The big vast nothing

Started at sunrise this morning (still early for me) as I wanted to go all the way to Swakopmund today, and was told that the road there is in quite bad condition. Sunrise over the Naukluft Mountains was quite beautiful again, and I managed the first kilometers quite well. Made a short refueling break, and suddenly was in the middle of the mountains. Crossed two rivers in these mountains. Of course you have to go down all the way to the bottom and back up. Just don't ask me, why the would pave the small bit at the bottom, while leaving the steep parts as especially bumpy gravel roads. After the mountains, on a about a third of the way, a still very bumpy road, started leading me onto a big, vast, empty nothing. Two last ostriches, and then that was it. A little lizard, and only very few bird were the only living things I saw for the next 2-3 hours. Now I was really in the deserted part of the Namib desert. No more sand dunes, trees, anything... The road started to get better again, the closer I got to the coast, and to Swakopmund. Then, at the horizon, I saw something, there were the dunes again. Apparently the desert reaches right to the city (or little town, as I later found out). As it was still early in the day, I didn't go right into town, but made a detour through another part of the Namib, called Moon Landscape and Welwitschia Plane. Still very deserted, the first bit or the drive went through a quite hilly area, apparently like on the moon. Then it went to some mountains, containing of different materials and having on top a layer from previous volcanic activities. This layer is more robust towards embodiment, leaving the mountains with a kind of black iroquais on top. It then went down the mountains, through a (dried out river) into the Welwitschia Plane. Welwitschia is a plant growing in this extreme conditions, and scientists haven't yet found out exactly, how it can survive. But it does, and the oldest one they have found there so far, is considered to be 1500 years old. Finally I then made it into Swakopmund, and realised, that I first need to get used back to civilisation...