Tale guide

Fame and Fortune in the forbidden zone

The south western corner of Namibia is a barren, dusty, windy part of the Namib desert.

The desert dunes constantly shift as a consequence of the often gale force winds that rip across the B4 road that links Keetmanshoop to Aus and Lüderitz with such force as to strip the paint off a motor car that unwittingly finds itself caught in its grip.

In the late 1880s and early 1900s the German Government had built a railway between Swakopmund and Windhoek but ordered a rail link to be built out of Lüderitz to assist with the deployment of the military that were being shipped to the then South West Africa to quell local uprisings further inland.

August Stauch was a railway supervisor responsible for building the section of rail between Lüderitz and Kolmanskop about 10 kilometres in length.

In 1908 a railway labourer Zacharias Lewala discovered a shiny diamond in the sand and took it to his supervisor. Stauch recognised it for what it was and immediately took out a prospecting licence and instructed his staff to seek and hand in all the diamonds they found.

Zacharias reputedly never received a dime for his trouble.

By 1912 the mining enclave of Kolmanskop had rapidly risen out of the desert sands as hundreds of prospectors descended on the village to find their fortune and the settlement rapidly turned into a lavish and vibrant town with a predominantly German character.

By the time the town was officially abandoned in 1954, it fell within the area known as the Sperrgebiet, (“Prohibited Area”), a 200 kilometre stretch of protected coastal desert that holds an abundance of diamonds both on land and in the sea and into which visitors may only enter if issued with an official permit.

From this discovery a multimillion-dollar industry was established. Diamonds account for 23 percent of the territory's export income, and the diamond mines have become its biggest single employer outside the Government, producing over one million carats annually.

Once Kolmanskop was abandoned, the desert has been gradually but steadily reclaiming the enclave and it became a sought-after ‘ghost town’ destination for thousands of tourists every year.

In the years between the end of the last century and the beginning of this one, travellers into Southern and Central Africa in general and Namibia specifically, embarked on their journeys in dependable 4 x 4, off road vehicles with a degree of axle clearance, so as to reasonably confidently tackle the soft sands, soggy marshlands and uneven bushlands with a modicum of safety and protection against becoming isolated and far from help.

Those of us that couldn’t afford or who were generally averse to the luxury of the big four-wheel-drive way of life could certainly take on road trips into these parts but would have to be content with limiting themselves to the main tarred roads and possibly, to a lesser extent, well maintained gravelled roads.

Any other deviation would attract a high degree of discomfort and in some instances, danger. And some of the terrain was simply impossible to cross in conventional two-wheel drive vehicles.

We had been on the road for many weeks by the time we found ourselves setting up camp at Aus in order to avoid the dangerous winds on the coast.

We had travelled thousands of miles up to the far north and back down the coastal road, past the seal colonies at Cape Cross to Swakopmund and then on to Lüderitz in the far south before taking on the trip to the Fish River Canyon and across the Orange river into the Northern Cape.

It thus came as a somewhat amusing surprise that on the day we visited Kolmanskop, we watched wide-eyed as a state-of-the-art Rolls Royce Phantom, in a spotless condition, drove into the dusty car park of the ghost town.

It was so incongruous and out of place. It attracted everyone’s attention similar, I would think, to how a giraffe walking around Hyde Park would.

It simply stood out like a sore thumb in the middle of one of the harshest settings on the planet.

Two young couples stepped out of the Rolls. They were well dressed and well-manicured. There was no mistaking that these folks were from the top side of the Thames, if you get my drift.

They were well healed, public school, Eton educated humans, possibly even four times, removed distant relatives of the Queen that had recently stepped straight out of London’s high life into the desert!

As it turned out they were distant relatives of some British nobility who had shipped their vehicle out to Africa with the intention of conducting their month long tour of the bush in luxury that only a low slung, long-wheel base Rolls can offer!

As they say in the classics, we wished them the best of British with that plan!

Towards the end of our camping stay in a very cold Aus, Ann accidentally cut her hand quite badly.

We decided to break camp and head for Keetmanshoop where we would find the nearest hospital in a 400-kilometre radius.

We got to the town and found the hospital and in no time, Ann was stitched up and given an injection.

The friends who had been with us on this journey suggested we book into the local Holiday Inn, the only hotel in town.

We had been a long time on the road and the prospect of a hot shower, and a dust free bed was very inviting indeed.

The next morning, cleaned up and bushy tailed, the four of us, kitted out in clean, like new, clothing that had been dug up from the bottom of the storage box under the caravan bed, found ourselves a local café and restaurant under the owner management of Tannie Sarie and her devoted husband Koos.

The table we were warmly shown to was beautifully laid with a white lace tablecloth that was probably hand made and maybe even by Tannie Sarie’s Mum! Sparkling white crockery and highly polished silverware adorned the place settings and the whole scene was finished off by a vase of bright yellow plastic daffodils. Stunning!

We sat down and ordered a proper full English breakfast and coffee all round. It wasn’t long before Tant Sarie returned to the table with four mugs, a jug of warm milk and a large glass perculator of freshly ground ‘moer’ koffee within boiling water, at the top of which sat a plunger neatly and tightly seated inside the glass surround.

We had seen something like this, a good few years back, before they invented instant coffee and I remembered what one was required to do with the plunger once the ground coffee had had a chance to percolate.

We were all desperately in need of a caffeine fix, so I did the honours and stood up and placed the palm of my hand over the top of the plunger and gradually applied downward pressure.

I discovered an unusual amount of resistance and thought perhaps a little more pressure was required. But still the plunger wouldn’t budge. I guess in hindsight, I should have conducted a closer inspection to confirm that the circular sieve had not been inadvertently screwed on upside down as that would most certainly have prevented any downward movement.

But on this occasion, I failed to apply my mind to such technicalities and proceeded to simply increase the downward pressure somewhat forcibly.

The glass coffee pot exploded under the pressure. Coffee water and saturated coffee grinds scattered across the beautiful table, staining and splattering mess all over, including the butter and jam and onto our crisp new shirts, pants and dresses!

“Oh shit!” I said, “I’m so sorry!” I mean what does one say at such a disastrous moment in one’s short life.

Tannie Sarie came running and as much as she kept on saying that we mustn’t worry and she’ll sort things out, we could tell from the look on her face and general body language that had I been a relative, I would have been excommunicated on the spot.

I could read her thoughts as if she had said them out loud “These bloody city slickers just mess everything up. They have no class!” or words to that effect.

We all spontaneously jumped to help, which almost pushed Tant Sarie over the edge.

“NEE! Loss dit.” (NO! Leave it) she shouted with the much anx etched in her voice. “Please move to the other table.”

It was more of a command than a request, so we gingerly retired to the other table.

Oy vey!

With breakfast over, we settled the bill and doubled it as a peace offering before going back to the caravan to change and set off to the leopard sanctuary just outside town, to see if there was anyone else we could irritate!