A Quick Glimpse of Maputo or It's Awfully Hot Here

Wednesday, 8 February 2012 - Arriving Richards Bay, South Africa

We docked at Maputo at noon yesterday for a five hour visit to Mozambique. It was a good five hours. It was also hotter than Southern Africa. Well, as hot as Southern Africa--now that I think of it.

Mozambique was French, then Portuguese, then Communist, now democratic but kind of corrupt; the northern part is Muslim and the south is Catholic, the first democratically elected president was murdered in South Africa, and now his widow is married to Nelson Mandela. She is the only person to have been married to two presidents of two different countries, said our knowledgeable guide for our five hour tour of the capital city. The same statue of the first president in somewhat Fidel garb appears all over town and largest in the main square. Despite some expensive luxurious hotels, Maputo is not a touristic destination. So our tour visited a couple of these hotels and the obligatory market stop as well as a remarkably nice local handicraft fair (where two locals were playing checkers with bottle caps). Most notable are two architectural wonders by Eiffel (yes, that Eiffel). A curious iron clad building which although most stylish for the late 19th Century was essentially too hot to be occupied, and a fantastic gem of a railway station. The working train station alone is actually worth a visit to Maputo.

We returned hot and tired from our madcap tour of the city of two million people and relaxed on our veranda (ship talk for deck). After figuring out how to page her, our butler Myrna delivered traditional Mozambiquian evening snacks of guacamole and corn chips to enjoy with the Stella Atois beers in our fridge. We watched the sailing from this interesting port as the upside down full moon rose over a  mass market MSC Cruise Line ship. Except for my back still aching, it was a glorious day in my 134th country visited,  but who's counting.

We sailed at a breakneck 19.6 knots with the Indian Ocean southerly current and watched the Pilot for the port of Richards Bay be lowered from a helicopter. He didn't look thrilled. We will be here for two days. This afternoon we visit the St. Lucia Nature Reserve to take a boat ride in a lagoon full of birds and hippos, and tomorrow we will spend all day "on safari" in the Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Game Reserve. I will report in a couple of days on these excursions and also the proper pronunciation and meaning of Hluhluwe-Umfolozi. But I believe it means "very expensive."

 

Jackals, Meercats, Turtles, Worthogs, and Elephants

Monday, 6 February 2012 - Indian Ocean

Port Elizabeth, South Africa 

The "Addo Elephant Park" is a South African National Park larger than The Netherlands. Why the knowledgeable guide thought that Holland was a fair message of size was a bit of a surprise to me, but I guess it's kind of like measuring distances in terms of football fields. No matter though. The good captain eased Silver Wind into the very industrial port of Port Elizabeth at the very southern coast of Africa at 8 am on schedule yesterday. This area was a hotbed of the ANC. So it wasn't a surprise that all new housing replaced the old townships. The white part time guide who is a full time geologist pointed out that blacks "have many superstitions about water so that they can't swim" to explain why the new housing was so far from the more desirable beachfront property. Nice to hear how things have changed down here.

Nevertheless, we finally got to see the real fairly impenetrable African bush and after about an hour's drive entered the Addo National Park after crossing the Cape Town to J-burg railway, the route of the Blue Train among others. Besides being compared to flat northern  European countries, Addo is unique for South Africa in that it encompasses a number of kilometers of ocean so that besides the big land animals there are killer whales and great white sharks within the park. We were transferred to four wheel drive open buses and drove up and down valleys along pretty good roads. The guide in the park, a naturalist local who was obsessed with turtles, pointed out quite a few of them and told us--as is often the case in which all "reality" is orchestrated--that seeing the big and exotic animals is very rare after the recent rains. Of course, his radio was set loud enough that I could hear the other guides telling him where to go so that we'd see everything in the correct order. Disney World's so-called African Safari this is not, but there is a bit of show business. But of  course, this is the real thing.

So--in the correct order--we caught sight of some very ominous jackals. Jackals, for heaven's sake. So, now I was a lot less cynical. I just saw jackals in the wild. Whoopy! Then we came across a bunch of meercats. These seems to be roving around (see detail above) and did not appear to be working to a script, like the recent TV program. My brain was now overloaded. I just saw meercats. Then after a bunch of worthogs (which became the inspiration for my craving pork chops for dinner, which I did enjoy) we came across a bunch of elephants.  So in two hours, we saw the daytime animals with the help of the knowledgeable guide and his VHF radio.

We got back to the ship and sailed at 4 pm northeast up the Indian Ocean coast of Africa where tomorrow afternoon we will arrive in Maputo, Mozambique. This will be my 134th country visited, but who's counting.

It's a Rare Wind that Blow Frequently or No Early Embarkation for You

Saturday, 4 February 2012 - Indian Ocean heading Eastward South of Africa

Embarkation Day

One of the perks of being loyal to Silversea Cruise Line is being able to embark the ship as early as 10:30am. One checks out of the hotel and takes a short cab ride (or sometimes a short walk) to the pier and gets on board early enough for a nice lunch (always Mahi Mahi it seems) and one renews acquaintanceship with the bartenders and other crew members and unpacks before the other guests arrive. It's always nice to brief the butler on how to shine shoes and arrange for lactose-free or other dietary issues to be dealt with. Mostly, it's to feel special. My mom used to say, "Aren't you special?", and my dad would say, "I hope you get all that's coming to you." You betcha.

It is also really nice to watch the ship arrive and watch the guests on the last segment disembark. This time we found no ship at the pier well over an hour after the scheduled 7 am arrival. Uh, oh. Barbara and I walked quickly to the breakwater and found that Silver Wind was visible far on the horizon. We watched the ship approach the narrow channel leading to the V & A Waterfront berth, and then we watched the ship turn away and head back out to sea. But then we watched it come back again. Oh joy. Then it turned away. Hey, it wasn't even a good holding pattern. We headed back to our nearby hotel, taking a shortcut through the very elegant Table Bay Hotel and fired up the netbook to check out http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais to further track the ship. Oddly enough, it was going in circles at 7 knots there as well. Something was up. 

What was up was the wind. Who would guess that it would be windy in Cape Town in summer? Too windy for the Harbourmaster to open the port long enough for Silver Wind to get in. So, after 11 years after missing Madagascar (and seeing the lemurs, whatever they are) due to high winds holding Silver Shadow for an extra day in port, it was happening again. This time the wind was keeping Silver Wind from arriving. The friendly Silversea Hospitality Desk lady in our hotel said, "The ship is delayed." She certainly was on top of the situation, she was. I was climbing the walls so as to see her on top, metaphorically speaking. And no amount of pacing up and back seemed to help. 

Then we got to see how Silversea can work magic. All of a sudden, the friendly Hospitality Desk lady come over to me and said the we and the other embarking guests--who were being gathered from the end of the empty pier and throughout Cape Town by some means--will be taken in 1/2 hour to the elegant Table Bay Hotel where an elegant buffet was being set up. It was, and it was, as the Silver Wind was being diverted to the big industrial port area of Cape Town where the harbo(u)r was still open. Suddenly, all was well. Silversea provided a tour bus to take us and the others to the elegant Table Bay Hotel and then after lunch the buses came back to take us to the pier adjacent to a drydock area where the ship had finally berthed 4 1/2 hours late. After climbing over all sorts of nautical machinery, we were whisked through check-in and were in our suite (Silversea's word for what used to be called, "cabin", since it is a suite) in minutes. My mood had so improved that I even went to the "Muster Drill" where all of 280 of Silver Wind's guests fit into the Panorama Lounge with the 222 crew members to show us the 4 lifeboats that could hold us all. The Costa Condordia the Silver Wind is not. We then sailed at 8 pm, passing the Cape of Good Hope as I had a superb veal shoulder in wine sauce and the Southern Cross became visible. This morning I had my dairy free pastries and we just came back from meeting with the Executive Chef, Pastry Chef, and various other torqued folks to ensure that I don't have any problems. Problems? All is well. 

Thinking of yesterday's events, it was interesting to see the behavior of the other folks, most of whom could buy and sell me in a minute, as they handled the change of plans. Some got sullen, some took the delay in stride, but many got frantic. The hastily made arrangements were fantastic, but a number of our fellow guests began to attempt to retrieve their bags and place them in the buses themselves, some started complaining about Silversea, the friendly Hospitality Desk lady, but oddly enough not the wind.

Tomorrow, Port Elizabeth and a 5 hour tour to the Addo Elephant Park. I think it's a park with elephants.

Cape Town Is Far But Nice

Saturday, 4 February 2012 - Rounding Cape Agulhas (the real southern point of Africa)

Frankfurt, Germany

It took two 11 hour overnight flights to get to Cape Town, South Africa. Lufthansa does a good job with their food and service in Business Class, but it's still a long way. The 12 hour layover in sub-freezing Frankfurt allowed for a commuter train ride into town, a brisk walk around the city, and even for a tourist "hop-on, hop-off" tour. After changing planes quite a few times at FRA, seeing the city was interesting which means that now it's a case of been there, seen that. Frankfurt is the "Zurich of Germany" which means lots of banks, a number of innovative skyscrapers, an old church or two, and lots of pedestrian streets. In other words, it's ok for a short walk around. The airport is about as interesting, but going into town allowed us to get in the traditional train ride. 

Cape Town, South Africa

There was time to explore Cape Town's "Victoria and Alfred Waterfront" when delayed a day due to high winds when I was there in 2001 on a Silver Shadow cruise. I remember trying to walk the short distance from the cruise port there into town and being stopped by a policeman clad in a flack jacket and holding a machine gun who stopped us and said, "We don't recommend going into town". This time, the V and A Waterfront is much more developed, and the city is clean and much safer so one can enjoy its spectacular beauty. Table Mountain forms the backdrop for the downtown part of the city, and the strong summer winds usually cause the "Tablecloth" cloud to develop on the top of the mountain. 

We did the tourist things, a lengthy "hop-on, hop-off" doubledeck bus ride where we could actually hop on and hop off due to it being summer, for heaven's sake. Hooray, shorts and sandals after freezing my bratwurst off in Frankfurt where we didn't hop off or hop on more than once each. Highlights of our visit to Cape Town included visiting Desmond Tutu's St. George's Cathedral and the oldest synagogue in southern Africa, just to balance the faiths. Cape Town has almost 18,000 Jewish folks, and had time permitted we would have gone for a pastrami sandwich. We didn't do that, but we had fantastic mostly fresh seafood dinners in the Waterfront area each evening as Cape Town is arguably the most cosmopolitan city on the continent. Where else can one find a gigantic soccer fan built out of Coke crates and a replica of the African Queen?

The hydrofoil ride to Robben Island takes about a half hour from the Waterfront. The tour of the political prison was sobering. The guide was a former prisoner there. He pointed out the cell where Nelson Mandela spent a number of decades. South Africa has changed from the old days, of course, as now the problems are between economic classes--not racial. But we did see a young waitress being treated very rudely by an elderly Afrikaans couple. The black waitress later said to me, "Some things have not changed." 

--
Michael H. Borsuk
Boulder, Colorado USA
mike@mborsuk.com
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At the Frankfurt Flughafen

After a cold tour of moderately interesting downtown Frankfurt, Looking at an Airbus 380 at Lufthansa Business Lounge in Terminal C (where there are no showers for anyone without Iridium status on Star Alliance).

Waiting in Frankfurt to Board Plane to Cape Town

Monday, 30 January 2012 - Frankfurt, Germany

Not blog worthy, but we did make the more (if not the "most") of the 12 hour layover in Frankfurt. Overnight flight from DIA left on time after I was chosen for a random hand swab and Barbara was frisked for the zippers in her cargo pants. We sleep on and off in Business Class on the 747. I had a bit of a problem finding a position on the "lie flat but not quite horizontal" seat since the position that would be normally the easiest to sleep was exactly that that irritated my back most. And did I mention that the controls--4 buttons and 3 three-way toggle switches--make no sense and tried to twist me into a very uncomfortable ball. I gave in to taking the anti-inflammatory and muscle relaxant pills and managed to sleep for a few hours. 

We arrived a little early this morning and found the Lufthansa Business Class lounge. The most officious young lady attendant told us that all the Lufthansa clubs in Terminal C did not have showers unless we were to fly 50,000 miles immediately or invade the Sudetenland and suggested that we go through two more security screenings to get to Terminal A where maybe there were showers. Then she checked our papers again. Really. Oh, did I mention that on the 1st security screening here in Frankfurt, Barbara set off the magnetometer with what she believes is her underwear and had to frisked again.I only had my little bottles read very carefully and my papers thoroughly scrutinized again. We then went on a quest for the elusive baggage lockers so we could leave our carry-on bags at the airport and go into town. This sent us through 4 (four) more paper checks of various kind, including emerging through customs and of course getting our passports thoroughly checked. I frisked Barbara just to save time. But we did find the "Lufthansa Welcome Lounge" where our business class ticket stubs got us free showers and a banana. Then after getting help from various tourist and S-bahn (subway) attendants--who also checked our papers--we checked our bags and took the quite pleasant train to Ochenflugentuchen Platz and found, 1) Frankfurt is a very serious business, mostly banking business, city, and 2) Frankfurt has loads of very pleasant pedestrian squares and a pretty nice riverfront. (By the way, I was able to determine that the river was the "main" river in town but not what its name is. Maybe I was a big confused.) 

During our walk to the very nifty cathedral (called, "Dom") and a little church (called, St. Pauls), we boarded one of those red double decker "hop on/hop off" (so to speak) tourist buses and got a very nice guided tour for a hour around the city. The tour started after a dignified gentleman got into an argument with the tour bus driver and other tour company employees. He insisted that the "City Tour" and the "Skyline Tour" were identical and that the money he paid for the second circuit was wasted. They insisted that the two tours were different and that he was wrong. They offered to let him take the route that was about to begin, he offered to call the police, the guide showed the irate gentleman his ID as an off-duty cop, and then when the gentleman ascended the stairs to the upper deck, the guide and driver flipped all the signs over to indicate which route our bus was no going to go on. At that point, most of the dozen or so tourists on the bus hurried off the bus. The guide then explained--if my German translating is correct--that we were going to go on the original route but flipping the signs was necessary all of a sudden. The others got back on and a good time was had by all. Did I mention that it is colder than Germany in January here?

We took the train back to the FRA airport around 4 pm, just in time to wait the remaining six hour for flight. We spent the time finding a few more Lufthansa Lounges and settled for a very nice one with very good chicken and ham sandwiches and nice German beers on tap. Barbara was not frisked going through security, but my bags were all selected for extra screening. I never knew that Germans could be so methodical and overbearing. Wait, I have to climb back on the turnip truck.

About to head to the gate in just an hour more for the hour's wait to take off for Cape Town. Next report I hope will be from summer.

A Journey of 28,000 Miles Begins with Waiting a Couple More Days

Thursday, 26 January 2012 - Boulder, Colorado, USA

Barbara sold her house in Tennessee today. Well, at least she received a signed contract from the steadfast real estate broker in Lawrenceburg. An e-mail just came with the signed contract attachment and with the subject line reading, "Yippeeeeeeee." The closing should happen between Ghana and Senegal. Actually, the closing should be in Lawrenceburg, TN or maybe Huntsville, AL, but we will be between Takoradi, Ghana and Dekar, Senegal when it happens. Hopefully, on the Silver Wind. This is the same ship we left in Monte Carlo early last July, and like Trigger responding to a whistle it will pick us up again late next week in Cape Town. Of course the problem will be that we need to fly two long overnight flights averaging 5,000 miles each to get to Cape Town first. When we do, we will occupy Suite 437 again where a secret message hidden in a cabinet may or may not be there to greet us. Wonder how it got there.

Besides the number of years worrying (and maintaining) an unoccupied house and considerable land in South Central Tennessee and the kind of out of the blue sale thereof has stressed us a bit, so has my back spasms. I seemed to have injured myself, probably by thinking of all the stuff one needs to do when trying not to be stressed by a surprise house sale and counting vitamins, bow ties, and other essentials for a 11,000 miles sea voyage. Attached are a couple of pictures from last Spring's voyage on Silver Wind, just in case you were curious about how we spend our time on board. I look at those pictures to remind myself why I doing this again. The pictures were taken in Silver Wind bar, called "The Bar" as the others bars are called, "The Panorama" and "Pool Bar", respectively, and on deck during one late afternoon as we sailed through the Messina Straits, the narrow gap between Sicily and the boot of mainland Italy.

First some statistics for the imminent cruise:

Flight Miles: 16,584
Cruise Miles: 10,998
Days in Cape Town, South Africa: 3
Days on-board ship: 39
Ports visited: 22 (counting Cape Town twice)
Latitudes spanned by sea: 33 degrees South to 41 North
Countries visited: South Africa, Mozambique, Namibia, Ghana, Senegal, Cape Verde Islands, Canary Islands (Spain), Morocco, Mallorca and Ibiza (Spain), and mainland Spain.
My total country count after this trip: 137 (but who's counting)
Special Celebration: Barbara and my first wedding anniversary in Walvis Bay or Swakupmund, Namibia

A few folks have asked me about the Costa Condordia disaster. No, I've never been on Costa. It is a big ship mass market line that caters to mostly Italians and apparently is run essentially independently from its parent company, Carnival Holdings. That outfit owns about half of all the world's cruise ships including Carnival, Princess, Holland-America, and a bunch more. We go exclusively on Silversea Cruises' ships. The biggest Silversea ship I've been on has a maximum of less than 400 passengers. The upcoming cruise is on Silver Wind with a maximum guest capacity of 296 and 222 crew members. The average passenger load is about 250 or so on the itineraries we usually go on. So there are approximately one crew member per guest! Also, you may recall that everyone gets a butler to ensure that our shoes are always polished (for some reason). All the Silver Wind's passengers and crew fit in the ship's four lifeboats. It's a different animal from the 4,000 person plus cruise ships, kind of like comparing a bed and breakfast in a lovely upscale neighborhood in Paris to huge Holiday Inn in an industrial suburb in, say, Detroit. The safety of the big ships is still very high, but the number of real maritime officers is the same for a 5000 passenger ship as in our little ship. That means that if there's a problem, there are loads of real trained experts to deal with it. On a big ship you are directed by the assistant laundry supervisor if you are lucky. On Silver Wind, it is probably a maritime academy officer or helmsman. The facts of the Costa grounding are still unclear, but my experiences on the bridge on Silversea ships have proven to me that the level of seriousness and competence on the small six ship line can not be beat. Again, all of Silversea's ships in total accommodate a maximum about 2,000 guests. And Silversea always does its "muster drill" for all new guests coming on board before the ship sails from the first port, by the way.

Hope you will enjoy following us along on this remarkable trip. We're particularly looking forward to visits to game parks accessible from the Indian Ocean side of South Africa as well as a number of nature reserves along the way going up the African Coast and on the Cape Verde and Canary Islands, visiting a souk or two in Morocco, sampling some sherry in Jarez, Barbara seeing the El Hambra for the first time while I check out the "white town" of Mijas, taking the funky train from Palma to Soller on Majorca, and of course seeing the great Gaudi Art Noveau architecture in Barcelona. And I'll try not to make too much fun of the other guests, not too much.

Please keep in touch and let me know what you think of my journal, and please feel free to ask any questions about the trip. The satellite rates to access the Internet are high on the ship, but it costs about the same to send a long response as a short one or to receive a whole bunch of e-mails as a few since we don't pay to read to compose responses. And we'd love to hear from the Western Northern Hemisphere to make sure it's still there.....

See you next from Africa, back pain and Lufthansa willing.

Mike