You'd imagine that man could never quite stamp his mark on the vast desert of the Skeleton Coast.

BBC: Skeletal memories in Namibia

Once you get to the Skeleton Coast, the eerie, desolate seascape stretches more than 600km from Swakopmund to the Angolan border.

BBC: A long road trip along Namibia��s coast

Walking along the lines of skulls, I am reminded once again that the Skeleton Coast is a place where death looms large.

BBC: The ghostly shore of Namibia��s Skeleton Coast

Adorning their bodies with ochre and butter to protect their skin from the ferocity of the sun, they have spent centuries roaming the Skeleton Coast and nearby regions.

BBC: The ghostly shore of Namibia��s Skeleton Coast

The shifting dunes and flat pans around Sossusvlei, more than 700 km south of the Skeleton Coast, lie in the Namib-Naukluft Park, beyond the park entrance at Sesriem.

BBC: A long road trip along Namibia��s coast

Outside this zone but still on the Skeleton Coast, Namibia Wildlife Resorts runs the more affordable Terrace Bay Camp, about 48km north of Torra Bay on the C34 coastal road.

BBC: A long road trip along Namibia��s coast

The Skeleton Coast is no place for family life.

BBC: The ghostly shore of Namibia��s Skeleton Coast

He has rafted rivers in Yakutsk, dodged grizzly bears and black flies around Great Slave Lake (his record for fly bites is two hundred in a single night), and scouted rock formations on the Skeleton Coast, sometimes hiking more than twenty miles a day.

NEWYORKER: The Martian Chroniclers