Like being on the ocean, there are huge, ever-changing big-sky vistas to get your head around. Your ears take on a new sensitivity in the beckoning silence, though even in the desert the birdlife is astonishing. The body adapts to the Namib massage – local shorthand for the unending corrugated road surfaces which shake both vehicles and people to pieces. And then there is that most elusive of Namib sensations: the “singing” dunes, vibrating with soo-oop-wa. “The sand shrieks beneath your feet”, wrote John Marsh who first described the Skeleton Coast in his 1944 book.