Jun 03 2013 Kolmanskop, Ghost Town

There is no one. Long ago they all. In the Namibian desert survives the trace of a strange time, where the man was determined to raise ballrooms on the dunes, barracks in the sand, mansions in the middle of nowhere, but ended up winning, and today nothing Kolmanskop only wind and gloom.

It was the early twentieth century, when many Germans sought fortune in the confines of Africa, and settled where the sea and the desert narrow ties, impossible relationship of salt and sand. In southern Namibia have always existed without tourists beaches, barren landscapes, but there was a time when those deserted beaches and those hidden treasure. It was as if the place would reward anyone who dared to get there. Diamonds in the sand, the gift of bold.

They imported the first X-ray machine to detect if African workers ate one of the precious stones as bonus.

Those pioneers turned millionaires and soon create Kolmanskop City (the Kolmannskuppe, they would say they). From 1908 until the Second World War, whole families settled into their homes Germanic, protecting the climate of Namibia, in the desert wasteland, so far from the Black Forest of places in Berlin. The brilliance of diamonds could yet. They built hospitals and imported the first X-ray machine in Africa to detect if any of the workers ate one of the precious stones as bonus.

Prosperity does not understand landscapes, and even less greed. Children went to school between the dunes and the magnates smoked cigars in their bathtubs, as they watched a horizon arid. After the Nazis came, with swastikas, his triumphant smiles and crazy notion, wildest yet in a place that could finance their war. It is strange to think that in the Namibian desert, provided the Nazis with Bavarian beer thanks crystallized carbon.

But one day he ran out of diamonds and then with the same anxiety that raised Kolmanskop, abandoned. They left everything, hastily, known as the ambition take root and nothing could hold them there and.

They left everything, hastily, known as the ambition take root and nothing could hold them there and.

70 years after we came. A sign announces the ghost town oxidized. The desert has been creeping into the homes. The hospital is still standing, but the roof is about to fall apart and the earth accumulates rooms.

We walked through those mansions, still intact. The creak of wood up the stairs amplified the sense of silence, Vacuum. The photos of smiling Nazis are on the walls of the ballroom, Today a grim.

The streets are unrecognizable, because the open, everything becomes sand.

The city is an obscene picture of man's greed. Again, another example. The real curse of Africa has always been his wealth. Invasions, the wars alambradas, it just so bringing both diamond and stone decorating just any queen crown, for the glory of a state that I could not point out on a world map Namibia.

The real curse of Africa has always been his wealth.

Kolmanskop is very close to the town of Luderitz, that overlooks the Atlantic to quench your thirst for desert. And there we learned that today, Now! German agencies continue to exploit the bowels of the African country in search of more diamonds. The aftermath of the fever persist today.

On the road that took us to find the following sign Kolmasnkop: “WARNING: public is warned against entering the restricted area on both sides of the road to Aus” (NOTICE: It alerts the public to not enter the restricted area on both sides of the wagon to Aus-town south of Namibia-).

The restricted area, course, is that where still hope to find diamonds.