ERONGO AQUAMARINE & BRANDBERG AMETHYST CRYSTALS

Updated June 01 , 2009

Next we visited the town of UIS and stayed at the White lady B & B .   Uis is the closes
town to Brandberg anf the brandberg mining camp .   We stopped to get petrol and the
locals immediately approached us with flats of crystals for sale.      We got some great
deals before we headed off to the brandberg mining camp . It is about 80 km from Uis
but takes 2 hours to drive because the roads are so terrible. At places the sand is
almost impassable .
After driving for 2 hours without seeing power poles ( but lots of ostrich and gemsbok)
we arrived at the turn off for the camp.     It only took a minute for the miners to orderly
line up the flats on the ground for us to look at . The quality was superb and the prices
very low. I saw some incredible specimens !     These folks have hard life and must be
very rugged . Their houses were constructed out of any type of material they can find .
What was touching was that despite the challenges they face , they still had a neat and
orderly courtyard of raked gravel surrounded with stones. In the center of this they had
desert type plants and these were circled with quartz crystals ( they used the colorless
or broken kind that didn't have any value).   This showed a curious pride that I have
thought about at odd times ever since I beheld it .
We stayed in nearby Uis for 2 days & as word spread , soon we couldn't stop at the
store because such a crowd would develop with folks wanting to sell us crystals. This at
times got almost unmanageable !
The good crystals we didn't mind looking at and buying , but the trouble was that not
everyone had good crystals yet expected us to buy their crystals as well. This day was
overwhelming and left me at a loss for words, which as everyone knows is not often.
I'll be adding a lot more here about brandberg. You can check out the video below

Specimen pictures coming soon. I have obtained some incredible
Brandberg amethyst crystals for sale. Anyone interested in buying some
can email me and I will also have some specimens for sale at the store in
Lagrange, Ga.

As we pulled out of the town of Usakos the paved road was no more. For hundreds
of miles ahead there is nothing but dirt road. The travel guides call these "gravel
roads" which is deceptive and leads you to think the roads are improved with gravel
.   This is not the case as the road is simply graded from time to time . The road bed
is part dirt , at times exposed bedrock and at others, SAND.   The prior page shows
a video of what happens when you hit deep sand. The road at most times was quite
passable all though very bumpy with "washboards" or as the chaps here call
"corrugated" or "corrugations".
After riding 30 miles or so ( which took an hour) , we entered our first real African
village ; Tubussis.
The locals soon came and offered us their crystals for sale . There was a little schorl
tourmaline , some topaz, garnet, and aquamarine.   Most folks were quite nice and
friendly .     One fellow left his flat of purchased crystals on the ground and a villager
slyly grabbed them up and started reselling them !

Go to the main DIG FOR CRYSTALS site

Rodney Moore at gobobos / brandberg mining camp with a meerkat

Look closely , that is a pool table under the tent

Rodney with a Meerkat near the brandberg mining camp

Brandberg minig camp / MEERKAT video !
YOU CAN VIEW THIS IN HIGH QUALITY AND FULL
SCREEN . JUST CLICK THE BUTTONS ON THE PLAYER

This page is the Tubussis and
Brandberg, Namibia page. It tells about
my trip to this area to source crystals
directly from the miners around the
Erongo range & at the Brandberg mining
camp. The background photo is of the
Acacia tree.

Wait , There's more ! Don't miss
PAGE THREE as the MINERAL
SAFARI adventure continues...

Would you like to visit
Brandberg,Namibia to collect
your own amethyst crystals ?
FIND OUT MORE