If you could travel to anywhere on your own continent, which place would you most like to see? Interestingly, for many Africans we asked throughout our trip, their answer to that question was…Namibia. It seems to hold a special fascination for the people of that mainland. Popular for eco-tourism, Namibia, I found out, has a lot to offer, including abundant bird life, some of the most stunning landscape in Africa, waterfalls, desert, canyons, and native big game wildlife. I never really knew. Yet, Walvis Bay, as we approached the port, was nothing but a wide strip of mountainous sand blurring into the sky, as far as the eye could see. 
The city of 50,000 was founded by the Cape Dutch in 1793, and later colonized by the Germans and South Africans, on behalf of the British crown. So, unlike all the Portuguese and French influence we have so far seen, Namibians speak English, German, and Afrikaans.
Walvis Bay is filled with condos, beachfront resorts, and low, flat, modern, stucco suburban homes. The friendly German driver of our 6-passenger off-road vehicle drove us out through town, past Swakopmund, a nearby German town that bears resemblance to a sandy Bavarian village, and on to the Swakop River Canyon, a dry riverbed set in the lunar landscape of the Namib Desert, the oldest desert in the world… think Mad Max, “Fury Road”. The movie was filmed here. All the travel advisories recommend that tourists explore this region only with a knowledgeable guide in an off-road vehicle, and bring lots of water, as it is easy to become lost or disoriented.
Miraculously, there is plant and animal life in this arid, desolate place, which gets some ground water and most of its precipitation from the condensation of dense fog created when the cold Atlantic waters meet the African coast. We went to the Welwitschia Valley, where plants of the same name are endemic to this region. Strange looking things thought to be a relic from the Jurassic period, they are extremely long-lived, up to hundreds and hundreds of years.
We were driven to a surprising resort oasis in this arid land where we had snacks and cool drinks before traveling on to Dune 7, outside Walvis Bay. Once there, several of us scrambled to the top, where the wind was fiercely blowing and we could see the famous dunes go on spectacularly for miles, like a golden, windswept mountain range.
Back in Walvis Bay, we stopped at the lagoon to see flocks of migrant pink flamingoes and wet-suited windsurfers, as we drove along the beachfront road lined with newly built affluent contemporary homes of Namibia, this most unusual jewel of Africa.