The sand of time

Once rich and opulent, Kolmanskop is henceforth a ghost town invaded by sand and lost in the middle of the Namibian desert. But its history stays as short as surprising : Founded after the discovery of diamonds by German settlers in 1908, Kolmanskop went through a real « diamond rush » and became very fast the nerve center of the area due to its rich deposit of diamond. The legend says that even by night, you only had to go down to find diamonds in the sand thanks to the moonlight. Kolmanskop faced a striking prosperity that attracts many adventurers or other prospectors through all Africa ; prosperity symbolized by the fact that the inhabitants of Kolmanskop used to get their clean water from Cape Town in South Africa far from 1 000 kilometers from there or that they imported their Champaign from Reims !