The beauty of the Skeleton Coast of Namibia is staggering. Nothing can prepare you for the experience of this wild desert.

For years, the pristine beach and dunes of this area were exclusively accessible to miners, scientists, and hardened desert animals like gemsbok, jackals, and brown hyenas. Now vast parts of this area have been incorporated into the Namib Naukluft Park.

Like Siberia and Antarctica, it is considered one of the oldest and last wilderness areas in the world. Signs of human activity are visible where German prospectors drilled for diamonds decades ago, leaving only a dilapidated log cabin, a well that failed to deliver on its promises, and an old Willys engine, polished to a brilliant luster by the wind and the sand, with ravens nesting in it from time to time.

Guided tours from Luderitz take one to Saddle Hill, a former miners’ camp, which offers spartan accommodation, where the resident Ovambos take care of cooking and looking after the camp. Despite receiving an average of only 1mm of rain a year, much of the water condenses as mist and dew and water can be heard dripping off roofs at night.

Cute, but devious little black-backed jackal prowls around, looking for morsels left behind. They are also interested in any clothing or footwear that guests leave behind and are never found again.

To Spencer Bay, where the wreck of the Otavi lies in an enclave surrounded by rocks. A ghostly memory of the ship that beached there in 1945 with a cargo of ghwano. A colony of seals lounges in the area of ​​the wreck. Left completely untouched, probably because it was impossible to try to salvage anything in the harsh and distant environment, one can explore the ship inside and out.

Beyond Mercury Island, where an isolated couple care for a colony of penguins en route to the sinking of the United Trade, is silent testimony to the drama that could have unfolded on this uninhabitable land.

The remains of the United Trade are scattered in thousands of pieces in a radius of 5 km. It ran aground in the seventies with a shipment of explosives. The entire ship, cargo and everything was detonated.

Then to the wreck of the Arcona. To Saddle Hill South, another former mining town, a shadow of its heyday with buildings and machinery almost completely buried by sand, dust to dust…

Back to Luderitz on a different route, past gemsbok, jackal, geckos and lizards, brown hyena, and weird and wonderful desert plants. Strict rules must be followed: you are not allowed to leave the designated path and you must directly follow the tracks of previous vehicles, no pets, no touching or removing of fauna and flora.