The trip began well with an on-time departure from our home airport. Can't say the same about Atlanta, where our sixteen-hour flight to Cape Town was delayed for over an hour while the crew prayed for the delivery of...wait for it...toilet paper. Okay, we made up a little time and arrived only about a half an hour late.
The following morning we enjoyed an excellent breakfast buffet and then the Wonderland experience began. The cruise line representative was apparently trying to remain incognito, as he had no identification at all. No name tag, no sign. Everyone had to bring their own luggage down to the lobby (very rare, it has always been picked up) and that created a new type of chaos: everyone standing in the way while they stared at their own bags. The transfer busses were late and when the first one showed up, the thundering herd rushed the door. The emergency exit door. We stood calmly waiting, then strolled, equally calmly, to the next bus.
Once on board, things naturally improved. Lots of familiar crew people were there, and it's those folks who really count. So. We sailed three hours late while we waited for the delivery of some mystery things that were needed. Maybe toilet paper. Seemed to be plenty of champagne. This type of thing puts Destination Services into orbit, so we steered clear of them and waited to see what happened.
No problem. We were off on a boat tour in Walvis Bay, Namibia, to see the oyster beds, the seals, and the dolphins. Not far from the dock, a seal attempted to jump on board! It turned out that Junior, a Cape Fur Seal, was on the payroll. He climbed on and was rewarded with his fill of fish.
Our trusty sea captain:
\
We were treated to a local "coffee" which was actually a very nice local sherry. Later there was sparkling wine and local snacks and sweets.
The next day, we went inland. As we drove through Walvis Bay we were amused by the local architecture, which could be described as Modern-art-nouveau-deco-southwestern. Away from town, we headed out to see the dunes and the Welwitschia Plants. These things grow from only two leaves at a rate of a centimeter per year, on a good year. The "middle-sized" ones, like this one,
are about 700 years old, and they have their own bug, named after them.
Yeah, we know, we know.
Next stop, The Moonscape:
We stopped at a fun oasis and visited their little zoo before riding through the dunes back to the ship.
Sand Dunes, and we don't mean maybe:
Christmas day! Caviar and champagne for breakfast and we found another old friend in the restaurant, a gentleman who had been one of our servers on the world cruise in 2017. We were thrilled to see one another again. Smiles all around! We had Christmas goose on the eve, and turkey with the fixins' on the day. The chef showed off two forty-pound, perfectly golden, roasted birds. We were offered leftover turkey on the lunch buffets for several days. The ship was decorated for the holiday, of course, and the restaurant department really knows how to work with gingerbread and frosting:
Our next stop was Port Elizabeth, where we went to visit the Addo Elephant Park, where beetles have the right of way, but we didn't see any.
It being the middle of the day and quite hot, animals were scarce. We did see some Kudu:
And this hyena, cooling her jets in the watering hole:
There were elephants, but they were some distance away. There are better elephant pictures to come, believe us.
Now, a word about Apartheid. Let's face it, this separation of people was common around the world, but South Africa gave it a name. Black people were moved to the "townships". Here's what a township looks like, even today, and they are still heavily populated.
See all those electric lines? They're all illegal. There's no trash pickup. Trash is bagged up, carried across the road, and dropped. And there it remains, or blows around.
Some people have better houses, made of concrete and about the size of a large hotel room. Mostly, they rent these out and stay in the corrugated metal shack. So, it's over, commemorated by naming everything after Nelson Mandela, but it isn't gone.
Came the Captain, on the blower, with news! Storm coming. The plan was changed to a three-day slow limp to Durban, with the port call at Maputo canceled. Okay, whatever. After we re-read the description of our proposed tour there, we decided that we didn't miss much, especially since we got a fat rebate for our unused Mozambique visas. And we dodged the Yellow Fever BS that showed up just before we left home. Destination Services was in orbit again, as we moved northeast at five knots. Creeping behind the storm, alone. No sea birds, no sea creatures, no other ships for company. Wait! Company! Two land birds hitched a ride:
The Slow Boat to Durban finally neared its destination. For three days, we never went over five knots. As an aside, let's understand South African time. We've experienced 'island time', GMT (Goa Maybe Time), IST (India Stretch Time), and Portuguese When-We-Get-Around-To-It time. Now we have SAT: Sometime Around Then.
Came the Captain, on the blower, to tell us that the pilot was coming at 6:30 via helicopter. The deck hands enlisted every crew member they could grab to clear the top two decks. That done, came the Captain once again to say never mind, the pilot is coming at 6:30 via boat. The deck crew set everything back up. The pilot arrived in SAT time, closer to 7:00. Can't say a lot about Durban. It has beaches:
But the beaches nearest the city are closed during holidays because a lot of folks with nothing to do go down to the beaches in hordes and cause trouble. Think spring break.
We did get a photo of a heard of giraffes:
Yes, that's what the ship loaders are called in these parts.
