Ptolemy's fabulous trip to Araby, India and Africa, October 19, 2015

MR. & MRS. PTOLEMY’S JOYOUS TRIP

TO JORDAN, DUBAI, ABU DHABI, FUJAIRAH, OMAN,

INDIA, THE SEYCHELLES, KENYA, TANZANIA,

MADAGASCAR, MOZAMBIQUE AND SOUTH AFRICA

OCTOBER 19 TO NOVEMBER 26, 2015

*****

LOG OF THE TRIP TO NORTHERN JORDAN

 AND CRUISE ON OCEANIA’S NAUTICA FROM DUBAI TO CAPE TOWN

October 20, 2015,  Tuesday  Amman

     We arrived in Amman about five in the evening after a flight from San Francisco to Chicago on American and an approximately fourteen-hour flight from Chicago to Amman on Royal Jordanian Airlines.  Our travel agent for this trip, Clair Grayland of Audley Travel of London, had arranged for the man who was to be our driver through Saturday, Nick, to pick us up and drive us to the InterContinental Jordan Hotel to check in at approximately 6 p.m. 

The hotel was decorated in the browns and tans of all InterContinentals of the vintage of twenty-five years ago, but it proved to be spacious and comfortable throughout our stay.  Audley had prescribed most details of our visit, including the guide/driver, the hotel and the itinerary, with thoroughness and clarity. 

We had dinner at the hotel’s Lebanese restaurant.  We ordered from the interesting Arabic menu and decided on meatballs with spices and almond chips in yoghurt.  It was excellent. 

Utter collapse ensued.

October 21, 2015  Wednesday  Amman

          After a breakfast best characterized as moderately good for a hotel in the four-star class (we decided that breakfast is probably perfunctory in Jordan) we met Nick at the appointed hour of 10 a.m. for what was promised to be a tour of desert castles.  Nick told us he had turned an ankle on his last guide assignment and could not do much walking from his car.  He had asked a younger friend and licensed guide, Ahmad, to help escort us where walking would be required.  We said OK. 

          Nick had spent many years in Columbus, Ohio, and has an American wife.  One of his sons, who was then home with his parents but left the next day for Columbus, is enrolled at Ohio State.  The entire family are U.S. citizens.  Ahmad had lived many years in Portland, Oregon.  His parents were born in Jaffa and were forced to leave there before 1960.  Ahmad harbors frustration about the loss of his ancestral home.  Both men continually voiced politically correct positions on issues such as the peace-loving character of most Moslems and the abhorrent actions of ISIS, which has betrayed Moslem teaching.  They were clear that while Jordan is a military state, Jordanians are peace-loving and cool.  Unfortunately, most Jordanian males have little interest in science, civil service or commerce, preferring to emulate their ancestors and become soldiers, what I have always considered as the Ottoman ethic.  There are many foreigners in the country to do the soft work.

     We drove out of the tan-colored, sprawling and dusty city east about 40 miles to Azraq. The site was a small, stone fort constructed originally in Roman times of irregular shaped rocks with small rocks and rubble in between but no mortar. Not carefully crafted ashlar walls, as Dare explained.  The fort had been modified over the centuries by the subsequent sovereigns, the Byzantines, Ummayads, Mamluks and Ottomans.  We walked through a second floor room off the inner courtyard that had been T.E. Lawrence’s headquarters for some months when he led the Arab uprising against the Ottomans.  Azraq is not a ruin of distinction and boasts no architectural merit (which was the case with all of the ruins we visited in Jordan except as described below) but interesting nonetheless.  See the photos below.

The next stop was at a medium size stone structure known as the Hammam, or communal baths.  The building has a small dome with frescoes of animals in each square of the dome and a ceiling with a baptismal scene of a woman holding a baby over a font.  A centaur is pictured below the dome in coffers.  The hammam had separate pools of hot and cold water.  An Italian organization has conducted restorations of the frescoes, and archaeologists and restorers were working in the baths when we were visiting.

     We drove to and walked through a sadly depleted area known as the Azraq wetlands.  For decades underground springs had created a fertile marsh that was a stopping point for countless birds migrating from Russia and flying south into Africa.  In 1993 the water was needed for Amman.  The pumping caused the water table to fall, and the area dried up.  Severe limits on taking water were enacted recently, and the water is returning.  Visitors walk on wooden pathways over ponds, and there are numerous bird observation shelters.  Migration routes have moved, but many birds are still observable.  Alas, the photo below belies the general aridness of this nearly destroyed wetland.

     The final destination of the day was the fortress of al Harrana.  This large structure, now standing starkly isolated in a vast, red-rock and sand desert, has 60 rooms enclosed within towers standing in each of the corners.  The many rooms include a large room with triplets of engaged columns and rosettes above the arches of Iranian design.  Perhaps the structure also served as a caravan serai.

     Once again we dined in the Lebanese restaurant of the hotel on kafta (if you insist, meatballs) in yoghurt.  The waiter, noticing that we had ordered the same dish the evening before, was prompted to ask why we were partial to Turkish cooking.  I told him that was a long story.

October 22, 2015  Thursday  Amman

     We met our guides in the lobby of the hotel again at 10 a.m. and again drove east of the city.  The first stop was Quasar al-Abd at Iraq al-Amir.  At the end of a narrow gravel road the fortress/castle appeared.  It was constructed in the Hellenistic era about 200 B.C. largely of huge marble stones.  There are two free-standing Corinthian columns at each end and three lion sculptures that were probably fountains embedded in the walls.  Large well-modelled lions were sculpted in relief on the high frieze. There were colonettes around the palace.  There were ruins of buildings that were built around the main fort, perhaps part of palace grounds.  There was something compelling about the architecture.  We had never seen anything like it.  Perhaps it was the remaining parts of Greek and Roman design, but it seemed to us that Persian elements had also been incorporated.  In retrospect this was our favorite Jordan site.

The next stop was an obligatory part of an arranged tour: a visit to a mosaic-making and crafts factory staffed by handicapped people.  The fare consisted of tables, wall hangings, jewelry, all of the finest quality but most of it unusable in the modern Western home or wardrobe.  The manager who greeted us was in a wheel-chair.  Sadly, we passed on everything, although the hard-core shoppers on the cruise would have found plenty to buy.

     We next drove to what is now the large town of Madaba to see the historic map in St George’s church. Hugh Sackett, my friend from Oxford and the British School of Archaeology in Athens and I had visited Madaba during our tour of January, 1955.  At that time the map we saw was inside a private home.  The host invited us for dinner after we had viewed the map.  It was served by the women of the house, who ate separately.  The map to be seen today is housed in St. George’s Greek Orthodox church which may or may not date back to 1884 - it seems quite new – together with a number of icons of varying dates and quality.

The Madaba Map is a map of the Middle East.  Part of it contains the oldest surviving original cartographic depiction of the Holy Land and especially of Jerusalem.  It dates to the 6th century AD.  The Madaba Mosaic Map depicts Jerusalem with the Nea Church, which was dedicated on the 20th of November, AD 542. Buildings erected in Jerusalem after 570 are absent from the depiction, thus limiting the date range of its creation to the period between 542 and 570. The mosaic was made by unknown artists, probably for the Christian community of Madaba, which was the seat of a bishop at that time.

We lingered in the church, particularly a basement section and the narthex, and took many photos.

     The lunch stop was at the nearby summit of Mount Nebo.  From this promontory looking west almost the entire Holy Land is visible, the Dead Sea dimly, although on this day the air was quite hazy while the sun was bright.  This is the point from which Moses saw the Holy Land before he died, God not having granted him entrance.  The entire area is owned by the Franciscan Order, which is building a large church on the site.  The view was stunning; the lunch, unremarkable but adequate.

Our destination was Umm al Rassas.  There we found, on what had been private property but which had, within the past few years, been taken over by the state, a huge mosaic under an archaeologist’s shed.  The former owner sat outside the shed in apparent but unspontaneous dejection because he no longer had rights to the property, whereupon we were asked to make a donation to the gentleman to ease his worry.  The landowners in the area of have learned their lesson:  if you discover an ancient artifact, keep it quiet or you will lose your property

After another seemingly interminable and uncomfortable ride back to Amman, we decided to vary the fare and have dinner at the hotel’s Indian restaurant.  Big mistake:  expensive, so-so quality of the curry and exasperatingly slow service.

October 23, 2015  Friday  Amman

     Today was the Sabbath.  All was relatively quiet traffic-wise.  Nonetheless we started at 9 a.m. because of the distances we proposed to drive.

A long drive north of Amman almost to the Syrian border through hills and valleys took us to within sight of the famous castle of Ajlun, which appeared at first far in the distance atop a high mountain peak.  The fortification was built by Saladin’s nephew, a governor of the province during the Crusades.  As we drew close a moat and drawbridge came into view.  We were soon crossing the moat and ascending stone stairways into the interior of the castle.

The castle interior is made of large stone blocks, complex and impressive.  We were soon joined by a local motorcycle club who had been enjoying the Sabbath with a bike ride and had taken a break to tour of castle.  They tried to interest Dare in their club gear.

     We drove northwest through fertile valleys (relatively speaking) with many vegetable stands selling olives, eggplant, tomatoes, pomegranates and other fruit along the road and came to the restored ruins of the Roman city of Jerash.

     Hugh Sackett[1] and I had stopped at Jerash in January of 1955 in the course of a five week trip that had taken us to Beirut via Alexandria and Limassol, on to ancient Byblos, the Beqaa Valley, Damascus and nearby Amman and was to take us to Jerusalem and Bethlehem for Christmas, Homs, Hama, Palmyra, Mersin, Antioch, Tripoli, Latakia and back to Beirut.  When we visited Jerash, the columns rose starkly out of the desert sands, and there was no surrounding settlement to temper the feeling of the vastness and isolation of the antique city.  Now the ruins have been tamed and groomed, and Jerash itself appears to be a growing city surrounding the ancient site.  Nonetheless, the photos allow a glimpse of what this bustling eastern outpost of the Roman empire looked like.

We stopped in the amphitheater of the city and were confronted with men in the military dress of decades ago performing with Scottish bagpipes.  They were entertaining the tourists.  The British army that had been stationed in Jordan for many years had been pleased to inculcate the local troops with British army drills and formations and had passed along the traditions of marching to bagpipes.  The elevation of Jerash is probably sufficient to qualify these men as highlanders.

     We drove for seemingly hours to return to Amman, once again battling our way through traffic, and the oasis of our hotel.  We dined again at the Lebanese restaurant but not on meatballs.  What we had was good but not memorable.  We can’t remember what we ordered.

October 24, 2015  Saturday  Amman

     It was Saturday.  The Sabbath was over, and the traffic was back to it’s snarled and vicious self.  This morning Nick and Ahmad took us to sites within he city of Amman itself, starting with the ancient Roman citadel in the middle of the city.  

The Citadel is an imposing hilltop compound of ruins. The foremost structure is the Roman Temple of Hercules.  The center point of what remains of the temple consists of three free standing columns and five engaged columns along a wall.  A short walk away stand the ruins of a sixth century Byzantine church with Corinthian columns from the temple.  The path among the ruins terminates at the remains of an Umayyad palace.  All three buildings were destroyed in earthquakes.  Also atop the hill, one of seven on which modern-day Amman is built, stands the Jordan Archaeological Museum, which houses various Roman sculpture, sarcophagi and coins.

     We drove down off the citadel to the final archeological stop,  the Roman theater, together with its adjoining smaller venue, the Odeon. But on the way we got a taste of the contemporary downtown area.

The Roman theater originally had held 6,000 spectators in three tiers of seats.  For years the view of theater was blocked by a hotel, the Philadelphia, the ancient name of Amman, but the hotel was torn down a number of years ago.  The theater is now restored and imposing.

Finally, we were led into the adjoining, much smaller theater, the Roman Odeon, which had been intended for musical performances and which now serves as the venue for contemporary productions, one of which was being rehearsed and sound checked as we toured.

     The tour now being officially ended, we bade good bye to Ahmad, bestowed on him a tip a trifle larger than the amount recommended by Audley and left with Nick for the Queen Alia International Airport at about one o’clock.  Queen Alia was the wife of Hussein, the mother of the present King Abdullah and the mother-in-law of Queen Noor, nee Halaby, whose dad was a great buddy of Jack Kennedy’s.

     We arrived at the airport more than three hours in advance of our flight to Dubai, but the Royal Jordanian lounge provided an ample free lunch, and we were tired enough from our recent peregrinations (we had left home six days ago, even though these entailed mostly sitting in a plane or a car) to settle into a rest in the plush lounge seating.

     Three hours or so after take-off and flying the length of the Arabian Peninsula we arrived at the maze that is the Dubai airport and walked a half mile to the baggage claim – itself a feat to locate – to pick up a taxi.  On the way we were greeted heartily by a limousine contingent from the Address Hotel, where we had a reservation and which is a snooty place that is part of the formidable Dubai Mall.  We had not splurged to reserve a limo, but a uniformed gentleman graciously escorted us to the taxi stand. It might have taken us 15 minutes to find it otherwise.

We checked in at The Address Hotel, managed to find our very large and well-appointed room, took a stab at getting refreshed, gazed out our window for a few minutes at the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa, and found the right elevator bank to get to the roof bar.  (It’s an Arab country, and no alcohol is served on the ground floor of the hotel).  The martinis were tiny, and there were only a handful of young swingers of the Emirates and, no doubt, of adjacent oil rich countries to be seen, but the atmosphere and temperature were warm and welcoming.  At last we were in sight of our upcoming cruise, and a morning of shopping at the super-glitz Dubai Mall awaited us.

October 25, 2015  Sunday  Dubai

We awoke about nine, packed and checked our bags with one of the twenty bellhops and repaired to the sumptuous breakfast room of the hotel.  Once in that cavernous space, we found an overwhelming array of foods and drinks – varieties of fruits, cereals, eggs, meats, coffees, tomatoes and veggies (breakfast staples in Israel and much of the Near East), almost anything that could be imagined as breakfast fare -  spread before us over about 60 feet of counter space.  The tables and leather-lined banquettes were ten feet apart.  We both opted for goodly portions of freshly squeezed mango juice for starters.  Eating was made almost impossible because of the imperative of gazing at the fashionable diners from all over the world.  We lingered in the area for about an hour, mostly staring at the beautiful people.

     Dare had forgotten to pack a pair of slacks and flat shoes for dinner.  What to do but walk a few yards into what must be one of the most luxurious shopping malls in the world, the Dubai Mall.  First I had to find the Panerai store amid a hundred yards of jewelry and luxury watch stores.  No discounts and out of my budget.  (See the photo of me leaving the store with my head bowed in humility.)  Leaving make-believe behind, we passed internationally known signature stores one after the other before settling in at a Singapore based shoe store where Dare found the flat shoes she wanted.  Then she found just the right slacks among a number of ladies’ wear shops with dizzying displays.

Along the way we paused by the famous vertical aquarium where we chatted with a Cypriot young lady who had moved to Dubai with the husband and child from South Africa.  Did she know my friend in Nicosia who invests money in Switzerland for Russian clients?  No, she doesn’t know anyone who cleans money. 

Sunday is Monday in Moslem lands, so the Mall was busy with an incredibly diverse clientele.  We headed for the expansive open area behind the Mall that looks up at the Burj Khalifa. I posed for selfies and even Dare wanted to be photographed with the skyscraper in the background.

     In time we sat in a café and spooned smoothies while waiting for the famous Dubai Mall fountains to begin their choreographed routine.

     By two p.m. we were in a taxi to the port.  In a while we were in our stateroom unpacking and repeating the now formalized ritual of stuffing drawers with socks and underwear and stuffing our soft bags under the bed, as there is no space in the staterooms for baggage storage.  We both headed to the fitness room for a brief workout to get the cobwebs out.  We had dinner outside the Terrace Room on the rear deck looking out on the Dubai high-rise buildings and bright lights.  It’s a stunning sight that overwhelms me every time.  I want to live and die in Dubai.

October 26, 2015   Monday   Abu Dhabi

     Overnight the ship moved the short distance to the adjacent Emirate, Abu Dhabi.  The latter has oil; Dubai has none.  Nonetheless Sultan Khalifa of Abu Dhabi after whom the tower is named has graciously supported his protégés in Dubai and the the rapid development of what is now one of the world’s great commercial centers.  Abu Dhabi is, however, by my reckoning, a tighter, neater and more esthetically pleasing place than Dubai.  Its high rises are crisper and are placed so as not to make the main city appear crowded.

At about 9:30 we hired a taxi at the gate of the port together with another passenger and told the driver that we were in his hands, which meant that we negotiated a fee for a three-hour sightseeing roundabout to cover the principal sights.  The driver spoke sufficient English.

The main tourist attraction in town is the sprawling, gleaming, white marble Sheikh Zayed Mosque.  The complex shimmers in the bright sunlight.

It was obvious that the way we were dressed, i.e., Dare’s pants and my shorts, would not allow us to enter the mosque, so the first entry point of the visit was down one floor in an elevator to an enormous underground garage that I would guess holds 1,500 cars, which tells you something about the financial standing of the congregation.

We walked about probably 150 yards through the garage to a three room complex, still underground, where about thirty visitors were waiting.  Within ten minutes Dare became fitted with full length black abaya, a floating lightweight robe with connected head-covering.  I was fitted with a full-length white cotton robe, the typical male abaya, which left my head uncovered.

We took the elevator up to an arcade open on both sides and walked around a corner for about 100 yards to the entrance of a large courtyard paved with white marble.  The mosque itself was across the courtyard.  The sun on the unrelieved white marble was almost blinding.  We entered the mosque after removing our shoes.  The enormous interior was exquisitely appointed with hanging chandeliers and art on the walls.  The builders have spared no expense.  The Zayed Mosque must be one of the greatest religious monuments of our time.

 We returned our abayas to the infidel dressing room and walked underground and then in the blinding light back to our taxi. 

The driver sped along the sparkling beaches of the corniche past a number of handsome high-rises to the grand Emirates Palace Hotel.  It is set back from the road more than 100 yards by a virtual botanical garden of palms and flowering plants.  This hotel caters to the crème de la crème.  I wanted just to stand in the lobby for fifteen seconds and bow to Mammon.  Alas, we were refused entry by guards at the gate because I was wearing shorts.  Period.

The driver then embarked on a quick city tour and sped back to the ship through sparse traffic at about 2:30.

We had lunch and later our daily workout in the gym, followed by steam.  Dinner was in the Grand Dining Room with a British couple whose home is just above the white cliffs of Dover.  They can see the lights of Calais almost every evening from their front porch.

Dare in women’s black abaya, an exterior arcade of the Mosque in the background.

October 27, 2015   Tuesday   Fujairah

Fujairah is the smallest and poorest of the seven Emirates.  It appears to be relatively sparsely settled.  Some of the literature says that the entire state is owned by one family, who populate its government exclusively.

We hired a taxi at the dock about 10:30 and put ourselves at his mercy by once again uttering fatefully the vaguest of directions, something like “Show us the sights.”  His rear tires sprayed gravel as he pulled out of his stall and drove east to the Bithna Oasis and Fort.  At least we believe we ended up at Bithna because that name is the best we can remember.  We are now too old to differentiate among Arab names. 

The fort was a quarter-mile in from the highway down a narrow and bumpy dirt road.  The dimensions of the structure are approximately 60 by 100 feet, and the walls appear to be a rough plaster over wood lathe and stone.  After some negotiation with our driver, the caretaker admitted us into the interior of the fort.  The fort is being refurbished for tourist traffic, but that work was not yet complete.  We were not told when the fort was built or by whom, but probably by Omani Arabs and before 1700. It would have fallen into disuse decades ago.

     Next we drove a few miles on an up and down narrow and dusty desert road.  The last section was uphill to another fort known as the Al Hail fort, where we arrive about 11 a.m.  The fort is situated above a large oasis and was obviously a commanding fortification in its day.  We had the place to ourselves for 15 minutes, when a van arrived and disgorged eight tourists.  We foolishly had forgotten to bring water with us that morning, but Dare persuaded the van driver to give us a very welcome bottle.  I would judge that the temperature was over 90 degrees and dry.

     By noon we had driven into the unprepossessing city center of Fujairah.  First we stopped at an ATM so I could get the cash to pay the driver.  We had heard that the destination personnel on the ship had sent passengers to a new, elaborate shopping center in the city, but our driver either did not know about it or pretended not to.  Instead he stopped at a modest, two-story combination food market and general store.  There was an escalator to the second floor.  There, to our surprise and delight, were the flat shoes for evening that Dare needed, and I found a wide, tan leather belt that I needed for my shorts.  The cost for both items came to $20.

 

We returned to the ship to lunch at the ship’s snack bar on Deck 9, the Waves Grill, Dare on a small tuna chop and I on a Texas hamburger.  We had dinner at 7:45 that evening at one of the ship’s specialty restaurants, the Polo Grill, with Julie and Charlie from Colorado.  We had expected almost nothing from the stop in Fujairah, but we learned quite a bit.

October 28, 2015   Wednesday   Muscat, Oman

At about 9:30 we disembarked and boarded a ship’s shuttle bus to the downtown meeting point of taxis and the on-off touring buses at the entrance to the major marketplace of Muscat, the Mourtrah Souq.  Two years ago we had boarded an on-off bus at that spot.  We hired a taxi and pulled out for what turned out to be a riskier ride than we bargained for.

It is not unkind to suggest that our driver harbored a mental deficiency or minor derangement.  For the entire four hours we were driven about the driver was either making or receiving phone calls or text messages while driving as if in a trance.  When I remarked that what he was doing is illegal in California, he replied that it was OK in Oman and refused to modify his behavior. He kept his left hand on the steering wheel while in his right hand he clutched his phone.  His eyes were on the screen 90 percent of the time, yet he drove swiftly and flawlessly, possibly thanks to superbly engineered and paved roads and streets, for the entire time.  He understood exactly where we wanted to go.

The first stop was a surprise to us, namely the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque.  We were dropped off when the taxi could not drive further, about 300 yards away from an outer wall of the complex.  When we arrived at what we thought was the entrance we had to walk another quarter mile counter-clockwise around the periphery to a gate that had been left open.  We walked through unobserved and walked another 200 yards or so within what was now a sprawling compound of 30-foot-high, flat-roofed brown stone buildings until we found the entrance to the mosque proper.  There a security official greeted us and asked in a stern tone how had we gotten there, no doubt because Dare had no headscarf and I was wearing shorts. He summoned a youth who began to escort us to what we hoped would be the mosque entrance.  Instead the young man took us to the exit and waved us outside.  We took the long walk back to the taxi forlornly.

By 11:15 we were speeding along the freeway and boulevard (the driver never averting his gaze from the screen of his phone) to a photo op point above the Muscat Old Town and Palace areas.  Next we were taken to the El Alam Palace, residence of Sultan Qaboos, and is surrounding gardens.  Then with only a summary explanation we stopped at the waters edge before the at Jilali and Mirami forts, originally built by the Portuguese.

By 11:30 we drove back to the Town center along the park-like waterfront and under two more forts high above on the cliffs lining the shore.  We parted ways with our eccentric driver at the center meeting point, but not until he had to be convinced to accept as part of his payment two $20 bills which he alleged bore a date too early to be bankable at an Oman bank.  At this point I was convinced that the man was nuts, but we hammered out the payment and parted on friendly terms.

We walked through the maze of aisles lined with sellers that is the Mourtrah Souq.  At one store at the rear of the Souq that specialized in perfume and cheap imitations of well-known men’s watches Dare bought silver slippers and lipstick.  We emerged after almost an hour to a sidewalk café where we enjoyed fresh mango juice.  We then boarded a red Big Bus that took us to the gate of the port.  From there we still needed a shuttle bus from the ship to take us the last quarter-mile to the ship.

At 16:30 I took my customary 45-minute ride on the stationery bike and then steam.  Dinner was at the Grand dining room with Tom and Ruth from Toronto.  Dare enjoyed modeling her new silver slippers for three ladies in the vicinity of our table.  All were astounded that such beautiful sparkling shoes had been purchased for $15.

View of palace area of old Muscat.

October 29, 2015   Thursday   At sea

October 30, 2015   Friday   At sea

October 31, 2015   Saturday   Bombay

     I hazard to use the name “Bombay” instead of the new name of Mumbai with the permission of our guide for the first day on shore. “Mumbai” is a recent creation adopted through a political maneuver of the regional Maharashtra tribes against the will of approximately two-thirds of the residents of the vast metropolitan area who still prefer the original Portuguese name.

     For several blocks the bus passed through many imposing government buildings dating from the colonial times.  We also passed stately old apartment buildings, but sadly most of them appeared to be deteriorating.  The guide explained that this was due to rent control.  Unfortunately, during our four consecutive days in cities on the west coast of India, almost everyone in our tours came away with the impression that all of the buildings and housing were deteriorating at a faster rate than they could be replaced or repaired.

The first stop of the tour bus was at the complex of allegedly old Portuguese houses (the Khotachi Wadi district), consisting of approximately 35 19^th century houses still surviving from the original 110 after the onslaught of the real estate developers who are intent on tearing down the city as it stands and replacing all housing with high-rise apartments.  This area has at last been designated as a “heritage precinct.”  We stopped at old/modern house, a 150-year-old “mansion,” owned by James Ferreira, a fashion designer whose saris and other clothing articles were on sale.  Apparently the core group of conservationists, to a significant extent the heirs of the founders of the area, still carry Portuguese surnames.  They are leading the efforts to ban any further gentrification of the area.  We walked through the house and were treated to a sari tying demonstration.  Some of the ladies on the tour bought things.

The next visit was to a large, prominent Temple of Shiva (Babulnath).  We had to walk up a large number of stone steps to view the temple and its internal decoration.  We passed through arcades and narrow streets lined with votive statues and shrines.  Many of the shrines were in dark corners and appeared inflicted with an excuse-me furtiveness as though being hid.

The bus let us off in a street near the Churchgate Railway terminus where the Dabbawallahs (lunchbox, sometimes styled as tiffin-box, carriers) were congregating before making their lunchtime runs. There are some 4,000 of them.  They carry dabbas with home-cooked food on their bicycles all over Bombay.  This is a big deal, but I was not impressed to the point where I wish to explain what these men do.  You can look it up.

We were taken to the well-known Khyber Restaurant in an art district known as Kala Ghoda for lunch.  We were treated to northwest tribal cuisine, as in Afghani.  I thought the food was undistinguished at best.  I drowned everything in Fanta orange.

We took part in a so-called Crawford market stroll.  The cottage where Kipling was raised is in the area.  This is the main wholesale market of Bombay.  It was crowded, thriving and very interesting.

We drove once again toward the harbor, stopping at the magnificent Taj Mahal Hotel, the original section of which was built by the Tata family in 1903.  The lobby was luxurious, and the pool and garden area in the rear are sublime.  The hotel retail stores are on a par with anything extant anywhere in the world including the Dubai Mall.

The last stop was at the Albert Museum in Byculla, also know as the Bhau Daji Lad Museum.  Tis museum houses artifacts and artworks mostly from the colonial 19^th century. Until 10 so so years ago the museum was falling apart, but three foundations have saved the building and the collection.  It was very much worth the visit.

We returned to the ship for a shower followed by dinner in Terrace Grill, but by 7:30 were were launched on another adventure billed as “Bombay by Lights.”  The first stop was our entry into the “Regal Cinema Hall,” Bombay’s first art deco theater built circa 1925, where we sat through about 45 minutes of a new Bollywood movie.  Half of our group hated it. Two young women were incensed that the film in particular and the genre in general trivialized women.  Dare and I and many others loved the movie for its élan, pace, surreal imagination and just plain fun.  The film was absurd but brilliant.

The guide walked us through the “Pydhone Market” or “Colaba” night market.  It was crowded and upbeat for fifteen or so blocks.  The guide warned the group not to try to bargain during a purchase because that would insure that the buyer would overpay.  That offended our group as absurd, counterintuitive and against everything we had been told on the cruise (some of the women had been shopping in foreign bazaars for years), but I accepted the guide’s dictum, figuring that he knew what he was talking about.

The tour concluded with a treat in the cocktail lounge of the sleek Oberoi Hotel.  We could choose from an array of beer and wine.  It was cool.  The bus took us back to the ship.

November 1, 2015   Sunday   Bombay

The day was occupied principally by an excursion to Elephanta Island, one hour’s boat-ride by a reserved public ferry that held about 40 people from the Nautica.  The island boasts a number of caves carved from rocky outcroppings by Hindu monks in the 6th century.

We left the ship on a Nautica shuttle bus to the area of the Gateway of India, an imposing stone arch built on the waterfront by the British specifically for the grand entrance into India by King George V in 1911.  That event must have been stirring and filled with the pomp and circumstance. In retrospect, the Empire must have been at the peak of its power, legitimacy and self-assurance in that magic, innocent[2] pre-war year.  The dominating Taj Mahal hotel is a few yards away.  These two structures appeared to us to signify the glory and grandeur of what was once the fabled Raj.

We boarded a boat very near the Gate and chugged across the bay for an hour or so to the island.  We disembarked on Elephanta, so named by the Portuguese according to a story or myth involving an elephant.  We then boarded a wood-burning miniature train for six minutes to cross a causeway over water.  The track was bordered with high grass and the usual debris.  We detrained onto a platform, whereupon I received the first bad news of my day:  We would have to climb an elevation of about 250 feet on slippery stone steps crammed wall-to-wall with vendors’ stands that were already filling up with all kinds of textiles, carvings and myriad do-dads, not to mention the two or three hundred vendors themselves.  At about 10 a.m. it was already getting hot.  Not my thing.

I wheezed and strained up the stone path that featured steps from three to ten feet wide, fully expecting a knee to buckle at any time.  Out of breath, I made it to the top only to note that Dare, a/k/a the mountain goat, was missing.  A real husband would have started down the steps to search for his wife, but it took me about two seconds to fail that test.  Ten minutes later she arrived, explaining nothing, and all was well.  After we had walked a short distance the guide assembled our group of 30 or so eager tourists and began an endless dissertation on the history of the itinerant Hindu monks, the travails of the carving out of the caves and the theological significance of the multiple gigantic sculptures of the god Shiva in the cave we were to visit.  Because I consider it in bad taste and common to do one’s homework on the sites to be visited in advance, in my ignorance I had expected to see mammoth natural caves a la E. M. Forster so I could determine whether I could make my shouts sound like reverberating Vedic incantations.  The cave we were led to was large enough, and the excavation effort must have been formidable (this isn’t Cappadocia, after all, where the stone is so soft that caves were hollowed out with the equivalent of a teaspoon).  However, after the first story I heard from the guide about how Shiva jumped from mountain top to mountain top, and given the state of my hearing (which is perfect except that I can’t hear consonants), I bailed out of the official presentation and spent the time trying to take legible photographs of the all dark-gray limestone of the cave.  My pouting had essentially, and deservedly, ruined my day.

Our group was allowed to buy the displayed handicrafts on the way down, and so the descent took about half an hour.  Why anyone would buy that stuff is beyond my ken (I buy only worthy goods, namely, Apple products and cameras), but many of the ladies loaded up, and in a few weeks the Christmas stockings of dozens of grandchildren from Australia to Poland will groan and stretch from the day’s loot.

We reversed our steps after more bargaining with vendors at the railhead and took the little train back to the ferry boat.  An hour later we disembarked in the shadow of the majestic Gateway of India.  We walked about a quarter-mile through holiday revelers, balloon salesmen and young people – a colorful and gay assemblage of people of all ages – back to our bus, which in turn returned us safely to the Nautica. By the end of the day, I had stopped pouting.

The Gateway of India, with the Taj Mahal Hotel in the background.

November 2, 2015  Monday   Goa

Goa looked fascinating from the ship.  We decided not to take a ship’s tour but once again to hire a taxi and take our chances.  Debarkations in Indian ports are adventures because each gate is staffed with enough police and soldiers to storm an outlaw Yemeni cave.  The detail on duty may or may not feel that day like inspecting the travel documents of each passenger on the shuttle bus trying to squeeze through the gate.  Once outside we found our man and negotiated a fee of 6,000 Rupees (around $80) for three or four hours of his time and gasoline.  The fellow was pleasant enough, notwithstanding that he was a dead ringer for Yasiel Puig.

Both Dare and I had an immediate reaction to the landscape we were driving through.  It could have been rural Kauai, and we wouldn’t have known the difference.

     We drove a short distance to an imposing but dark and hulking Basilica do Bom Jesus.  The basilica holds the mortal remains of St. Francis Xavier, the patron saint of Goa and a contemporary of Ignatius Loyola.   The basilica was built by the Portuguese and finished in 1605. The Wikipedia article on his site is recommended.

We milled about the entrance with a hundred or so tourists, but we could not enter the main nave because a wedding was in process.  We walked through a side aisle, and peeked into the altar area.  I bought a wooden crucifix in the church store.  The weather was overcast, and so we had to imagine what the dark façade would look like on a sunny day.

Next was the Shree Mangueshi Hindu Temple, brightly colored both inside and outside.  We walked through a large garden to the entrance, where vendors were selling small bouquets.  We understood later that the bouquets were for the ritual offering flowers to the priests or holy men inside.  Each donor would kneel to receive a blessing, as we looked on.

San Cajetan Church was a major highlight of our entire cruise. It is the only domed church in India.  The dome is a miniature model of the dome of St. Peter’s.  The church, which is all white, was built n 1651 and is in the shape of a Greek cross (each transept is of equal length).  The gardens leading to the entrance are well kept. The architectural symmetry of the church gives a feeling of lightness and well-being.  All in all, a wonderful place to visit.

The Se’ Cathedral in Old Goa, built in 1640, is a short distance away.  Large but not particularly notable architecturally, but it shows that Catholic Christianity is thriving in Goa.

The taxi drivers are programmed, or perhaps simply paid, always to stop at a store.  You ask them not to stop, and they will ignore your instructions.  In this case we were introduced to a fine outlet for well-fashioned and expensive souvenirs.  I bit this time, buying a small marble elephant.

 

We next drove almost 20 kilometers to see the capital of Goa, Panjin.  There is a small part of town that features large old houses with veranda, windows with delicate metal grills.  My notes tell what followed: “Rest was a sprawling mess.”

San Cajetan church.  Saint Cajetan is the patron saint of the unemployed.

November 3, 2015   Tuesday   Mangalore

Once again we combined minimal brain power with maximum gambling instinct and hired a taxi at the gate of the port.  First we had to pass the gauntlet of 40 soldiers (there were a few unsmiling females in the ranks) at the port gate.  There was no document inspection.

We had our hearts set on visiting what was billed as a magnificent Jain (sub-specie of Hindu) temple some distance away that was billed as the temple of 1,000 pillars.  How could anyone resist that?  On seating ourselves in the taxi, Dare complained to the driver that she couldn’t fasten her seatbelt.  He responded cheerfully, “That’s OK lady.  This is India.”

We drove the harrowing 40 kilometers (dodging oxcarts, cows, motor scooters and pedestrians) to a small village outside of the town of Karkala and were driven to the entrance of a handsome, what must have been Jain, temple of Moodbidri. The temple was not of a type previously seen.  There were vertical protrusions in relief in the walls that created an enclosure around the temple and that might, in a stretch, be classified as pillars.  Confusingly, there were 200 at most.  We proceeded through the temple which was laid out in a style unlike other (Orthodox?) Hindu temples we had seen.  It was beautiful and intriguing. Small crowds of visitors from a boys’ school were fun to watch as they scrambled through the temple.

     After visiting another Hindu temple, the driver took us through Mangalore, which appeared undistinguished to us, to a famous hilltop Jesuit center overlooking the city.  There we found a complex with a high school and the famous St Aloysius College Chapel.  A Jesuit priest, Antonio Moscheni, SJ (1854-1905), had spent two years covering the chapel with frescoes and wall paintings.  The style is realistic.  The colors are vivid.  One would not compare it with the Sistine Chapel, but the devotion of the artist was obviously deep.

     We had understood a fashionable lady passenger from St. Louis on the Nautica to tell us that she planned to stop for morning tea at the Taj Majal Hotel in central Mangalore, no doubt part of the same chain as its illustrious namesake in Bombay.  We regretted that we had not had the wit to enjoy the morning tea ceremony in Bombay. We resolved not to miss out in Mangalore.  Alas, when we stopped at the hotel, the building looked small and a bit shabby.  A glance told us there was nothing going on.  We were downcast for ten seconds and then asked the driver to take us to the ship.

     The rest of the way through the streets of Mangalore were uninspiring, although other passengers told us later that we missed a topflight market.  All these towns appear to have grown aimlessly, probably within the past decade.

November 4, 2015   Thursday   Cochin

     Sometime in the early 2000’s, when Dare was still leading excursions to China and southeast Asia with Bill Wu, as part of her favorite trip of all, to Sri Lanka, her group visited Cochin, the capital of Kerala province.  They had taken a leisurely boat tour through nearby waterways saturated with flowering trees and quaint houseboats.  It was a highlight of her Asia experiences.  So we signed up for Nautica’s excursion to the “Tranquil Backwaters.”

We started with an hour’s bus ride to the village of Alleppey (or Alappuzha), known without apology as the Venice of the East. The history of the region is replete with coconuts, but I can’t remember why. We recalled that three years ago in Jerusalem, as we entered the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the large concrete staircase outside the main entrance was packed with 40 people from India.  We learned that they were Catholics from Kerala.  Indeed, Catholics make up a sizable portion of the population of Kerala.  As do Communists, who have been in competition for control of the provincial government for more than fifty years.

The float was on a chartered river boat.  We wended our way through the waterways and saw a snake boat, numerous small houses and a number of women busy doing laundry.  We stopped for a leisurely and good buffet lunch at the upscale Lake Palace Resort and then returned by the way we came to the bus and the center of Cochin.

     WE were taken to the Fort Cochin area past attractive colonial buildings and a large St. Francis church that originally held the tomb of Vasco de Gama, who died there in 1524 on his third visit to India.  We proceeded to Vasco de Gama Square to see the Chinese fish nets (see photos, including the one showing Dare on a team that is hoisting a fish net).  Dare bought necklaces for our granddaughters from the street stalls lining the road.  The experience was compromised significantly because the beach adjacent to the fish nets was cluttered with trash.  If someone were to tell me that the entire west coast of India is buried in trash, I would believe it.

     The bus transported us back to the ship.

November 6, 2015   Friday   At sea (could not dock at the Maldives because of bad weather)

November 7, 2015   Saturday   At sea

November 8, 2015   Sunday   Mahe Island, Seychelles

     The Nautica arrived at Mahe Island of the Seychelles group a day earlier than scheduled.  We had missed our scheduled stop at the Maldives.  The captain had determined that the prevailing high swells would render use of the ship’s tenders to land passengers too dangerous.

We docked at Victoria, the capital city of the Seychelles, at noon and soon thereafter boarded our designated tour bus.  Our first impression was that there was considerably more wealth per capita on the island than in India and that the roadways were neat and well paved.

     The first stop was the municipal botanical gardens. With a fair amount of walking in the heat we saw resplendent flowering trees and the awesome tortoises, the oldest of which somewhere on the island is reputed to be about 156 years old.  The garden was well maintained and the flora were bursting with high colors.

     We drove through the central city of Victoria, which was empty because the shops were all closed on Sunday.  We walked by St. Paul’s, the white frame Anglican cathedral for the islands.  We were pleased to hear robust singing of hymns reaching to the street.  Better yet, the voices sounded youthful.  We also walked by the Roman Catholic cathedral.

The bus took us on a 45-minute drive north of Victoria along the scenic seashore to Beau Vallon beach, surely a model for any travel brochure. The white sand stretches far into the distance and the body- temperature shallow water extends at low tide for 200 yards at waist level. We had a drink of soda and the Berjaya Hotel and tarried for almost an hour on the beach, inspecting the semi-nude French tourists in their beach chairs and otherwise shuffling our feet.  I found and bought a deep turquoise tee shirt depicting a big fish and announcing “Seychelles.”

  We drove back to the ship through a hillside residential area with attractive and substantial homes.  When I asked the guide who lives in these houses, she answered “We do.”

November 9, 2015   Monday   Mahe, Seychelles

The morning brought the bad news that the passengers could not land on nearby Praslin Island as scheduled, once again because landing by tender would be too dangerous due to rough seas.

     What to do on an overcast day?  Together with many passengers we walked about a mile to downtown Victoria to browse, shop and perhaps have lunch.  Our first stop was at a specialty island clothing store, Maki, where Dare bought a sheer top.  We made a purchase at a drug store and followed that up with lunch at Pirates Coves Restaurant.  The restaurant was open to the street and was quite lively with foreign tourists, apparently British and French.  We ordered the tropical drink of the day and an under-tenderized small pepper steak.

     Afterwards we walked back to the port and idled away the rest of the day.

November 10, 2015   Tuesday   Mahe, Seychelles

     We were originally scheduled for two days in the Seychelles, but missing the stop in the Maldives led to our spending this third, unplanned day on the main island, Mahe.  We had to find something to do.  The weather was comfortably warm but overcast.

After shifting our weight between our two feet alternately for a minute or so, we agreed with new acquaintances Adrian and Dianne from Sydney, professionals both, to hire a boat to sightsee around the islands in the bay that were visible from Victoria.  That plan was preferred to taking a taxi to the south end of Mahe for lunch at the Kempinski.  We made the wrong choice.  After a brisk half-mile walk we arrived at the small-boat dock, where we were joined by Jacqueline from Lausanne, recently retired and evidently traveling alone.  We embarked on a motor launch that held about eight passengers seated on benches flush against the open sides of the boat.  There was a lot of fellowship and banter of the kind one learns to engage in on a long cruise.  The plan was for a three-hour tour of the islands comprising the Ste. Anne Marine National Park, namely, Sainte Anne, Round Island, Moyenne, Long Island and Cerf Island.

     We putted along, chatting and inspecting the islands and other boats in the area.  A large boat with 30 or 40 passengers pulled aside, and most of those aboard entered the water for snorkeling.  Our boat featured a glass panel beneath our feet.  The fish we had been able to see didn’t merit much interest, and the water was not entirely clear.  Back on the ship later, however, some of those who snorkeled, as could be expected, reported having seen many fish, some large. Furthermore, they professed satisfaction with their outing.

     We put ashore off the beach of Moyenne Island, which is a state park, and had to walk through water a few inches deep populated with rather sharp stones and bits of coral strewn over the bottom.  I found it painful but managed to walk 30 yards to the shore, iPhone in my pocket, without slipping and falling.  The guide had told us we could walk through woods to the top of the visible rise, perhaps a 60-foot elevation, to view a home built by a wealthy resident who had donated the island to the state, but we had been let off in the wrong place, and our ascent was blocked.  We embarked into the bay once more and spent an hour and a half inspecting the islands.  There was almost nothing to hold our attention, but all of us passengers kept up an upbeat chatter.

     We returned to the dock and shopped at tent souvenir stands set up for the tourists.  We boarded the Nautica for our accustomed routine – lunch at 2 p.m. at the Terrace Café in the open on deck 9 at the stern of the ship, followed by reading or editing photographs.  Later came a workout in the fitness center, namely 45 minutes on the stationary bike, some stretching and finally fifteen minutes between the sauna and the steam room.  Dinner was five courses at a “shared table” in the Grand Dining Room with 300 or so travelers seated at 75 tables set with silver and gleaming crystal

November 11, 2015   Wednesday   At sea

November 12, 2015   Thursday   At sea

November 13, 2015   Friday   Mombasa

     Before we left home we convinced ourselves that we could do sightseeing of the African ports on a shoestring by following our usual excursion routine as reported above, namely, by hiring a taxi at the port gate and asking to be taken on a standard tour around the city in question for a fee based on time elapsed.  However, upon extensive inquiry at the Nautica Destinations desk and with our now trusted travel advisor Clair Grayland at Audley in London, and upon review of anecdotal testimony by several past visitors to our upcoming ports, especially to Mombasa, we stood warned to be cautious and take pre-arranged tours.  Accordingly, we caved, and a few days after the ship left Dubai we signed up for ship’s tours of Mombasa, Zanzibar and Maputo.  This day began auspiciously as we boarded a bus for “Mombasa – a Glimpse of the Past.”

     The tour bus took us first to beach area and ten to a large Hindu temple on the edge of the Old Town.  This temple was elaborate and color-drenched.  It had two stories and well executed wall decorations.  Almost everyone removed his or her shoes upon entering the spaces of worship, but my shoes are a chore to put on and take off, so lazily I remained respectfully out of those spaces.

     The group then walked along a long and narrow street through the Old Town, which was marked with shops and a number of customers and vendors.

     At the end of the street we reached the precincts of a large walled structure, the Portuguese fort known counterintuitively as Fort Jesus.  The late 16^th century Portuguese contingents to Africa considered themselves emissaries of Christendom first and of Portugal commercial and military interests second.  The fort is replete with massive walls and artillery emplacements, now complemented by a number of souvenir shops tucked into dark rooms.  The fort still commands a splendid view high above the harbor that covers a vista of about 270 degrees.

Alas, it was unavoidable that a local tour company would end the tour with a long, hot bus ride to a crafts manufacturing and gift shop site, in this case the rather famous Akamba wood carving factory.  We found a large treed area that held a number of long and narrow structures that appeared to be five feet or less high with roofs of corrugated iron sheets.  Craftsmen were working side by side and one after the other within about twenty square feet of space.  The men were either sitting or squatting, most of them striking portions of the trunks of small trees with an adze or carving other branches or odd pieces of wood.  The resulting carvings, mostly figurines of dancers or wild game, were delicate and exquisite, but there seemed to be no reason why the men were working in such cramped and dark spaces other than to re-create the craft-making of long ago.  The sales shop held many worthy objects, but as usual only the ladies of the relentless hard-core shopping brigade bought anything.

November 14, 2015   Saturday   Zanzibar

Finally, after a lifetime of wonder at what this mysterious place with the magical name might be, we landed at Zanzibar.  I saw the Crosby-Hope-Dorothy Lamour “Road”-series comedy movie as a child, and I have been intrigued ever since.  Today’s island city proved not to be exotic, but most of the people on the ship who visited it found Zanzibar interesting and possibly the best of all of the stops on the tour.  I had formed mental pictures long ago of what each of our stops on the cruise would look like.  No place looked in the least as I had imagined it, but no place looked radically different from what one might have expected.  After all, trees, roads, vehicles, high-rises, stucco houses, hole-in-the-wall shops and motorcycles can all be visualized.  It’s the moods, colors, sounds and configurations that differ.

Today’s tour was the Sultan Heritage Tour.  Indeed, the Sultans of its history still dominate the city.  The first stop was the extensive Stonetown market.  The bus parked close by.  We entered as a group following our guide and strolled through the vast arrays of vegetables, meats, flowers, clothing and handicrafts.  The building housing the market had been built by the British colonial government.  As in India it was hard to think of what would exist today if the British hadn’t built the first public buildings.

     The principal site to visit was the place of the slave market that had existed for decades before it was finally abolished in Zanzibar by a decree of the Sultan in 1873. The abolition began with the agitation of David Livingstone, who had written numerous letters to Oxford colleagues and who had in turn pressured the British colonial office to persuade the Sultan after threat of naval bombardment.  We were told that the slaves were assembled from all parts of Africa and sold from Zanzibar eventually elsewhere in Africa and Asia, largely by Omani Arab traders.  Our guide said that all slaves imported into the United States came from West Africa.

     Livingstone instigated the building of a sizeable brick church over the site of the platform from which the slaves were auctioned and where the slaves were chained.  The church became Christ Church, the Anglican Cathedral and seat of the Bishop of Zanzibar.  Nearby is St. Monica’s school, hostel and restaurant.  The bleak stone quarters where the slaves slept before being sold may be viewed under the church as well.  The site depressing but also a symbol of hope.

The bus took us through an upscale part of the city with fine, large homes and hotels directly on the rather narrow road.  This locale would have been fascinating to walk through, but the bus could not park and proceeded to a civic beach area which formed the center of the city called the Fordhani Gardens.  Nearby is a four-story white building located between the Old Fort and the Palace Museum (and former Sultan's Palace), known colloquially as the House of Wonders. It is one of six palaces built by Barghash bin Said, second Sultan of Zanzibar, and it is said to be located on the site of the 17th-century palace of Zanzibari queen Fatuma.  It was the most modern building in East African in its time.  We could not enter the building, which is now a museum, because at long last it is being renovated.  The group did visit the former Sultan’s Palace, which is a smaller and more modest version of the Sultans’ palaces in Istanbul. The public and living quarters may be viewed.  There is a view over the beach and harbor.

     Again we were at the mercy of the local touring company which caused us to take another uncomfortable 45-minute bus ride on a narrow bad road through what had changed from fine sunshine to a storm and pouring rain to another “African village” locale called Kizibani, another Swahili place name.  We were to be subjected to grass huts, handicraft manufacture and the crafts shop.  The ground there had turned to mud.  Everyone stayed on the bus except for three intrepid Belgians who had to see everything. Mercifully they looked around for only ten minutes and returned to the bus with shoes intact but a bit muddy, while the rest of tried not to fume visibly.  The Belgians were within their rights, after all.

November 15, 2015   Sunday   At sea

November 16, 2015   Monday   Nosy Be, Madagascar

     Today’s ship’s tour was entitled “A Glimpse of Nosy Be,” meaning in the local Malagasy language “big island.”  Nosy Be is a small island off the northwest corner of Madagascar, which is the third (or fourth) largest island in the world after Greenland and New Guinea at about 600 miles in length.  Nosy Be is billed as the resort area of Madagascar.

     The first stop was in the town of Hell-Ville, named after a French explorer, Admiral de Hell.  We walked through the downtown market place, a large structure with open sides.  It was colorful.  The counter personnel were extravagantly garbed in bright colors.  The offerings were food and clothing.  The market abounded in delightful small children.

     We next drove to a distillery that produces perfume from the leaves of the Ylangylang tree.  Attractive dancers and a drum greeted out arrival.  The flower-crunching machinery is basic, but the workers are bright, enthusiastic and welcoming. Dare could not readily smell the perfume, but many of the women in our party were delighted with the aromas.  There was a shop selling various perfumes, scarves, handbags and everything, and one could walk on through a nature preserve park area where we saw cute, furry little lemurs and a variety of lizards and iguanas.  Most of the lemurs were a showy light cream color, i.e., white, signifying females.  We saw only one black lemur, a curled up sleeping male who had hidden himself under a tree limb and who probably was in no shape to make a public appearance.  That was understandable given what I surmised to be the high ratio of female lemurs to that one male.

     Once again, what appeared to be the chance to do a good deed, i.e., visit a native habitat and mingle with the residents, turned into a disagreeable experience.  The guide promised a half-hour drive to a splendid beach, but the half-hour exceeded a most uncomfortable full hour.  We arrived at Andilana Beach, which was itself a marvel of broad, white sand stretching away for at least a mile.  The refreshment stand featured a full buffet under a thatched roof, but since we weren’t hungry discretion became the better part of valor.  We ate nothing but confined ourselves to another orange Fanta, a staple of mine all over Europe for years and probably the fifth one on this cruise. 

The downer and extreme irritation came in the form of about ten young barefoot ladies in arm bracelets facing each other in two rows next to the buffet.  They sang, or rather chirped, endlessly in a high pitched Zulu register in a nightmarish repetition of nonsensical ululating sounds that would have shamed any techno venue in Berlin or San Francisco.  All the while the young chorines were beating a droning, non-stop, unchanging, maddening, diabolical rhythm by clanging together what used to be called thundersticks in U.S. ballparks.  I asked the bar personnel if they could stop the noise, but they turned their palms up in helplessness, even as they sympathized with my irritation.  The cacophony went on all the while we were there.

The beach and vistas were extraordinary. At other times when one might be in a better mood the beach was the stuff that dreams are made of.  We were prepared to take a swim, but the guide had announced our stop would be only 15 minutes.  It turned out to be 45, a careless miscalculation that was all too typical of the guides we encountered on the cruise.  But then it was we who were crudely carrying our time-consciousness with us into a timeless paradise.

     The drive back to the ship featured attractive landscapes and evidence of quality development.  The guide with the same abandon evidenced earlier had promised we would be back by 1:30 but delivered us, as though mindless of our schedule, after 2:30 and after the main dining area on the ship had closed.  Not to worry: I devoured another Texas burger in the Waves Grill.

 

November 17, 2015   Tuesday   At sea

November 18, 2015   Wednesday   At sea

November 19, 2015   Thursday   Maputo, Mozambique

     We were met at the foot of the gangway by our pert young lady guide, who spoke excellent English, for a three-hour walking tour of Maputo, the capital of Mozambique.  Mozambique achieved its independence from Portugal in 1975, only to face a 10-year civil war and invasions from pro-colonial forces for many years.  These destroyed the economy.  In 1994 the present, peaceful constitutional government came into power.  Maputo today appears to be a thriving and busy business center with new high-rise buildings, but evidence of horrendous unemployment, said to be 85%, is everywhere, as seen in the countless and aggressive street vendors.  Those in our walking group found the vendors to be quite vexing.  Dare and I had somewhat better luck because of our practice of the rule: make no eye contact.  That’s the only thing they understand as “no.”

     We were supposed to walk through the green and white painted early modern railroad station, which in many quarters had been erroneously attributed to Gustave Eiffel and which featured interesting architectural elements, but our guide merely waved at the structure from 100 yards away.  We also missed an all-steel house built by Eiffel, but other travelers reported that it was a poor, squat, one-story affair that was a hard walk’s distance away.

     We walked through busy streets and the inevitable market-place, ending up at a nice café with tables about three feet above street level.  We were promised a 15-minute stop, but this one morphed into almost an hour without explanation.  In the mean time the members of our tour chatted with one another.  I whispered to the guide that I wanted to indulge one of my weaknesses, in this case shopping for a tee shirt with a local logo, so she walked us all to a sporting goods store.  There several men bought ridiculous multi-colored, logo-rife bicycle racing caps.  I eschewed that as uncool but instead acquired my second soccer jersey of the trip after Zanzibar.  Gross, but handsome. We men were quite pleased with ourselves.

     We toured the local fort built by the Portuguese about 1850. It featured a large statue of a colonial cavalryman in the court yard and two large bronze reliefs showing the subjugation of the locals by the Portuguese.  One subdued chief (I can’t readily find his complicated name, which begins with an “n’”) was stripped of most of his 35 wives.  He was exiled to Portugal with seven wives, who were soon exported to difference European countries.  The old chief ended his days in exile somewhere in Portugal.

     We walked back to the ship, but not before walking along on a street which, looking at the signs, at night featured a number of cabarets and strip clubs, showing that at least in that respect the economy of Mozambique is in good shape.  We might have seen more, but one old gentleman was taking the tour with a cane.  He was exhausted near the end of the tour, and the guide had to walk slowly with him.  He had done a disservice to the rest of us by taking the tour at all after being warned of the considerable distances.  C’est la vie.  We knew that most of the passengers on the cruise would be elderly.  People who are still working don’t take 30-day cruises.

November 20, 2015   Friday   At sea

Today we were scheduled for a landing at Richards Bay, South Africa.  I had called the day before on the ship’s satellite phone to arrange for a mini-safari into the hinterland.  However, the wind and high seas were so bad that the local authorities closed the port and would not permit any landing.  As a result, the Captain of the Nautica, a Ukrainian with a heavy accent who needs work on polishing his image, which is roughly that of a former weight-lifter, announced to the unhappy passengers that the ship would continue to Durban and land about 4 p.m. the next day, almost a day early.  Most of us grumbled silently, but the ship forged on through wind and heavy seas.

November 21, 2015   Saturday   Durban, South Africa

     The Nautica docked about 2 p.m., not 4 p.m. as had been forecast the day before, but it took forever to get off the ship.  Local authorities had expected the passengers to clear immigration in Richards Bay.  Further, the immigration stations lacked the devices that allow the magnetic strips of passports to be swiped, so much information had to by typed in by hand after the officers saw that proper visas had been obtained.  We craftily inserted ourselves out of order into those leaving the ship, but it was nearly five p.m. when we had our visas validated and exited to board a shuttle bus into the city.  At least, that was what was represented.  The weather at noon had been sunny, but by late afternoon it was dark and threatening.  As we were boarding the bus, several fellow passengers had just returned complaining that there was nothing to see; they never even got off the bus.  We boarded the bus with the wind gusting.

     We drove to the part of the Durban waterfront, to a commercial development known as Wilson’s Wharf.  It was forbiddingly separated from high-rise buildings by a broad avenue and railroad tracks.  We decided not to risk crossing, so that was as much downtown Durban as we got.  We walked into a rather drab, small shopping center.  Someone said that at least we would find an ATM inside.  Instead we walked into a plain eatery with a bar and ordered two glasses of red wine.  The wine reminded us of the rough vin ordinaire that everyone except rich tourists drank in France many years ago, the wine that had to be diluted with water to be drinkable.  We paid $3 U.S. per glass.  The wine was stark.  Halfway through our drinks, a middle-aged athletic gentleman in running shoes with a London East End accent leaned across from his bar stool and advised us that the wine would have tasted better mixed with Coca Cola and ice.  We thanked him for that, finished our wine and made our way back to the last two seats on the shuttle bus and back two or three miles or so to the ship.  By then a chilly light rain had begin to fall and it was getting dark.

November 22, 2015   Sunday   Durban, South Africa

     We were down the gangway at 7 a.m. to meet Rob, who was to be our guide by pre-arrangement with Durban Safaris.  We had had the wit and good luck to make this arrangement on the web two or three months before the start of our trip.  It took 20 minutes or so for the lucky eleven who had booked the same tour to assemble and pack ourselves into a Toyota van that had no doubt been manufactured in Durban.  Rob turned out to be a big man, an ex-forest ranger and guide for may years.  He had a South African version of an English accent.  As the morning would show, Rob was also an accomplished naturalist with the Latin names of all of the plants and trees and some of the fauna ready at hand.

     We drove out of town and on to the N-3, a six lane highway that runs from Durban to Johannesburg, and then on to a smaller, well paved two lane road.  We arrived at the Tala Private Game Reserve.  The reserve is about 6,000 hectares in area.  It had been a cattle ranch that a rich man devoted to preserving the environment had purchased, fenced and stocked with animals and birds.  There are resort lodges on the property.  We bounced along the bumpy and slippery mud roads for almost two hours, stopping to photograph nyalas, impala, rhinos, cape buffaloes, beautiful and graceful zebra, sable antelopes, warthogs, red bishop birds and Egyptian geese (named for the marking on their faces.)  We stopped from time to time so that passengers could exchange seats from which to photograph, as getting out of the van for any purpose was forbidden.  We did not see hippopotamus or giraffes.  From time to time we would encounter another vehicle full of tourists, and the drivers would exchange information on what game they had seen last and where.  The games and birds were clearly not in the wild, but their roaming and feeding habits appeared to me not to vary much from game that is not fenced in.

          Half an hour after we left Tala we entered the famous Kwazulu cultural and dance center, just in time for the 11 a.m. performance.  About twenty young members of the Zulu nation (a cultural group and no longer a tribe) were clad in colorful costumes, albeit they were mostly bare.  Deep kettle drums were made to beat loudly and swiftly, and the dances started.  While any such shows, in Fiji for example, are dull and mechanical, this show was fun from the start because the youngsters imparted a funny narrative about a would-be groom chasing a would-be bride.  The dancing was physical and spirited. 

Afterwards the group shopped and were then summoned fifty yards ago to a reptile center.  There we walked past a number of glass cages filled with formidable looking snakes and a large pit and pond that were home to about 25 really ugly crocodiles.  Soon it was crocodile feeding time.  Someone said that crocodiles can eat as infrequently as once a week.  We then witnessed a scene to be forgotten, unless you have a strong constitution – a man throwing whole dead chickens over an eight feet high wire fence into a mass of swarming crocodiles slithering and sliding over one another and snapping their huge jaws over the charred fowl three feet over the water level of the pond. The chickens usually disappeared in one gulp unless possession was disputed, and then they disappeared in one gulp each from two crocodiles.  The scene looked like rebound practice on a basketball court, with 25 guys trying to get the rebound.  The feeding frenzy was over in about five minutes. And not any too soon.

     The final activity-not-for-the-weak-of-digestion was the demonstration with venomous snakes conducted by a young male herpetologist.  We stayed only for the first act.  At the outset a skinny grey cobra was released from a box.  The snake charmer explained that the snake had little energy that morning because the temperature was cool (I was wearing a nylon shell over my tee shirt). He poked at the cobra with a four-foot steel rod bent into a hook at the end, and the cobra obliged by flattening its neck so that it looked like a cobra in the picture books.  Eventually he let anyone who wished feel the snake.  Dare and I stroked the tail of the snake for ten seconds, but our hands were four feet away from its teeth.  That was enough.

     Rob drove is back through pleasant suburbs with shopping centers crowded with weekend shoppers.  Then we drove into the city, past the huge, modernistic soccer stadium that had been built in this soccer-crazy nation for the 2010 World Cup and other sports venues.  We continued along the five kilometer beach and through the so-called Golden Mile, which is lined with luxury hotels and apartments.  Rob took us back to the ship, and everyone was happy.  The morning cost Dare and me $100 each.  All the passengers agreed that it was good value.

     We got back under the wire.  I was able to enjoy another Texas burger in the Tides snack bar.  The stationary bike and treadmill, and later dinner, awaited us.

Shortly after we boarded we received the bad news that the sea swells and the wind was so severe that the Nautica could not leave the port.  The scheduled arrival in Cape Town was pushed back from 4 p.m. on the 23d to 1 a.m. on the 24^th.  We had been looking forward to a dinner-time stroll along the Cape Town waterfront after docking, but those plans were now dashed.  We would be on board until disembarking for good on Tuesday morning.

November 23, 2015   Monday   At sea

November 24, 2015   Tuesday   Cape Town

    We breakfasted for the last time on the open deck of the Terrace Café on the stern of Deck 9, and we said our goodbyes to the few folks to whom we had become moderately attached during the voyage.  The bags had been placed outside our cabin door by 10 p.m. the night before, and we mow had to walk a distance to the pier exit and fetch the bags.  We waited outside for about ten minutes until at a bit past 9 a.m. Our driver and guide for the next three days, Graham Dollman, appeared and escorted us to his spacious Mercedes van.

    It took a while for Graham to find our hotel, but soon we were checking into the upscale, seemingly all-glass Manna Bay boutique hotel situated at the base of Table Mountain in a very comfortable residential area.  We deposited our bags, underwent a brief orientation and made dinner reservations at a restaurant in the main part of the city.  The hotel informed us that, while they specialized in ornate breakfasts and high teas, they did not cook.  We would have dinner out.  However, the hotel would have one of the staff take us to the restaurant and pick us up after dinner.  That sounded swell to us.

    The first order of business on this splendid clear and sunny day was to get to the famed Table Mountain before fog or clouds might enshroud it.  We negotiated a sinuous route ever upwards and parked the van in a tourist space not far from the base of the funicular that was to take us up to the top, situated about 3,500 feet above sea level.  We stood in line for about 45 minutes until it was our turn to take our places in a cable car, each of which (one ascends as the other descends) holds 55 nervous people. 

    The ride up caused a few tummy flutters. Once at the virtually flat, tabletop-like summit we walked for 30 or 40 minutes along the prescribed concrete path which enabled an entire circle of vistas, all of them spectacular, particularly on this clear day.

    We came down and headed for a drive around the center of the city.  Graham showed us the Malay section.  The earliest slaves were brought to Cape Town from the Malay peninsula, and they were settled in this part of town.  We also drove through the new yuppy section, Water’s Edge.  We then drove north along the suburban beaches for a late lunch at a new restaurant on the beach.

    On the way back we stopped in the older center of the city for a fifteen-minute visit to St. George’s Anglican Cathedral, Bishop Desmond Tutu’s church.  We saw the small famous statue of the Black Madonna and reflected a while in that large and imposing place of worship built at the height of the influence and wealth of the British Empire.  The interior is quite beautiful.  Now the church must scramble to raise the funds necessary to repair the roof before another winter sets in.

     Both Dare and I as well as Graham were tired by this time, so we returned to the hotel.  We changed into our bathing attire and sat by the pool until we got up the nerve to go into the chilly water.  Eventually we each did alternately, but we splashed only for a few perfunctory laps before feeling the cold.  (The next morning the manager was surprised we had even tried it.)  That reminded us that summer on the Cape had not yet fully arrived.  After the dip we showered and prepared for dinner.

    A driver took us down the hill to an Italian steak house, Carne, where we ordered prime rib that was aged only eight weeks and was not quite to our taste.  Nonetheless, the restaurant became crowded and jovial, and we enjoyed the experience.  A taxi was dispatched to take us to the hotel and bed.

November 25, 2015   Wednesday   Cape Town

    Today we drove south from the city to what we expected simply to be the most southerly point of Africa.  It’s not that simple.  The Cape of Good Hope is the most southwesterly tip of Africa, but the most southerly point is at Cape Point.

    In any event we sped south on the coast road that lies along the western shore of the peninsula, passing suburbs and beaches, inlets and bays that had us looking every which way and always confused.  It’s a topographical nightmare.  There is even a False Bay, so named because the earliest mariners, when they had rounded a particular protrusion of cliffs, assumed they had left the Atlantic and were finally headed for India, except they weren’t.

    We stopped for excellent cappuccinos at a small private park off the road called the Village Roast and proceeded to our first stop, Cape Point.  Thinking that we had arrived when we had posed for congratulatory photos at a big sign at the parking lot, were soon disabused of that idea by Graham, who pointed skyward to a tall white lighthouse high up on a cliff.  He suggested that we had to go to the top or be American wimps.  We had our choice between the funicular and trekking up.  It didn’t look so far.  Graham insisted that he made it in 12 minutes, but that must have been during his long-distance running days or before his now obstructed hip.  Of course we would walk up.  It took us 25 minutes and considerable breathlessness and a few short rest stops for me.  Dare “the Goat” had no evident difficulties, given her prior training on the steep slopes of Potrero Hill.  At any rate a number of tourists were making the trek, albeit they all looked like husky Germans.  The lighthouse was, well, a lighthouse.  It had been abandoned in 1913 because it was so elevated over the sea that when it became shrouded in fog ships below would wreck on an offshore reef.  A new lighthouse was then constructed on a cliff below.

    The view at the top was rewarding.  It was a clear and sunny day.  Dare and I became separated at the summit and lost each other for ten minutes or so.  I began to fear that he had been taken away by an alien spaceship.  We found each other below at the rest stop and proceeded back to the parking lot.  We then drove about ten minutes to the Cape of Good Hope, which happens to be a rocky pointed cliff upon which waves crash and burst into frothy cascades.  We had to wait until a gang of German motorcycle riders and their dames posed in high spirits for a number of photos behind large signs telling us where were in navigational detail in both English and Afrikaans.  I was beginning to get it - ocean waves were breaking on rocky cliffs.

    We stopped as a small seaside town called Boulders Beach to view, of all things, a horde of indigenous African penguins molting en masse on a couple of narrow beaches about 500 yards from the public parking area.  The penguins were scruffy because of the the season of their year, but they were formal, upright and funny as they stood at attention while the odd human beings got close and took picture after picture.  They were also much smaller than I expected, but that is the norm for the African penguin.

    Dare would not settle for an ice cream cone by two p.m., so we ate spicy hamburgers with chocolate milkshakes at a tiny corner eatery in the tiny town, the three of us at a table about three feet round.  This meal was just OK, like every meal we had in Cape Town except for our hotel breakfasts.  Not gourmet territory.  We drove on, this time along the eastern edge of the peninsula, and passed through a pleasant suburb called Simon’s Town, the main post of the South Africa navy, which is limited to patrolling the shores of the country.

    We were back at the Manna Bay after four, rather tired.  Time to read the day’s e-mail, a lesser hardship given the hotel’s fast wi-fi, a pleasure after a month of slow, satellite wi-fi on the Nautica.  Refreshed by a shower, we were summoned by the management to board a taxi for a downtown area known as Donkey Square.  There we had dinner at Maria’s, a pleasant outdoor Greek restaurant under leafy trees.  We had lamb giouvets (roasted lamb) and a bottle of Attic retsina.  We enjoyed the wine, while noting as two veterans of the real Greece in the old days (the mid-1950’s) that the retsina was pretty watered down contrasted with what it was when Greeks were Greeks and not imitations of Europeans.  Maria’s purported to serve a Turkish pastry known as cadaiff (umlaut over the “i”).  It was a travesty.  Dare passed, but I disgustingly finished my caloric portion.  The waiter summoned a taxi at hotel expense, and we were driven up the hill to retire for the evening.

November 26, 2015   Thursday   Cape Town

    Noting that our flight home would not depart until after six this evening, and not wishing to overburden our driver with tour overload, we opted to spend the morning packing and not be picked up until 11 a.m.  After one more baggage reorganization, we said our farewells to the hotel staff and headed downhill from the magnificent elevation of the Manna Bay to the main part of the city.

    Dare had told Graham that she wanted to see the infamous District 6 area of Cape Town, so we went.  This area, in a prime central location, had once been cleared of native housing by the Apartheid government to establish residences for whites only.  After the mid-1990’s, the area was bulldozed so that the land could be returned to its prior owners.  Only a few prior owners have claimed their parcels and built residences.  Large tracts remain vacant because the persons entitled to the property do not have the means to build on the land.

    We drove on to a freeway and headed toward the wine country.  On the way we passed two or three of formerly notorious townships, the large and intensely crowded shanty areas on flat land populated by black Africans behind wire fences.  Graham explained that the people living there could not afford to move out, although there are no legal restraints keeping them there.  They are waiting for housing built by the government to be built for them.  This in most cases will take years.

    Gradually we entered into relatively open, lightly wooded areas and came to the famous Vergelegen Wine Estate.  The house and grounds are worth googling, as the founding history goes back to early Dutch settlers of 1700.  The ownership by successive families is documented on the premises, and it’s fair to say that their fortunes increased exponentially after leaving England for South Africa.  The trees on the property, including huge camphor trees and large oaks, and the flower gardens are quite beautiful.  After touring the manor house we had a delicious light lunch in the Stables restaurant and tasted a discreet selection of the wines of the Estate in the Wine Tasting Centre.

    Graham drove us through more of the lower wine area, through Stellenbosch, and then to the airport.

    We waited for over three hours before taking off.  Once airborne we were very pleased with the facilities of Emirates Airways.  The seats and leg area in coach were significantly more comfortable than those in other airlines, there was a continuous flow of old movies (we watched “Casablanca” and “Arthur”) and the food was tasty.  We flew eight hours to Dubai, waited about four hours in that airport and enjoyed another 16 hours on the non-stop flight to San Francisco.

    The five-weeks trip held a few uncomfortable moments, but on the whole we were quite pleased with our trip.

THE END

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[1] Hugh was a student at Merton College, Oxford, who had specialized in Roman sculpture.  He was enrolled at the time at the British School of Archaeology in Athens courtesy of a fellowship from Rotary International.  Hugh and I were the two Rotary Fellows in Greece for the academic year 1954-55.

           

[2] Innocent because in those years a white man could of would hardly acknowledge the viewpoint of a colonial subject.