Namibia is a vast, sparsely populated land of astounding scenic splendor. The Namib Desert is an otherworldly place, dominated by forbidding mountains, monumental rock formations and towering sand dunes. At the country’s center, the vast Namib-Naukluft National Park and adjoining NamibRand Nature Reserve (a total area of 19,495 square miles) are famous for their heroic scenery and immense dunes of orange sand. Etosha National Park is one of southern Africa’s major wildlife areas, with a full range of large species. The Kaokoveld is home to the extraordinary desert-adapted lion. The savage Skeleton Coast is dotted with colonies of Cape fur seals. And Namibia is the last great bastion of the cheetah, the population of which has been tragically diminished elsewhere. The country is also the final redoubt of the San (Bushmen), who have been grotesquely persecuted over the past three centuries, as have the Herero and Himba, who remain a strikingly traditional tribal people.