Opals and Romeos

Today we docked in Dakar which is the capitol of Senegal. We took one of the ship's tours since we weren't sure what to expect safety wise. Surprisingly, the tour bus was pretty modern complete with air conditioning and our local tour guide's English was good. We spent about 4 hours going to some of the highlights of the city. We didn't always stop for photos and the windows of the bus were quite dirty so there aren't that many great photos to share.  Dakar has many modern high rise buildings, well paved roads and a decent highway system yet there is so much poverty. People are set up almost everywhere selling their goods and piles of garbage are all around. On one corner we saw someone selling bed frames and in another area, selling refrigerators.   There are modern cars on the road as well as horses, wagons and goats.      You can see how developed the road system is in the city... We saw a number of small, colorful buses on the roads. T

Today we arrived at Ascension Island - an isolated volcanic island located between Africa and Brazil just south of the equator. The British garrisoned the island in 1815 to prevent a rescue of Napoleon from Saint Helena. During World War II, the UK permitted the US to construct an airfield to support trans-Atlantic flights to Africa and anti-submarine operations in the South Atlantic. In the 1960s the island became an important space tracking station for the US. In 1982, Ascension was an staging area for British forces during the Falklands War.    The island's airport is operated by the US. Its runway was once the longest in the world because it was designed to accommodate the Space Shuttle. NASA tracked the Apollo Moon landings from the island and the European Space Agency monitors rocket launches from here. Hilltops across the island are filled with aerial arrays and satellite dishes but no one is willing to say who is listening or what they're listening to.

Today we're anchored off Jamestown, St. Helena which is a small (10 miles x 6 miles), volcanic island that's part of the British Overseas Territory which includes Ascension (more about that in the next post) and Tristan da Cunha islands.  St. Helena is located approximately 1,100 miles directly west of Luanda, Angola, Africa and about 2,000 miles east of Brazil - basically in the middle of nowhere. Population is 4,500. The island is famous because it's the place of Napoleon Bonaparte's exile and death.  When our ship's Captain came on the PA system the other day, he described these islands and what they had to offer. He ended his comments by hoping that we enjoyed our time on these two rocks in the middle of the ocean! LOL!  We truly enjoyed our time today! We went on a ship tour that took us around most of this scenic island. Again, the pictures cannot convey the landscape's beauty. Jamestown is wedged between two very high peaks. We drove around m