Today I left the ship to meet Tibor. I’ll be off ship for a couple of days. It was surprisingly easy to arrange to be off ship. Before leaving USA I requested permission which was granted. Then a few days before leaving the ship I gave them my off-ship contact information and then I just badged out as normal.
Speaking of badging out…..We have a ‘world card’ which is our key card to get into our room. This key card is also used when we enter or exit the ship. This is how they determine who is on-board and who isn’t so we are unlikely to leave anyone behind. This ‘world card’ is usually all we need off ship. We had to carry our passports in Namibia and South Africa, otherwise our passports remain on-ship with the cruise officers.
I got off the ship shortly after it docked and found Tibor as soon as I exited the immigration booth. We immediately drove to Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden. We got there a few minutes before it opened and as soon as we got in, we headed up to the Protea plants to see if there were any sugarbirds or sunbirds. We did see a few.
After enjoying tea/breakfast at Kirstenbosch, we headed off to Simonsig winery in the Stellenboch area. We opted for the ‘make our own tasting’ and had a flight of sparkling & sweet wine, a flight of lighter reds and a flight of heavier reds. We had a lovely tasting and then spent some time talking with other visitors before heading to our hotel.
On the way back to the hotel, we took a detour and drove to an overlook. I was freaked out to see baboons on the 4 lane highway but Tibor was used to seeing them on the roads.
We stayed at Hotel Verde. It was a very nice hotel but difficult to walk to the airport even tho it’s just ‘across the street’. They had a great shuttle bus service.
