Live from the Wind - From the Amazon to Africa

[LocoLoco1]

Fletcher, Mesmerize your companions with this Factoid. The Saharan dust you’re inhaling provides a vital nutrient for the Amazon..phosphorus. Most of it arrives from one windblown spot in Chad. Enjoy the moment. 

[Fletcher]

18 - Smuts, soggy bottom with goose

I’m sorry.  I have been neglecting you.  Last Sunday we pulled out of Dakar, having lost many passengers and having gained a few more than we lost.  We now have something less than 170 souls aboard.  The Wind doesn’t feel crowded at all.  It does feel as old as many of us who sail in her.

 

Our favourite perch is the open back deck, behind the Panorama Lounge. Dakar was a dusty place, that’s for sure, but the Wind started to throw out sooty smutty things from its chimneys which covered the blue seating.  It was largely invisible and you don’t expect it from a ‘five star luxury line’ but when we got up we noticed our shorts and shirts had these black marks.  Our butler got them laundered and we got them dirty all over again.  Mrs Fletcher pointed this out to the Hotel Director and now, after some nudging, the upholstery is being properly cleaned.  Leaving fewer places to sit.

 

And this isn’t all.  They power-jet everything at the moment so if you are not alert when you arrive at the outside terrace for breakfast you sit down in your smutty shorts and get them soaking wet.  No one wants a soggy bottom.  Mrs Fletcher suggested that they move the chairs before doing the power-jet thing.  They looked amazed that anyone could think of that.

 

I would be the first to slag off the food on this ship.  The other night the Restaurant equalled their earlier lobster disaster with a turbot disaster.  You sort of give up the will to live, or at least the will to eat, and then a minor miracle happens.  Yesterday we showed up at La Terrazza for lunch and they offered us a white wine from Austria.   The special of the day was roast goose.  Roast goose!  No one had yet asked for any so I was the first.  Now, goose is a tricky thing to cook and also a tricky thing to carve correctly.  I had to show them how to do it.  So I got a complete leg and a slice of breast.  It was utterly superb, crispy skinned, richly goosey in flavour.  I said to a waiter that the classic accompaniment was apple sauce and, blow me, he went and fetched some for me.  I might have said I wanted red cabbage and dumplings too, but I didn’t push my luck.  The Austrian wine washed it down a treat.

 

Oh yes, I nearly forgot, we are in the Cape Verde Islands, now officially known as Cabo Verde.  Yesterday was Fogo Island and today we are at Boa Vista.  Everyone is off dune bashing, wine tasting and so on.  I am in the Panorama Lounge writing this blog.  Indoors of course.  Cabo Verde seems awfully tame compared to our time in Africa.     

 

[LocoLoco1]

Scouring stack soot: Back in the day accumulated boiler soot in the exhaust stack was scoured out by tossing a coupla scoops of dry sand into a trapdoor near the boiler. Not the time to wear White. Ah, yes..bracing Sea aire. 

[UKCruiseJeff]

Fletch,

 

I so loved your post.  

 

To expect inevitable daily disappointings  but to be completely blindsided by the unexpected positive surprise is  like banging your head against the wall and then enjoying the experience of stopping. 

 

To truly experience the full “Austrians” your Gruner Veltliner must be in a mug. A big mug.  And it must be bottomless. A bit like ‘er indoors. 

 

Your description of your meal today is the first time for a long while I have read of an SS meal and wished I’d tied the napkin around my neck and been at the table.  Knife and fork akimbo. 

 

Did you by any chance left a morsel for us two?

 

Jeff

 

[Fletcher]

19 - Cabo Verde

Last night we pulled away from our fourth and last island in Cabo Verde, formerly known as the Cape Verde Islands.  Unless you stayed on the ship, this has been an exciting and a rather exhausting section of this cruise.  Every day we have gone ashore in the zodiacs in rather choppy conditions to land at a pier or jetty.  People have got wet on these dry landings.  And when, at last night’s briefing, expedition leader Lea announced there would be no further zodiac outings a few people applauded.  Some aboard are refugees from cancelled classic cruises and have not encountered zodiacs before or, for that matter, birdmen like Malcolm and ophiologists like Greg.

 

Silversea usually offered a choice of four tours on each of the islands we visited - bus trips and hikes.  The tours have always overrun and there has been a bit too much hanging around in the heat. Some of the hikes have, apparently, been rather more strenuous than advertised.  One man was defeated by one of these hikes and they considered bringing him down by mule.  I’m sometimes shocked by how physically old and incapacitated some people are going out on these trips - it puts a lot of pressure on expedition team members and also inconveniences their fellow hikers.  I’m not sure about the official policy here - at what point is a passenger told, no, you are not fit enough to do this, go the pool bar instead.

 

On Sao Nicolau we learned about a local singer called Cesaria Evora and a style of music called Morne.   We visited her home, now a museum, in a hill village called Praia Blanca.  On the drive back I asked our guide if he could put some of her music on the minivan’s system.  This took about ten minutes to achieve - he used his phone to search the internet, then the driver’s phone, finally a memory stick thingie was found and that had to plugged into someone’s phone and on it went until we had the music up and running and very pleasant it was too, a bit like Vila Lobos.  But oh for the days when you just shoved a cassette into a slot.

 

The scenery throughout has been exceptional.  On Sao Nicolau we went to the windy western tip to examine some marvellously sculpted cliffs which involved scrambling down a long slope and then a vertigo-inducing staircase.  On Santo Antao yesterday the cross-island road was made from more than a billion cobblestones and led to some epic canyon scenery, comparable to the Na Pali coast of Kauai.  There are very few beaches here and the local guides ask us why there are not more tourists.

 

On the domestic front, the seat covers on the back deck of the Panorama Lounge have now been cleaned - a job lasting five days - meaning that another set has been removed, leaving seats for only eight passengers, four of them reserved for smokers.  Not that there are many smokers on board.  The sliding doors to the pool deck have been roped off since we got on board.  The cabin next to ours had been unoccupied since Manaus but some people got on at Dakar,  bringing the GI virus with them, including our new neighbours. They have been moved into an isolation cabin.  Little things.  Little niggles.

 

Two days of rolling ocean lie ahead.  The temperature has plummeted.  We saw clouds yesterday for the first time in weeks.  Then the Canaries, when more passengers come aboard, and two stops in Morocco.  Frankly, this cruise has now run out of steam for me. All I want from the last leg of this trip is a shop in Morocco that can sell me Iranian saffron.  And all I want from the ship is a decent dinner.  My energy supplies built up by that goose are running low.

Edited May 11 by Fletcher

[UKCruiseJeff]

Cassettes?  8-Track surely much better!  And with it brings the opportunity to listen to two tracks at the same time plus a loud clunk in the middle when changing tracks. 🙂

 

Do I detect slightly less bounce in your step in the last post?  Hope stuff isn’t exceeding the mid-niggle point.  

 

Keep your pecker up.  Lie back and think of England. 

 

Jeff

[Fletcher]

20 - Breaking news, breaking wind

The temperature outside has plummeted and inside the tone has plummeted as well.  Yesterday we were in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, and I wish we had packed our cases and headed for the airport.  About 60 new passengers boarded and I resent the presence of every one of them.  Before this, the Wind was a spacious expedition ship with 150 passengers to match - a serious, slightly scruffy lot who knew their terns from their toucans.  This new lot are exiles from cancelled classic cruises with refunds and discounts.  Some even say they are Cunard regulars as if that’s going to impress anyone.

 

Two single women now plonk their bags down on the seats at the back deck of the Panorama Lounge when they go to lunch.  They are not even German.   Another woman commands the smoking zone on the same deck and parks her pudgy naked feet on the table, bringing a whiff of Costa Cruises to Silversea.   It’s not a pretty sight.

 

Not that Silversea is the bee’s knees in luxury.  I might have added the word ‘anymore’ to that statement but I’m not so sure it ever was.   But last week, when we were zipping around West Africa and Cabo Verde in zodiacs, it was a thrilling ride.  Now it looks like a booze cruise.

 

Today we were supposed to be in La Gomera, one of the smaller Canaries.  The overnight ride over from Gran Canaria was bumpy and when we got to La Gomera the Captain came on the blower at 0730 and said we were cancelling our visit because even if we made it through the narrow entrance to the harbour we would never make it out again.  So we have spent the day idling off the coast of Tenerife, affording us terrific and ever-changing views of the enormous volcano which, geologists assert, might one day explode and inundate the USA, causing the end of civilisation as we know it.   What’s annoying is that instead of just one day spent at sea reaching Agadir in Morocco we now have two days at sea.

 

I think the onboard GI virus is abating a little.  One of the expedition team was laid low for a few days but yesterday he told me that he could now “fart with confidence.”  Needless to say, he is Australian.

[DavyWavey70]

11 hours ago, Fletcher said:

20 - Breaking news, breaking wind

The temperature outside has plummeted and inside the tone has plummeted as well.  Yesterday we were in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, and I wish we had packed our cases and headed for the airport.  About 60 new passengers boarded and I resent the presence of every one of them.  Before this, the Wind was a spacious expedition ship with 150 passengers to match - a serious, slightly scruffy lot who knew their terns from their toucans.  This new lot are exiles from cancelled classic cruises with refunds and discounts.  Some even say they are Cunard regulars as if that’s going to impress anyone.

 

Two single women now plonk their bags down on the seats at the back deck of the Panorama Lounge when they go to lunch.  They are not even German.   Another woman commands the smoking zone on the same deck and parks her pudgy naked feet on the table, bringing a whiff of Costa Cruises to Silversea.   It’s not a pretty sight.

 

Not that Silversea is the bee’s knees in luxury.  I might have added the word ‘anymore’ to that statement but I’m not so sure it ever was.   But last week, when we were zipping around West Africa and Cabo Verde in zodiacs, it was a thrilling ride.  Now it looks like a booze cruise.

 

Today we were supposed to be in La Gomera, one of the smaller Canaries.  The overnight ride over from Gran Canaria was bumpy and when we got to La Gomera the Captain came on the blower at 0730 and said we were cancelling our visit because even if we made it through the narrow entrance to the harbour we would never make it out again.  So we have spent the day idling off the coast of Tenerife, affording us terrific and ever-changing views of the enormous volcano which, geologists assert, might one day explode and inundate the USA, causing the end of civilisation as we know it.   What’s annoying is that instead of just one day spent at sea reaching Agadir in Morocco we now have two days at sea.

 

I think the onboard GI virus is abating a little.  One of the expedition team was laid low for a few days but yesterday he told me that he could now “fart with confidence.”  Needless to say, he is Australian.

Bloody poor people. They get everywhere these days. I’m so sorry that your fellow passengers are not up to muster Fletch. It’s a real shame that they aren’t as witty or intelligent as you. I Do sincerely hope that one day you are able to take a holiday that you actually enjoy. 

[Fletcher]

21 - Moroccan motorcade

If you wanted to know what driving in a Presidential motorcade might be like then today was your chance.  We sailed in to Agadir, Morocco, where 24 Toyota Landcruisers were lined up on the dock, in front of the Maersk containers, waiting to whisk us to somewhere, something, called Paradise Valley.

 

We happened to share our Toyota with an elegant young woman who had perhaps the greatest job in the world - planning Silversea’s expedition cruises and travelling to all the places to check out if there are lavatories available in Djibouti and what to do with 150 passengers when you dump them in Tuvalu.  I think she wanted to travel incognito but Mrs Fletcher sussed her out pretty quickly.  We had a lovely chat though I think she might have called it a debrief.

 

Our motorcade set off through the northern suburbs of Agadir and we must have looked highly official as everyone stopped and stood and stared.  Police waved us through.  This was the world as seen through Harry and Meghan’s eyes, Putin’s too, and it was hard not to get a little delusional.  Here was Morocco unbound, quite prosperous yet clinging to tradition so that weird bits of sheep and goats hung outside on the road without any hint of the squalor we saw in West Africa.  This was clean, orderly, appealing.  There were new cars, traffic lights, speed cameras, new resort hotels springing up everywhere.  And as we left Agadir behind the scenery became rather grand.  The Paradise Valley itself was lovely, though it was not as its best because that is in the autumn when the valley floor becomes a river.

 

It had been a blessed relief to arrive in Agadir as the previous two days had seen some treacherous weather and chilly temperatures.  Tough luck on the riff-raff who had joined in Las Palmas who had never left the ship.   The first night hit us hard as our cabin, hitherto silent, developed every bang, rock and rattle ever invented.  Our butler got that fixed by getting someone to bash in a wooden wedge between our fancy wainscotting.  We called him Josiah. The second night, for us, was pretty quiet though everyone else was bemoaning their sleepless night as their cabins were creaking and banging as at a Hans Werner Henze concert.  As we sail away from Agadir the seas are swelling again.

 

Tomorrow we are at Safi, Morocco.  Some people are going to Marrakech.  We are going to Essaouira.

 

[DavyWavey70]

2 hours ago, Fletcher said:

21 - Moroccan motorcade

If you wanted to know what driving in a Presidential motorcade might be like then today was your chance.  We sailed in to Agadir, Morocco, where 24 Toyota Landcruisers were lined up on the dock, in front of the Maersk containers, waiting to whisk us to somewhere, something, called Paradise Valley.

 

We happened to share our Toyota with an elegant young woman who had perhaps the greatest job in the world - planning Silversea’s expedition cruises and travelling to all the places to check out if there are lavatories available in Djibouti and what to do with 150 passengers when you dump them in Tuvalu.  I think she wanted to travel incognito but Mrs Fletcher sussed her out pretty quickly.  We had a lovely chat though I think she might have called it a debrief.

 

Our motorcade set off through the northern suburbs of Agadir and we must have looked highly official as everyone stopped and stood and stared.  Police waved us through.  This was the world as seen through Harry and Meghan’s eyes, Putin’s too, and it was hard not to get a little delusional.  Here was Morocco unbound, quite prosperous yet clinging to tradition so that weird bits of sheep and goats hung outside on the road without any hint of the squalor we saw in West Africa.  This was clean, orderly, appealing.  There were new cars, traffic lights, speed cameras, new resort hotels springing up everywhere.  And as we left Agadir behind the scenery became rather grand.  The Paradise Valley itself was lovely, though it was not as its best because that is in the autumn when the valley floor becomes a river.

 

It had been a blessed relief to arrive in Agadir as the previous two days had seen some treacherous weather and chilly temperatures.  Tough luck on the riff-raff who had joined in Las Palmas who had never left the ship.   The first night hit us hard as our cabin, hitherto silent, developed every bang, rock and rattle ever invented.  Our butler got that fixed by getting someone to bash in a wooden wedge between our fancy wainscotting.  We called him Josiah. The second night, for us, was pretty quiet though everyone else was bemoaning their sleepless night as their cabins were creaking and banging as at a Hans Werner Henze concert.  As we sail away from Agadir the seas are swelling again.

 

Tomorrow we are at Safi, Morocco.  Some people are going to Marrakech.  We are going to Essaouira.

 

Agadir certainly sounds like it’s improved since our visits there in 2003/4. Back then you could smell the port a good 3 nautical miles before docking and we really believed that we were going to be murdered by our Taxi driver before we ever got out of the Port. Maybe your motorcade showed you a different Agadir to the one that we saw. Enjoy the delusion.

[LocoLoco1]

Ah, yes…mysterious aromas signaling the approach to yet another exotic Port

[Tothesunset]

5 hours ago, LocoLoco1 said:

Ah, yes…mysterious aromas signaling the approach to yet another exotic Port

You can take medicine for that. 

[Fletcher]

2 - Expeditious expedition to Essaouira

Yesterday we were berthed at a place called Safi in Morocco.  This was possibly the ugliest vista from a cruise ship I have ever seen, a smallish container port which hemmed us in on all sides and looked more like a scrap metal yard.  Added to which there were coal tips which blew coal dust all over us.  And the weather was surprisingly cool.  But all that did not deter a few intrepid souls from stripping off and spending the day by the pool and the jacuzzis.  Which were empty by the way . . .

 

Many people took the 12-hour tour to Marrakech which reportedly went exceedingly well.  We took the 8-hour tour to the coastal town of Essaouira which I can report went exceedingly well as well.  This was a two-hour drive south, through a few small towns and villages and a lot of open rural countryside.  It was a pretty clean landscape with a lot of agriculture going on.  I never saw a proper poly-tunnel.  And for someone who lives in the heavily mechanised world of Norfolk farmland, it was startling to see how the crops here were being cut by hand, with men and women sitting cross-legged on the ground, and loaded on to carts pulled by horses and mules.  It was traditional and it was a century behind the times.

 

Essaouira is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the only really touristy place we visited on the entire cruise which started five weeks ago in Brazil.  Once a fortified Portuguese town, Essaouira was a lovely vista, with battlements, a vast beach, frothing waves, seagulls, a fishing fleet, a fish market on the wharf and a classic Arab medina full of shops selling the usual array of ceramics, leather, paintings and silver that you don’t really need.

 

We got back to the coal pit - sorry, the Silver Wind - at 5pm, had a nicely cooked steak and chips at The Grill, washed it down with a $100 bottle of Cǒte-Rotie, and won Trivia for the third time in a row.  Good job! This was the last proper day of the cruise, folks.  I am suffering a little from sensory overload.  I’ll do a recap and briefing when we get home on Monday, having spent one more day at sea and then a night in Lisbon.

 

 

 

Edited Saturday at 06:53 AM by Fletcher

[Fletcher]

23 - Recap and Briefing

A few blog posts ago Forum regular @Daveywavey70 said he hoped that one day I might find a holiday that I might enjoy.   How nice of him to have my well-being in mind but Dave, rest assured, I am never happier than when I am miserable.   It was his use of the word ‘holiday’ that has been preying on my mind lately.

 

You see, I have now returned from this Wind cruise which took me from Manaus in Brazil to Lisbon via the Amazon river followed by four countries in West Africa, then Cabo Verde and Morocco.  While the Amazon sector was seriously compromised by Silversea meddling with the itinerary and by giving us the wrong ship, this was a great trip, one of the best in fact, but was it a holiday?

 

We were in West Africa for ten days and every day we’d climb, jump or fall into a zodiac and land in some picturesque hellhole where the abject poverty of the people, the mountains of rubbish, the housing which had fallen well below the level of dereliction and the lack of hope made us stand out like gawping Martians.  I felt a growing appreciation of why these people wanted to get in a zodiac of their own and make a wet landing in Europe and the UK.  Every day on this trip was a physical and an emotional challenge. Stressful, too,  as we never knew quite what to expect in terms of our welcome or what the threat level might be.  There was torrid heat to contend with and general squalor though insects, requiring malarial prevention, were noticeably absent.  It was often thrilling, exciting, an assault on the senses, life-affirming.  And exhausting.  Was it a holiday?  I’m not sure many people would think so.

 

The highlights were incredible - that kaleidoscopic fishing village in Senegal, the unexpected charm of the slave island of Ile de Goree, the decaying Portuguese towns and the blinding beaches of Bijagos, the evocative ruins of the slave castle in Sierra Leone, the epic  landscapes of Cabo Verde.  And the people we encountered.  Yes many of the men scowled more often than smiled, a few were clearly resentful, but the women dressed in Technicolor and the kids, in their innocence, were funny and inquisitive.  Only a few had learned to beg for money.  And I hope that we from the Wind were sensitive and responsible tourists.

 

And what of the Wind?  Well, it’s getting rather old and is showing it.  I can’t imagine Silversea hanging on to it - along with the Cloud - for much longer. There are far better ships out there nowadays. I think the reason people like the Wind is certainly not the terrible bathrooms, the dated decor or the decidedly average (and often inedible) food.  The reason people like the Wind - and other ships of the line - is the staff.  Now some of them might lack training and there might be some language issues but the staff are just lovely.  I normally don’t single people out but over the five weeks we were on board we came to really appreciate Alex from Belarus who ran the restaurants and three waiters - Allan, Carmen and of course tiny Salome from Georgia who captured everyone’s hearts.  Farth from Kenya serviced our room beautifully each day and sometimes seemed rather mournful.

 

The expedition team, led (of course) by Lea (of course) from West Africa onwards  (of course),  comprised a lot of rather similar swarthy Latino men whom we never got to know.  A lot of them seemed like excess baggage to me.  But we loved the gorgeous cetologist Dani from Brazil, whom I introduced to the divine Astrud Gilberto, and Alexandra Hansen who certainly knows how to pitch a lecture.  And birdman Malcolm Turner and, of course the multi-talented Greg with whom I traded daily bon mots from the movie Lawrence of Arabia.  The passengers on board were also a great part of this cruise.  It was a collegiate, highly sociable occasion.  Good heavens, I even took part in trivia.   Good job!

 

Thanks once again for reading this blog of mine.  It’s fun to write and, I hope, fun to read.  Next stop: Christmas aboard the Silver Dawn.

  

Edited Tuesday at 03:43 PM by Fletcher

[UKCruiseJeff]

Fletch,

 

Your blog has been absorbing, captivating and certainly great fun to read .. so thanks for taking the trouble! 🙂

 

And they were “right justified”!  Us ex-Times / Thomsons’ people understand and appreciate these things!  😉

 

Have a sweet journey home.

 

Jeff

 

[CardowMD]

Have enjoyed following your adventure! Thank you for your insightful descriptions of these locations many of us will never experience nor have the courage to visit. Hoping you find a last minute trip between now and Christmas for us to follow!

[fdnycruiser]

Definitely well done !  Enjoyed your voyage descriptions, photos,and your sense of humor.

[whogo]

Thank you for another great blog, Fletcher.

[drron29]

I never miss a thread by Fletcher. Wonderful reads with some wonderful descriptions of places. Then add on the insight into what our travels can do especially in more remote or undeveloped areas. We can help or ruin the future traveller's experience and the lives of those who live there.

 

Well done and I'll be with you from afar with your Christmas on the Dawn.

[lincslady]

3 hours ago, whogo said:

Thank you for another great blog, Fletcher.

 

from me too.

[DavyWavey70]

19 hours ago, Fletcher said:

It was his use of the word ‘holiday’ that has been preying on my mind lately.

 

Would the word adventure be more appropriate? I’m glad you enjoyed it anyway. 

[Host Jazzbeau]

Thanks for taking us along.  I really enjoy your writing style, and not pulling any punches.  Not an itinerary I would be interested in, but it was good to verify with so much detail...

[kej1]

Thank you for writing about your adventures!  It was lots of fun to read.

[silkismom]

My DH always wanted to do the Amazon, made him read your report--now I can plan other things again. Thanks