South Africa
9 April 2026
When I opened my balcony curtain this morning, we were already docked at the Nelson Mandela cruise terminal of Durban, South Africa, a city of 600,000. I used to be up before sunup to see the arrivals, but the new has worn off, I guess! Wonderful cool breeze after so many weeks near the equator. We’re now quite near the South Pole.
In Durban, 50% of the people speak English at home and 33% speak Zulu at home. Yes, we are in Zulu Land! One of my favorite movies was Zulu, 1964, with Michael Caine. Very memorable story. I also enjoyed the 1986 historical drama Shaka Zulu, which chronicles the rise of the Zulu king and his conflict with the British. There’s a lot of important history here.
We had a 1-hour bus ride to the Zulu village (a recreation, the Zulus don’t live in huts anymore). We’re in another place where they drive on the left, of course. Linda talked to a woman on the ship who is from Durban, and she warned to not go alone into the city, that it’s dangerous unless you’re on an organized tour. Indeed, driving through the city we noticed a lot of the buildings have barbed wire or electric fencing to keep burglars from climbing in the windows. Lots of litter and graffiti.
The guide on the bus tried to teach us a few words and phrases in Zulu, but it’s one of those languages with “clicks” that are pretty much impossible for non-native speakers to duplicate. Somehow, they make a clicking noise at the same time they pronounce the words. She laughed at our attempts.
Once we got outside the city, everything was very nice. New suburban shopping centers, nice-looking homes in gated subdivisions, beautiful high hills and forests. At the Zulu village, we passed through a nice gift shop, of course, then sat in a thatch-covered amphitheater and watched the native dancing and drum beating for about 45 minutes (David turned off his hearing aids). The tour description warned us that unmarried Zulu women go topless. Apparently, there are no unmarried Zulus at the village we visited, and I thought about asking for my money back.
Next, we moved into a large dining hall where they served whipped cream-covered scones, or something like that, with choice of tea or very good coffee. The Brits were going after the tea like crazy.
Next they took us to the reptile area. They have about 100 crocodiles and American alligators of various sizes. Their largest croc is enormous and the guide said he’s over 100 years old. I looked that up and indeed saltwater and Nile crocodiles can live to 120 years or more in captivity.
They also had glass display cases with almost every poisonous snake on Earth, including a diamond backed rattler from the USA. No copperhead, the Arkansas snake. They also had cobras and both green and black mambas. I also saw the biggest tarantulas I’ve ever seen. I dread my dreams tonight!
Their website is worth a visit: https://phezulusafaripark.co.za/
Zulu Video 1 Zulu Video 2 Zulu Video 3
Zulu Video 4 Zulu Video 5
It’s noticeable to me that, every time we return to the port after a bus tour, and Queen Mary 2 comes into view, I hear at least one person say, “That is a BIG ship.” After months of seeing her, she still impresses!
Now it’s 2 days at sea, headed for Cape Town, South Africa. That shows something of the size of South Africa, taking 2 days to get from one city to another. South Africa is about 3 times the size of California.
10 April 2026
A couple of days late, after our visit to the Zulu village, I decided to watch the 1964 movie Zulu again. It’s probably 40 years since I watched it last. 140 British vs 4000 Zulu warriors. The English Alamo. The movie made a star of Michael Caine, though Stanley Baker was meant to be the star character. Through a miracle called Starlink, and Amazon Prime Video, I was able to watch the movie on my laptop in the Indian Ocean as easily as if I was in my comfortable reclining chair in Pocahontas.
The movie is 60 years old now, and in parts seems corny and the acting too over the top, but it’s still moving, and the scenery, filmed on location here in South Africa, is magnificent. I say “here” because, anytime I want, I can look off the starboard side of the ship and see South Africa just 15 miles away as we sail toward Cape Town.
The scene of the drunken Swedish missionary shouting, “You’re all going to die,” always gets me.
I haven’t mentioned time of day lately, but we’re now in the same time zone as most of Europe, seven hours ahead of Arkansas. So most of the time, it’s the same day here as there, we’re just a few hours ahead.
For most of our voyage, we’ve been traveling west, crossing time zone after time zone. But as soon as we round Cape of Good Hope, the southern tip of Africa, we’ll mostly be headed north toward England, so we won’t be having so many time changes until we make the final crossing of the Atlantic.
12 April 2026
The Cape Town cruise ship terminal is the most run-down, dirty terminal we’ve seen, but once we got away from the shipping port, we found Cape Town to be clean and beautiful. It’s a city of 5 million people, like most of the places we’ve stopped!
The Cunard shuttle bus was delivering people to a huge mall a few miles from the ship. While Linda did laundry on the ship, David and I went to the mall looking for supplies. Like every mall we’ve visited on this trip, the place was packed with people. I don’t know why malls died at home, but they are still the place to be overseas. David was after Ranch dressing (didn’t find it) and I was looking for ibuprofen and acetaminophen for my old man aches and pains. The clerk said they don’t have acetaminophen, but they have a combination capsule containing ibuprofen and paracetamol. I took it, for the ibuprofen. Got back to the ship and looked up paracetamol. It’s another name for acetaminophen! Wait until you see the photo of how I bought the over-the-counter pain meds!
We were looking for Ranch because the only salad dressing on the ship is a sweet vinaigrette, which is OK, but David and I both prefer Ranch. So we returned to the ship with 3 bottles, at the equivalent of $2.35 per bottle, a creamy Caesar, a creamy mixed herb, and a blue cheese dressing. We’ll see…
By then it was lunch time, so we, of course, found a hamburger place. I think David could eat a hamburger for every meal of the day. We found a “Wimpy,” a burger chain founded in the USA in 1934, named for the hamburger-loving character Wimpy in the Popeye comics. The last Wimpy restaurant closed in the US in 1977. They’re still active in South Africa, which is now the company headquarters. They have 453 locations here, plus a few in the UK.
We both got the deluxe cheeseburger, fries, and a Coke and the cost came to $5.12 each! The same meal at fast food place at home would be more than double that.
This evening we’re doing an “African Drumming and Dinner” excursion. David’s not a drumming fan, so Linda hasn’t told him. Need to know basis only. He can always switch off his hearing aids and enjoy the views. I’ll report on that tomorrow.
Just Arrived Cape Town Video
For a fun evening, 2 Cunard buses carried a group of us to Gold Restaurant, a local African cuisine and drumming place (see their web link below). Our group joined about 400 other people for an evening of African drums and food. Each person at the restaurant was given a drum to beat (I’ll attach a photo of one of the drums) and the guy on the stage taught the whole group the different rhythms he wanted us to play. The drumming lessons went on for about 30 minutes, and it sounded good and was fun.
For the meal, they brought us about 10 different dishes to try, including a great salad. I liked about 8 of the ten, especially the spicy Mozambique chicken wings. Linda was not so sure about liking some of them. David WAS sure. I don’t think he liked any of them. Poor David. But he took lots of photos, so I guess he enjoyed himself. Here’s the link to the restaurant website. Great place! https://goldrestaurant.co.za/
David Enjoying the Drumming Video
AFRICAN CULTURE RESTAURANT VIDEO
13 April 2026
Today the bus took us south of Cape Town to a beach that’s home to Africa’s only penguins. Our guide on the bus pointed out the hospital where, in 1967, Dr. Christiaan Barnard performed the world’s first human-to-human heart transplant. Everybody in the world knew Dr. Barnard’s name for a while.
When we got to the penguin sanctuary on Cape of Good Hope, there were hundreds of them bobbing around in the water just off shore, and about a hundred on the beach, many lying over their eggs. Our guide said there used to be a lot more of them, but over-fishing by humans has reduced the supply of the fish the penguins eat, so they’re slowly disappearing.
Penguins Video
Next they drove us to a quaint seaside community called Kalk Bay. Kalk is the Dutch word for lime, and the town is named such because they used to burn seashells there to create lime. It’s not really a touristy place, but we walked the main street and saw lots of coffee shops and restaurants. We stopped in one for cappuccinos and mochas. Delicious!
The place we stopped had a bar open to the sidewalk, with stools on the sidewalk, as well as little shelves by the street where customers can stand and sip their drink. I wish we could have places like that at home, but no. Can’t allow anything new and different in Pocahontas. :-(
Bitung, Indonesia, and Cape Town are the only places where 100 people came to the dock to see us leave and wave goodbye. I made a video I’ll post when there were about 30 people standing ashore to see us leave. By the time we left the dock it was more like 100.
As We Left Cape Town Video
