Investments in infrastructure make a difference. The ability of Hong Kong (and I suspect all of China) to make major commitments to big projects and to get them done quickly makes real change possible. The new Hong Kong subway lines are amazing. If I have any hope for our global environment, it’s that China will begin to realize the costs of its environmental degradation and apply that same focus and commitment to improving its environmental infrastructure. I only wish that the US could find a way to stop arguing and invest in the bridges, schools, transit, and scientific investment needed for our future.

There’s something to be said for a benevolent dictatorship. When you compare life in Singapore today to what existed there fifty years ago, it’s an amazing transformation. If Americans are willing to give up freedoms to prevent terrorism, what might they give up to get clean streets and a peaceful environment? I’m not advocating limiting the hurly-burly of democracy, and I’m not naive enough to think most autocratic leaders remain good, but Singapore is a testament to what is possible when sensible policies are simply put in place and enforced. All of us, from the NIMBY movements at a local level to the gridlock in Washington, should recognize that the paralysis of inaction often keeps us from improving life.

Travel while you can. It’s an amazing world, but that doesn’t mean it will all be around to see that much longer. Long-time travelers told us how the lemurs have largely disappeared over the past 20 years from the park in Madagascar. While the cruise didn’t visit the low-slung Maldives, we sailed through the rising waters that will almost certainly cover that country in the coming decades. Poachers in southern Africa are decimating the rhino for illicit gain. I’m glad that we saw what we did, but worry about how we protect the wonder for the future.

Walking away from responsibility leaves devastation in its wake. The history of how Portugal and its citizens abroad simply abandoned colonies like Mozambique (without training or preparing the citizens to run the country) makes touring a city like Maputo painful, as you experience the ruins of what once was and sense how much energy is needed to regain lost ground. Americans should ponder if our policies are leaving behind similar devastation.

Resources need to be matched with a just society. I am sure that my blog came across as harsh on Brazil. But it is sad to see a country that has so many resources like land, minerals, and people fail to deliver a more equitable society. Different people may give different reasons: corruption, a sharp divide between the haves and have-nots, a disregard for the environment, a lack of the common weal — but whatever the reason, I hope an increasingly polarized United States does not fall back into such a state.

There is hope. Around the world, people exist who care and can make a difference. In South Africa, which so transformed itself in the ‘90s, hope seemed so palpable. Even as the South Africans’ initial exuberance has been tempered by real challenges, the optimism of the people remains high. I want to claim that same optimism, not just for South Africa, but also for the United States, the world and all mankind.

We saw a lot of amazing sights, met some wonderful people, had a few adventures and stirred up a vivid potpourri of memories (and captured just under 1000 photographs). But at the end of our road, it was a true pleasure to see again the little town of Cambria and our small house overlooking the ocean. The northward migration of grey whales to arctic waters had begun. (We saw a mother and calf breach within a hundred yards of shore on our first day back.) A carpet of coastal poppies, bluebonnets and lupine was in full bloom on the bluffs of the nearby Fiscalini Ranch. Otherwise, things were much as we had left them.

A scene at Fiscalini Ranch in Cambria

Well, a very large box of accumulated mail was also awaiting us. A few days later, FedEx delivered five suitcases filled with dirty laundry. (We shipped our luggage rather than deal with airlines, porters, weight limits, and extra fees. Having only carry-ons let us catch an earlier flight when we got to the Miami airport hours sooner than we expected.)

But now everything is getting in place. Our travel agent sent us a welcome home message and asked how everything had gone. For a moment, I was tempted to say “book us another trip.” Luckily, sanity won out. Holland America will just have to wait.

From Robert:

About three days before the end of the cruise, my mind was set on “I’m ready to go home now.” But on the final night, as we said goodbyes to new friends and walked around now familiar decks and lounges, I got just a little wistful and thought, “Yep, I could definitely do this long of a cruise again.” We’ll see.

More from Dennis:

This ends our cruise blogging, but not FrahmannThoughts. For those who signed up to follow the cruise, feel free to stick around for my occasional posts on subjects as varied as life in Cambria, politics, family history, Wisconsin, travel and branding. Robert may also add his thoughts on topics now and then. We will also post a link to a booklet of photos we are putting together of our trip.

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Robert Tieman and Dennis Frahmann onSt. Lucia

We have bid a fond farewell to St. Lucia, our last port of call before reaching the United States and the end of our cruise.

It was a lovely final stop. The twin peaks of the island, Gros Piton and Petit Piton, are large volanic plugs that create a dramatic backdrop. The island itself is lush and has many lovely beaches.

We took a small bus along the back roads of the 27-mile-long island to capture views from on high of both its wild north Atlantic side and its calm Caribbean side. Our final stop was Pigeon Island. There we climbed to the fortifications on top of a tall hill, and were treated to a spectacular 360-degree view of the island, the sea, and a far-off Martinque. Then as a reward for our scramble back down, we had a native beer, Piton, at a small waterside cafe and a quick swim in the warm, peaceful Caribbean.

Back on board, the ship raised anchor. We took our final ship-leaving-port stroll on the promenade deck as the sun set. Three sea days remain before we reach Ft. Lauderdale. Many of the passengers are already packing up. But we just plan to enjoy the remaining sea days, play a few games of trivia, and have our usual pre-dinner cocktails before we return to a more normal life: spotting wild zebra on the Hearst Ranch, playing Words With Friends, monitoring the elephant seals, catching up on American Idol, taking ocean walks on Fiscalini Ranch instead of the promenade deck, and having a real morning paper to handle and fold with our morning coffee.

From Robert:

The big Big surprise on our drive around St. Lucia was seeing a cashew tree.

Yes, that’s right. A cashew tree.

Our guide had the van driver stop and he disappeared out the door for a few seconds. When he returned, he had this small yellow thing that more than anything else looked like a small bell pepper. We were unbelieving when he said it was a cashew fruit. He described how it was full of liquid (more unbelief) and he squished it in one hand, spraying a handful of liquid out the side window. We learned that these fruits come in several colors, and indeed later saw a tree filled with these “peppers” that were a pink-red color. Same fruit/nut inside, though. Islanders pick these up by the side of the road and do their own home-roasting to get what we know as cashews. And the nuts do need roasting because the liquid & outer paper shell contain some kind of cyanide variant, developed as a defense mechanism of the plant to discourage foraging by birds or other wildlife. Anyway, it was a revelation.

Now comes the winding down phase of travel: hate for it to end, eager to get home. And that’s just us after 51 days at sea. What about the bulk of the passengers who will be completing 115 days. That’s since the first week of January, kids. We can’t imagine doing another long cruise…but never say never, right?

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We had an easier time of it. In fact, we found this abandoned prison, on a small trio of islands managed these days as a historical site by the French government’s Guiana Space Centre located across the water on the coast of French Guiana, one of the most enjoyable stops on the entire world cruise.

Robert ponders spending time in a cell on Devil’s Island

Other than a small hotel, the island is no longer occupied. Most of the old prison buildings, including an insane asylum, worksheds, prisoner shells and other dwellings are picturesque ruins being reclaimed by a verdant jungle. Each of the islands is covered with palms and lush vegetation. We were only able to visit the main island, which was used for most prisoners (but not Dreyfuss).

Both from a distance and once on it, the island seems a most pleasant place. Surrounded only by the ghostly thoughts of long-gone prisoners, we strolled sun-dappled paths to the incessant beat of thrumming cicadas. Near the children’s cemetary (which was for graves of children of the staff, not child prisoners), we encountered a friendly troop of monkeys eager for handouts. In front of the restored chapel, a small group of large rodents called agouti roamed about. Their reddish-brown fur was a burnished glow when hit by sunlight. Near the hotel, a small flock of blue-and-red parrots flew overhead and squawked loudly. A large iguana sunned itself on a hot rock. We took our respite on the verandah of the small hotel, drinking a beer and watching the ocean. Sharing the entire island with only a couple hundred of the ship’s passengers and a few score of the hotel guests, the island seemed a pleasant and remote paradise, and hardly the setting for an infamous prison.

Soon, it was back to the tender and the end of this visit. So far on this tour of famous prisons, we’ve been to St. Helena where the United Kingdom exiled its most important political problems like Napoleon, and to Devil’s Island, which remained a French penal colony until 1953. Will our next stop be Guatanamo Bay?

From Robert:

“Oh, Dennis. Such a sense of humor.”

Dennis hopes an emply shell will deliver a Devil’s Island punch

Actually, he’s right, though. Who would’ve ever thought that such an infamous place as Devil’s Island would turn out to be such a great tourist stop?

The prison buildings are indeed being overrun by jungle plants, and also by general erosion of the large stone walls that we saw crumbling in many places. But the still-standing cells with their rusty iron bars are pretty ominous, even in bright sunlight. By the time we got to the solitary confinement cells, it was pretty eerie indeed. And come to find out, the prison (and the island) weren’t even always staffed by guards. With the shark infested waters, plus the dangerous rip currents, where were prisoners supposed to go? Even without constant supervision by guards and wardens, life in this tropical island prison wasn’t always tropical paradise. Most prisoners died from heat and from tropical diseases.

As for the current day hotel, well, “hotel” is a generous word. The price sure is right: we were told a room goes for 38 euros (about $50). The rooms are in some of the former warden quarters of the prison, but are very sparse indeed. We didn’t see any air conditioner units, for example. With the heat and humidity, one hopes the beds at least come with mosquito netting, otherwise tropical diseases are still the rule of the day.

While we did each have a thirst quenching beer after a long morning of hiking, some friends from the ship tried a cup of “Devil’s Punch” – a rum concoction that was very strong. Very. We were offered a sip, but declined after Dennis took the cup to his nose and smelled pure alcohol even several inches away. The joke was: no one light a match! Whew!

Back safe and sound on the ship by early afternoon, we were supposed to have a Sail Away party on the back deck, and a breezy trip around the trio of islands before heading out to sea again. And then we waited. And waited. And waited. The Captain announced on the loudspeaker that they were having hydraulic problems with the mechanism that closes the outer hatch, the door we use to board the tenders. Can’t very well set out for the ocean with a big hole open in the side of the ship. But one hour’s wait turned to two, then to three, and I started to write my portion of this blog under the heading “Stranded on Devil’s Island!” By the fourth hour, the door finally got closed, so . . . crisis averted. And because of the delay, we have been under “full speed ahead” to make up lost time and to get to our next port of call on time. See you in the Caribbean!

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More than any place we’ve been so far, getting off the boat in Belem prompted us to look at each other and say “we’re definitely in another world.” That’s saying a lot after being in Madagascar and Mozambique.

One of the river houses we motored by

Our large ship has too deep a draft to make it all the way to Belem. Instead we were anchored on a deeper part of the Para tributary, in a small village called Icoaracy. But even in this case, we couldn’t take our normal boat tenders to the small city quay where we could disembark. Rather we stepped onto the second-level of low-ceilinged, wooden Amazon river boats which puttered us to the shore. The boats showed minimal evidence of life preservers, but did offer flimsy plastic chairs for seating that were pushed to and fro by our ever-anxious fellow guests. When we reached shore, we had to disembark by scampering from our boat through another riverboat we were tied to and then onto a stone pier lined with hawkers of coconuts, pineapples, a mad array of tropical nuts and fruits, crawling crabs and more. The harbor was filled with small colorful craft that later in the day would be stuck in the mud after the four-meter tidal river waters fell. The small town itself sweltered in the hot morning sun, with the humidity already as high as the temperatures. The stucco walls of the buildings were blackened with mold and colored with graffiti. They rose up to tiled roofs sporting small bushes that at times literally grew from between the tiles. And all of this was before we even got onto what proved to be very modern tour busses.

Then it was nearly an hour drive through the slums and favelas of outer Belem, along side crumbling sidewalks and shacks, until we reached the high-rises of a modern city that on a closer inspection looked as crumbling as the village at which our tenders had landed.  At a very recently renovated set of warehouses that were now a tourist market, we boarded another riverboat to travel an hour into the Amazon delta. From the boatside vantage of the waterfront, the old historic core of Belem, built in the prosperous days of the late 19th century, looked charming and inviting. Soon though we were deeper in the channels of the river, where children sat on long wooden wharfs leading up to small shacks and shanties.

We reached our destination, where the tour had promised a 45-minute walk through the Amazon forest. It ended up being close to two hours of a sweat-dripping stroll in a single line of 50 people, with most too far from the guide to ever hear what was being said. But it did allow an up-close view of rubber trees, açai palms, various coconuts and immense 400-year old trees with branches covered in bromeliads, trunks encased with vines. At one point, an industrious little urchin, about 7, who lived nearby even showed up to demonstrate climbing and swinging on the vines. All the grandmotherly types in our group immediately fell in love and offered small tips.

Then this trek was all reversed. Seven and a half hours after leaving the ship, spent with no beverage, food or toilet breaks, we were back on the ship. Our rewards included the sighting of a royal sloth, a tarantula and a close-up view of an army of leaf-cutting ants.

As for Brazil, I won’t even bother to talk about our impressions of Fortaleza two days earlier. I can not imagine how this country manages to build airplanes for export or how it can successfully host the World Cup in 2014 or the Olympics in 2016. But I don’t plan to be buying any tickets for either event, even though our very expensive visas are good for 10 years.

From Robert:

Dennis disposed of most of the negativity we felt about our two stops in Brazil, so here are some other notes.

Our guide impressed upon us that the language of Brazil is “Brazilian.” Portuguese “is what they speak in Portugal.” He gave a few examples of vocabulary words that are identical in spelling & pronunciation, but entirely different (and occasionally insulting) in what they mean in each ‘version’ of Portuguese. This made me recall our stops in South Africa, and the fact that Dutch and the Dutch-originated Afrikaans language are mostly non-compatible languages, according to our guides at least.

I was disappointed that we sailed from the Atlantic Ocean into the Amazon delta during the middle of the night because I wanted to see the difference that everyone kept talking about. While we were in Icoaracy and Belem, the Amazon waters are a very unappealing and dingy brown, a result of all the sediment that is constantly being washed into the river upstream. We officially sailed away from Belem on Tuesday evening around 6pm, and would not reach what the Captain called “the open seas” of the Atlantic until about midnight. We woke up Wednesday morning still in brown water! Apparently the Amazon disgorges such a huge volume of water – millions of liters a minute! – the sediment and brown color reaches about 200 miles out into the Atlantic. The Captain says a quick look at Google Earth will show just how far that brown color extends into the ocean. But we saw it for ourselves: the entire day under steam was brown, brown, brown; and it wasn’t until about 5pm that the color of the water just barely started to turn back to “ocean blue.” Just amazing.

An interesting phenomenon: long white stripes in the brown-ish water, which are caused by the collision of fresh Amazon water with salty Atlantic water.

Meanwhile, our clothes are getting tighter. This is not a good sign.

Postscript from Dennis: 

We do leave Brazil with highlights: realizing first hand the immense power of the Amazon as we sailed far into the ocean amidst its muddy flow; marveling at the colorful variety of fruits, nuts and sealife at the riverside markets; being awed by the amount of plant life growing from the limbs of the Amazon canopy; and traversing the interplay of high-rise modern life with the charms of cities already hundreds of years old.

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Nevertheless, the day exposed all our favorite tropes about shipboard culture. The first involves what we less-than-affectionately call the scooter people. Did God decide one day that only seriously obese people would have mobility problems that required scooters? Did he also decide that such folk should be endowed with a sense of rude entitlement? Or did we just fail to wake up and realize we were now in the movie, Wall-E?  Whatever the case, despite the captain’s warning that everybody who wanted to tender ashore had to be able to navigate down the ship’s exterior flight of stairs to board a boat in heaving seas, and then on the other end of the short boat ride walk up 20 water-slicked stone steps, some scooter people still showed up with sudden claims of mobility. The waters of Lourdes apparently have nothing on the mid-Altantic ocean.

Which brings me to our second favorite cultural meme:  complaints (especially around the rumor of the rudeness of those on scooters.) It is remarkable what a group of highly-privileged people (with the time and money to travel around the world while being waited on day and night) can find to complain about. Robert has promised to compile his top hits list.

If people aren’t complaining, they’re gossiping. Two days earlier, at St. Helena, an able-bodied guest had twisted and broken his ankle going up the stones steps of the island’s pier. Rumors abounded as to who and how this happened. The week earlier in Namibia, it began to seem as though a good percentage of the ship had knocked themselves into a coma from overturned dune buggies.  And don’t get anyone started on the big question: just how many passengers have died on board since the cruise started in Ft. Lauderdale one hundred and three days ago.  The consensus seems to be that only one person actually expired while on the ship (apparently around Manila and thus, alas, before we boarded), but that six to eight guests have been taken off the ships. And we’re not so certain they ever made it home.

Let’s face it. With fewer than a thousand guests, the MS Amsterdam is just one big village, with the same forces at work as any small isolated town. I almost feel like I’m back in the pages of my novel. Everyone thinks they know most everything about most everyone, and even if we don’t, we’re still happy to talk about them.  Reputations are developed and burnished. The smallest of events grow into the biggest of stories. The silver lining might be that in two weeks, all of us will disembark and go our separate ways. But here’s the scary secret behind this grand world voyage – probably a third of these loyal people will be back on board next January to spend another four months together. For these people, the Amsterdam will always be a place to which they can go home again.

From Robert:

Small villages, at least on TV, always have a town drunk, right? Well, no shortage of cocktails on the ship, but now I’ve seen everything!

The window in our cabin looks out directly onto the Promenade deck, with its deck chairs and the ocean beyond. Just now, there are two older gals out there in the chairs immediately under our window (glazed with a highly reflective coating, by the way, so we can see out but no one can see in). I noticed that they are drinking martinis in these really cute glasses that I haven’t seen in any of the lounges on the ship. “I wonder where they got those glasses,” I thought, and then looked down at the side of one of the chairs. There’s a silver cocktail shaker! Well, I guess the ladies make their own! And to top it off, one of them finished off her olives, whipped out a tissue, wiped off the olive pick and put it into her purse!

Now I’ve heard of thrifty, but this just cracked me up.

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Well, we hiked up and were awarded with extraordinary views of this island. Then we had to walk down. If the upward walk was hard on the heart, the downward trek was even nastier to the knees. We made it down without harm, purchased our certificates of achievement at the local museum, and went on our way to visit the little town of Jamestown. And, as far as we know, everyone from our ship who attempted the hike made it up and down safely, with no heart attacks or fainting spells.

And that is certainly a good thing. Because St. Helena is even more remote than Easter Island. The only way on and off, other than a very occasional cruise ship call, is the regularly scheduled Royal Mail Ship RMS St. Helena which motors between Cape Town, St. Helena and Ascension Island. It’s five days to Cape Town, and when any of the 6000 people on this town, which is a British colony, want to get away, that’s their only way out.

The town of Jamestown is charming and feels very 18th-century English in its architecture. It hosts the oldest public library and the oldest Protestant church in the Southern Hemisphere. After our exhausting climb, we decided to forego renting a taxi to travel into what we are assured is a very more luxuriant inland area, and therefore we did not get to see Napoleon’s final home called Longwood. (I suppose technically his final home is really Paris, since although he was first buried on this island, they dug him up to inter him at a better address in France.)

As a result, I guess we will just have to come back some day. Luckily an airport is under construction, with an expected debut of 2015 and non-stop flights to South Africa. That will make it easier.

From Robert:

Two quick things: (1) I keep having to correct my pronunciation of this island’s name. I always want to say HEL-eh-nah, like the capital of Montana, but it is actually Heh-LAY-nah. Hmm. (2) While there are indeed 699 individual steps to Jacob’s Ladder, he forgot to say that the rise of each step was a high 11 inches, more or less (and it was the occasional ‘more’ or ‘less’ that trips up any kind of rhythm one might have).

The island is named St. Helena, by the way, because it was first discovered – uninhabited, by a Portuguese navigator – on May 21, 1502, St. Helena’s feast day.

Check our our book sites:

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After our first-day shuttle ride into the center of Walvis Bay and a ten-minute walk around its small downtown, we were ready to reboard the bus for a return to the ship. We debated what had warranted Holland America’s decision to promote a “two-day, overnight visit to Walvis Bay!” Those among us who think government is at the heart of all that is wrong conjectured that the Namibian officials demanded a two-day-stop as the entry price for any kind of refueling visit. Those more prone to blaming corporate greed saw it as a great opportunity for the ship to sell overpriced ship tours and avoid the boredom of the upcoming two days at sea.

While both sides to the argument might well be correct, we also discovered that the Namib Desert dunes, hundreds of miles in length, marching from the very edge of the sea inland for over a hundred miles is well worth anyone’s stop.

Of course, Robert and I had seen flamingos in zoos before. We even saw a wild flock of them once in the mountain foothills of Patagonia. But we had never seen flamingos like this: waterways filled with great throngs that would step rapidly through the shallow water in waves of pink when startled, groups that would take to the sky creating long, flying silhouettes and then individual birds coming in for awkward landings as their reedy legs braced to step-step-step to an awkward stop in the mud. And this went on for miles along the coast.

Then there were the sand dunes. For Southern Californians who have been to Oceano on the central coast, you have a local picture of long broad stretches of rolling dunes. Now multiply that a thousand fold and combine it with a climate that gets almost no rain, but is moistened by daily fogs. At first, there may seem to be no life in an apparently empty landscape. But then we notice the patches of green. As we drive by, we realize that these are thorny vines festooned with ripening golden melons. We see seals playing in the water, jackals watching us from the side of the dunes, and a small herd of springbok on the sand. When the guide stops to provide us an up-close look at the garnet sands (and to explain that this sand really is partly powdered garnet), he also finds the track of a desert gecko. He digs one up from beneath the sand. Suddenly, we have in front of us a real-life Geico spokesmodel. But this one is not green. It’s transparent, and the pallid pastel colors of its inner organs show through the skin. It’s fascinatingly cute. The lizard lives underground, feeds largely at night, and this one is soon released by our guide so it can retreat from the hot sun.

By the time we get back to the Amsterdam, having driven south on the sand along the surf in a four-wheel vehicle for nearly 60 kilometers south and then atop the high dunes for much of the way back, we have definitely had our sense of adventure filled as well as our sense of wonder.

From Robert:

While out on the dunes, we also had a picnic lunch. Out in what seemed “the middle of nowhere,” the four drivers of our tour group almost magically produced folding tables and camp chairs, linen tablecloths, plates and utensils for 20 people. Down went the gate of a pickup to create a makeshift bar, and the next sound we heard was the popping of champagne corks. Don’t mind if I do!

The buffet spread out for us contained vegetable spring rolls, fried calamari rings, some kind of white fish, beef meatballs, a pasta salad, sliced bread and, what’s this?, several trays of oysters on the half shell. Surrounded by nothing but sand dunes, not another human or vehicle in sight. What a treat indeed.

Our driver was a man named Kurt, pronounced in the German way as he was, in fact, German; born in Germany, but moved to Walvis Bay in 1953 when he was 8 years old. He still speaks English with a decided German accent.

In the late 1800s, the area now known as Namibia was annexed by Germany and was known as German South-West Africa. All except for the city of Walvis Bay, that is, which was under British control as part of the Cape Colony (South Africa). German rule ended during WWI when they surrendered to a South African army fighting for the Allies, and South Africa was given a mandate to rule the territory by the League of Nations. South-West Africa and South Africa tussled over control of the area back and forth until 1990 when SW Africa gained independence as Namibia. Walvis Bay itself was finally transferred to Namibia in 1994. Throughout, there has always been a German population, however — from around 200,000 at the peak to about 20,000 today.

Long story short: Kurt had travelled to America some years back to visit a half-brother. He mentioned going to Austin, seeing the Hill Country, and also being taken to the River Walk in San Antonio. Another couple in our vehicle was from Kerrville, and they asked Kurt if his brother had taken him to Frederickburg to see the German/Texan area. He said “no, but I stayed with my brother in a town with a German name. Do you know Pflugerville?” [pause for dramatic effect] So, if anyone knows someone with the last name “von Schweinitz,” he is related to our driver & guide Kurt von Schweinitz, a great guy.

Namibia to Pflugerville, Texas in one degree of separation! What next?

Check our our book sites:

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Continuing with the chill, we also toured the beautiful city of Cape Town on an equally dreary day. We even took the famous cable car up Table Mountain. Throughout the ascension, the skies were overcast but still clear enough to provide great views. Suddenly in the last few feet of the ride, the famed tablecloth of clouds descended on us and the flat mountaintop. We exited the car into a dense and bone-chilling fog. No views below were to be seen, except for the occasional glimpse when strong winds momentarily blew the fog away, but we certainly enjoyed the ride.

Even more so than Durban, Cape Town is a beautiful city, with neighborhoods and scenery that would seem right at home in Southern California. Then you come upon the townships and temporary settlements, and you realize that the “have-nots” in this society are truly in another category far below the worst of any American inner city slum.

But I have been inspired by the positive optimism that Robert and I have encountered among so many of the locals. As we have learned first hand more about the days of apartheid and how it became institutionalized, the importance of Mandela and de Klerk engineering a peaceful transition becomes more impressive and truly worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize.

We also had an interesting first hand lesson in how political correctness varies by location. On one trip, our guide was describing a school we drove by as being for the “deaf, dumb and blind.” An outraged American indignantly asked, “do you still use those words here?” The guide, however, totally misunderstood his concern. She had been discussing moments earlier the Boer wars, and she thought the outrage was that she had referred to a modern-day Afrikaaner as a Boer, which is no longer the thing to do. Later we talked to her and also learned that nowadays one never refers to the original inhabitants (before the modern black Africans) as Bushmen, but as San. (And probably on this cruise, it’s not correct to refer to many of the old codgers as cranks and curmudgeons, just as happiness-challenged.)

From Robert:

First of all, to anyone who thinks (partly in jest or not) that he is a crank and a curmudgeon…well, Robert has been practically the epitome of patience and tolerance compared to many of the passengers. Honestly, the things these people complain about.

Today before we depart Cape Town, there was a mandatory passport examination here on the ship. This has been well advertised for two full days, both in print and via public address announcements. So today, they start the official process by calling people in groups by last name. First group, A-B-C-D-E. And immediately there is a swarm of people lined up. I happened to be sitting in the Library using the internet, and all I could hear was ‘how long the line is,’ ‘why did they call so many people at once,’ and ‘I pity the people whose last name starts with Y: they’ll probably miss the sail-away party on deck.’ Sheesh! (In the end, the whole process took less than an hour from start to finish; pretty remarkable considering the officials had to physically examine some 1,000 passports. My own time in line, when the T group was called, was maybe 5 minutes.)

And then, oh wait til you hear this, overheard yesterday: one of the shore excursions offered was an all-day trip out to the wine growing areas, and stops for wine tasting at three different vineyards. One old gal went on and on about “they didn’t offer us anything to drink but wine; no juice or lemonade or anything. I didn’t want to drink wine.” Perhaps she shouldn’t have gone on a wine tasting excursion. Just a thought.

But back to the glories of Cape Town. On Day 1, we enjoyed our city tour on the Hop On-Hop Off bus; and marvelled at the natural landscape filled with wild protea bushes of many different varieties. The next day we drove north of the city to the game preserve Dennis mentioned. More than the animal-experience, we really enjoyed the drive. Beautiful countryside, even in intermittent rain. But the rain also provided us with what was probably THE most vivid rainbow we’ve ever seen. The colors were so intense it looked almost solid. And on the drive back in to Cape Town that afternoon, as we passed through the Hex River Valley, sinews of waterfalls cascaded down from the mountains…courtesy of the morning rains.

And more exciting than the animals in the preserve were the small groups of baboons either sitting or jumping in the median strip of the N1 highway. That’s not something you see every day back in the States, eh?

More from Dennis: Robert has been well-behaved and patient (for Robert) on this trip, but today on lifeboat drill, he noticed two or our nemeses from the trivia competition were on our same lifeboat. He suggested to me that in an emergency we could kick them overboard. I reminded him that after abandoning ship, another triva game at sea would be unlikely and that his ruthless behavior would therefore have no reward.

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A bull elephant in musk that we encountered

Robert starts off this dispatch with a research question: what is the definition of “panelbeaters?” In the last two ports in South Africa, we have seen car dealerships, or maybe they were car repair shops, with that word boldly painted on exterior signs.

Meanwhile, let’s go to Richards Bay at the northern end of the east coast of South Africa. First impression was surprise at how large a city it is. But we weren’t there for the city, and instead boarded our coach for a 90-minute drive further into the kwaZulu-Natal province for our first mini-safari experience. Natal was the original name of the town after the harbor there was first discovered by explorer Vasco Da Gama on Christmas Day, “natal” being Portuguese for “Christmas.” The word “kwa” means “home,” and “kwaZulu,” home of the Zulu people. Our destination was the Hluhluwe Game Reserve. Our poor Anglo mouths have to practice wrapping themselves around the proper pronunciation of Hluhluwe. Ready? It’s “shloo-shloo-weh.”

Our drive there was under heavily overcast skies and intermittent light rain with the accompanying cooler temperatures that were welcome after so many days of mid-90s, heat and humidity. But we were a little worried about whether we would see any animals, especially given the tour description’s caveat: “animal sightings not guaranteed.”

We boarded 10-person, open-air vehicles with each row of seats raised higher than the one in front, so everyone had a good view, and we very happy that sturdy rain ponchos were provided. The rain came and went throughout our 3-hour tour (yes, a 3-hour tour!), but the sun never did peek through. Straight away we ran into a small group of warthogs snuffling their way along the side of the gravel road, and then … nothing. No animals and drizzling rain. Animal sightings not guaranteed. All of a sudden we rounded a corner and standing right in the middle of the road was a young male hyena. Our driver/guide, a college aged South African girl, said “Oh, this makes my day! We haven’t seen hyenas for several days now.” He just stood there, staring at us, and allowing plenty of pictures. It started to rain a bit and he just wandered to the side of the road to curl up in a ball in the tall grass. If he hadn’t been in the road when we first approached, we would have absolutely just driven right past him.

We eventually did see an enormous giraffe ambling along the path, and some white rhinos in the distance, along with some interesting shore birds, and a water buffalo not too far from our jeep. But the excitement of the day was when we were stopped to look at some birds, and then a huge bull elephant came out from behind a tree directly in front of us. He started to flap his ears, a sign that he didn’t particularly care for our presence there, but we stayed put to grab lots of photos. All of a sudden he started toward the jeep and our guide quickly put it in reverse. The elephant stopped, but when we stopped, he started toward us again. Okay. What now? We backed up some more, and some more, and some more, but he kept coming. I wouldn’t say exactly that he was “charging” the jeep, because he wasn’t really running, but it seemed clear that he was trying to get us to move. Eventually, he moved off to the other side of the road and walked away from us so we could pass, but it was pretty thrilling to be that close to such a magnificent animal, with just a little bit of an adrenaline rush besides.

All in all, a great introduction to the wild African animals, and we did manage to see three of the so-called “Big Five” – rhino, buffalo, elephant. We missed lion and leopard, but figure they were all snug and warm someplace out of the rain.

From Dennis:

Beach scene in Durban

On our second day in kwaZulu-Natal we arrived in Durban, the largest port in the Southern Hemisphere. Our experience here proved to be quite a nice counterpoint to our previous day in the bush. Of course, we did the tourist thing with a ship’s tour to the Valley of a Thousand Hills. This included a visit to a replicated traditional Zulu village, where we watched a charming play of a young Zulu man seeking to buy his next wife. (For your social studies lesson of the day, the traditional price is at least 11 head of cattle and there is a requirement to build an additional hut for each new wife. Actually, two huts – one for sleeping and one for cooking. That’s per wife.) That tour also gave us an up close look at a generous assortment of enormous Nile crocodiles and an opportunity for a snake to meet Robert. (After inviting the chameleon on his back in Madagascar and holding out his hand for the snake here, who know what Robert will do by the time we get to the Amazon!)

But the best part of the day was the unexpected – our discovery of Durban as a huge and lovely city. The motorway from the city up to the suburbs in the hills and the Phezulu park was wide and fast moving. The hillsides were lush with greenery, the suburban homes well situated on nicely landscaped lots, and the park’s view of hills and valleys spectacular.    

Back in Durban proper, we took the ship’s shuttle to the Ushaka shopping mall and water park, which is the start of the city’s “Golden Mile” promenade along the beach. It was a gorgeous day, and people were on the beach in droves for the Easter break. The shark nets were up, a surfing contest underway and suntanned bodies on full display. Beautiful restaurants and condo towers marched along the beach. If we ever return to Durban, I will just don my swimsuit and camp out for an afternoon on this beach.

The city is so attractive and alluring. I understand why the leaders of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) just held their summit here. I don’t want to deny the poverty of the township areas that we drove through or the surprising degree of barbed wires on household fences, but at the same time, I really began to understand why so many South Africans we have met seem to feel that while Southern California is beautiful, it doesn’t really compare to their home. I can’t want til we get to Cape Town.

(Oh, for my old Sage work colleagues, on our very first drive out of Richards Bay, what was one of the first things I saw? Banners promoting Sage and its Pastel accounting product hanging from the lampposts. Hazel Otte, did you do this just for me?)

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