Translation of devastation in German

I guess you know Spanish very well. I'm not on line most of the time. I think to get accommodation in the city is hard. I have many friends in Madrid, they all live outside the city. I think we can help each other to practice German or Spanish.
On the first day in Hanoi, we wanted to explore the town. It was the former capital of the North and today it is the capital of the entire country. There are tons of monuments and governmental buildings.
The drive to these lagoons was not easy. The jeep did not have air conditioning, so that in the sun it would get extremely hot and in the shade extremely cold. The jeeps were around 15 years old.