Some call it the land God made in anger. Others say visitors cry twice: once when they arrive, and then again when they have to leave. The name alone evokes tears: The Skeleton Coast – littered with the remains of untold ships caught in the deadly currents and high winds on Namibia’s coastline.
But, as forbidding as its name suggests, the coastline hosts colonies of seals in their thousands, as well as opportunistic jackals and brown hyenas. On an African safari in this region, you’ll see a variety of desert-adapted animals. Even lions. There’s nothing quite like seeing a really big cat in a really, really big sandbox to recalibrate your ‘doors of perception’. From its southern border along the Ugab River, the Skeleton Coast National Park traverses the country’s coastline to its border with Angola on the Kunene River.
Inland, the desertscape of the Kaokoveld is punctuated by occasional green treelines thirstily following scoured, dry watercourses to the sea. Browsing elephant, giraffe and black rhino are regularly spotted in the river beds, the former often on their hind legs as they reach for favoured ana pods (Faidherbia albida). Be awed by the nomadic people who eke out a living here – the Himba, a pre-industrial culture, cast into this thirstland by their more powerful relatives, the Herero.
