Judge a Book by its Cover, I mean Contents

Luderitz
February 23rd, 2009

After reading our ‘trusted’ guidebook, we headed in the direction of Luderitz a place that the Lonely Planet describes as “a surreal colonial relic- a 19th century Bavarian village…It has everything you’d expect of a small German town- delicatessens, coffee shops and churches”. Setting off with high hopes we made the 280km detour.

Along the way we stopped just outside of Aus to see the amazing Feral Desert Horses. These are a group of wild horses most likely having escaped from German cavalry horses during WWI. Numbers vary but there are over a hundred of them. We waited inside a hide by their main source of water, the Garab Pan- essentially a fancy well/bore hole. It was fantastic. Groups of three or four came to drink.

Doubly excited now, we entered the hub of Luderitz. It felt like small town Saskatchewan with fairly average buildings. Where were the delicatessens – we only saw a biltong shop painted in zebra stripes, where were the quaint coffee shops- we only saw one in a modern building, and churches- okay there was one and it was spectacular, but still where was our 19th Century Bavarian village. The answer my friend is in the authors dreams. Perhaps Karel and I are just too spoilt living in London and being exposed to Europe and European villages, but perhaps the writer has no idea what a Bavarian village should look like. The statement “just about every view in Luderitz reveals its German Imperial and Art Nouveau architectural heritage” is shall we say slightly optimistic. We found one street. It was a beautiful street, but really when you expect to see a whole town a street doesn’t quite cut it. We did however stay at a stunning campsite, Shark Island and we did stock up on some fresh produce.

The next day on our way out we headed to Kolmanskop, a ghost mining town. We booked our place on a tour and headed out of Luderitz. It was really interesting. The mining town was a roaring place where diamonds were abundant. No luxury was spared for the Europeans who came to work and live in this harsh environment. The shop keepers book shows imports of caviar and the finest of champagnes. The town essentially closed down the mining industry after much richer diamond deposits were found at Oranjemund. Buildings have a slightly eerie feeling as they are slowly eroding away and filling with sand. They are now making efforts to reclaim and restore some of the buildings.