We were scheduled to sail out of Cape Town at 6:00 on Friday. However, gale-force winds kept us tied up for 11 hours. We spent, of course, the evening eating and drinking. The after-dinner entertainer tried to get a singing competition going among the Americans, Brits, and Canadians. Not many Canadians, so I tried very hard. He told me I was the loudest Canadian he had ever heard. I don't think that was a compliment.
PORT ELIZABETH: Although we were very late leaving Cape Town the Captain stoked the engines and we docked on schedule early Sunday morning. Port Elizabeth is an unattractive industrial city and basically manufactures cars. Ford, GM, Volkswagon, and some Chinese truck factory all have plants here.
After being met on the pier by our guide we drove quickly through Port Elizabeth on our way to the Addo National Park. Here we spent the day driving through the park looking for animals. Although we didn't see any lions there were many others to see up close. These included warthogs, kudus (a type of antelope), hartebeeste, zebras, monkeys, ostrich, and many herds of elephants. While in the park you are not allowed to get out of your vehicle. One guide told us about a Chinese couple who were found after having been slain by lions. On the man's camera the last picture showed his wife stroking a sleeping lioness.
EAST LONDON: Another industrial city based on automobile manufacturing (Mercedes). However, East London has an almost all Black population. The downtown core looks reasonably prosperous, even though the unemployment rate approaches 30%. However, just outside the city is a huge township (shacks without indoor plumbing).
We visited the Mpongo Game Preserve and drove around in open jeeps. Saw lots of animals including giraffe, impala, gnu, hippo, plus ones we had seen the day before. However, the lions had been sectioned off from the other animals, so we looked at them in a fenced enclosure.
DURBAN: Our day in Durban was spent on a tour of the city and the surrounding area. Durban is a quite attractive city of 3.5 million. Again, there is car manufacturing, this time Toyota. The city centre appears to be reasonably prosperous despite the fact the the unemployment rate hovers near 30 per cent. A second social issue is the HIV rate of in excess of 60 %. Durban is in the area called Zululand and during the entire day we did not see a white face, excluding our travelling companions. The area outside the city is called the Valley of 1000 hills and is spectacularly beautiful. Needlesstosay the wealthy live in this area.
HLUHLUWE IMFOLOZI GAME RESERVE: Our last port of call in South Africa was Richard's Bay. However, we didn't really get to see the city as we were hell bent on proceeding to South Africa's Oldest Game Reserve. In fact, we met our fellow travellers at 5:45 a.m. in order to start the venture. The ship kindly allowed us to have room service breakfasts before the normal starting time.
This game preserve is very large and contains many different species, many that we had seen in previous places. However, this time we saw many white rhinos quite close up. The white rhino was almost extinct a few years ago but has come back primarly through the efforts of Gary Player's brother (if you don't know who Gary Player is then shame on you). Incidentally the white rhino is not white in color. The name comes from a language misunderstanding between the Dutch and the English and it really means wide rhino (referring to the mouth).
Basically we spent the day riding through the park on open jeeps, with a stop for a wonderful picnic lunch served with "champagne", beer, red and white wine.
MOZAMBIQUE: Today (Jan. 12) we docked at the Maputo. Maputo is a large bustling city still recovering a bit from the civil war that ended in 1992. There is a lot of construction going on and many of the buildings are architecturally magnificent. We took a shuttle to the city centre and did a little shopping before we could no longer abide the very aggressive street vendors. Betty did buy a little folk art in order to use up our South African rands.
We had been warned repeatedly about pick pockets and the possibility of other street crimes. However, we made it back safely after viewing the beautiful train station (mistakeningly attributed to Eiffel). However, one guy on the cruise told me that he lost his money, which he had been carrying in a zippered front pocket of his pants.
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