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  • Jim and Nancy KleinschmidtWorld CruiseJim and Nancy Kleinschmidt

    At Sea

    11 marca 2015, Bay of Bengal ⋅ ⛅ 27 °C

    We are coming to the realization that we are probably about 20 years too late to see this remarkable Southeast Asia in the way most of us think about it. Globalization for better of worse has equalized peoples and cultures to such a great extent that it is truly hard to tell what country you are really in when you are standing in the main parts of any of these cities. Modern high end brands are found in every mall from New York to Semarang. There is an income inequality that is staggering in some of these areas and makes our problems back home seem fairly manageable. There is not such a different vibe though as I would have expected. People largely wear the same clothes, drive the same cars/motorcycles and eat the same food (if from slightly different sources) in all the places we have been. We are able to get glimpses of some of the old culture but usually it is in the poorer parts of town or the rural areas which is much like it is in the States. The middle class and wealthy live closer to the same life everywhere we go.
    Unfortunately some of the things that make traveling interesting are those differences that are being lost or hidden in a way that the casual traveler has difficultly finding them. It makes it clearer that to really experience a country that we are going to have to spend much more time there then vacations and tours allow to really get to know the differences in how people live and think.
    The great thing about this trip is that it is allowing us to see where we think it would be fun to do that kind of travel in the future.
    We are looking forward to moving into a different area. One thing about moving by slow boat is that you do at least get to see each area very well and Southeast Asia was represented by some very lovely and interesting places. Nancy and I need some non-city time so the next few stops we are traveling to game parks in Sri Lanka and snorkeling islands in the Maldives. Hopefully we won't see a city until Mombassa. :-)     Czytaj więcej

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  • Jim and Nancy KleinschmidtWorld CruiseJim and Nancy Kleinschmidt

    Hambantoto, Sri Lanka

    12 marca 2015, Sri Lanka ⋅ ⛅ 32 °C

    Wild game is certainly different then the city. We took a safari drive through the Yala National Park in Southern Sri Lanka today. The port we are docked at opened a cruise port in 2010 and we are the second ship to visit. You can see that the entire area is being built up for industry and tourism but it just hasn't developed yet. I suspect the area will be quite different 5-10 years from now as they are putting some serious infrastructure into it.
    The Park is pretty rustic but they have a dozen or so safari jeeps that take people around the dirt roads looking for animals and we did find most of them :-) We got a great view of a leopard sitting in a tree just off the road. We didn't get a look this close in a week in Africa. We also saw the Asian elephant and even got a view of a couple monitor lizards mating beside where we were parked to look at something else. I think they thought we were invading their privacy. :-)
    There were also a bunch of water buffalo and a great selection of birds. It was a lot of fun and once we washed the dirt off from the open jeeps and the red dirt roads we were ready to go again.     Czytaj więcej

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  • Jim and Nancy KleinschmidtWorld CruiseJim and Nancy Kleinschmidt

    Colombo, Sri Lanka

    13 marca 2015, Sri Lanka ⋅ ⛅ 30 °C

    Once more off to watch the elephants but this time in a more civilized way. We took the express train to Pinnawala to an elephant rescue park that takes elephants that have been orphaned or acclimatized to human contact and can't take care of themselves in the wild. There are now about 60 elephants in the area. A few still need to be chained at times but most roam pretty freely around the area as you can see from the herd coming down the street by the restaurant we were eating at to use the river for their daily bath.
    We watched the entire herd romp around the river and get their daily socializing done. Some played, some rested and others just would drape their trunk around each other and get close like they were old buddies telling secrets in each others ear.
    We, of course, did the same in a restaurant just above the water with about 100 of the folks on the world cruise that we have gotten to know pretty well after being on the boat with some of them for almost 3 months.
    The train was built in 1980 but recreated one of the old ones used during the WWII when the Commander of the Asian Command was headquartered just north of where we were. Much nicer then traveling by bus. Sri Lanka has come a long way from the days of the Civil War and terrorist bombings every week or so. It was good to see a country come out of something as bad as they went through with the spirit these people have. We wish them well. It is definitely worth a visit again in a few years to see what has happened.     Czytaj więcej

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  • Jim and Nancy KleinschmidtWorld CruiseJim and Nancy Kleinschmidt

    At Sea

    14 marca 2015, Laccadive Sea ⋅ ⛅ 7 °C

    Piracy!!! We are now in the zone that the captain has to worry about pirates from Somalia. He had a talk to everyone and told us that we were going to run dark at night. All curtains closed. Outside lights out. Extra security onboard with lookouts on the jogging track watching for boats. While it is unlikely that we would be boarded he says they have tried in the past to board cruise ships so the threat is not zero. We have to know the signal that means a boarding is being attempted and all go out to the hall away from the windows and doors. We also have the fire hoses hooked up to the pool pump so that we can empty the pool into any boat trying to get to close in a short time. Of course he had to warn us to get out of the pool if the alarm sounds so you don't get left dry. :-)
    I guess that I am relieved that they do take it seriously. We are pretty far south but they have taken boats in the Seychell's which is one of our ports so until we get to Mombosa we will just keep our curtains shut every evening at 6 and jump out of the pool if they start pumping the water out the firehoses. :-)     Czytaj więcej

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  • Jim and Nancy KleinschmidtWorld CruiseJim and Nancy Kleinschmidt

    Male, Maldives

    15 marca 2015, Malediwy ⋅ ⛅ 30 °C

    I can't believe I missed "Pi day" yesterday (3.14.15). I did have pie though so I should be okay with the math gods. :-)
    Today we sailed into the town of Male in the archipelago of the Maldives. A string of hundreds of islands in the Indian Ocean southwest of India. The island is a very interesting one that is not what you might think of an isolated string of islands in the middle of the ocean. The main city of Male is the lowest point in the lowest country in the world and will soon be gone due to sea level change that is accompanying global warming. The island though is chocked full of people. It is the most densely populated city in the world. The island that Male sits on is about a mile square and has about a block of green space and every other foot of the island is taken up by a building. Everything else in the country sits on outlying islands. Some of them manmade to house a population that is growing instead of decreasing as you would expect in a dying country.
    The politics are crazy and the country is becoming more conservative in it's Muslim beliefs. This is really putting some of it's people at odds with it's entire economic structure which is built around the tourists who come and stay on the 91 resorts that are built out over the atolls in the area. They are housed with people who like to drink alcohol and wear little skimpy swimsuits while the country has a prohibition on alcohol and no bikinis are allowed on the beaches. :-) It will be very interesting to see whether religion or the 1 billion dollars of tourism money wins out in this little experiment but I suspect it won't end up well if the little glimpse of the street protests and the military/police that were stationed waiting for the protesters today were any indication.
    The battle will probably be fought out in a city the lucky tourists never even see as their seaplanes or fast boats take them right past the city to the island with the airport on it, which looks much like you would expect an island with an airport should look. :-)
    We did enjoy a ferry ride and walk through across a manmade island to a beach for a bit of light snorkeling which was fun. The manmade island was higher then the other islands so maybe they are making themselves a place to go as the water rises. We didn't make it out to any of the fancy resorts as we couldn't find a boat and they probably didn't want us anyway but we did get a little twinge that it could be fun to come here and stay out on the huts over the water in the middle of the ocean with the glitteratzi but for now we will just plod on to the Seychell's having mixed feelings about this interesting country that is a contradiction in many ways.
    Pictures to follow.     Czytaj więcej

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  • Jim and Nancy KleinschmidtWorld CruiseJim and Nancy Kleinschmidt

    Mahe, Seychelles

    19 marca 2015, Seszele ⋅ ☀️ 30 °C

    Well as much as Male was less then we expected, Mahe was more. We had always thought it would be cool to go to the Seychelles but now we realize why. It is like the Caribbean was 30 years ago or so. Not so developed, beautiful beaches, still some coral, and friendly people that don't mind you being there. We went to one beach that was right out of a postcard and camped up in the palm trees while enjoying swimming in some of the best sand and water we have seen. Snorkeling unfortunately brought the only accident of the trip when Ali stepped on a sea urchin. She had some stinging at first but it subsided and after a stop at the pharmacy and some minor surgery on the beach by Jeff she was good as new and we went to another beach with a great little bar called the "Boat House" for lunch. We saw almost all of the crew but not too many other passengers so we knew we were probably on the best beach since they always seem to know the best places to go. :-)
    The difference in this place and Maldives is that the other is an artificial experience that was all about the resort and the immediate tourist facilities that they had for you. This island had great little guest houses in and around the little villages where you can walk to stores, bars, beaches, etc without worry and actually interact with the local people instead of being kept away from them at their request. All in all we had a great time and will definitely come back here if we can figure out how to get here. The fact that Jeff flies to Tanzania fairly regularly seemed to indicate that we could surely figure out some way to incorporate a longer stay here sometime in the future in relation to some other adventure. It is kind of a hard place to just fly to though but from what we saw today it will definitely be worth it.     Czytaj więcej

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  • Jim and Nancy KleinschmidtWorld CruiseJim and Nancy Kleinschmidt

    Mombasa, Kenya

    22 marca 2015, Kenia ⋅ ⛅ 32 °C

    Big change from the quiet, idyllic beach setting of the Seychelles to the bustling dirty city of Mombasa. We left the boat at 7:30am aboard a Toyota minivan with a poptop heading for the largest game reserve in Kenya, Tsavo East. It was about a 2-3 hour drive from Mombasa on the main highway leading from Mombasa to the inner countries of East Africa and was packed with trucks taking containers from the port. It was narrow with a big drop off on the shoulder so that if one of the trucks actually runs off the road it may very well flip over (We saw one that had done just that on the trip). Of course the driver of the van, and every other driver on the road was passing the slow moving trucks like they were standing still. Often getting back into the lane just inches in front of the truck as a similar sized semi passes. Fortunately the drivers there were fairly tolerant of the chaos and we made it there alive. :-)
    The drive through the park was safer although when we pulled off the road into some bush and the driver told us to look at the lion and we realized he was pointing to the sleeping one under a bush about 20 feet from the jeep we were having second thoughts. :-) Fortunately for us we look too big to eat for the lion and he just seemed more annoyed that we woke him up then dangerous.
    Lunch at the restaurant overlooking a watering hole was pretty special though. The lodge had an underground tunnel that went out to a bunker right at the water hole level so you could be at ground level right under the animals as they come up to drink. We had been watching this <1 week old baby as his mother crawled over the little rock wall that held in the water. He went crazy running around from each of the other females in the herd until he finally sniffed her out and was able to crawl over a short area and get to her. Then after watering for a while she wandered back over the wall and he just couldn't follow her. The last two pictures captured how wonderful and gentle these animals are when Mom very tolerantly came back and reached down and lifted the baby with her trunk.
    We didn't go into the city the next day since we didn't want to spoil our impression of the wild Kenya with the reality of the 40%+ unemployment rate and filth that was the main city of Mombasa. We have not seen a poorer country or worse living conditions then we saw in some of the areas in the outskirts of Mombasa on our travels to date and did not really want to dive head first into it. Ali and Jeff did though the next day and you can read their impression on their blog.     Czytaj więcej

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  • Jim and Nancy KleinschmidtWorld CruiseJim and Nancy Kleinschmidt

    Stone Town, Zanzibar, Tanzania

    24 marca 2015, Tanzania ⋅ ⛅ 28 °C

    What brings up more exotic pictures then the spice markets of Zanzibar? The town is a crazy town of little alleyways that have no rhyme nor reason of how they wind around the town. Alleys just big enough to walk down with shops on each side selling all sorts of items from spices to trinkets to old books. We wandered around the old town to the old site of the biggest slave market in the world that was not shut down until 1873. That was well after our own civil war, which I had always thought stopped the slave trade. Well it seemed like it went on in this area with Oman and other Arab countries for a while longer and Zanzibar was in the middle of it.
    Today the country is probably more likely to be known for the magnificent and high priced resorts along it's east coast then for it's trade but Stone Town is still all about local trade although we did see some tourists in the town we were definitely a novelty in the market as we ducked in to get out of the pouring rain. It didn't take long for the smell to send us back out into the rain as we all felt that getting wet was preferable to the smell of meat, fish and body odor that permeated the market. :-)
    We wandered through a primarily local area on the way back to the port and can say we felt that we got a good feel of the town. It definitely has a flavor that is different then any other country we have been in but it was pretty dirty and in the areas the tourists frequent the locals are pretty pushy about selling "guide services". We actually had to tell a couple to leave. No amount of "no thank you we don't need a guide" would work, but "we are never going to pay you anything" seemed to get the message across. :-)
    The rain drove us back to the boat for lunch and we were completely soaked despite umbrellas so leaving the dirty town for a nice shower and good meal in the restaurant wasn't so bad. :-)     Czytaj więcej

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  • Jim and Nancy KleinschmidtWorld CruiseJim and Nancy Kleinschmidt
    1

    Mamoudzou, Mayotte, Comoros

    26 marca 2015, Majotta ⋅ ☀️ 31 °C

    We are anchored between the cities of Mamoudzou (mam-mood-zoo) and Dzauodzi (dza- ew-zee) on the islands of Grand Terre and Petite Terre (aren't the French creative in their naming) :-) on the island country of Mayotte in the Comoros Islands off the coast of Madagascar in the Mozambique Channel. Now do you know any more then you did before about where we are. :-)
    It is a little island in the Comoros chain that stayed part of France when the rest went independent. The island is actual part of the European Union and has saved itself a lot of the strife that it's sister islands in the Comoros Republic have faced. There has been so much political unrest that the economy is pretty stagnant but this little island seems to have done okay trying to develop a tourism industry to go with it's beautiful beaches and reefs.
    Unfortunately I am not sure that it will ever really take off. The reefs are great but the beaches fairly coarse and the tides make the beach perfect at high tide and almost unusable at low tide. It is a pretty country and I hope it does develop in a controlled way that allows it to bring in some needed foreign currency since they have little economy to depend on otherwise.
    We went snorkeling and boating around the island and saw a school of spinner dolphins that decided to hang around the boat and show off for a while and then hung around a beautiful drop-off on a coral reef and watched the fish until they made us get back on the boat and go to the ship.
    As so many of the little towns around here there was a wonderful spice market close to the port.     Czytaj więcej

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  • Jim and Nancy KleinschmidtWorld CruiseJim and Nancy Kleinschmidt

    Nosy Be, Madegascar

    27 marca 2015, Madagaskar ⋅ ⛅ 31 °C

    Nosy means island and Be means big so this is the biggest of the little islands off the coast of Madagascar. We left the not so appropriately named Hell-Ville and traveled over to one of the smaller islands Nosy Komba to see an animal distinct to the island of Madagascar, the lemur. It is a cool little animal that is very much like the monkey but with soft little hands. The little village on the island has about 2000 people and a few turtles that Nancy managed to find.
    Other then the boat almost breaking down on the way over it was an uneventful day and pretty enjoyable. We are getting where we are enjoying the nature rather then the cities in this part of the world. There is a depressing amount of poverty in some of these countries that is hard to think of an answer to. While tourism is a start it is difficult to see how that is going to sustain the population growth that is going on in these countries/islands.     Czytaj więcej

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  • Jim and Nancy KleinschmidtWorld CruiseJim and Nancy Kleinschmidt

    Mahajanga, Madagascar

    28 marca 2015, Madagaskar ⋅ ⛅ 31 °C

    We had quite the scare last night as one of our 60 year old friends on the cruise decided to have a seizure, chest pain and v-fib requiring defibrillation and CPR. They had some trouble getting IV access and getting him to stop seizing and since his wife was a doctor and she knew us we were asked to come and assist. Little did she know how out of practice we all were but we helped a little with moral support and such and he actually did well enough that he woke up and was stable enough to try to transfer to Johannesburg today.
    It made us very aware of our own mortality and how lucky we are to be able to do what we are doing. The logistics of getting transfer and rescue operations in this part of the world are amazingly hard though and we didn't envy the ships doctor one bit as she negotiated with several parties to try to get the patient off the ship to a facility that could get a CT scan, etc. At one point we were actually talking about having to move to international waters to avoid sovereign airspace since one country wouldn't let another fly at night. That is nothing a doctor needs to deal with when taking care of a sick patient. Fortunately the doc has been doing this for 5 years and was fairly nonplussed by the bureaucracy involved.
    Since he was stable we were able to get into the port of Mahajanga and hopefully later today he will fly out.
    The other interesting thing was that the most important player in this whole thing may have been the insurance company that was paying for the evacuation. They helped more then an insurance company really should but since the government agencies were not so hot it was important that they got involved. We are signing up for some later today. :-)
    The town was not such so interesting although we can say we were in Madagascar. We were pretty tired after all the excitement late at night so took advantage of not much to see by not doing much. We felt like we just got off call and remembered why we retired. :-)     Czytaj więcej

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  • Jim and Nancy KleinschmidtWorld CruiseJim and Nancy Kleinschmidt

    Richards Bay, South Africa

    31 marca 2015, Afryka Południowa ⋅ ☀️ 24 °C

    We arrived in South Africa along the coast of the state of KwaZulu-Natal (or home of the Zulu people) in the little shipping port of Richards Bay. Not much going on in the town but just an hour or so out of town was the Hluhluwe-Omfolokie Game Reserve. A huge game reserve that is almost as old as Yosemite. The drive was great in that we saw some things we have not seen much of. Particularly the white rhino. We saw one initially as we came in the park and were all excited seeing it from several hundred feet away but over the course of the day we saw them walk past our jeep at about 10 feet with their little babies and just look at us like they were about to ram us. It was quite incredible how many and how close they came. We didn't get to see the elephants and lions but we had seen them before and the drive was worth it just for the rhinos. South Africa, for all it's history and problems, is much more modern and developed then some of the places we have been to in the past week. There seems to be some hope for a future that can "raise all boats" as the saying goes. We are taking a tour of a South African township that is given by the township itself when we get into the area around the eastern cape in a couple days. That should be interesting since we have all seen and heard about the townships as they related to violence and uprising against apartheid. Czytaj więcej

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  • Jim and Nancy KleinschmidtWorld CruiseJim and Nancy Kleinschmidt

    Durban, South Africa

    1 kwietnia 2015, Afryka Południowa ⋅ ☀️ 30 °C

    Durban is an urban vacation city for South Africans and foreigners that surprised us all. It had a very beautiful waterfront that followed the beach for several miles housing nice restaurants, pools, skate parks, etc. It was very family friendly and seemed very safe. There were a lot of warnings about the city and where to walk and to make sure you don't take valuables, etc. We certainly didn't feel any of that along the beach area. The biggest danger were the sharks as the authorities only allowed swimming in certain areas that, according to some, were where the shark nets were deployed. Czytaj więcej

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  • Jim and Nancy KleinschmidtWorld CruiseJim and Nancy Kleinschmidt

    East London, South Africa

    2 kwietnia 2015, Afryka Południowa ⋅ ☀️ 22 °C

    We went on a township tour in East London and experienced a very interesting journey through the various living areas of the towns people of East London. We visited a preschool in the shanty town area where there were thousands of homes built of metal roofing material or other packing material along with a few buildings of cinder block or shipping containers. Interestingly enough thought there were some who had made some money and had jobs that had satellite dishes and nice furniture within the confines of the little shanties. The people choosing to continue living there even if they could afford other housing because of the community that they experience in these area. We traveled to schools and other parts of town where the government was being very active at providing housing that was pretty nice. Then around to the previously white areas that were very nice and could be plunked into any American suburb without change and fit right in. Now they were becoming more mixed but were still largely white. This is the one area that just about everyone in South Africa agrees is not going fast enough. I get the feeling though that they are moving along about as fast as we did in the US after the days of Jim Crow and the civil rights movement. I think everyone wants to move a little faster then that and I do wish them to best. The country looks like one that will be fantastic to live in when they get some of this sorted out. Czytaj więcej

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  • Jim and Nancy KleinschmidtWorld CruiseJim and Nancy Kleinschmidt

    Cape Town, South Africa Day #1

    4 kwietnia 2015, Afryka Południowa ⋅ ⛅ 19 °C

    We arrived at Cape Town to fog and a beautiful rainbow that encircled the city in a light mist that lifted as soon as we docked. This was a harbinger of what we would experience in this absolutely beautiful, vibrant town that has now become our favorite stop on this entire cruise.
    If you took Napa Valley, Yosemite, Santa Barbara and Nags Head and put them all surrounding San Francisco then you have what you can experience in Cape Town. It was a truly cosmopolitan city with a tragic but important history of apartheid that has developed into a tolerant, growing city that says a lot about South Africa and the way it came out of the long history of apartheid and is moving forward. That history is very tied up in the history of Nelson Mandela which we learned about on the trip over the Robbin Island where he was incarcerated in the most inhospitable conditions for over 18 of his 27 years in confinement. We took the hop on - hop off bus around the city in the morning and was extremely impressed by the area. Unfortunately the wind was too high to ride the gondola up to the top of Table Mountain. The fog lifted though and we got spectacular views of it all day.     Czytaj więcej

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  • Jim and Nancy KleinschmidtWorld CruiseJim and Nancy Kleinschmidt

    Cape Town, South Africa Day #2

    5 kwietnia 2015, Afryka Południowa ⋅ ☀️ 22 °C

    Day #2 here and we rode the bus around Table Mountain and into the wine country. Here some of the oldest vines in the country were planted and we enjoyed a nice wine tasting and cheese plate (or two) at the Eagle's Nest Vineyard. Later that night we stumbled across a restaurant named Marco's which was a cross between a local hangout with great African music and dancing with a little show for the tourist as seen in there menu with such delicacies as Worms, Warthog, Springboik and Ostrich Carpaccio and the Serengeti Platter. Of course Jeff had to order some and I had a bite of them all to say we did it. We really had a great time and even though we didn't really feel safe walking back through the downtown late at night the city was not any more threatening then any other big city in the world despite the reputation for crime that South Africa has developed.
    By the way, if you ever come here, you don't need to eat the worms. They are not very tasty as you can see from my face. :-)     Czytaj więcej

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  • Jim and Nancy KleinschmidtWorld CruiseJim and Nancy Kleinschmidt

    Cape Town, South Africa Day #3

    8 kwietnia 2015, Afryka Południowa ⋅ 🌙 20 °C

    Day #3. When you realize you can't possibly have all the fun you want to have in a place the natural thing is to just get out of town and see if you can find something else to take your mind off of all you are missing. :-) So it was with the last day of our stay in Cape Town. We took a trip to the Cape of Good Hope (in the background of Nancy's picture below) and while down there we stopped and saw a penguin colony, one of the most beautiful botanical gardens we have ever seen and lovely little coastal towns that dot the coast along the entire Atlantic seaboard until the mountains finally just could not allow any more development. We got home just in time to check out of the country and grab a drink (or three) and watch the captain maneuver us out of the little port.
    It was truly a remarkable experience and before the trip if you would have told me that the one city, more then any other, that I would want to come back to for a longer visit would be Cape Town, South Africa I would have laughed at you. But funny things happen when you travel around the world and you realize that many of your preconceived notions are just plain wrong. It is what makes traveling fun and certainly will make our next visit to Cape Town even more fun. Now we are off to Namibia. Not something I would have ever really thought I would have ever said. :-)     Czytaj więcej

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  • Jim and Nancy KleinschmidtWorld CruiseJim and Nancy Kleinschmidt

    Luderitz, Namibia

    8 kwietnia 2015, Namibia ⋅ ☀️ 25 °C

    Luderitz was quite a surprise. It was a little German town plunked down in the middle of the desert that looked more like a movie set then a town. Built during the diamond rush the town went into decline when the big diamond company moved their headquarters out of the area. Recently it is seeing a little resurgence since one of the diamond mines opened up again and the country is focusing more on tourism. They built the dock are and are constructing a little waterfront that should be nice. Right now though it has a bunch of restored or kept up old German style homes and churches and a small downtown with a few nice local stores. There is not a native tree in the whole area. The homes have there foundations in the rock that makes up the hills around the little bay. The whole town is surrounded by this barren desert. It is quaint but spooky in some ways. I can't even imagine the thinking of the original inhabitants in this area. There was no fresh water supply (they hauled water from Cape Town). There were diamonds though so I guess that was enough for a lot of people. :-) Czytaj więcej

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  • Jim and Nancy KleinschmidtWorld CruiseJim and Nancy Kleinschmidt

    Walvis Bay, Namibia

    9 kwietnia 2015, Namibia ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C

    Wow, what a way to leave Africa. We left the more modern town of Walvis Bay for a little resort town of Swakopmund to the north not really knowing what to expect except that it was supposed to be nice and Angelina Jolie had one of her babies here or something like that so we though it was worth a check out. What a surprise. Tucked into the desert on the coast was this cool little resort town with good shopping, dining, hotels and B&B's and a great beach. Outside of town are some of the biggest sand dunes you have ever seen and then later we went into the desert for one of the Silver Seas "Events" called "Dinner in the Desert". It was magical.
    We drove way out in the desert (seeing a real oasis along the way) until we got to a little canyon with a beautiful view where we had a great dinner with entertainment by the Namibian Youth Choir and some fire dancers/slingers. The night started with a most unusual rainbow just above the canyon walls from a rare rain cloud in this desert during the dry season. I took advantage of the camels that had been brought up from the oasis and took a short camel ride and then the darkness fell and the true majesty of desert fell on all of us as the lights went out and the singers started and the stars could be seen over the canyon walls. It was easily the best night of the trip and left us all with a great impression of Namibia. The raw beauty of the desert is not something we have ever experienced and we look forward to exploring it some more.
    Namibia has only been a country a little over 20 years or so but feels to be well on their way to putting over 25 years of civil war and apartheid behind it. We look forward to coming back on our next trip to the south of Africa.     Czytaj więcej

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  • Jim and Nancy KleinschmidtWorld CruiseJim and Nancy Kleinschmidt

    Jamestown, St. Helena

    13 kwietnia 2015, Święta Helena ⋅ ⛅ 24 °C

    We are now truly in the middle of nowhere. St. Helena Island is a British territory where Napoleon was exiled after he was defeated by the British. He spent his last few years here before his death and now the island has about 3800 people that live there for otherwise no good reason. It is incredibly small and is like going back in time. They have no airport (or not until the one they are building is finished next year). They have no cell phone service although they are going to be putting a tower up soon we are told. The internet is slow and expensive so they have no ATM or credit card use on the island. It is kind of pretty but much of it is just rock with the central part being fairly lush. The port is not protected and it the waves are very high you actually can't land ashore. They get a boat that makes a circuit between Capetown, Ascension Island and St. Helena every three weeks so other then taking one of the 3 or so cruise ships that stop by every year that is the only way to get on the island.
    The people are incredible friendly though and it was a very pleasant place to be. There is an old stairway with 699 steps that goes from the town to an old fort on the hill along the lines of an old funicular. The thing that everyone has to do is try to climb the stairs which Nancy and I did with several stops to rest along the way. We were very proud until we met a 66 year old women at the top who did it everyday as part of her exercise routine. :-) We strolled back down on the winding road that led back to town. There were about 10 cruising boats in the mooring area and we saw some folks around town that looked like they were cruisers so at least they get a few visitors from passing sailboats too.     Czytaj więcej

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  • Jim and Nancy KleinschmidtWorld CruiseJim and Nancy Kleinschmidt

    Georgetown, Ascension Island

    15 kwietnia 2015, Święta Helena ⋅ ☀️ 28 °C

    We spent tax day sailing to an island of 800 people that is about as far away as you can get from anywhere. The folks here are either military, BBC or researchers as the island has no permanent inhabitants. It is basically an airport in the middle of the Atlantic that can be used for such strategic things as a refueling station for the Falklands Islands War back in 1982 and with it's 2 mile runway it was a backup landing strip back with the space shuttle was flying since it could actually take the Shuttle.
    Now it is a bunch of satellite towers and sensors that are probably pulling all the internet traffic that we are using right now into the NSA computers. :-)
    Unfortunately the waves were too high to safely get on land with all the old people we have aboard but the researchers brought some slides and a video onboard which was very informative. Probably better then walking around the little island but I was hoping to get a sighting of the green sea turtle as this was one it's nesting areas and they set up to 300 a night coming up and laying eggs.
    Now for the big slog across the ocean. 6 days at sea ending in the little prison island of Devil's Island off French Guiana. The weather has been good so far so we are expecting bad weather as we just can't be this lucky the entire trip so I will let you know if we start rocking and rolling. :-)     Czytaj więcej

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  • Jim and Nancy KleinschmidtWorld CruiseJim and Nancy Kleinschmidt

    Devil's Island, French Guaina

    22 kwietnia 2015, Gujana Francuska ⋅ ⛅ 10 °C

    We finally made landfall at the little island grouping famous for it's incredible violence and mistreatment of prisoners, Devil's Island. Actually we landed on Isl de Salut which is the main island of a three island group that includes Isl de Diablo or Devil's Island where the political prisoners lived for about 100 years of so before human rights outcry brought the prison to it's close in the 1950's. The island was made famous by the movie Papillon but now is just some ruins standing off the coast of French Guiana that has a few caretakers and daily tour groups. It is very pretty but also very hot and humid which since it was not even summer yet did make the horror of being a prisoner here pretty real.
    The island behind Nancy on the picture is Devil's Island. The little bit of water between the island is off limits because of strong currents and sharks. No wonder people didn't escape often.
    No the island is inhabited predominantly by a couple of species of monkeys and a large rodent type animal called the aguta (or something like that). They were actually pretty cute.
    Really it was just good to be on land after 8 days crossing the Atlantic. The passage was pretty good but did get a little rough the last couple days. We were worried that we might not be able to land here but the ship turned itself between the wind and the tender and the waves were not so bad. No one got hurt here. Last time they were here someone had a compound fracture and multiple people got stitches so the crew were pretty excited everyone got back in one piece.     Czytaj więcej

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  • Jim and Nancy KleinschmidtWorld CruiseJim and Nancy Kleinschmidt
    1

    Bridgetown, Barbados

    24 kwietnia 2015, Barbados ⋅ ⛅ 29 °C

    Now we're talking my kind of cruising. Beautiful islands, white sand beaches, hot sun but cool breeze and my favorite rum distillery. It doesn't get much better then Barbados. We walked around the town which is about the least touristy town in the island chain since Barbados actually has some economy here that is not directly tied to tourism. Then we hired a taxi driver to take us around the island. The Caribbean side is mainly developed by high end resorts although they were hit pretty hard by the recession of 2009 that has not really reversed yet. There is still a lot of construction that is sitting around incomplete so when the economy ever picks up there is lots to finish.
    The Atlantic side, in contrast, is not very developed and very rugged and beautiful. The interior is mainly open and has farm land and some smaller developments but not much. They do have one of the most expensive resorts in the world though in Sandy Lane. At $3000 a night or so you can cavort with celebrities and important people from around the world. Or if you want a little privacy you can get a villa for $25000 a night for just you and your entourage. :-)
    We felt a little underdressed so just ate at a local diner (Tim;s Place, Inc) and then headed for the highlight of the day, the tour of the Mount Gay distillery. Drinking rum straight at 3 in the afternoon is never a smart thing to do but when Nancy kept pouring the rest of her tasting into my glass I was thinking that a swim was needed. So after just a couple more rum punches and a final Mojito for my we walked all the way across the street to a little (only a mile of two) beach and took a great swim in the warm Caribbean. The couple mile walk home did sober us a little but Jeff was kind enough to have a couple bottles of Proscecco ready for us in less then an hour so we could watch the sunset while the newbies on board went through the lifeboat drill. Then followed a huge buffet that stretched around the entire pool and dancing to a steel drum band. By 9pm I was begging for mercy. It could have been the Pina Coloda's too but I am not sure. Needless to say we are on the final home stretch and there is not any fun that is safe for the next 7 days. :-)
    Photos to follow.     Czytaj więcej

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  • Jim and Nancy KleinschmidtWorld CruiseJim and Nancy Kleinschmidt

    Georgetown, Grenada

    25 kwietnia 2015, Grenada ⋅ ⛅ 29 °C

    We stopped in the wonderful little town of Georgetown with the unfortunate distinction of being the site of the invasion of Grenada during the 80's. Pretty much like the rest of the islands now though in that it is very tourism dependent and a little depressed since the recession in 2009. It was very pretty but also very hot. Czytaj więcej

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  • Jim and Nancy KleinschmidtWorld CruiseJim and Nancy Kleinschmidt

    Castries, St. Lucia

    26 kwietnia 2015, Saint Lucia ⋅ ⛅ 29 °C

    We took the final bus tour of our trip today. We went down the west side of the island and saw the "drive in" volcano, some botanical gardens and waterfalls and had lunch at an old plantation. Lots of fun but riding around those hills in a little bus was hair-raising. Better to sleep through it as I did. :-) Czytaj więcej

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