During May and June of this year, we took a cruise to West Africa. We started in Cape Town, South Africa and traveled up the western side of the African continent, stopping at two ports in Namibia, then to five countries in West Africa, and finally to three islands in Macaronesia, the name for the groups of islands that make up Madeira, the Azores, Canary, and Cape Verde islands. We ended the trip in Lisbon, Portugal.
Coastal Wetlands, Walvis Bay, Namibia Namibia, once part of German South-West Africa, is now an independent nation that sits on the Atlantic Coast, north of South Africa. It is the driest country in sub-Saharan Africa and one of its principal features is the oldest desert in the world, the Namib, which begins in the very northwest of South Africa, runs along the entire Atlantic Coastline of Namibia and ends, nearly a thousand miles later in the south of Angola. It extends between 60 and 120 miles inland and second only to the Atacama Desert in dryness. During our two days of exploration, we would see the highest sand dunes in the world, diamond mining ghost towns, and a wetland where thousands of Greater Flamingos breed within sight of both the ocean and the desert. Click below to see the Namibia collection.
After sailing for three straight days, we arrived at the island of Sao Tome, formerly a Portuguese colony and now part of the tiny, two-archipelago nation of Sao Tome and Principe. These islands sit about 150 miles west of the country of Gabon. In the eighteenth century, the islands were important stopovers in the slave trade. Now its primary export is cocoa. The country only has about 30,000 total visitors each year and our observation was that tourist infrastructure is virtually non-existent. It is a very poor country. We witnessed local folk pantomimes in the dirt square of a local village and in a park, located in the center of the capital.
Next, we sailed into Lome, Togo. The country is located near the middle of the “shelf” of West Africa. It is another former slave trading location and was colonized by both the Germans and the French. Again, it has a very poor economy, further aggravated by a mushrooming population, almost doubling since 2000. It is even poorer that Sao Tome, with the per capita income rated 170th in the World. We visited a school and a village, where we were treated to a visit with the Chieftain. We were scheduled to travel to Ghana, but the winds and weather prevented landing there. We then continued to Abidjan, Ivory Coast; Benjul, The Gambia; and our final stop in West Africa, Dakar, Senegal. None of these ports are traditional tourist locations, so we got a more authentic experience. There were virtually no significant landscapes to view. A couple of the cities had some high-rise development, but almost inevitably, it would be surrounded by dirty, dusty slums. This focused our attention to the people and how they lived. While I took pictures to contextualize these places, I tried to not focus on the negatives, but rather to capture the emotions of the inhabitants. We came not to pity, but to understand. This part of the trip was physically, emotionally, and artistically demanding.
Cabo Verde Islands
The next phase of the trip was much more traditional and included a couple of stops where we had never been. The Cape Verde Islands are a mountainous, volcanic island with little rainfall. In addition to the stunning landscape, it was fascinating to see sand dunes created by sand blown from the Sahara Desert! Golden orange dunes covering black rocks is quite a sight.
Tenerife | Lanzarote |
The port of Santa Cruz is located on Tenerife, the largest island in the Canary Islands. Having toured it recently, I decided to spend the day walking around the charming city, taking photographs. The following day, we visited another Canary Island, Lanzarote. It was another amazing volcanic island that provided us with some great photographic opportunities.
The ship’s final port call was in Agadir, Morrocco. Since I was ill, I didn’t get off the ship. But those that did, raved about the tours and the scenery. Oh well, another time. After another day at sea, we departed the ship in Lisbon. I hope you enjoy the photos. I have created a page for each port, although some of the collections are fairly small. I did this so the viewer could compare, and contrast, the destinations, if desired. I hope you enjoy this voyage to another corner of the world. You can also reach the individual pages at the Home Page, scroll down below the large slideshow images to see thumbnails of the collections.
Enjoy!