The Sandy Ghost Town of Kolmanskop

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In the town of Kolmanskop in Southern Namibia, the houses are empty, rooms are filled with hypnotizing swirls of sand, and the open windows look out into empty stretches of desert.

No, it isn’t yet another high fangled artistic exhibit – it’s actually a ghost town near the port of Luderitz in the south of the country.

Back in 1908, the town experienced a gold rush, with thousands of wide-eyed entrepreneurs making their way to Kolmanskop in the hopes of making a fortune from diamonds. The gold rush lasted only a few decades – diamond prices plummeted after the World War, and by the fifties most settlers had abandoned the town. Over the years, the sands slowly took over the ghost town.

The result looks as surreal as something Dali would have created.

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