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The desert, it has been remarked, is an empty canvas. As I drive north from the coastal town of Swakopmund, toward the Skeleton Coast, this strikes me as crap. A less inspiring land cannot be imagined. The sparse, sick-looking flora that hunker grimly in the depressions only emphasize the overall lifelessness of the place. Under a hazy sun and ghostly half-moon, a grayish pall seems to suck the very possibility of color out of everything.