And so this amazing trip draws to a close. [Check back Wed., Jan. 4 for the first in a series of posts discussing the story behind a particular travel photo(s), which will be tied to a midi-sized crossword puzzle on my JeffsPuzzles.com site focused on the country where the photo was taken.]
We docked this morning in Cape Town, and I opened the curtains to a view of Table Mountain draped in its morning tablecloth (that’s what they call the cloud cover), with Lion’s Head to its right. Disembarkation, luggage recovery, and immigration were a breeze, and we took a bus tour of the city before heading to the airport.
On our way to Signal Hill, the third of the three peaks overlooking Cape Town’s sprawl, we drove along well-maintained streets and caught a glimpse of the Malay Quarter, famed for colorful houses and an old mosque.
From the lookout atop Signal Hill, we had a panoramic view of the city, the other peaks, and, lying low in the distance, Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was incarcerated for 18 of the 27 years he spent in prison.
From Signal Hill, we headed to the ironically named Castle of Good Hope. This pale yellow fort was built by the Dutch East India Company in the 17th century to house the territory’s governor and military regiments.
Tiny jail cells, added during the Second Boer War, occupy one part of the castle, adjacent to a torture room featuring a terrifying hook hanging from the ceiling.
The Castle offers excellent views of the Cape Town City Hall, in front of which stands a statue of Nelson Mandela.
In addition, you can look down on an installation called Crying for Justice, by Haroon Gunn-Salie, which sits on a site near the old Castle gallows. Gunn-Salie excavated 118 graves, 117 for known apartheid activists killed by the regime and one for all the murdered activists who were never identified. The graves are arranged to spell JUSTICE, although the outline of the letters is difficult to discern in the unmown grass.
Our final stop, the Company’s Garden, originally served as a vegetable garden for the Dutch East India Company. Now it’s known for lush trees (including a pear tree planted in 1652), statues of European colonizers (the disgraced Cecil Rhodes foremost among them), and lots of birds (mostly pigeons), including an ibis-like creature called a Hadida.
Several significant buildings back to one of the bordering roads, including the Parliament, the Jewish Museum, and the Old Synagogue.
On the way to the airport, we passed the football stadium built for the 2010 World Cup, one of the old Black townships (now subsidized housing), and an adjacent “informal settlement,” a shanty town built by immigrants from other African nations (principally Zimbabwe) who flooded into the country following the end of apartheid.
I’m sitting now in a lounge at Cape Town airport waiting to board my 16-hour flight home. Before ending this saga, though, I’ll close, as always, with my thanks:
To Paolo, our capable and responsive room steward and to Naik and Fabre, bartenders extraordinaire who kept me well-supplied with Balvenie.
To my trivia-playing teammates, dinner companions, and partners in punning: Mike, Robert, Laura, Laura, Denis, and Joyce. I’ve never laughed so much on a trip, and I enjoyed every minute of your company!
To my brother, Eric, who found this trip, shared his travel tales and expertise, contributed mightily to our trivia championship, and frequently beat me at Casino.
Most of all, to my parents, who instilled in me a love of travel and a respect for and curiousity about other cultures. I know how much you both loved Africa, and now I surely know why.
Coda: A Report Card for Azamara
Ship: A-. The Journey is well-designed and, for its modest size, has spacious and functional public areas. It’s also attractively decorated. The most important thing it lacks is a store to buy sundries.
Staff: A. Everyone is friendly, responsive, diligent, and capable.
Food: B-. The quality of the food is decent-to-very-good, but the selection for people like my brother and me (vegetarian and pescatarian, respectively) is sometimes limited. At lunch there is almost always a vegetarian Indian option as well as pizza and Beyond Meat burgers. At dinner, however, there may only be one vegetarian option (often involving cauliflower, which isn’t high on my list).
Entertainment: B+. The ship’s singers, dancers, and bands are excellent, capable of entertaining well in multiple genres. I though the guest entertainers were uneven.
Itinerary: B-. As originally scheduled, the itinerary would have been terrific, since it included stops in the Ivory Coast and Senegal. Those countries closed their borders to ships because of COVID concerns but then re-opened them a few weeks before the cruise, and somehow Azamara was unable to add them back even though other cruise lines did. (On our cruise, Senegal was accessible only through one of the tours in The Gambia.) With the port cancellations, there were far too many sea days. Of the ports we did visit, Namibia was excellent, The Gambia/Senegal very good, Madeira and Ghana good-to-very-good, Gran Canaria fair, and Angola poor.
Ship’s tours: B. My main issues were with Ghana, where I probably should have taken a different tour, and Angola, where the ship’s tours were uninteresting and far too expensive. In other places the guides were very good.
Internet access: F. The worst I’ve ever experienced on a cruise ship, even worse than on my Antarctica cruise. I understand Azamara will be upgrading the Internet access on its ships, with the Journey being improved soon.
Corporate communications: F. Information from the company about everything from the itinerary to Yellow Fever vaccination requirements to COVID protocols to tour contents was missing, late, inaccurate, inconsistent or incomplete.
PuffinlessTravel 