Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
College of the Arts (COTA)
( 225 841; 41 Fidel Castro St)
The conservatorium in this college occasionally holds
classical concerts.
CLASSICAL MUSIC
GEM CONSCIOUSNESS
The former owner of House of Gems, Sid Pieters, who passed away in 2003, was once Namibia's foremost gem
expert. In 1974, along the Namib coast, Pieters uncovered 45 crystals of jeremejevite, a sea-blue tourmaline con-
taining boron - the rarest gem on earth. His discovery was only the second ever; the first was in Siberia in the
mid-19th century. Another of his finds was the marvellously streaky 'crocidolite pietersite' (named for Pieters
himself), from near Outjo in North-Central Namibia. Pietersite, a beautiful form of jasper shot through with asbes-
tos fibres, is certainly one of the world's most beautiful and unusual minerals, and some believe that it has special
