After 1 day at sea our next stop in Africa was in Namibia. Our first stop was in Luderitz. Luderitz has many German colonial buildings. This was because diamonds were found in Luderitz in the early 1900’s. The Germans who had already colonized the area set up a mining camp. Apparently at night you could see the diamonds shining in the sand from the moon light and people with no mining equipment could easily make a small fortune.
The diamonds are no longer found in the area were the mining camp was originally set up. Now it is a tourist sight. The town was known as Kolmannskuppe and now it is known as the Kolmannskuppe Ghost Town. You need a permit to go into the town but it was easy to obtain and the town was only about a 10 minute drive from the centre of Luderitz. Luderitz is built right along the desert and since the Ghost Town has all but been deserted the desert sands have over taken many of the buildings. It was really interesting to see this old town that has been trapped in time. We went back into town after this but the town was really small so we didn’t stay out much after that.
The next day we stopped in Walvis Bay which means Whale Bay. Previously Whaling was a huge industry here but now the town is more known for its sand dunes. It is also a small town like Luderitz and is also surrounded by the desert. After taking the shuttle into the main area in town we took a cab ride to Dune 7. Dune 7 is the highest sand dune in the world. You are allowed to walk to the top of the sand dune but we decided to walk up a smaller part to take some pictures. A couple of very popular activities were sand boarding which is just like snowboarding but in sand obviously and taking 4 wheel drives through the desert.
Off the coast of Walvis Bay is a manmade island that is used to collect guano. Apparently they export it for the chemicals inside it when it is cleaned and it is a large industry for them. I’m not sure if we could have seen the island but we weren’t about to go take a look. We didn’t find the arts and crafts as interesting in Namibia as we did in South Africa and decided after walking around town for a bit that we would head back to the ship for the day. We were happy that we got a chance to experience one of Africa’s deserts as it was one of the main things we wanted to do.
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| Diamond Mine |
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| Dune 7 |
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