Mauritius / Thu Feb 28

Mauritius is an island in the western Indian Ocean heavily influenced by Asian customs. We're docked in Port Louis which is the capital city.

We went on a full day private tour with Karin and Joe - a couple we met on the ship. Our first stop was to a place that had a good view of the city and some of the beautiful landscapes.

From here we went to see the Hindu temple in Grand Bassin. The island is 52% Hindu and today was the start of Maha Shivaratri - a major Hindu festival. It's the largest Hindu pilgrimage outside of India. Over 250,000 devotees make the journey to the temple Ganga Talao. Some walk for 3 to 4 days to get there often pushing or carrying kanwars or chariots. Tents that provide shelter are set up along the way.

Then we arrived in the temple area. People were making offerings and there was lots of burning incense.

Next stop was to Black River Gorges National Park to see the Chamarel waterfall.

During the road trip we spotted a family of monkeys gathering food by the side of the road.

We then went to another area of the park for more views of the beautiful landscape. There were monkeys there and it was fun to watch them play and eat.

Next stop was to see the Seven Color Earths. It's a small area of sand dunes made up of seven colors - red, brown, violet, green, blue, purple and yellow. It's a unique volcanic geological phenomenon in which the colors evolved through conversion of basaltic lava to clay minerals.

Next to the 7 color earths there are 6 tortoises. The original settlers of the island over consumed the native tortoises so some were brought in from the Seychelles. They can live to be over 150 years old.

We stopped for lunch at a local restaurant.

Then one more stop to view the scenery before we ended our day.

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Dakar, Senegal / Wed Mar 27

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

Busselton / Tue Feb 19

We tendered in Busselton, Australia today. Busselton is best known for the the Busselton Jetty which was built in 1865. It's more than a mile long and is the longest timber piled jetty in the southern hemisphere. At the end of the jetty is an underwater observatory. You can get to it by walking the length of the jetty or by taking the Jetty Train which looks like a Victorian locomotive but is powered by solar panels. We spent the day in Busselton with two other couples. We sat on the beach for a couple of hours then walked into town to explore. We met Walter who was quite the character. After that we had a snack at a local restaurant then took the train to the end of the jetty and toured the underwater observatory before walking back to the tender. Fun day!

Parting Thoughts and More ...

It didn’t take too long to re-enter our normal lives. Although I did miss having our linens changed daily, Larry was delighted to get back home so he could eat dinner wearing shorts (not long pants) ... which he couldn’t do on the ship. Because I get sea (and motion) sick I used the scopalomine patch on this cruise. Usually Bonine is enough but the cruise started in rough waters (crossing to Hawaii from LA) so I decided to use the patch. It worked really, really well with no side effects so I continued using it. When it was prescribed (by two different doctors) I asked each if using it for almost 3 months would be an issue and both said 'no.' Well, I should have done more research as it turns out you can get addicted and experience withdrawal .... and I did. I wasn't able to get off it until the 3rd time I tried and even then it took about 3 weeks to be free of all symptoms. After going online to find out how to withdraw, I saw that some people have much more trouble t

Opals and Romeos

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