Week 8

After all our sea days, we finally arrived in Walvis Bay, Namibia, Africa. It is my second visit to this lovely part of Africa. I went ashore with friends to the town of Swakopmund which has ties to Germany. When this area developed, they needed women to develop a society and since Germany was oftentimes at war, there were many widows and orphans looking for a new life so much of the architecture and lifestyle here is very European. The area is desert with mountainous sand dunes. Sports are very popular here that include sandboarding – like snowboarding but in the heat and down the sand dunes, 4-wheeling in the dunes and parasailing.

Our next port of call was Luderitz, Namibia. In the past this was very famous for diamond mining. The industry has ceased now as many of the diamonds were mined and the industry was proved to be very hard, inhuman labor used to do the mining so the town is hoping to bring in some tourism to help their economy.

As we made our way south to Cape Town, the CEO of Holland America was on board so there were special events happening around the ship. The highlight was an African Barbeque called a Braai on our Lido Deck (pool area). The crew spent 24 hours transforming the area to make it feel like we were in Africa and they did a fabulous job. It was a really fun evening with African cuisine and free drinks! Many of us donned our African garb and felt right at home in Africa.




This couple with me on Safari Night are Rhiya and Herbert. She works near me in the coffee bar, he is a cook in the Lido. They call me Mom. I really enjoy them.



Next we had a two-day stay in Cape Town, South Africa which gave many people the opportunity to visit the Cape of Good Hope. Sailing around the Cape oftentimes is rough seas and can be dangerous as there are lots of coral reefs but we were fortunate to have smooth sailing and our excellent Captain got us through the area safely & securely. Here there were game drives in park reserves, visits to Table Top mountain, Cape of Good Hope. Another tour offered is to tour Robben Island, where Nelson Mandella was imprisoned for so many years however the seas were to rough for the tours to get to it this time.