Durban South Africa, Tues April 2, 2024

Finally back in port after 4 days at sea. The weather has substantially cooled to 21 C or 72 F. Humidity has also dropped substantially and the weather here is perfect! The ship docks at 8AM at the Nelson Mandela Cruise Terminal. We don’t rush off the ship but let all the planned tours leave first. Around 10AM we get off the ship easily and approach the Immigration booths in the terminal. It takes all of 5 minutes to get through immigration and we walk out to the taxis.

It takes only a few minutes to barter with the taxis and get a rate of 450 Rand per hour from an original offer of 600. That comes to about $22 USD per hour. I bet we could have done better but that is an acceptable price for a dedicated taxi for the day.

Our driver, Thadwyn, turns out to be an excellent tour guide and driver! If you’re ever in Durban, South Africa, and need a good and reasonable driver for the day, feel free to give Thadwyn a call at 062-521-0622 when in town!

Thadwyn takes us to the Victoria Market and walks around with us. We wish there was such a Market at home! But I believe the Los Angeles Health Department would have a field day in just such a market! Even whole Sheep’s Heads for sale! Would love to harvest the cheek meat from them! Sorry if any of my followers are creeped out by this! There are some very creative names on some of the spices!

Fish delicacies galore also! We find fabrics and products as far as the eye can see! We even find a fun magnet for our wall map in our stateroom! One of the fun things we do on a long cruise is buy a location magnet for each port and put it on our wall, making a map of our journey! This is easy to do because ships stateroom walls are metal! The fish market sections are interesting!

We wander through spice markets and our cameras are in heaven! We even spend about $12 USD on several fresh spices to use when cooking back at home!

Thadwyn next takes us to the Botanical Gardens and finds a friend of his, Vishnu, a golf cart tour operator in the Gardens and we pay Vishnu $10 USD each for a private tour, replete with extensive knowledge of all the plants and trees in the Gardens! Well worth the 45 minute tour! We even see a tree that has been alive since the dinosaurs and is called the loneliest tree! It has been determined that the tree is male. There is no surviving female tree of its species and it cannot reproduce! We are told that somewhere in the UK, they are working on trying to clone a tree and turn it female. As I don’t understand the science, I will accept it is a lonely tree!

We next drive off for views of the Durban Soccer Stadium, a feat of engineering in itself! More city views and we arrive at Umhlanga Pier, with what appears to be Whalebones built in! A very photogenic pier and our cameras thank us! Even a miscellaneous vendor selling everything from hats and scarves to kites that realistically looks like a large bird!

Next it is off to lunch where Thadwyn finds us our requested meal of “Bunny Chow”, a famous dish here that is a hollowed out bread bowl filled with Mutton Curry! It turned out to be fabulous! The restaurant staff asked where we were from, and when we told them Los Angeles, they informed us we were the first ‘Foreigners’ to dine in their new restaurant since they had just changed location!

Then, after a few more views of the local stadium, we arrive at a bird sanctuary where our cameras are blessed with views of many exotic and common birds. Some are very fun!

After the birds, we drive along the coast and come across some very well done sand sculptures at the beach! The Zulu Dancers that frequent the location aren’t there on a Tuesday so our tour comes to an end and we head back to the ship. Just before we get there, Thadwyn stops at a Match Factory where a Lion Sculpture in front “Roars” every hour on the hour! Fun!

Then, back on the ship, we unload our gear and new possessions and head for a bar and refreshing cold drinks! We visit with old and new friends and swap stories of the day. The one thing we didn’t see, Zulu Dancers, was seen by some, it seems.

We go to the nightly trivia in one of the pubs, The Purple Turtle, and we come close to winning but a clerical error occurs and we are too late to claim the prize! Oh well, the prizes are basically ‘kudus, you won!’ so all is good!

Then I go out on deck and take a few night shots as the ship pushes off the pier and we set sail (so to speak) for Capetown, South Africa. Two Sea Days are ahead of us and we are immediately warned of 5 Meter Seas tonight and a smile forms on my face! I love some motion in the ocean! I will be rocked to sleep tonight and will likely be totally refreshed in the morning! Call me weird!

So goodnight All as we head around the Cape of Good Hope!

Friday-Monday, Mar 29-Apr 1, 2024

On the ship for 4 days, it is ship days as usual. Breakfast, Trivia, Lunch, Cards, Games, Ukulele Lessons and Dinner, followed by a Show and other musical offerings! Will post what we have! We even saw the “Green Flash”! Although I wasn’t prepared to photograph it! If you don’t know what the “Green Flash” is, Google it! Spectacular!

At two o’clock on Friday afternoon, the entertainment crew hosts the “World Cruise Boat Regatta”, a silly entertainment where passengers that wanted to, built some kind of floatable boat out of recycled materials on the ship (so that’s where all the coffee stirrer sticks disappeared to!). Then they were put to the test in the pool where a crew member would put a full bottle of water (the ‘Captain’) somewhere on the boat and if it stood up gor 3 whole seconds, the boat would pass! The final winner was voted by rounds of applause from the spectators. All good fun, lots of laughs and it kept the cocktail waitresses busy!

Fabulous shows in the Paladium each night! On Saturday, we attend the “Chef’s Table”, a 7 course meal with way too much wine! The food courses are fabulous and plated beautifully!

Sunday is Easter! Decorations abound all over the ship! Our room steward speaks English well but apparently doesn’t read it so well. Elee put a “Happy Easter” sign on our door and the steward thought it said “Happy Birthday”! We found this in our room!

With the Chef’s Table, you automatically get a tour of the galley where the food is prepared. We have toured ship’s galleys in the past and for the most part, we are uninterested. Instead, we request to tour the Bridge and are granted it! So, we are invited to a “Bridge Tour” on Monday! A fabulous tour of the Ship Bridge which is a spectacle in itself!

Dinner tonight is Filet Mignon and it didn’t disappoint!

Then the night show was a couple of ‘Diva’ friends that grew up together, Kirsty and Kirstin, a fun duo of voices depicting Divas from the history of music!

Then it is back to the room for the night!

Good night All!

Kenya Day 02, Thursday, 3/28/2024

A Wake Up Call today at our Thatch Hut gets us up at 5 AM. We pack up out bag and go up for breakfast at Simba Lodge. The same hoard of bugs greet us as they did last night. So the challenge is to eat before the bugs do! There is an omelette chef there and I take advantage of him.

With breakfast in us, the sun rises as the safari vans roll in. Once loaded, we head out on the Kenyan Savannah to see what we can find. It isn’t long before we come across elephants. It is interesting that in South Africa, elephants are grey. But here in Kenya, elephants are reddish brown. It might have something to do with the color of the ground here. In South Africa, the ground is normal brown colored sand. Here the ground reminds me of Red Georgia Clay. And after last nights rain, the air is fresh and clean and you can, ‘smell’ Africa. It is not an unpleasant smell at all!

We proceed and come across sleeping lions, Reeboks (a type of antelope) that the guide calls ‘Water Bucks’. Our guide, Ali, is a very good driver and he moves us throughout the savannah effortlessly. We find more elephants, Water Buffalo off in the distance, and a Congress of Baboons. Yes, a group of baboons is called a ‘Congress’! Does that tell you anything?

Moving on, we end the safari and then it is 2.5 hours back to Mombasa. We stop for restrooms and trinkets in a large store. We see spiders in the trees and their bodies are almost 3 inches long! The owner of the Tour Company shows up and wants final payment. We all tell him we will pay when we get back to the ship, a normal procedure for tours. He has no choice but let us do that. When in a foreign country, that is the procedure. Never pay the guide until you are delivered back!

Many sights assault our camera lenses on the return, sights of sheer poverty. It is another eye opener as to how some people in the world live. We finally arrive back to the ship after being delayed by a traffic accident involving a tractor trailer jackknifed in the highway. We pay Ali and give him a generous tip and hobble back to the ship on tired legs.

Immediate showers are in order and we feel quite refreshed! A cold drink in the pub and all is well! A Mango Colada for me!

Kenya Day 1, Part 2, Wednesday, Mar 27, 2024, Afternoon

We drive away and head for the gates to enter the Safari Park. Upon arrival at the gate, the lady who has been delaying us leaves the van and finds the person who organized the tour. We don’t know what transpires, all we know is another person comes to join our van and we hear a story of how it was an amical agreement to swap people. We are thrilled as we don’t have to deal with her again.

We start our first Safari and quickly encounter an eagle in a tree. Then the first elephant of the day appears! We see many more animals including some kind of duck, more elephants, termite mounds and bats nests in the trees! A rain runoff watering hole! One thing is interesting, the ground is such a deep red color and the animals all have a resemblance to that color! In my memory, elephants are grey! Aren’t they? Well, they are a deep shade of red here, like the ground!

I used to think that the African scenery was somewhat ugly and plain. But after being on several Safaris, both in South Africa and now here in Kenya, I have come to see an absolute beauty in the African landscape. It is stark, a little bit barren and yet a magical and beautiful place. We next come across Springbok, a kind of antelope with distinctive coloration and markings. More elephants and then Impalas, another kind of antelope and then more elephants!

The Safari over, at least for the moment, we arrive at our Lodge where we’ll spend the night. We are shown to our room, which is an “A Frame” hut with two beds, a sink, bathroom and shower. There is even a porch in front for sitting outside to look for animals. We walk up to the main lodge and watch some interesting birds in a tree. They are “Weaver Birds” that resemble canaries yet they weave little nests of sticks in the branches!

Now it is finally time for lunch! I also indulge in a local African beer! It is a “Tusker” Lager so I’ll have to wait until I get home probably to get a good IPA! As a friend back home would say, it’s “Beer Thirty”! Cheers Tom D! Lunch is a buffet and is just so so. Quite edible but so so flavor. And the meal is served on an open porch location and there are bugs here. So it’s take a bite, swat a bug. Repeat.

After lunch, my camera is enamored with the Weaver Birds! I try and try to get a good shot of them, but they are fast movers! Wait, I was a high speed action photographer in my career! This should not be difficult! But the camera I have chosen for this excursion is not the best for action. So I burn images and work at it and finally get some fun shots, even one of them looking right at me! Their nests are another thing of beauty!

All of a sudden, rain starts. We have enough time to pull back on the covered porch and watch as a powerful African rainstorm sets in! The rain is literally blowing sideways! I’m not sure I’ve ever seen rain this powerful. The Lodge workers are actually squeegeeing the water out of the restaurant and reception areas! The song starts in my head, “I Bless the Rains Down in Africa, Gonna Take Some Time to do the Things We Never Had” Sorry, I can’t help it but the song implants itself in my head…. Here are the lyrics written by David Paich of Toto…

… I hear the drums echoing tonight
But she hears only whispers of some quiet conversation
She’s coming in, 12:30 flight
The moonlit wings reflect the stars that guide me towards salvation

… I stopped an old man along the way
Hoping to find some old forgotten words or ancient melodies
He turned to me as if to say, “Hurry boy, it’s waiting there for you”

… It’s gonna take a lot to drag me away from you
There’s nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do
I bless the rains down in Africa
Gonna take some time to do the things we never had

… The wild dogs cry out in the night
As they grow restless, longing for some solitary company
I know that I must do what’s right
As sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti
I seek to cure what’s deep inside
Frightened of this thing that I’ve become

… It’s gonna take a lot to drag me away from you
There’s nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do
I bless the rains down in Africa
Gonna take some time to do the things we never had

… Hurry boy, she’s waiting there for you

… It’s gonna take a lot to drag me away from you
There’s nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do
I bless the rains down in Africa
I bless the rains down in Africa (I bless the rain)
I bless the rains down in Africa (I bless the rain)

… I bless the rains down in Africa
I bless the rains down in Africa (gonna take the time)
Gonna take some time to do the things we never had…

You’ll want your sound on for this!

The rain only lasts 20 minutes or so. We load back into the vans for an evening Safari. This tour just keeps getting better! But only a couple miles into the Safari, we encounter a traffic jam of 40-50 vans! It seems the front vans have found a pair of lions. But it becomes patently obvious that they are selfish as they don’t get photos and drive on. They were here first so they get to commandeer the road! We can see vans up front sideways across the road so no one can move through. Other Safaris that we have been on are more courteous and keep the traffic moving. It is very frustrating to say the least! 30-40 minutes later we get to move up and finally get a glimpse of the pair of lions. Not as spectacular as I have seen before but still, they are lions!

The driver hears on the radio that giraffes have been spotted and he turns around and navigates his way back through the traffic jam which is better now. This becomes our downfall.

I thought the evening Safari would last longer but a van in the crowd sees us and flags us down. It seems the rude lady who is always late left her bag in our van. She swaps back into our van and we are forced to end our Safari and go back to our Lodge. On the way back to Simba Lodge, we get to see some Duk Duks, another kind of antelope, actually the smallest antelope in Africa being only 2 feet tall! We all unload and then the van takes her back to the lodge they placed her at.

We go back to our lodge to call our Safaris for the day over. Let’s hope tomorrow has less glitches! Everything is soaking wet but we make our way to our hut. Sitting on the porch tonight is out of the question because the seat pads are soaked!

We go to dinner in the Lodge and it is a buffet again. This time, the bugs are fiercer. Eat. Swat bug. Eat. Swat bug. Repeat. This sure is an adventure! At dinner we meet a fun young French couple staying here and chat happily away! I got their names but now I find my notes program has truncated my info! I have their names as “Cibo” and (this is where my notes shut off)! So, Cibo, if you see this, comment on your partners name and I will correct this! While we are at dinner, the staff goes to all the huts and sprays them for bugs and also spreads out the mosquito netting that has been pre-installed!

Safely tucked inside our mosquito net, we bid you Adieu! We’ll be arising around 4AM for the real Safaris tomorrow!

Kenya Day One, Part 1, Wednesday, Mar 27, 2024

We wake early this morning, have breakfast and grab our overnight bags that we packed last night and we are off the ship by 7AM. We walked into the port and most of a mile later we find our set of vans to take us on Safaris for two days! Kenya awaits!

We get in our van and there is one seat empty. The van doesn’t leave and we are told there is one person left to join us. It is before 8AM and the temp is already over 30 degrees Celsius (86 F). We wait and wait in the hot van and finally, almost an hour later, a lady shows up saying she couldn’t find us. Well, we had a wee bit of trouble finding the vans also, so we are just relieved to be able to get going. Our cameras start to capture roadside sights in this third world country.

We are told it is approximately a two hour ride to where our Tour will start. So our cameras are content for the time being capturing images along the side of the road. We stop for souvenirs and restrooms halfway there. When reloading the van, there is a person missing. 20 minutes later, here she comes, the same lady that was late earlier. Hmmm, we hope this is not starting a trend! I can only wonder how much it costs to stay in some of these roadside hotels. Anyone want to stay in one?

We drive on and arrive at a ‘Masai’ village. Who has heard of the ‘Masai’? What a fun treat! They come out and dance for us. Soon they start ‘jumping’! If you’ve never witnessed Masai Warriors jump, you’re missing out! They dance and jump for 30 minutes or more! I’m tired just watching them!

After they dance and jump for us, we are invited into their village to see their houses and how they live. It is fascinating to see more of their culture. Their houses are constructed of elephant and other animal dung. No, that is not a typo. Animal dung! The ground here is bright red, reminding me of red Georgia Clay. And that color is carried through the walls of their homes! Small scraps of fabric are used to make decoration for the walls! Inside the houses, the sleeping areas are very rustic and covered with animal skins. Likewise, the roofs are made of animal skins also, stretched over frames of sticks. There are no real forests in Kenya so wood is not a common commodity. They also show us how they start a fire using just a stick that they spin in their hands. Brings me back to my Boy Scout days! They effortlessly start their fires in minutes! Their children seem no different than all children (which we are always fascinated with) around the world. Their cooking utensils are hammered out of steel, probably supplied by the large steel mill we passed on the road. The tribe is very welcoming of our cameras, which I thought would be more of an issue!

We leave the village and watch as all the Safari vans drive away. Oh yeah, we have a person missing. Can you guess who? You’re correct, the same lady who has been last at every step. So all the occupants of the van discussed it and when she finally arrived, she was informed that if she delays us again, we will leave her behind!

Here we will leave you and finish this day in Part 2 of this Blog Post as it has already gotten quite long!