February 2 was a busier than usual day at the desk.  There was business to do.  My care-giver passenger came to settle in cash for the burner phone purchase that had gone on my credit card, along with lunch and a pair of sandals.  She bought a couple of my art cards from me.  So did a couple of other people.  They appreciate my buying extra when I find good stuff that they couldn’t get to.  I had a very pleasant tea in the WC lounge and a fun dinner with a couple who had gone to McGill. They were from Scotland.  We had a British couple and one who had lived in South Africa for 20 years.  They had reservations about the speaker everyone was raving about.  She was a white South African, who had been Nelson Mandela’s closest aid or 19 years.  They found her incredibly naïve, and they should know.  They have kids her age, who, mind you, might have had a more liberal upbringing, as they weren’t Afrikaans.  It was a gala night and a production show, and it was very good. 

That was followed by a very uneventful day.  No one came to the desk, and I got a lot of writing and publishing done and a bit of travel work.  I went up to the Commodore Club at 7:15 for Friends of HelenM and found I didn’t have any, but it was a more interesting venue, at least.  I had a table full of Aussies for dinner and they were a lot of fun.  The main stage entertainer was Berni Flint and he was amusing enough. 

In Durban, South Africa on the 4th, I was up at 5:45am again. This time it was for a monkey tour, which turned out to be disappointing. QM2 was making her maiden call to the new Nelson Mandela Cruise Terminal in Zululand. A lot has changed since his time. The whites have all moved to the suburbs and all the various racial designations go to everything. Durban is the third largest city in South Africa. It has a new stadium which can be seen from afar and looks like a fruit basket. It’s fitting. It’s a lot more fertile here than on the other side of Africa.

It was a little over an hour’s drive to the Monkey park.  We passed a Casino on a hill, built to look like a Zulu homestead.  That means it was pretty much a dome.  In a real Zulu homestead, the animals are sheltered from predators in the middle, while the people sleep around them and protect them.  A Zulu man may marry as many wives as he can afford and each one costs a minimum of eleven cows.  It does not work the other way around.  This would not work for me.  Another interesting factoid is that Durban has the largest Indian population outside of India.  They make up 28% of all Durbanites.

The Monkey Park itself was a disappointment.  I was hoping for the hilarious interactions of monkey families, like we saw on safari in 2001, but these guys weren’t families.  They had been rescued from all over the world and were just individuals.  Except for the ring-tailed lemurs, who are an endangered species, they had been sterilized for the privilege of living here.  They were cute but they weren’t even as interesting as the ones you find in Central Park Zoo. 

We were due back at the terminal by 12:30pm.  I texted my care-giver friend from the bus and she was there using the WiFi, so it was easy to meet up.  We all had to be through customs in the terminal by 4pm and that included her charge, whom she would have to fetch from her stateroom and bring down.  We needed to be back by three, so we had no time to waste.  We got an Uber to Victoria Market and got right to it.  What I wanted was a bunch of Zulu beaded jewelry.  I had lost most of what I purchased in 2014, when I sold it in a silent auction to my people, and gave the proceeds to the ship’s charity.  I did that because the Captain had canceled the rest of our African ports that year due to an ebola outbreak and the people were mad that they didn’t get presents for their friends.  Then we missed Durban last year and found out the rest of the African ports didn’t have nearly as good shopping as Durban.  This year I bargained hard and loaded up. 

I think I could have done a little better, but we really had to get back to the ship and that customs deadline.  It took us longer than we thought, too, because there is no public WiFi in the Victoria Market and I couldn’t get an Uber.  We went back to where we had made most of our purchases to try to get on their WiFi and did better than that.  There was a tour guide there with three ladies, two French, one Italian.  His charges were going to be there for at least a half-hour, maybe more, so he asked them if they would mind if he just ran us quickly back to the ship.  I felt safe because he was wearing the very distinctive badge issued to all accredited South Africa tour guides.  He didn’t ask for money so he ended up doing better.  Between us we kicked in the equivalent of about $10.  It was our most expensive ride in South Africa, but well worth it.  We were back before three and all went very smoothly.  The captain had to call out three names around five o’clock but none of them were ours. 

I donned my biggest Zulu necklace and wore it to sail away.  The culture is different on Cunard.  They neither announce, nor promise a sail away party, but if you know where to go, there is one.  The World Cruise consultant had told me he suspected it was on Deck 8, aft.  You have to go through the lobby of The Verandah, which is the equivalent of the Pinnacle Grill on HAL.   I had an early dinner because I was pretty tired, after having got up at what I consider to be the middle of the night, and went to the early show.  On Holland America, everyone wears their best market find to sail away and we all look for the stuff and make appreciative comments.  This sail away was fun. Laurie and Yoseph were rocking the deck, but I had on the only piece of Zulu jewelry there.  It did get its appreciative comments, though.  You couldn’t miss it. 

Then it was an early dinner and a diva, Lisa-Marie Holmes.  I like divas. 

On Monday, February 5, we were back at sea and it was good thing.  I had plenty to do, organizing things to do on shore in Australian and Hong Kong.  I had bought about twenty Zulu necklaces in Durban, and was going to sell them off at cost to my people who had not been able to get to the market for various reasons, like ships shore excursions or mobility issues.  The first buyer picked the all black one, of all things.  The next picked the all red one.  There’s a pattern here.  I had thought I was going to get to keep those.  The only good thing about going back the way we came is that I’ll get to go back to the market and replace them. 

I found out we would be docked at the Rocks in Sydney, which is great, and at the Kai Tak Cruise Terminal in Hong Kong, which isn’t.  I got Newsletter 7 out to remind everyone we had a dinner tomorrow and about lunch at the Royal Perth Yacht Club.

My dinner partners shared a brilliant Cape Town driver-guide with me.  My wheelchair bound person and her caregiver need a car to go out in.  My dinner partners, a retired teacher and nurse, live in a trailer in Australia.  You meet everyone on a world cruise. 

Still at sea, on February 6, I took a picture of the ship’s floral arrangement which is now a peacock.  I like him.:

I researched what was on at the Sydney Opera House and it’s a bunch of hit arias strung together.  I am not going to a lot of work to do an outing based on that.  We get it a couple of times a week on board.

A little more Sydney research and a tip from Helen Pakchung, led me to choose the Museum of Contemporary Art for an outing in Sydney.  They have a highly rated restaurant and free tours, and, best of all, it’s an easy walk from the ship.  Speaking of Helen, we’ll be having dinner at Café Sydney, also great food and great views.  We overnight in Sydney, docked right downtown. 

I did some homework on passengers who would be embarking in Sydney, or not.  Then I tried to find the Indian stores in Mauritius that I had been told about.  The kind of thing I am looking for is not on the Internet, I am afraid.  A good central market should do me, though.  The population of Mauritius is 60-70% Indian.  What was Durban bragging about?

There were 5 of us for dinner at Coriander.  A lot of people are under the weather.  We have both respiratory and gastro-intestinal stuff going around.  They have put away all the puzzles and board games and are sanitizing like mad. 

February 7, was another sea day.  My contact  called to say there would be no Officer-Hosted dinners for a while.  I booked Dim Sum in Sydney at The Eight, which is a new restaurant, supposed to be a higher end one, by the Zilver Group.  I have loved Zilver in the past.  They had about the best Dim Sum you could get outside of Hong Kong. 

I met some of my people for cocktails and had dinner with some of the same people as before.  Three of us went on to listen to Aileen and Stix in The Golden Lion. 

Finally on Thursday, February 8, 2024, we docked in Le Port, Reunion.  There was a lot of pent-up shopping in me, and the two white kurti tops I brought with me are being held together by my efforts at camouflage embroidery.  I went into every clothing store in St. Gilles les Bains.  Luckily, I am smart enough to buy at the first store, if it has what I want.  Not that I really wanted a white embroidered blouse for 79 euros, but I was desperate.  And everything else I found was either even more expensive or not cotton and cotton is not negotiable with me.  It’s a nice little top and I had a nice little lunch at Quimper, a crèperie, Bretonne.  I pigged both a savory crepe of andouille, potato and caramelized onions AND a sweet crepe, strawberries, ice cream crème Chantilly and caramel.  I washed that lot down with a cold local beer. 

It was very hot.  A lot of the people walking by were wearing the clothes I had just seen in the shops.  I am guessing French tourists.  Most of the shops had closed for the afternoon, so I went back to the ship, after lunch.   I had dinner with a couple who live in Australia now, but had spent 1968-72 in Montreal, living on Nun’s Island.  They had some good times.  I finished off the evening with jazz in the Chart Room.

We had two port days in a row.  Next day we were docked in Port Louis, Mauritius.  By this time, I was really on a mission for white kurtis.  I bound my left ankle so I could walk farther and set off for the local market.  Not very many people from the ship did.  There was a big commercial shopping plaza near the pier, and, if you weren’t on a tour, you weren’t likely to get past that.  To do so required going down some stairs into a tunnel to get under the main highway, you see.  People are not adventurous.  They can miss the best stuff. 

I didn’t.  I found the market and came back with five kurtis of varying quality and price, the cheapest being around $15 and the best being about $40.  One of the cheapest ones wouldn’t make it through its first wash and, at $7.50, it’s not even going to get one.  One does end up with the odd second in a market.  I failed to inspect carefully enough.  I also bought six pairs of colorful cotton pants, to wear with the kurtis, and a couple of presents. 

I came back under the street to the tourist market and walked right into a lion dance:

Which gave me a taste for Chinese food, which I had in a waterfront restaurant overlooking the ship.  That’s what I call a good shore excursion.  It was a nice sail-away, too.  I hung out with one of my people for a bit and decided to try the little pizza and pasta place at the far end of the buffet.  It was a very pleasant surprise.  They serve you and cook your pizza to order.  It was even a reasonable pizza and all I needed, after having had lunch.