Durbin, South Africa to Cape Town, South Africa

April 11 – Today we’re in Durbin, South Africa. It’s the first time for both of us to be on the African continent. The weather is cool and clear with a little breeze. We are headed into the countryside and up into the hills with stops at a Zulu village and a game reserve.

South Africa has a unique and interesting history. The first European settlement was a supply station established in 1652 by the Dutch East India Company at the Cape of Good Hope. This station quickly evolved into Cape Town and the Khoi-San people were driven out. The settlers developed their own dialect, Afrikanns, and Calvinist sect, the Dutch Reformed Church. Slaves were imported from Madagascar, India, Ceylon, Malaya and Indonesia. Over the next 150 years the colonists spread east, coming into violent contact with the Bantu tribes.

In 1779 the Xhosa in the first Bantu War temporarily halted the eastward expansion by the Boers, the Dutch-Afrikaner farmers. Further Boer expansion was hastened after the British annexed the Cape in 1806. The abolition of slavery in 1834 was regarded by the Boers as an intolerable interference in their affairs, and led to migration, known as the Great Trek) across the Orange River two years later. In 1867 diamonds were discovered in Kimberly. In 1886 gold was discovered on the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. As a result the population of South Africa increased 300% by the turn of the last century.

South Africa is divided into provinces. Durban is in the Province of KwaZulu Natal on the Indian Ocean coast. It derives part of its name from the largest Bantu tribe, the Zulu. The British and the Zulu had many battles during the colonial period. We are heading into the mountains to an area called The Valley of a Thousand Hills. Our guide is an Afrikaner lady of French Huguenot descent.

The Zulu village sets on a ridge overlooking the valley carved by the Mgeni River. The valley is filled with small and large hills or all shapes and sizes. This is the time of year when they burn off the fields and there was some smoke over the valley. Visibility was fair and the view was impressive. It would be spectacular on a clear day. The weather up here is much warmer and very dry so it was comfortable.

The dancing at the Zulu village centered on the courtship and engagement customs of the Zulu. They have dances that celebrate some of these customs. For example, the way most men meet and select a girl they want to court is by watching the women as they go to the local water supply to get water for the family. When they see someone they like they try to talk to her and see if the attraction is mutual. If they find that they are compatible the man asks the woman to marry him and if she accepts she starts wearing a top. Single, unengaged women go topless. Then the groom must come up with the marriage dowry. In the case of the Zulu the normal price is 11 cows. The Zulu are polygamous and a man can marry as many women as he can afford. Each will require a dowry and cattle are expensive.

They danced and sang for about an hour. It was very athletic. The women may be large (the men prefer them that way) but they are very limber. They could kick above their heads. The men’s dances are very acrobatic. They jump, tumble, cartwheel, kick, hop and flop on the ground on their butts. This last maneuver requires a little elaboration. From a standing position they simple jump off both legs straight backward to a seated position. As gravity takes over they land on the ground, butt, heels and legs hitting the ground simultaneously as they stay in the seated position all the way down. Ouch!! They did this at several points in the dances and a little dust cloud would rise about them as they sat. It looked like it would hurt but they didn’t seem to mind at all.

I spent so much time taking video that I have very few still shots. The sun was at a bad angle so both activities were difficult.

After some photo ops with the dancers we drove to the Tala Game Reserve. It’s a private range of about 8,000 acres. It includes open plains, tree covered hills and several lakes. When we arrived we boarded small, open 4x4 Range Rovers for a 2-hour tour of the reserve. The drive was great. The first thing we saw was a White Rhino across a valley resting under a tree. He was a long way off but he could be seen very well. During the drive we saw giraffe, blue wildebeest, zebra, impala, blesbok, warthog, springbok, buffalo, hippopotamus and white rhino. These are only the mammals. We saw dozens of different birds and lizards most of which I didn’t recognize. There were some geese, sparrows and wading birds that looked familiar but the rest were totally unknown.














One unusual feature of the Port of Durbin is the delivery and pick up of the harbor pilot. The entrance to the port is very narrow and the traffic is one way. If ships are entering no ships can leave and vice versa. To facilitate the quick passage of ships the pilot is delivered by helicopter. As we entered the port the pilot was flown out to us and once we were at the pier the helicopter came to pick him up. When we were ready to leave the port the pilot was dropped on the forward deck by helicopter even though his office was just a few yards from the ship’s gangway. As soon as the ship passed the last channel buoy on the way out the helicopter swooped in and picked him up for delivery to another ship waiting to leave port. I taped the pick up from the ship with the sunset in the background.

Speaking of the sunset (right and Left), it was fantastic as we sailed out of Durbin. The sun was setting over the city skyline and everything was glowing red and yellow.

It was a great day!! This tour and the Pang Nah Bay tour are the best so far. Now we have a day at sea to rest up for Cape Town.

April 12 – The transition from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean around the Cape of Good Hope is often rough and this trip was no exception. We passed through several storms one of which was at least hurricane status. The web site I look at for weather and wave status has been down so I can’t really tell. The ship has been moving around quite a bit but not very violently. Some of the changes of direction were fairly abrupt and some people were having trouble walking. They did lock the doors to the outer decks and lash down the deck chairs and tables. That usually means very high winds are expected or lots of movement on the ship. In this case it meant both. The dining room was only about half full at dinner, another sign that some of the passengers are not enjoying the ride. They had to cancel a performance by the repertory cast on the ship because the dancing would have been very unsafe, in fact impossible, on the moving stage. They scheduled a classical pianist instead and moved the cast show to a later date.

April 13 – We don’t arrive in Cape Town until noon so we put the final touches on the Plumb Blossom Tai Chi set this morning. Tai Chi class is at 9AM. It has three segments and I remember the first two pretty well because we did them so often. I get a little lost when I get to the third part when I’m doing it on my own. When Robert is leading us and calling out the names of the next movement I do it just fine. Robert Newton, our instructor, is one of only two Westerners ever recognized by the Shanghai Institute of Wushu as a Tai Chi Master. There are five schools of Tai Chi and of the five the Wushu style is the most widely practiced.

At noon I was on the top deck for the sail-in. The scene was spectacular (above right). Table Mountain was flanked by Devil's Peak on the left and Lion's Head on the right. It was great. First we sailed across Table Bay and past a long jetty. We turned to starboard there and headed into a small harbor. At first I couldn’t tell where we were headed. Then two tugs came alongside, one at the stern and one at the bow. At that point it dawned on me that we were going to enter this very small harbor through an entrance not much wider than the ship’s beam (left). Just before going into the small harbor we received lines from the tugs at the bow and the stern. The reason for this became very apparent as we entered. There was absolutely no room for error while maneuvering to the pier. The tug on the bow went to starboard to pull us around the pier and the tug at the back held back to keep the stern from swinging out as the turn progressed. When we finally made fast to the pier our bow extended over the wharf in front by about 25-30 feet and our stern stuck out past the pier about 50 feet. Later our guide told us that the Prinzendam was the largest ship that ever docked in this harbor. A ship any larger would have to dock at the commercial piers several miles from downtown.

The little harbor was very small and is surrounded by a waterfront development called the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront (right). It’s very new and upscale, lots of restaurants and shops. Looks very much like something you might find in Newport Beach or Irvine in Southern California. Right at the bow of the ship is a large 5-star hotel and the shopping center extends to the left of that down the entire wharf area and around the harbor.

Jan van Riebeeck, a ship’s surgeon sent ashore by the Dutch East India Company in April of 1652 to establish a supply port for company vessels headed to India, founded Cape Town. When the French Protestants (Huguenots) were driven from France they settled in Holland and subsequently found emigration to South Africa attractive. Together the Dutch settlers and the Huguenots established farms and a wharf area and the colony flourished. In 1795, during the French Revolution, Holland was invaded and William of Orange gave the South African colony to England for protection. When the British abolished slavery in 1834 and the descendants of the Dutch and French Huguenot settlers, collectively known as the Boers, revolted and the Great Trek across the Orange and Vaal Rivers took place. They established the Free Orange State and the Transvaal.

Diamonds were discovered in the Transvaal and that led to the Boer Wars. Britain was very interested in the mineral wealth of the Boer countries. One infamous part of this conflict was the establishment of concentration camps for the Boers. This was the first time concentration camps had ever been used and 25,000 Afrikaaners, as the Boers had come to be called, died in them. The descendants of these Afrikaaners had a little revenge when in 1948 the Afrikaaner National Party, in fair elections became the head of the South African government. One very unfortunate result of the pent up frustrations of the Afrikaaners was the establishment of Apartheid. This legally enforced separation of blacks and whites lasted until 1994 when, again in fair elections, the African National Congress party, led by Nelson Mandela, wins control of the government. Ouch, I guess that’s enough history.

Today we are headed up to Table Mountain. It’s a large mesa that provides a backdrop for the entire city. It is flanked on the left by Devil’s Peak and on the right by Lion’s Head Peak. Directly in front of Lion’s Head is Signal Hill. It got its name because lookouts were posted there to watch for ships on the horizon. They were to fire a cannon signal when one was spotted to alert the surrounding farmers that they should gather their produce and head for town go sell it to the ship. Today they still fire a shot at 1PM to remember this tradition. A range of mountains extends southward from the east/west line of Table, Devil’s and Lion’s Head. This range has many peaks, like the Sierra Nevada’s in the western USA. They are collectively called the 12 Apostles although if you count only the tall peaks you get 11 and if you include the shorter, less defined peaks, you get 13 because there are two that are the same height.

Table Mountain is about 3,000 feet high. A bus picked us up at the pier and took us to the base of the mountain where there’s a cable car station for the trip to the top. The cars are very unique (above left). They are large, they hold about 60 people, and the floor rotates in a clockwise direction while the car is in motion. The trip up takes about 5 minutes and in that time the floor rotates about one and one third times to give everyone a good view up and down. The trip is very vertical because the face of the mountain is steep. It’s more like being in an elevator than riding a normal cable car. It’s Swiss designed and has only been in operation about 5 years. The previous cars were small and rectangular. They only held about 4-6 people and didn’t rotate. There were several on display at the base station.

Once on top there were trails leading across the top so you could look down on all sides. The view over Cape Town was fantastic (right). Cape Town is behind us and the hill to our left is Signal Hill. Out in Table Bay you can just see a small piece of Robben Island, the prison site during the Apartheid Era. The view to the south, across the 12 Apostles was great as well. Looking north into the interior of South Africa you could see the great plain and a large mountain range in the distance, the Cederbergs. The weather was fantastic and visibility unrestricted.

This was a big change from the previous few days. They had huge storms over the weekend. (The same ones we sailed through) Trees were uprooted and awnings torn off buildings. The cable car up to Table Mountain had not operated for the three previous days due to high winds. The mountain was pretty busy today because it was the first day it was open this week. It was a great day for sure.

Tomorrow we have an all day tour so we didn’t want to stay up to late. When we got back to the ship we walked over to the Victoria Pier for some shopping and dinner. There were a lot of really nice looking restaurants overlooking the water. Most had an outdoor area right on the harbor side. We had a hard time selecting one but finally settled on the Greek Fisherman. We sat at an outside table and had dinner. Videoing the sail-in had cut short my lunch so I was hungry. I had a seafood platter that included mussels in a tomato sauce with feta cheese, deep-fried calamari, fish fillet prawns, rice and chips (French fries to us). Diana had fish Vasco de Gama, a fish fillet with tomato sauce, calamari, prawns and the same starches. We were both stuffed. It seemed unusual to both of us that the platters included both rice and potatoes.

Then it was back to the ship to get some rest for tomorrow.

April 14 – Another day in Cape Town and it’s just as glorious as yesterday. That’s good as we are headed down the peninsula to the Cape of Good Hope. It’s an all day tour so we will leave early and get back just before the ship is due to leave.

Our tour will travel south on a road that follows the west coast of the Cape Peninsula like Route 1 follows the west coast of the US. Our first stop was at a point overlooking Clifton Beach (left). The beach was breathtaking with the 12 Apostles mountain range in the background. The waves were pretty large and created a mist along the beach.

From there we continues south until we were on the southern shore of Hout Bay (below right). Here we are traveling on Chapman’s Peak Drive. You used to have to cross the peninsula and drive down the east coast to get to the cape. In the middle of the last century (I love to refer to the 1900s that way) they built a highway along the cliffs to go south on the west coast. That’s the route we’re taking. At some points the road is carved out of the cliff face like a tunnel with one side missing, just sort of a groove in the granite. Very strange! At other places it’s a road with a sheer drop off on one side and a granite wall on the other side, no shoulder at all. I’m not sure I’d want to drive that big bus here but it would be fun in a car.

Hout Bay is not only the name of the bay but the city on its shores as well. The people here are very independent minded fishermen. They have gone so far as to issue Hout Bay ‘passports’. They must look authentic because, as a prank, a man used one to enter Italy and got through immigration, no problem. The bay itself is very picturesque. The Sentinel, a large rock that guards the entrance to the bay made it impossible to cut the road around the small spit of land that forms the bay so it cuts across at the base of the range of peaks. The little valley through which the road runs has a small area of sand dunes in it, like a tiny desert. Very odd! The little range of peaks looks like a snapping turtle with the Sentinel as its head.

Next we drove into the Table Mountain National Park. It covers the entire southern end of the Cape Peninsula. It’s shaped like a boot, but unlike Italy the toe points to the right. The toe of the boot would be Cape Point; the heel would be the Cape of Good Hope. First we went to the Cape of Good Hope, the most southwestern point of Africa (left). Who could resist a photo opp. at the sign? Not us, that’s for sure!

Next we drove to the boot’s toe and Cape Point. At the Point you can ride a funicular part way up the hill toward the old lighthouse, but you have to climb stairs the last 300 feet of the 820 feet from the base of the hill. It wasn’t that hard for us but the average age of the people on the ship’s tour is probably 80+ and some of them had a hard time with it. I was very impressed with their perseverance and drive. All of them that could walk without mechanical assistance made it to the lighthouse. The views from there were fantastic.

The lighthouse (right), constructed in London in 1857 and erected here in 1860, was a prefabricated cast iron tower with a 2,000 candlepower rotating light on top. When conditions were good this light could be seen 40 miles out to sea. This is more than far enough to keep ships from grounding on the local rocks. Unfortunately, very often conditions at the Cape are not ideal. In fact, clouds often obscured the peak and the light was not visible at all. Not even at very close range. Ships continued to be sunk on the rocks. In 1911 the Portuguese liner ‘Lusitania’ hit the rocks and sunk. Shortly after that another light was erected on Dias Point just below Cape Point at 280 feet and no ship has struck the rocks since. There’s a sign showing the distances to various cities up at the lighthouse. London and New York are in almost the same direction from here. London is about 9,000 km away and New York about 12,000.

After our visit to the cape we drove back north on the east side of the peninsula on the shore of False Bay. It’s a large bay that used to fool sailors into thinking they had reached the Cape of Good Hope when sailing from India back to Europe. After they turned north they found themselves in False Bay and had to sail south around the actual cape before turning north to Cape Town, hence the name False Bay. The water in the bay is much warmer than the water on the east side of the peninsula. That’s because False Bay is fed by currents from the Indian Ocean even though it’s part of the Atlantic Ocean. The east side of the peninsula is fed by water directly from the Antarctic that moves up the coast of Africa and is usually very cold.

If the ocean maps were drawn today the sea east of the Cape of Good Hope, including False Bay would probably be considered to be part of the Indian Ocean and the dividing line between the Indian and Atlantic Oceans would be at that spot. When they were named them all the cartographers knew was that Cape Agulhas was the southern most point of Africa and therefore it became the spot dividing these oceans. If they had known more about the great ocean currents the dividing line would have been Cape Point or the Cape of Good Hope because that’s where the great currents meet.

We departed the Cape and headed up the east coast of the peninsula along False Bay to Simon’s Cove. This is the home base for the South African Navy. Their Navy is essentially a coast guard in function. Trying to control the coast and enforce the fishing laws in their territorial waters. We parked our bus in a lot belonging to the base and then walked along the water to a restaurant for lunch. We had fish and calamari for lunch and it was very good. After lunch we continued our walk south along the shore to Boulders Beach.

At Boulders Beach on the edge of False Bay there’s a colony of African Penguins. They used to be called the Jackass Penguin because their call sounds just like the braying of a jackass. But in these politically correct times they have been renamed. They are cute little buggers, waddling up and down the beach and flopping unceremoniously into and out of the bay. Many of them were sitting on nests, most with fluffy young chicks in them. They kept the chicks pretty well covered. Every now and then one would wiggle free. This caused the parent currently on sitting duty to whack at it with its wings until it was safely back under and out of sight. One dedicated momma penguin had her wing around a semi-fluffy (about half its fluffy chick feathers had been replaced by the smooth shiny adult feathers) chick that was an inch taller than she was.

It was fun watching them stroll about. Two males, one significantly larger than the other engaged in what would have to be called a foot stomping fight. Each appeared to be trying to stomp on the others feet while pushing them around with their wings. It was pretty comical, and it ended with both parties uninjured and the fight apparently a draw. There may be some subtle rules to this engagement that would have one party or the other declared the winner by a jury of penguins, but to me they seemed pretty evenly matched, in skill and technique, if not in size.

Two breeding pairs, they mate for life, came ashore at Boulders Beach in 1982 and today the colony is about 3,000 strong. You have to feel a little sorry for the local people. They moved here to a quiet rural location to retire and in 20 years the tourist visits have boomed. Oh well, that’s progress.

Our last stop of the day was at the Kirstenboch Botanical Gardens. It was a very nice garden but not much was in bloom at this time of year. I was shooting some video of a flowered bush when I noticed something large cross the area of the lens. It turned out to be a very pretty bird. Shiny green head and back with a red stripe across its breast. The green was almost luminescent in the sunlight. I have no idea what it was but I’ll be able to identify it if I ever see its picture. Very pretty!
After that it was back to the ship and on board just in time to set sail. We have one day at sea and then we’re in Walvis Bay, Namibia.

April 15 – Today we had another party hosted by our escorts from Cruse Specialists. Tom Mullen, one of our CSI escorts, was off the ship during the Out of Africa party. He and some others were on an overland trip from Durbin to Cape Town to visit a game reserve. He decided to dress up for tonight’s CSI party. He had on an India style pith helmet, bush jacket, monocle, jungle shorts and tall socks. I couldn’t resist taking a picture with Diana.


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(c) Rod Longenberger - 2005

Port Louis, Mauritius to La Possession, Reunion

April 6 – Here we are in Port Louis, Mauritius (they pronounce it More-reshus’). In French, which is the primary language, along with English and Creole, it’s Il Maurice. We don’t have a tour until the afternoon so we hopped off and caught a water taxi on the pier just astern of the ship. We can see downtown Port Louis from the ship but it’s across a small harbor. The fastest way to get there appears to be the water taxi. We were his first customers of the day. He’s charging $1 for the crossing and that seems to be very reasonable. They have four small boats lined up to provide service and we rode over on the largest one with the ship’s dentist and his wife, Lynn, Diana’s bridge partner and his wife and Eric, one of our tablemates. Eric sat on the engine housing facing aft and looked very much like Winston Churchill from the back.

The taxi dropped us off on a small dock right next to a shopping area. After walking through an archway in the city wall we found ourselves in the midst of a shoppers paradise. Happily, the very first store was a factory outlet for the wooden ship model factory on the island. The models were great, very detailed and complete. They ranged from 6 inches to about 6 feet in length. The factory makes replicas of sailing ships for museums around the world and is famous in the model ship community. Apparently this is the best shop in the world or maybe tied with one in London. I bought a very small teakwood model of the HMS Bounty in a rectangular glass case for $28. In the states the case itself would have cost at least that much. I felt like I got a good deal.

We walked around the riverfront area, Diana shopping and me looking for good photos. I found a casino and went in to add to my chip collection. It was a machines only casino, no tables and therefore no chips. I did get a token that the machines use. I got a diet coke and some fried calamari and sat at a table on the water while the shopping safari continued. Diana found a good book on Mauritius, Reunio n (where we’ll be tomorrow) and Seychelles where we were two days ago. She also bought two very nice embroidered shirts.

After that we walked back to the water taxi and headed back to the ship to get lunch and prepare for the afternoon tour.

Arab traders knew of Mauritius as early as the 10th century but never stopped to settle it. Vasco de Gama’s voyages in 1498 resulted in the Portuguese stopping here but aside from introducing pesky monkeys and rats they had little effect on the island. The Dutch came next. They established a supply base for ships headed to Java and finally left in 1710. In the meantime they has hunted the dodo bird to extinction and introduced African slaves, Javan deer, wild boar, tobacco and sugar cane to the island. According to our guide they failed at plantation farming because they were too lazy. The French came next and established successful sugar plantations and built a sugar mill, road network and a hospital by 1736.

Our tour emphasizes the multi-cultural aspects of the island. Our first stop was in the city of Pamplemousses (which is Grapefruit in French). The city takes its name from the grapefruit groves planted here by early settlers so they could reprovision ships with citrus to help fight off scurvy during long ocean voyages. It’s the site of the first Catholic church on the island, Saint Francois (right), built in 1756. It’s built out of blocks of dark grey volcanic rock. Very appropriate as the island of Mauritius is volcanic in origins, not granite up thrusts like the Seychelles. Mauritius is surrounded almost completely by a coral reef. The diving here is great as it was in the Seychelles also. This coral reef broke up the Boxing Day tsunami to such an extent that only 3-4 foot waves reached the island. Not bad at all.

The church was very interesting. Simple in design, it has Dutch architectural features in its construction. It looks almost like one of those old black workingman’s lunch pails up to the roofline. Of course, the bell tower sets atop this lunch pail shape. It has a black and gold pulpit and laver (left) that appears to be carved from volcanic stone and then applied with gold leaf. I suspect that they were painted to look like that to match the church’s color but were actually carved from wood. The Stations of the Cross are apparently cast in plaster and remain in their natural color. They’re very detailed.

Our next stop was in the Sante-Croix section of Port Louis at the shrine of Father Jacques Laval. He is renowned for his work among the poor of the island in the 1800s. His grave became a site for pilgrimages in the late 1800s and he was beatified in 1979 when John Paul II visited the island and prayed at Laval’s shrine. I paid 10 rupees for a candle to set on the altar, that’s about 35 cents. The attendant said I could take a picture of the crypt if I wanted and I asked if he would pose in it. He said he would and that’s when he told me about the Pope’s visit. The burial site of Fr. Laval is on the grounds of the Church of the Holy Cross. The current structure is very modern. It was finished in 1968 after cyclone Carole damaged the 1848 church so badly it could not be repaired.

The inside of the church is unremarkable except for the use of mosaic tiles. An irregularly shaped mosaic spans the entire front of the church. On the left is the last supper, in the center is the crucifixion, and on the right is the healing of the leper. Various scenes from the life of Christ connect them. The mosaic is not rectangular but the edges loosely follow the border of the various scenes. Very unique! The largest tile is about 1 inch square but many of the tiles are smaller and irregular shaped to form the picture. Stations of the Cross (right) are also done in mosaic around the sides of the church. They are not individual scenes as in most churches but are connected by a band of mosaic tiles about a foot across with various images in between. To avoid confusion, the actual stations are marked with a wooden plus sign below them and a roman numeral in the mosaic itself indicating which station is depicted. I have never seen this treatment of the connecting band with additional figures before.

One building that remains from Father Laval’s time is the Presbytery (left). This was the place where the priests lived and it was also used for religious retreats and meetings. It has a very colonial look to it with its steep tile roof and shuttered windows and doors.

Our next stop was at a Hindu Temple (right). It is done in Tamil style as most of the Indian population of Mauritius is from southern India. It is the oldest temple on the island which is 60% Hindu. It’s very ornate as most of them are. The main shrine is dedicated to the god Shiva (below left). We could not enter the main building, as the requirements to enter are very strict. You must have just bathed, not eaten anything non-vegetarian in the last week, have made an offering to Shiva and several more things any one of which would rule all of us out. We could roam around the rest of the temple as long as we removed our shoes and hats.

The hall of the temple has 5 rosettes in the ceiling that were about 4 feet in diameter. The center one was a lotus flower cast in relief. The two flanking it were pretty nondescript. The two on the end were a great curiosity. They look like a multicolor chrysanthemum blossom with a very strange center. The figure in the center looks like an elephant with its tail to the right and a bull with its tail to the left. The heads merged in the center with elements of each merging into the other. I had to ask our guide about this and she said it showed the unity of strength (the elephant) with divinity (the sacred cow). You just never know and that’s why you ask.

Our next stop was at the Nam Soon pagoda, the oldest of its kind in Port Louis. It’s a Chinese Buddhist shrine. The Buddha here looks very different from those in Thailand and Southeast Asia. He has a Chinese style mustache and Chinese features. He looks more like you would picture Confucius or Charlie Chan. The front piece on the altar (right) is very ornately carved and overlaid with gold and silver. It contains scenes from Chinese live and mythology.

The pagoda is directly across the street from the Champs de Mars racetrack. (below left) It has both turf and regular tracks. The English built it during the British colonial period and is the oldest continuously operating racetrack in the world behind the English Jockey Club. It’s in a beautiful setting with the volcanic peaks in the background. Speaking of the British colonial period, it’s odd how little vestiges of the English remain. They never moved here in any great numbers and most of them have been merged into the Indian or French lines on the island. About all that remains of The Empire are this racetrack and the fact that they drive on the wrong side of the road and have lots of traffic circles. OK, roundabouts for the Anglophiles among us. Our guide was a very pretty mainly Indian girl that typifies the ‘melting pot’ aspect of this island. Almost no one I saw that was a local was pure white or black. Everyone seemed be some shade of brown from café au lait to mocha and a large percentage of the women were very striking.

After this stop it was back to the ship and onward to the island of Reunion tomorrow. Ouch, two ports in a row and no 25-hour days. I don’t know if I can stand the pace!

April 7 – Today we are in La Possession, Reunion, France. That’s right France! The island of Reunion is a Department of France just as though it was geographically connected to Europe. The island of Martinique in the Caribbean Sea has the same status. They elect members to represent them in the French parliament and have all the rights and privileges of any other Frenchman. I guess it’s like Hawaii in the USA. It’s a state like any other. As a result of this status the island is a member of the EEC and uses the Euro as its currency. Being French, they are loathe to accept US dollars so I converted some $ to Euro on the ship.

The island is volcanic of origin, like Mauritius, but is much younger. Consequently it does not have a well-developed surrounding coral reef and the mountains are much higher and steeper. Only 40% of the island’s land is available for development or agricultural use. The remainder is too steep to be used for any purpose. As we approached it was quite a sight to see the villages meandering up and down the hillsides. There is very little flat land even at the seacoast. In fact, much of the land bordering the sea is sheer cliff.

The island has four main cirques, French for the caldera of a volcano. Three are very dormant and perhaps extinct volcanoes, Mafate, Salazie and Cilaos. The fourth, Fournaise, is very active and erupts every few years. Fortunately for the island it is at the extreme southeast corner of the island and there is no development east of the cone where the lava goes. It’s a Hawaiian type volcano, which means that very thick lava flows slowly from its vents. It does not explode like Mount St. Helens did. The eruptions are a big tourist attraction here.

We are heading up to Piton Maido a 7,222-foot high mountain. From a viewpoint there we will be able to see several peaks that surround the Crique de Mafate. These include Piton de Neiges. Neiges, at 10,070 feet, is the tallest peak in the Indian Ocean. The sides of these mountains are covered in foliage. There are cities in the valleys, attesting to the length of time it has been since these volcanoes were active.

We left the port and drove southwest on the island’s only 4-lane, divided road the city of St. Paul where we turned east into the mountains. At first the roads were pretty normal two-lane blacktop but shortly we entered the mountains and drove up the sides in a series of switchbacks that came ever closer together and sharper. The guide told us that in the space of 14 miles we would negotiate over 400 turns. The last 7 miles to the top of Piton Maido took us 40 minutes; very slow going indeed. At some places the road had no shoulder. It dropped off on both sides into deep culverts that carry away the monsoon rains they get in the wet season. We were riding in a fairly large bus and keeping all 4 wheels on the road around the turns was an exercise in driving excellence.

When we arrived at the top of Le Maido we had to walk up to an observation area (right).

Fellow Traveler Note: A huge percentage of the passengers on this cruise are well over 70 years old. There are quite a few people well into their 90s and a large group in their late 80s. It appears to me like the average age must be in the high 70s if not the low 80s. Most of these people live at sea level in Florida where the biggest hill they climb is the lip of the sand trap on the local golf course and the highest they get above sea level is the bar stool in the golf club on the 19th hole. I am not much of a physical specimen but on this ship I’m nearly the youngest passenger aboard. Back to the main story.

At over 7,000 feet it was a little scary to watch my fellow passengers try to walk up the hill. Many were complaining of lightheadedness and shortness of breath. My advice was to sit down and take it easy. The last thing I wanted to see was any sort of coronary incident that far from professional medical help. Some just returned to the bus but others persevered to the top. You have to admire their spunk if not their judgment.

When we got to the viewpoint the valley and the mountains across it were completely obscured by clouds. The wind was blowing the clouds against the face of Maido and we could see them rushing by drawn upward by the winds. It created a strange view. If I looked sideways along the cliff face I could see for hundreds of yards to my left because the winds were taking the clouds straight up from the cliff face. If I looked forward or to the right (I was standing at the right end of the cliff face) I couldn’t see more than 8 feet the clouds were so thick over the open space. Every now and then an opening would appear in the ascending cloudbank and you could see the valley below and the mountain peaks across. It was a truly spectacular sight. Then, very quickly, a new cloud would come up the cliff face below us and obscure the scene again. It was almost like a curtain being drawn up from below. There was no fade out; just now you see it, now you don’t.

When the view was clear (above) we could see seven peaks in various directions across the valleys. They range in height from 6,832 feet for Col du Taibit to 10,070 feet for Piton des Neiges. The slopes of the peaks were mostly green with vegetation except for the tallest which extended above the vegetation zone. There were villages in the valleys and on any reasonable sized flat spot on the slopes. There was a series of cascades down the side of the mountain that looked like silver fingers reaching toward the valley. With the clouds swirling about it was an awesome sight.

We were up there about 45 minutes and the view was great for about a total of 10 minutes that whole time. The view would tease us by becoming a little clearer so you could see the outlines of the opposite mountains only suddenly disappear completely. When a clear break did come it was magnificent. The air was so clear and the visibility was extraordinary.

We retraced our path down the mountain about 7 miles to the La Petite France, a very small village. Here we stopped at a geranium distillery (left). The geraniums were brought here from South Africa in the 1800s. They are not the same species of geranium that we are used to in the USA. They have a mild rose smell instead of the strong distinctive smell of ours. They use the leaves and stems in the distillation process. It takes about 45 pounds of geranium to distill out one ounce of essential geranium oil and the process takes about 3 hours. The oil is used in perfume making and the Reunion oil is highly prized by French perfume makers. The oil adds a little fragrance to the perfume but its main quality is that it evaporates very slowly and makes the perfume’s scent last much longer. Because it has a mild rose smell it is mostly used in floral or citrus overtone perfumes.

The distillery we stopped at was a one-man operation. He grows the plants and distills them on site. The owner/operator gave us a presentation in French that our guide translated. His still looked exactly a like bootlegger’s still from the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania. A large metal retort where the mash is heated with a tube attached to the top to collect the steam. This tube slopes downward into a coil that is wound around the inside of a barrel that is filled with water to act as a condenser. The tube comes out the bottom of the coil and the liquid drip into a funnel that feeds into a crockery pot on the ground. The crockery pot has a hole in the upwardly sloping top. A bottle with its bottom cut out fits tightly in this hole. There are two products of the distillation, water and the geranium essential oil. The oil is lighter than the water and rises to the top of the crockery pot and into the bottle. As the process continues the water eventually fills the pot and the bottle and forces the oil through a curved pipe in the top of the bottle. The pipe leads to a small container that holds the processed oil. All fairly primitive, but effective. His wife has a small store on the property and had many types of oils for sale at very reasonable prices when compared to the USA.

After that it was back to the ship. We have 3 days at sea coming up and I think two of them will be 25 hours. That I can take.

April 8, 9 & 10 – Three days at sea and two of them were 25 hours long. Doesn’t get much better than that. We’re coming to the end of out Tai Chi set, the Plum Blossom. It’s divided into three sections and the each gets progressively more challenging. The last few movements of the last set are somewhat confusing at first. It starts with a block through the back and then goes into four jade ladies, one to each corner of the box. That involves two 180-degree turns that are only two moves apart. When the ship is rolling like it has been it’s even a little difficult for the teacher and it’s really tough for the students. Other than that I’ve just been reading and goofing off since I finished my reports and have renamed all my picture files. I’ve taken 1,728 that I’ve kept. Glad I don’t have to get them developed.

To see the next page of pictures click this 'Older Posts' at the bottom right.

(c) Rod Longenberger - 2005

Colombo, Sri Lanka To Mahe, Seychelles

March 30 – Here we are in Colombo Sri Lanka. When I was young it was Ceylon, famous for its fine teas. Today we are on a long tour, scheduled for 12 hours but since part of it is by train I figure we may be delayed.

Diana seems to be fairly rested and wants to go on the tour so off we go. Her left hand is still swollen but seems to be improving.

The weather here is not as hot as it was in India and Thailand but it is every bit as humid. We’re only about 3 degrees north of the equator so it feels very hot even though it’s only in the high 80s. The sun will rip your skin right off if you are in it too much.

The country has no real highways. Two-lane blacktop with wide shoulders seems to be the best street they have. No one really pays any attention whatsoever to the traffic lanes. People walk and ride bikes in them; scooters, tuk-tuks, cars, trucks, buses and motorcycles all share the same lane. If someone is driving to slow or double parked in your lane you just take up the land that is supposed to be used by people going the other way. Next to the steering wheel, the horn is the most used equipment on the vehicle. Our bus driver passed slow vehicles in places where even an aggressive driver like myself would stay back. There we’d be, in the wrong lane, heading toward an oncoming dump truck and what does our driver do, well he blows the horn of course! We had several misses of less than a foot on the way out of town. Based on the reaction of the driver, guide and bus boy (he passes out water and generally helps the guide) this is no big deal to them. The reaction of some of the tourists was great. All sorts of gasps, yelps and other assorted sounds of panic came from various places on the bus.

We are headed to Pinewella to visit the Elephant Orphanage. It was founded when poaching was a big problem and many baby elephants were in need of care. Poaching is pretty much under control and the orphanage is now really an elephant conservation and breeding facility. Twice a day they herd the elephants through the city to the river for a bath and that’s what we’re heading to see.

As we arrived the elephant parade had just started. It was more of a semi-dash down the street leading to the river. There were two bull elephants, both with handlers and tethered with a chain. The females and babies were allowed to jog to the river pretty much on their own. The males were led in opposite directions when they reached the water to keep them as far apart as possible. The handlers got them to lie down in the water to be scrubbed (left). The rest of the elephants were allowed to spray themselves with water or wallow around, whatever they wanted to do (above right). There were about 45 elephants, more than I’ve ever seen in one place. It was fun to watch the babies follow their moms around and see the care the mothers gave them. I could have stayed there for the whole day but we had to move on to see other things.

Our next stop was at the Peradeniya Botanical Gardens. It was founded in the 1400 for the Sinhalese queens and has over 4,000 species of plants. It was very pretty. Not much was blooming but several trees were in flower and they had some border plantings that were also in color. There were three trees that were worth noting. One was a huge fichus benjamina. It must have been 80 yards across and it was shaped a little like a turtle. Another was an ebony wood tree, which is almost extinct in the wild. But the piece de resistance is a rare ‘coco de mer’ (Sea Palm). It is only found in the Seychelles Islands, our next port. But the botanical garden here received one in 1850. Its seed is the largest and heaviest in the vegetable kingdom. It is protected by law in the Seychelles.

The seed weighs about 22-44 pounds and resembles a 2-lobed coconut joined like Siamese twins. The seed take 5-6 years to mature and about a year to germinate. Its seeds were discovered floating in the Indian Ocean in 1500AD but the tree was unknown until 1743. It’s the type of plant that has male and female plants. The male plant looks very different and is much smaller than the female. The female tree we saw had about 12-14 nuts on it each painted with a number. The guide told us that each seed is spoken for by a park or garden that wants a tree, hence the numbers. There were a fair number of seed buds on the tree that will mature over the next 6 years.

As we strolled along we saw young couples scattered around the park sitting in the shade of some of the larger trees. It was a very pretty place, and a perfect setting for a romantic chat.

As we drove on we left the valley and started climbing into the mountains. The scenery was beautiful. Rice terraces rose like twisted stairways up the sides of the valleys. Everything was very green and lush. The rainforest was thick and a wide variety of shades of green providing a very pretty drive of about 3 hours.

We stopped for lunch at a very nice hotel in the city of Kandy. The food was very much like Indian food. Very tangy and some of it was quite hot. It was delicious.

The next stop was our main objective, The Temple of the Tooth. It seems that when the Buddha was cremated one tooth was spirited away by a fervent follower and was later enshrined inside 7 highly decorated boxes here in Kandy. The provenance of the tooth is very credible and no one seriously questions its authenticity. The boxes are only opened one day a year for a special celebration so we didn’t get to see it. In fact, we didn’t even get to see the outside box. A very ornate curtain closed off the shrine where it is kept (right). There was a large table covered with flowers offered by supplicants who pause to pray in front of the shrine of the tooth.

The temple was a work of art in itself. To enter we had to go through two security checks and take off our shoes. The dress code required men to have long pants and women had to wear pants or a dress below the knees with their shoulders covered as well. In the heat and humidity it was quite a sacrifice for me to wear long pants but no one said the life of a tourist was easy.

They had one room set aside for various statues of the Buddha (left). There was an area at one end of the room where Buddhas of all types were displayed. Around the perimeter of the room were golden Buddhas in various forms of dress and tradition.

We were running a little late so we had to scurry back to the bus and fly across town to catch our ride down the hill to Colombo. We’re taking the Viceroy steam train. We’re going to be riding in restored Victorian coaches and get some snacks and Ceylon tea.

The train ride was great, very relaxing and scenic! A great contrast to the wild bus ride up the hill. The steam whistle was a welcome change from the bus’s horn. On the way back down we passed through a violent thunder and lightning storm. The flashing and banging was almost constant for about half an hour. They served us egg salad sandwiches, cookies and very good tea as we rode along.

We had a little excitement on the way down the hill. Diana tried to sit on a couch in the coach to wait for the ladies room and missed the couch and sat on the floor. It wouldn’t have been bad but there was a metal ashtray attached to the wall behind her. She struck it a glancing blow on the back of her head and got a ½ inch cut in her scalp. As anyone who had ever cut themselves shaving knows, capillary bleeding can be hard to stop. It wasn’t bleeding fast, just steadily. We got some ice and towels and applied pressure and it slowed pretty quickly. The tour escort from the ship carries a backpack with some medical supplies in it and we applied a pressure bandage to the wound. All Diana needed was a fife and we could have reenacted the famous painting ‘Spirit of ‘76’ where two drummers and a man with a fife are marching in uniform. She checked out fine other than the cut.

The storm continued for about 3 more hours and was still going strong when we arrived back at the ship. They didn’t make us walk up the exposed passenger gangway but instead let us board the ship over the much shorter but less elegant crew gangway. They had crewmembers standing along the entire way from the bus holding large overlapping golf umbrellas to try to keep us as dry as possible. It was quite a comic sight but very welcome. We arrived home about an hour late and had to go directly up to the lido buffet for dinner, as it was almost 9PM. We had been on busses 3 and 4. Busses 1 and 2, which left before us, had done the trip in reverse, taking the train up the hill. Apparently the bus had been delayed and they didn’t get to lunch until almost 3PM and had to skip the botanical gardens to make their other stops. They didn’t arrive back at the ship until 10:15PM, 2 hours and 45 minutes late. Yikes!!

Diana seemed to be very tired and went directly to bed. I stayed up for a while and listened to the classical string trio in the Explorer’s Lounge until about 11:30 and then turned in for the night.

We have three days to recover before we reach the Seychelles. I’m very glad, as Diana needs the rest.

March 31 – A very restful day. Diana slept quite a bit and her hand seems to be improving quite a bit. The swelling in her hand is down a lot and the cut in her scalp has a good scab on it and appears to be very clean. I’m going to keep some triple antibiotic cream on it for a few days as a safety precaution.

April 1 – Oh, oh, April first. This is going to be a dangerous day. Diana’s hand looks normal this morning and her scalp wound is healing nicely. I managed to get three of the lido staff and one member of the cruise staff with the old “You’ve got something on your shirt” finger trick before everyone caught on and the gag was ineffective. Our daily program for today was full of pranks. The navigation notes said we would be arriving in the Antarctic at 10AM to attend a brunch hosted by King Neptune and other various bits of nonsense.

It’s formal tonight and Diana is going to wear a sari she bought at the hotel in Kandy. I’m going to wear my lava-lava with my white formal jacket, black cummerbund, black formal shoes and black tie (above left). Diana’s sari is medium fuchsia and sea green with gold embroidery. It is very pretty indeed. I’m only hoping she knows how to tie it.

Well, between the two of us we got the sari tied nearly correctly on the second try. Next time we’ll do better, we now know the key points. We had to start over one time as we had committed a tactical error early on that could not be corrected. We looked pretty good, if I must say so myself.

It was 'Farewell to the Raj' theme night and many of the passengers dressed in native attire for the occasion. In the picture above left Diana and I are shown with ( l to r) Lorna (Bobby's mother), Jen, Johnny (Both Cruise Staff) and Bobby (a professional ballet dancer. Bobby had her sewing machine on board and made both her and her mom's saris. Yikes. In the picture above right Diana and I are with (l to r) Liz, Johnny and Steve, all of the Cruse Staff.

Our travel agent, CSI, hosted a party for us before dinner this evening and so many of us were in native garb that Ellen had a picture taken of all of us (left). Our CSI escorts are Ellen, at the extreme right, and Tom, in the center front. Diana is directly behind him and I'm at the extreme left.

We gain another hour of sleep tonight. I could really get used to these 25-hour days.

April 2 – Today is another restful day at sea getting ready for the next port. Diana is totally recovered and her usually busy self. She takes beginning bridge lessons and attends Bible study in the morning and water painting class in the afternoon. A retired Reformed Church in America pastor leads the Bible study. I like him. He and his wife are very nice people. He and I were talking last night at a birthday party for one of our trip escorts from CSI and I discovered that he shares my view that the crucifixion had to have occurred on Wednesday of Easter week, not on Good Friday. It’s nice to find someone who has the classical religious education but is still willing to abandon tradition when it makes no sense and serves no useful purpose, a refreshing attitude of rationality.

Tomorrow we have both morning and afternoon tours scheduled so we’d better get to bed.

April 3 – Today we are on the island of Mahe in the Seychelles docked in the capital city of Victoria. Mahe has the largest population of the hundred or so islands that make up the Seychelles archipelago. There are granite islands, like Mahe, and others are coral atolls. Only 4 of the islands are inhabited, the smallest of these in population only has 25 people on it. Mahe is pretty much an up and down place. Only at the extreme perimeter do you find any flat land at all, everywhere else you are either going uphill or downhill and often very steep hills at that.

This is truly a beautiful place. April is their warmest month and the temp was only in the middle 80s. Of course, the humidity was pegged at 90+ all day. In the early morning and afternoon there was a nice breeze that made being in the shade quite comfortable, but around 4PM the breeze died off and it was pretty uncomfortable for most of us, even those people from Florida.

Our morning tour took us around the north half of the island. First we drove through the small capital city of Victoria. I say small because it’s home to only 25,000 people. Even at that it’s the largest city in the country. As our guide said, “It’s really the only proper city, every other town is more aptly described as a village.” Our guide’s accent was typical of most islanders, a French influenced Creole. Creole is the national language but everyone learns French and English in school. The Arabs and Portuguese found these islands at about the same time in the 1500s. They were uninhabited and were the perfect place for pirates to establish a base of operations and hide their treasure. There are several lost treasures that most historians believe to be in these islands, one such treasure is a fabulous, jewel encrusted, gold cross that is very well documented. Its current worth is estimated to be about 200,000,000 British Pounds. A lot of money for sure! Maybe we should get together an expedition to search for it.

Our first stop was at the botanical gardens in Victoria. The main exhibits here are several of the coco de mer trees that we saw an example of in Sri Lanka and a herd (Is that the correct collective? I doubt it!) of giant land tortoises. I’m not sure exactly how many there were but you could walk right in among them (left). We were given greens to feed them and we discovered that they love to have their necks rubbed. Their heads push against your hand just like a cat will when you scratch its neck. One small one was following me around like a puppy. Very cute. They had one tree that was home to a colony of fruit bats. They’re pretty big bats and they look strange all wrapped up in their wings hanging upside down from the tree’s limbs. They are about 18-22 inches tall. Some of them were working their wings and it looked like the wingspan might have been 3-4 feet. Hard to tell as they were quite high up in the tree.

Authors Note: I subsequently learned that the correct collective for turtles or tortoises is 'bale' or 'turn'.

After leaving the gardens we drove around the northern half of the island. The beaches are fantastic (right). They are mixed in with granite cliffs and hills, thick green forest and dotted with islands offshore. The drive took about 2 1/2 hours and was filled with wonderful sights. On the way back to Victoria we cut across the spine of the mountain that gave us vistas of the rainforest and the shoreline. It was very impressive. There are lots of dive shops on the island so I’m assuming the diving is good. The water was certainly clear enough. There were lots of people on the beaches. There was one mother with two small girls, probably about 5 & 7. The girls had just gotten out of the water and were shivering (below). I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Before I could get the camera turned on both of the girls were wrapped in blankets and still looked chilly. All us Norte Americanos were quite warm and here these girls were freezing. Yikes!!

We got back to the ship and grabbed a quick lunch to head down for out afternoon tour. This time we are going around the southern end of the island with a stop at a colonial period plantation that has been turned into a center for the handicrafts of the island, a restaurant and a museum of colonial artifacts. The museum is in the plantation owner’s home. It is decorated with period furniture and artwork. The grounds were very nice. The craft stores were in small buildings that were probably housing for the slaves. There were people who worked mainly in tree bark, seashells, weaving, paintings and jewelry making. Since it’s Sunday only about half of the stores were open.

The drive around the south side of the island was every bit as impressive as the drive around the north, although as the breeze died off it became a lot less comfortable being out of the bus.

We have two days at sea to rest up and get ready for Mauritius.

April 4 – Great day at sea, very restful. The tai chi instructor was the guest at the coffee chat time today. He’s a very interesting guy and his wife is very sweet. He’s been involved in tai chi for 40 years and built up and eventually sold the largest tai chi school outside of China. Now he teaches tai chi on HAL ships and lives on a farm on the east coast of Australia. The entertainment this evening was the New York Vagabonds, a male quartet. They sang some old standards from the 40s, some do-wop from the 50s, some Drifters from the 60s, they were very good. Ah, another sea day tomorrow.

April 5 – Another low-key day at sea. My Tai Chi is proceeding nicely.

To see the next page of pictures click this 'Older Posts' at the bottom right.

(c)Rod Longenberger