Photo by Michael Kovler, you're in charge
When we think of Namibia, the first thing that comes to mind is the Namib Desert, which is known as the most beautiful desert in the world. Under the scorching sun, this vast desert seems to be nothing special, there is no grass, with the characteristic eternal scorching "yellow", majestic, quiet, with a straight face, dead silence. However, in fact, hiding under the sea of sand, there is a little-known ancient life; at the end of this desert, there is an endless sea; and above the desert, there are the brightest stars in the world; in the center of the desert, there is a desert "ghost town" that is isolated from the world.
Strange life in the ancient desert
Photo by Thomas Peschak, National Geographic
The pygmy viper's eyes are so small that it is difficult for the average person to identify them. This snake is shy by nature, but extremely poisonous, good at camouflage, and can be called a master of disguise.
The Namibian Desert is 55 million years old and is one of the oldest on Earth. It is home to a large number of unique creatures that have long adapted to their harsh environment. The Masquerade Pygmy Viper, the Misty Farmer's Step-By-Step Beetle, and the unspicious Mongoose, along with the plants, enjoy the thick fog of the desert from the Atlantic Ocean at night.
The pseudo-step beetle is a fog farmer. Namibia's air is extremely dry, and animals have evolved unique ways of adapting to desert environments.
Photographer Thomas Peschak calls it "Planet Namibia" and says it's his closest expedition to space travel — shooting in the Namibian desert just needs to be ready to be "surprised" at any time. This desert looks barren and dead, but it is actually a kaleidoscope of life that never stops, "and I am the only human being on the planet Namibia!" The photographer said.
A white desert spider appears to "dance" on the sand to fend off predators or competitors of the same kind who capture their prey.
Humans sometimes catch young mongooses in the desert and then sell them as pets on the side of the road. Mongoose is not suitable for captive domestication, and this mustela sanctuary is a refuge for mongooses that were once used as pets.
The diet of mongoose is very extensive, and fruits, insects and even birds can be used as their food. The mongoose was eating an ant worm attracted to the light the night before.
In the desert grows a lonely female Chitose orchid. Chitose orchid is one of the oldest plants in the world, like a strange creature from an alien planet.
The beach is the desert
Above the Namib Desert, the moving sand dunes are towering and majestic. Here the sea and land are connected, the rough sea and the endless sand dunes are entangled, eager to hug each other, but also have some scruples.
Photo by Julian Walter, you're in charge
Courtesy photo: EARTH OBSERVATORY/NASA
NASA's Terra satellite took a surprising image of strangely shaped clouds floating over the coast of Namibia. Beneath the clouds, there is a spectacular view of the desert connecting with the sea.
Sandwich Harbor, one of the world's oldest deserts at the confluence of the Atlantic Ocean.
Dead wood from the Dead Lake in Namibia
The Dead Lake Basin is a clay lake basin located in NockLufford Park, Namibia. The Dead Lake Basin is surrounded by the world's tallest dunes, some of which are 300 meters high and have a sandstone substrate. This layer of water-separated clay is lifeless, but sporadically dotted with a few dead trees, telling the past hundreds of years ago.
Standing for three hundred years without falling, falling for three hundred years without dying, and dying for three hundred years without dying.
Photo by Frans Lating
The sky seemed to be moving endlessly. Against this vast backdrop, Namibia's Dead Vlei is particularly silent.
In addition to the desert wonders of the harmony of sand and sea, the most exciting thing about the Namibian desert is this little-known "ghost town".
Namibia's desert "ghost town"
Bright-style colored wallpaper peels off the walls and abandoned houses are buried with piles of sand, and this is the ghost town of "Colmanskop" in the Namib Desert in southern Africa, which is located right in the center of the area commonly known as the "forbidden zone". As for the history of the town, it is actually as breathtaking as it is today.
Photograph by ROMAIN VEILLON
Due to the extremely dry environment of the Namib Desert, the decorations in the building were preserved, but the flowing sand dunes devoured everything
Bizarre and sad history
One night in 1908, a Namibian railroad worker named Zacherias Lewala was clearing the sand dunes that stretched up the tracks, but in the glimmer of light he saw some stones shimmering. Lewala's German employer recognized it as a diamond.
In the early 1930s, the town's economy was in decline. For decades, locals have witnessed its rise and fall. By 1956, the town was completely abandoned.
Soon, hordes of prospectors flocked to the area. By 1912, a small town had sprung up and produced one million carats of diamonds a year, accounting for 11.7% of the world's total diamond production at that time.
Although the town of Colmanceskop is located in the middle of the desert, it has also had a luxurious configuration, including a hospital employing two German doctors, a bar, an ice factory, a bowling-like nine-pillar game pasture, an entertainment center that employs local jugglers and theatricalists, and several European opera companies.
The wealthy town of Colmanskop became a lavish minaret in the barren desert. There have been butchers, bakers, post offices and ice factories; drinking water is transported by train; European opera companies have traveled thousands of miles to perform. A lot of crazy and eccentric behavior swept through the desert town.
Desert "ghost town" Colmanskop
But as part of the German colony, the town of Colmenskopf could not escape colonial tyranny. Just four years before the discovery of the diamonds on the site of the town of Colmanceskop, the Herero people of Namibia began to rebel against German colonial rule, resulting in the Germans committing genocidal atrocities and killing more than 60,000 Herero people.
The extravagant interiors of some townspeople contrasted with the living conditions of the laborers, the latter of whom worked hard and the former scavenged for wealth. The domineering mining areas drove the local indigenous people away, some of whom were recruited as miners and forced to live in cramped compounds like barracks for months.
Boom and bust
The original prospectors in the town of Colmenskop could get rich overnight just by picking up diamonds in the desert, but the German government would not easily let go of these riches and upstarts. The government took drastic measures, making the town and large areas around it restricted, barring private access and granting prospecting rights to a Berlin-based company. The establishment of the forbidden zone excluded the indigenous people, and some of the indigenous people were conscripted as miners and forced to live in cramped compounds like barracks for months.
At first, there were many diamonds in the sand, even in the faint moonlight, but after a few years, the mining competition became more and more intense, and diamonds were no longer readily available.
But the area declined in the 1930s. The reason for this came in 1928, when the richest diamond veins of the time were discovered in the southern coastal terraces, which was a major blow to the town of Colmenskopf. The townspeople left in droves, and the houses were abandoned.
During the short-lived heyday of the town of Colmanceskop, in addition to the local aboriginal miners, about a thousand German colonists and their families lived here.
By 1956, the town of Colmanceskop was completely abandoned and became a ghost town.
Is it new life or death
In 2002, a local private company called Ghost Town Tours was granted the exclusive right to operate the ghost town tourism industry, and more and more tourists entered the "forbidden zone" to explore the quicksand-covered ruins. Today, about 35,000 tourists visit ghost towns every year, bringing in a lot of income to the nearby coastal town of Lüderitz.
Today, a private company owns the town and maintains it as a tourist attraction. Visitors must be licensed by the company to enter the town with a guided tour that can be explained in German or English.
For thousands of years, people have been keen to study abandoned ancient cities and collapsed memorial sites, and after calm gaze and thinking, they all feel the small ignorance of human beings and the grinding power of time. So the current situation in the town of Colmenskopf is both surprising and not so strange.
The town of Colmanceskop may disappear in the desert, a wake-up call to the forces of time, destruction and death.
Thóra Pétursdóttir and Bjørnar Olsen are the authors of The Memory of Ruins: Matter, Aesthetics and Archaeology in Recent Years, which depicts the fascination and study of ruins by humans. Pétursdóttir and Olsen believe that the abandoned houses and ruins of ghost towns are only a few decades old, far less than a thousand years old, but they express the pursuit of material and wealth in modern society, that is, the nature of profit.
"People unveiled history, and the old things that were sealed in it were revealed."
"Collapsing walls, broken windows, and open drawers make privacy public and give a glimpse into the past."
- Memory of Ruins: Matter, Aesthetics and Archaeology in Recent Times
Ghost town with actions to tell the world that there is no long-term thing in the world, although in recent years the ghost town scenic area to take a series of measures, but the ghost town many building facilities or serious deterioration.
Maybe it won't be long before the ghost town will completely perish in the desert.
In those days, the water used in the town of Colmanskop was drawn from afar by trains, and wealthy residents used it to water their lawns and gardens. Today, the abandoned town is gradually collapsing, and nature has taken it all back.
Before the ghost town disappears, the eerie ruins will always remind people that we are powerful enough to build towns, but we cannot ignore the waste of raw materials, the atrocities of the rulers, and the suffering of oppressed peoples. Visitors to ghost towns are also witnessing the evil evidence of the colonial system, these sad ruins will be buried under the quicksand forever, and the memories of these sorrows that bring human reflection will last forever with the video record.
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