We awaken in our gorgeous room around 7:00. Cathy points out that a beautiful sunrise is in progress, and we take a couple of pictures. Then it’s time to get ready for the day and have breakfast. We eat a gourmet breakfast in sumptuous surroundings. There is everything possible available, and then some. Our waitperson Penny gives us the lowdown on the various stations at this endless buffet. Cathy, after asking our friend Kreg for additional
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We awaken this morning around 6:30 well northeast of Kimberley … at least we hope we are, because we are to enter back into the real world today. We are scheduled to arrive in Pretoria at the Rovos Rail complex around noon, and we are hoping that this will happen, because we then must double back to Johannesburg by bus to the airport, where we then fly to Durban.
The first view out the window tells
Cathy is wide awake at 6:00am, and Steve follows at 6:40. We both slept very well, but are aware that we made a couple of long stops somewhere during the night. We also climbed up out of the Western Cape from 477 meters in elevation to 959 meters through a coastal mountain range and along the enormous escarpment of the South African plateau. In order to accomplish that, we have gone through a mountain pass, as
More adventures at the Radisson Blu in Cape Town. The next morning we get up, turn on the shower, and there’s no hot water. Because of the Cape Town water crisis, we are very reluctant to leave the water running to see if it eventually warms up. We assume there isn’t any hot water. Down goes Steve to Reception (because the phone sill doesn’t work) to report this, but he can’t get the elevator to recognize
The excursion du jour is to the town of Stellenbosch, which is about fifty miles from Cape Town. The town is a center of the western Cape wine-producing region, which has 600-800 “wine estates,” so we can see that this is a huge industry in the area.
This trip also gets us out of huge, wealthy Cape Town, and we will experience some of the suburbs of the city as we head along N2 (N stands
Our excursion today has the intriguing title Moon Landscape and Welwitschia. We meet in Insignia Lounge at 9:30 and are assigned Bus 24. We were trying to be on the same bus as our friend Paula, but she ended up the last one for Bus 23 and we were the first for Bus 24. We have to work on coordinating better with our friends of we want to hang together on a tour.
Our bus isn’t
We sail into the protected and important harbor of Walvis Bay right on time around 8:00am to begin a 32-hour stay, the first port of call where we actually get to go ashore for two days. Even without docking, we can see that this is going to be different than the three previous West African ports. There are several huge dry docks, some with small ships in them being repaired, a large car carrier ship, and
What a difference a day makes, as the song goes. As predicted by Peter Croyle in his lecture, there has been a considerable and very welcome change in the climate. The air temperature when we wake up is in the 60s, and the heavy humidity is gone. We had started to notice the change as we attended the Country Fair yesterday (a photo of the Housekeeping booth with the put-the-pillowcase-on-the-pillow contest that is at the beginning
Last night, we moved the clocks forward again. We are now seven hours ahead of home … I think. We decide to have breakfast in the Grand Dining Room. I think we’re hungry, and since we aren’t booked on an excursion, we have plenty of time. Steve indulges in waffles, Cathy has two eggs over easy and potatoes. The range of foods available is staggering. We could even have a steak or lamb chops for breakfast
This is the first of three straight Sea Days needed to get us from Sao Tome to Walvis Bay, Namibia. We are heading practically due south, and the fact that it will take three days to reach our next destination is beginning to give us an idea of how large the planet is. I confess that these multiple Sea Days are all starting to run together in my mind. Not that there isn’t anything to do,
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Husband and wife from Wallingford, Connecticut USA
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