Subtitles section Play video Print subtitles These dunes, scorched by the sun and lashed by the winds, finally come to die on a coast mercilessly beaten by the waves. The same coast which, for centuries, the sailors who plied the commercial routes between Europe and the West Indies feared, respected, and above all avoided. This coast has inspired many a writer. Its sands are strewn with the skeletons of dead animals, bleached by the sun, testimony to the harshness of this coast, where only the strongest and best adapted are capable of surviving. They have seen many tragedies at sea, and this place has well earned its fearful name: The Skeleton Coast. Not so long ago, the White Man also tried to adapt to this dry land. They came here lured by the promise of untold riches, the diamond deposits. But nature proved stronger, and they soon had to admit defeat. Entire towns were abandoned overnight, as they fled from the terrors of the desert. These ghost towns still provide the greatest evidence of the hostility of this land. Shipwrecks, of many ages and many nationalities, worn by the passing of time, still lie half-buried, perhaps silently lamenting their absurd, unexpected fate. The old ships, made of wood, have slowly crumbled away, the combined effect of the sea, the wind and the sand, but the most modern ships, made of metal, rise like ghosts from the deserted beaches. The Skeleton Coast marks the limit of a desert which covers a narrow strip, no wider than 200 kilometres, running from southern Angola to the Orange river, the border with South Africa. Like a coastal belt, the dunes and rocks of the Namib desert cover 250,000 square kilometres along more than 2,000 kilometres of the Atlantic coast of Namibia. The Namib is one of the oldest, and most arid, deserts in the world. Its mountains were witnesses to the cataclysms of the Jurassic age, when the super-continent Gondwana split apart, creating new landmasses, among them Southern Africa. Just a few kilometres away, enormous dunes, over 300 metres high, transform the landscape, making it unrecognisable. That is the Namib, a constantly-changing desert, a dry land where life lies in hiding. From the air, this mass of orange-coloured sand seems endless. These are the tallest dunes in the world, and below them lies the world’s largest diamond deposit. It is a fantastic sight, which could only have been created by nature. As the light changes, the dunes of the Namib take on a thousand different hues, of spectacular beauty. They are like mobile sculptures, shaped over thousands of years by the wind. The underground rivers provide just enough water for the odd acacia, adding a not-quite-adequate green to the symphony of crude colours dotted across the landscape. But every year, there is a veritable explosion of life along the Skeleton Coast. In October, the sea-lions come to these coasts to give birth. The cold Benguela current, which travels up from the glacial Antarctic Ocean, and along the south-west coast of Africa, carries with it a considerable quantity of nutrients. The sea is soon swimming with fish, and these attract the sea-lions, which are the final link in this particular food chain. At this time of year, Cape Cross is home to the largest colony of sea-lions over one hundred thousand of them. Outside the breeding season, males of the species are rarely seen they start to arrive at the end of October, in order to mark out their territory. They are well-fed when they arrive, and can weigh up to considerable amount of energy, defending their territories and protecting the females, and can lose up to 200 kilos. The first European to set foot on this coast was the Portuguese, Diego Cao, in 1486. A year later, another Portuguese navigator, Bartolomé Días, with his three ships, sailed into the bay, seeking protection from a storm. After many attempts, he finally managed to land, and named the bay ‘Angra Pequena’ (small cove) But it was not until 1883 that the first stable settlement was established, when the German navigator and merchant, Adolf Lüderitz, reached an agreement with the head of one of the Nama tribes. Lüderitz bought the bay for a relative small amount of money and sixty rifles, in order to set up a whale processing plant here. A few months later, Kanzler Bismark declared Namibia a protectorate of the German Empire. In 1904, war broke out between the Nama and the Germans, and Lüderitz became the first prisoner of war. These are rich waters, and the whaling business rapidly flourished. The port, and a modern processing plant were built. But the real industrial and economic boom came later, with the discovery of the diamond mines. This was in May 1908, when, during the construction of the railway line, a worker called Zachary Lewala found a small, bright stone, lying on the ground. He showed this stone to his boss, the German Augustus Stauch who, realising what it was, requested permission from the authorities to prospect in the area. The news spread like wildfire and soon merchants, adventurers and fortune-seekers began to arrive in Lüderitz. In just four years, the town was transformed from a small, remote fishing port, into one of the most important cities in Southern Africa. Still today, very little has changed around Lüderitz. The most prosperous businesses are still where they were a hundred years ago, and are still run by the descendants of those first colonists. And the city itself, though it has changed slightly more, still retains the atmosphere of a remote frontier town. Lüderitz is today a sleepy, somewhat surrealist German colony. Just like a typical, small Bavarian town, but transposed to one of the most remote corners of Southern Africa, where the wind blows furiously all year round. The railway disappeared a long time ago, but a magnificent road connects the town with the outside world. Lüderitz still lies well off the beaten track, stranded in the desert, between two enormous diamond-producing regions, which are prohibited zones, and heavily guarded. The majority of the streets are still sand, and the houses are painted in bright colours, to break the monotony of the landscape. The town is surrounded by almost endless diamond deposits, but these are transported directly to South Africa, and have very little influence on the local economy. Nonetheless, Lüderitz remains prosperous, thanks to the same activity which was the reason it was founded fishing. Due to the cold Benguela current, these waters are the largest, richest fishing grounds in the South Atlantic. The entire city owes its living to the hake, lobsters and seaweed, which provide work for over 5,000 people. This industry is, after diamonds, the second largest source of income for the Namibian government. But long before the arrival of the White Man, a nomadic people, once to be found throughout the continent of Africa, had sought final refuge in the Namib and Kalahari deserts. They were probably the last survivors of the hunter people that had been persecuted and displaced by the Bantu tribes who arrived from the north. Those who did not manage to escape into the desert were exterminated or enslaved, first by the Bantues and the Hottentots themselves, and later by the European conquerors, who rather contemptuously named them Bushmen. In the sacred mountains which are home to the spirits, the drawings carved into the rock are irrefutable evidence that, six thousand years ago, the Bushmen already inhabited these lands. Nowadays, the majority of the 100,000 Bushmen that live in the Kalahari desert are to be found in remote ghettos, in subhuman conditions. Most of their cultural heritage has been lost. They now rarely hunt, and subsist on the tiny benefits they receive from the government. There is a great deal of alcoholism it’s the only way they have of killing time. The authorities are trying to introduce agriculture and livestock farming, but these people who, for over 20,000 years have been hunter-gatherers, are finding it very difficult to adapt to this lifestyle. Some of them work for the White Men, or for neighbouring tribes, as hunters, farm-workers, or herdsmen, in conditions of near slavery, in exchange for food, clothes and tobacco. Historically, the neighbouring tribes have treated them as pariahs, with no rights. Since 1992, Amnesty International has been denouncing the abuses and torture they suffer at the hands of the military. Little by little, the situation is getting better in Botswana, for example, which, in 1998, enjoyed the strongest economic growth in the world. But still, the Bushmen are the most extreme example of the poverty and underdevelopment which has not been eradicated. Little by little, they are losing ground, their territory reduced to an ever-smaller area. Fortunately, however, there are still families who refuse to give up their culture and their traditions, and try to survive in the most remote regions of the Kalahari. Chonwati is a small settlement, inhabited by just four families, a total of 14 people. The Bushmen live in small, scattered groups, adapting to whatever the land can offer, Kushai, Samgao, Tuka and Bo are the heads of the Chonwati family. Several days ago they ran out of meat, the basis of their diet, and so have decided to set out to try to catch a hare in the area around the village. Politically and socially, the Bushmen are organised into groups with no designated leader, though authority is assumed by the oldest or the most skilled of the active members. Each group is made up of a number of hunters, generally related, and their wives and children. The group normally moves around a limited territory, which they don’t leave this is their hunting ground and, though the limits are not well defined, and there is no specific obligation to respect them, other groups would never enter, so no one needs to defend them. The technique they use to catch the hares is simple, but extremely ingenious. Their only tool is a long, very flexible rod, with a hook at one end,