, very detailed.  The wood floors are still there under all the sand