Diane

Today Tibor went on a longer hike to the top of a local mountain and I walked around the lodge. We both had great times. Tibor hiked in the rain and I walked around between rainy periods.

Later in the day, we went out to look for birds in the nearby ponds. We completely forgot about our afternoon 4-wheel drive. Luckily the guide came and found us. The drive ended up going up towards the same mountain Tibor hiked to earlier in the day. It was a very steep road and Tibor figured he could walk faster than the 4-wheel was going. We had our sundowner (drink and snack) at the nearby ridge.

We saw two secretary birds in a tree on the afternoon drive! Very interesting as they are usually in the grass hunting for snakes to eat.

We spent the evening packing since we are heading to Durban tomorrow.

Today we did a 5K. Nope- we went on a 5 kilometer hike up into the hills/mountains in Royal Natal Park. It was wonderful. A bit misty so we never saw the very tops of the mountains but that meant we didn’t overheat. I’d heard it was hot and humid this time of the year and was worried I’d overheat- that didn’t happen.

We did get a few drops of misty rain at various times during the hike but it didn’t start raining until we finished the hike just before our driver picked us up. We had amazing views and the waterfalls/cascades were beautiful after all the rain. They have been having lots or rain recently. It’s rained for 5 days straight. They usually get an afternoon thundershower but it’s raining much of the day.

After a short night, we took an early flight to Durban via Johannesburg. Our guide met us at the Durban airport and drove us six(6) hours to get to our lodge(Montusi Mountain Lodge) in the Drakensberg area. It took a bit longer than usual because of traffic and road construction.

It rained pretty much all the way. It was shocking to see how green everything was and to be in cool weather with rain.

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.

Another day at sea and today the seas were a bit rough and I watched pool water slosh out of the pool.

Jennifer and I were in the Sing Out Loud performance today. It was lots of fun to perform and the group got nice applause.

We are still enjoying the food on board. It’s fun as they have themes some nights. We’ve had Caribbean, South Africa, Taco night and more. Today was Swedish. There are always non-theme entries available.

Today I went to see the wild horses of Namibia. The current theory is that they are the escaped/released horses from the European invasions. They have adapted to the desert environment and can go for 30+ hours without water.

There is a bit of a conflict between the ‘save the horses’ groups and the ‘nature conservancy’ groups because one group thinks the horses are natural and one thinks they are an exotic species. There are only 76 wild horses now.

One really interesting thing about this excursion is that we rode in a bus for an hour and a half to get to the horse area. During that drive, we could see how the landscape changed from rocks to sand dunes to the area where there was enough grass for the horses and oryx to survive.

When we returned from our excursion we had to go thru immigration since we are leaving Namibia tonight. Immigration officers came on board the ship so it was super easy to complete the process. Once you’ve gone thru the process you’re not allowed to leave the ship.

This evening’s show was CH2 which is two guitar players that were trained in the classic style but have a record for fastest strumming. They had a very diverse play list that included Hallelujah, Hotel California, Billie Jean and Canon in D major. It was an amazing performance.

It’s Valentine’s day and I”m off to see more sand dunes in Walvis Bay, Namibia.

Actually I’m heading to the Namib-Naukluft National Park to see more sand dunes, more sandscapes and the very odd Welwitschia plant.

The Welwitschia plant looks half dead, can survive in the desert with hardly any water, can live to be over 1000 years old and has only 2 leaves that split repeatedly. There are female Welwitschia plants and male Welwitschia plants.

Oddity per Wikipedia regarding illegal collecting of the Welwitschia: “Plants in Angola are better protected than those in Namibia, because the relatively high concentration of land mines in Angola keep collectors away.”

There is a lichen here that is black until it rains and then it turns green. There had been rain recently so much of the desert had a green tint.

People are generally very happy when the cruise ships arrive. There is 54% unemployment so any sales or tours that can be made to the cruise ship passengers make a big impact.

We’ve arrived at land(Walvis Bay, Namibia) after 10 days at sea. Everyone was happy to rush off the ship to be on dry, non-moving land. For the last few days on the ship we have had the rockiest water so far.

I celebrated by going on two excursions! One was a birding tour and the other was a drive in a Four-wheel drive vehicle to Sandwich Harbor. Both tours had many participants but they were separated into multiple vehicles. There were only 4 participants in my vehicle on the birding tour and 3 participants in my vehicle for the Sandwich Harbor tour. At least two vehicles stick together in case one gets stuck.

I was hoping for lots and lots of flamingos on the birding tour. There were plenty of flamingos but not the thousands and thousands I was hoping for.

We saw colonies of cape fur seals on the birding tour but the oddity for me was the number of dead young seals on the beach that were not eaten by predators. The young seals die from malnutrition or by being squashed by the big adult males when they are fighting for territory and females.

On the drive to Sandwich Harbor we saw all sorts of fun patterns on the sand dunes. Some of the dark patterns are made from iron that is in the sand. Our guide had a magnet and showed us that it was really iron by moving the magnet under a hand full of the dark ‘sand’ to show that it moved.

The Sandwich Harbor tour included driving up & down the sand dunes. On the drives down the face of the sand dunes, I offered my very exciting front seat view to the others in the vehicle but they declined.

Fun note regarding crossing the ocean- we had 5 time zone changes. Rather than changing 5 hours when we arrived at Namibia, we had 5 one-hour changes during the time at sea. It felt very different than airplane travel where the time changes all at once when you get to your destination.

Today’s fun events were a pedicure and escaping the Escape room.

After the pedicure, I lounged at the Spa Terrace for a bit to let my toes dry out. It is a ‘private’ area with chaise lounges, shady & sunny areas and a hot tub. There are very few passengers here whenever I stop by.

The crew created an Escape Room in the library. Passenger teams signed up to participate. My team had a wonderful time solving the clues to come up with the phrase that would let us ‘escape’ the room.

Today’s carnival was fun. This time I played many more games and got loads of tickets but still didn’t win any of the raffle prizes.

We had such fun at the ‘Around the World’ wine tasting earlier in the cruise, we did it again! They had tubs of wine and we got to taste whichever ones we wanted. I had some very tasty champagne/sparkling wine and sweet wines.

Jennifer and I enjoyed the Oceania Club celebration with drinks and Hors d’œuvres.

We are still 500ish nautical miles from Walvis Bay. Today the swells are about 10-12 feet and we’re still 13000+ feet above the ocean floor.