We were up early for a homemade breakfast and it was excellent! Today we had another of those unique experiences planned. We were due to have a tour of the Sperrgebiet (German for forbidden area), which is the forbidden region of Southwest Namibia. It’s forbidden because it’s owned by the Namibian government and the DeBeers Corporation. Yep, diamond mining! The only way to visit is with an authorized guide. There’s only one left since Covid and we were supposed to meet him right after breakfast. More on the Sperrgebiet in a few. When we went downstairs to leave, we discovered some of our gear had been stolen in the night. Our recovery kit, air jack and electrical extension cord were taken. All of his had been strapped down to the roof racks. Namibia is actually one of the safest countries in all of Africa with a very low crime rate. It was just really bad luck. That and people are starving since the tourist industry has been hit so hard in Africa. The BnB owner was mortified, as it was the first time she’d ever had a break in. Some of her stuff was stolen too. We dealt with the police, who did a proper investigation (even fingerprinted the cars!) and the guide for our tour met us at the guest house. His name was Ramone. We left at 8:45 for Sperrgebeit. All things considered, not bad at all! We went to Kolmanskop gate to check in. More about Kolmanskop in the next post.

Had to do all the COVID screening stuff and take a breathalyzer, of all things. Maybe someone warned them about me….. Then we went down the road to the entrance to the Sperrgebeit. Once inside, we drove about 45 minutes to our first stop, the Gyllentahl water station, which supplied water to Pomona and Bogenfels mining settlements. The mining company built a small gauge railway to deliver the water to the settlements. Then we went on to the Pomona mining station, then Pomona settlement. We had lunch inside the Pomona common house. All of these places have been deserted since the 1950’s when the supply of diamonds ran out. The mining moved on to other places in the region.

After lunch we headed to Bogenfels and then the rock arch. We passed through “Fairy Tale Valley” on the way to Bogenfels. This valley was the heart of the diamond rush. The original explorers of the area found diamonds laying on top of the sand in a huge valley. They ended up mining over 30 billion dollars worth of diamonds out of the valley. If you look in the pictures, you can see small mounds in the sand. The valley was mined by hand and the mounds were the result of the sifting. Bogenfels was similar to Pomona, but we did not get out and explore there. Other companies have leased the property to mine for diamonds so were not permitted to stop and get out. Trust me, I was looking for diamonds all day!!

The rock arch at Bogenfels was really beautiful. We did stop here for a few minutes for pictures, but then we started the long trek back. We got back around 5 and relaxed before dinner. Lian and I went for a drive to tour the town and see the old German built houses and take the pictures in the previous post. We had dinner at the Nest Hotel and it was very good. We got some great pictures of the sunset. In spite of the trouble, we really enjoyed Luderitz. It’s on our list of places to go back.

Part 8 coming soon!