On Easter Sunday Rotterdam was sailing south just off the coast of Tanzania, and the clash of currents and wind made the waters rough.

Squeekie at one of her sports events to collect “Dam Dollars.”

Squeekie gives the Easter Rabbit a “coochie-coo” before going into the dining room for Easter dinner.

Moss, Kim, Indra, and Squeekie on Casino Royale Night.

Is this James Bond and his newest cutie?

“Shaken, not stirred . . . .”

Moss gets his hair trimmed by Colleen.

Lori sets up the ball targets as Moss fills in for Squeekie while she has her hair trimmed.

Looking south over Maputo Bay from where Rotterdam had tied up; the city is behind the photographer on the north side of the Bay.

Maputo and its railway station near the dock where Rotterdam has tied up.

We saw just one burned-out building in the heart of Maputo; much has been done to repair the damage resulting from Mozambique’s long civil war.

Squeekie checking the American brands in the mall’s “Super Mercado.”

Moss buys a sandalwood box from this vendor at a street market.

As we walked along we absorbed the sights and sounds of the city around us.

We were happy to find the elephant train in operation and used it to see the city.

Maputo’s waterfront is pretty and still mostly undeveloped . . .

. . . where the locals can still dig up clams . . .

. . . or fish for their dinner.

The elephant train took us to see the Iron House (built entirely of steel) . . .

. . . the Natural History Museum . . .

. . . the very busy Central Market . . .

. . . with its courful displays . . .

. . . and the very unusual City Cathedral.

But the most interesting building for me was the Railway Station with its dome designed by Gustav Eiffel.

Inside the station was “No. 9,” one of the first locomotives used on the railway running west to Pretoria in 1895 . . .

. . . and “Gaza No. 1,” used on the line running north.

Some of the rolling stock on the railway is worn looking, but the trains are running!

As the sun set into the heart of southern Africa . . .

. . . Rotterdam sailed out of Maputo toward the ports of South Africa.


Eighty-third Day (Sunday, April 12, 2009)-- Today was Easter Sunday, but we slept through the Easter Sunrise service that was held on the aft deck. I was rather disappointed, and so was Squeekie, because it would have been an interesting experience; oh, well. . . . We are sailing close in to the coast of Tanzania this morning; Captain Olav, who briefly joined us for breakfast this morning, said that there was less danger from the Somali pirates this close in (why I am not sure); in any case, although the lookouts are still posted, the fire hoses have been put away on Deck Three.

Aside from the Easter events (there was an Easter Brunch in the Dining Room late in the morning, but we skipped it), this was just another day at sea. I worked on sorting and touching up pictures in the Crow’s Nest while Squeekie did her usual Sports activities to collect her “Dam Dollars.” The sea began to run rougher as the day wore on, and I decided to put on a patch for the first time since Hong Kong! It was not an urgent need, but I thought it better to nip it in the bud, so to speak. We had a nice but light dinner in the Dining Room, which was still decorated for Easter, and then retired to our cabin where we watched a DVD of “Madagascar,” although Squeek snoozed through much of it.


Eighty-fourth Day (Monday, April 13, 2009)-- This was a second “at sea” day as we ran down the coast of East Africa, headed toward the port of Maputo in Mozambique. The evening activities were the event of the day. It was “Casino Royale” night, themed as a mixture of gambling and James Bond. It was a formal night, and the Dining Room, the Ocean Bar, the Casino, and the Atrium were all decked out with giant playing cards and other gambling-related decorations. We enjoyed a nice time in the Ocean Bar with Henry the electrician and his wife, who are getting off soon. After dinner we tried our hand at the slot machines in the Casino, but they very rapidly got the better of us. We returned to the Ocean Bar for more James Bond-related drinks. I enjoyed a traditional martini, shaken, not stirred. A fun time was had by all. . . . Waiting in our stateroom tonight were two new stuffed animal monkeys, Rafiki and Riki, who quickly got to know Suzie and Roy and the other animals in our growing menagerie.


Eighty-fifth Day (Tuesday, April 14, 2009)-- Squeek and I both had appointments first thing this morning to have our hair cut by Colleen, who will soon be leaving Rotterdam in Cape Town, where she lives. As she trimmed my hair (which has grown amazingly fast in the tropical climate we have been in for so very long a time) she told me that she was not sure if she would return for another contract because she has gotten very lonely being so far away from family and friends. I can certainly understand that! I suspect that Leslee felt similarly despite the comforting presence of Fabian. Colleen did a nice job on my hair, but I really will be happy to come back to Dennis in Yorba Linda. After my trim Squeek sat for her trimming, and I went out to take her place in the “Sports of Call” activity, which required me to throw three balls of differing sizes into nets of diverse sizes. I did well enough to earn four “Dam Dollars” for Squeek’s growing purse.

The weather has been good although we are passing south over the Tropic of Capricorn and thus out of the tropics, but the seas have been very rough because along this stretch of the southern East Africa coast three different water currents collide. The ship has rocked very strongly, with 15 to 20-foot swells which the Rotterdam has been hitting nearly head-on—I am glad I put on a patch the other day! Just before eleven am, as I was working at the computer up in the Crow’s Nest, the Officer of the Watch came on the public address system with a “Bright Star” call, which alerts the crew that a passenger emergency has taken place. We soon learned (Squeekie has developed some very good communications networks with certain crew persons) that Lowell, the dance host who lives in Irvine, had slipped and fallen because of the rough seas and had plunged down the back outside stairs from Deck Nine to Deck Eight. Early rumours claimed that he had broken his neck, but later we heard that he had jammed his nose up into his brain cavity and had gone into a coma. (Lowell was taken off the ship in Maputo, still in a coma, and was flown to Cape Town where they have a good hospital. As of the last report, he was still in a coma ten days after the accident, but he was still alive. Apparently he has a brother who was flying to South Africa to be with him.)

I was a bit queasy from the rough seas and so skipped lunch, but Squeekie had her usual lunch out on the back deck, and was joined by Captain Olav. The sea seemed to get rougher as the afternoon wore on. I decided to take a nap and soon fell asleep in our stateroom, but because I had not put on my nose device I must have snored quite loudly, because Squeek tried sleeping out on the veranda, but that was not a success as it got fairly cold, and a bit wet, too, as the spray caused by the ship hitting the waves head on caused a mist which reached up to Decks Six and Seven, she later told me. Fortunately, the patch did its job. Despite a bit of queasiness upon occasion I was not seasick. Others on board were, however, for “barf bags” appeared in dispensers placed at many points around the ship—notably in the elevator lobbies. Also, in the wake of the tragic accident to Lowell, Captain Olav got on the public address system and reminded the passengers to be very careful as they walked around the ship, especially in stairways, and to always use the handrails. The dining room was lightly attended this evening. Squeekie went to the show but I returned to the cabin and went to bed.


Eighty-sixth Day (Wednesday, April 15, 2009)-- We awoke this morning as the sun came up. Rotterdam had already docked at the harbour in Maputo, the capital city and primary port of Mozambique. It was a lovely sunrise.

A brief word of history-- Maputo, originally named Lourenco Marques to honour the Portuguese navigator sent in 1544 to explore the coast of Mozambique, originally was a fortress and trading station established by the Portuguese along their sea route to India, but the difficulty experienced in entering the bay prior to the application of dredging meant that this was a minor outpost in the Portuguese trading empire of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Indeed, the various Portuguese forts and trading centres established, abandoned, and reoccupied on the north bank of the Rio Espiritu Santo (the outlet of a river which offered a path through the coastal mountains into the interior of southern Africa) were the target of repeated attacks by the native population throughout this early time of Portuguese occupation. The existing town dates from about 1850 when the Portuguese government in Europe decided that it had to re-establish a town to solidify its claim to this stretch of the southeastern African coast in the face of growing British dominance in South Africa. In 1895 the then-independent Afrikaaner (Boer) government headquartered in the interior of southern Africa at Pretoria built a railroad eastward to Lourenco Marques (as it then was named) to provide an outlet to the sea that was not controlled by the British. (More about the Boers and the British will come in my Cape Town blog forthcoming.) This railway became an important passage for the transfer of goods, and the city became a significant stop for freighters and ocean liners in the early years of the twentieth century, especially following dredging of a clear channel through the Bay. Many Portuguese migrated into the area; schools and even a university were established. With the rise of trade there came a good economy, and the Portuguese, Islamic, Indian, and Chinese communities living in the colony achieved great prosperity (as can be seen by some of the buildings which still survive in Maputo), but the African majority did not benefit from this to any significant degree. In 1962 the Mozambique Liberation Front was established and began to fight for independence from Portuguese rule. (Portugal was at this time under the control of proto-Fascist dictator Salazar.) This war for independence lasted until 1974, when the government of Portugal, itself newly liberated from Fascist rule, granted independence to all of its overseas territories. Unfortunately, this did not end violence in Mozambique. The People’s Republic of Mozambique was proclaimed in June 25, 1975 (at which time the city’s name was changed to Maputo), and conflict renewed between communist and non-communist political groups. The large Portuguese population left almost literally overnight, leaving the newly-independent country without skilled professionals to maintain and operate its infrastructure. The economy plummeted in the face of warfare and collapse of the infrastructure. The ruling party turned to the then-Communist Soviet Union and East Germany for help, but with little result. By 1982 Mozambique was in ruins and its economy was bankrupt; worse yet, the civil war between political factions lasted until 1992. This disaster finally came to a close in 1992, but growth was slow to return, but today, tourism is playing a role in boosting the economy.

Back to our adventure-- We were led to believe that Maputo was still recovering from warfare and was not yet fully prepared to receive tourists; this was, we were told, Rotterdam’s—and Holland-America’s—first visit to this port. As a result we expected the worst and did not book any tours in this port. In fact, when we came up on deck and viewed the city we were pleasantly surprised to find that the city appeared to be in reasonably good shape, and with a plethora of high-rise buildings, which was an unexpected sight. Maputo’s famous railway station was literally just a few hundred yards from—and in good sight of—the dock where Rotterdam was secured. The station building appeared through my lens to be clean and in good repair. The train rolling stock seen in the adjacent yard was old (I saw arch-bar trucks on some freight cars, something not seen on American equipment outside of museums for over eighty years) and in need of paint, but seemed to be running well enough.

The local port authority offered a complimentary shuttle bus service which would take ship guests into town to the Polaner Shopping Center, a mall some 20 minutes away from the dock. We also were informed that there MIGHT be a hop-on-hop-off elephant train around the town, but its availability was uncertain. Squeekie and I decided to take the shuttle bus as a way to see the town up close, and I am glad that we did. The ride was very informative! We passed through a city which showed very little in the way of war damage; in the downtown area through which we traveled, I saw only one burned-out building remaining unrepaired. On the other hand, the roads seemed to be in very poor repair, filled with potholes and having some stretches where the paving had completely failed or disappeared altogether, or had been poorly repaired at uneven levels to what surrounded it. Similarly, the sidewalks were also in poor condition. While there weren’t that many construction cranes in evidence, it was obvious that a great deal of construction, reconstruction, and repair had taken place in the city (on its buildings, at any rate) since the end of the civil war fifteen years earlier. In other words, we saw a city that was vibrant, full of life, and very welcoming.

We rode the shuttle to the mall, and found a collection of modern, office-appearing buildings that were some five to ten stories high. The mall itself occupied parts of the lower levels of this centre, and was rather small by American standards, but it did have brand name stores, or so Squeekie informed me. We explored up to the third floor of the mall (the escalators only went up; shoppers had to take the stairs down) where we found a tiny store (no more than 250 square feet, if that) selling native art crafts. We had seen some of this sort of thing on the dock in Mombasa, of course, and would see much more before we left Africa, but this stuff was very different, appearing to be true “handcrafts” of superior quality. Even I, who usually ignores such things, was impressed by what I saw there. One craft especially drew my attention, for I had seen nothing like it before. These were ostrich eggs which had been emptied of their contents and then the outer shell had been used as a medium for decoration. (Later in the trip we were to see much more of this, but this was the first time and, in my opinion, the best artwork.) If you are thinking that this type of art would be too fragile to travel long distances to be brought home, you are assuming that ostrich eggs have shells as fragile as the hormonally-challenged chicken eggs we buy in America. In fact, these ostrich eggs, although breakable, have very thick outer shells which will endure a great deal of stress. I saw one shell with a beautifully engraved (and inked) picture of elephants beside an acacia tree, and drew it to Squeekie’s attention. Needless to say, that particular egg now graces the desk in our stateroom, on the first leg of its long journey to our home in Yorba Linda.

Another interesting occupant of this mall was a “Super Mercado” (supermarket) which although much smaller than supermarkets of American invention, stocked many prepared foods of brands familiar to us, including Kellogg’s cereals, Lipton teas, and so forth. I found it interesting how these monuments of American culture had made their way to such a distant place as Maputo in southeast Africa, but perhaps this was because we were seeing an urban culture in recovery.

I found this mall to be an interesting sign of the recovery of Maputo from years of warfare and economic collapse. In every store there were locals who were welcoming and friendly although, as a former Portuguese colony, not many spoke English. (I found my ability to speak and read in Spanish satisfactory for reading signs, but I could not converse in Portuguese, which remains the official language of Mozambique.) Across the street from the mall there was an open market where vendors had laid out displays of their products to attract the attention of those tourists who had visited the mall. (I must add parenthetically that it was readily apparent that the passengers of the Rotterdam were far from being the only tourists to be in Maputo. It is clear that tourism is undertaking a recovery in this place, in part because of the beaches, but also, I learned, because of the Elephant Sanctuary not too far away.) Anyway, I walked through the wares and found, to my surprise because I usually am ignoring of this stuff, a lovely, obviously handmade box made of sandalwood and featuring an elephant on the box lid. I bought this from the vendor for a tiny price, and feel very proud of my purchase. It is just about the only non-book (or published) item I have purchased for myself on this entire trip.

Squeekie wanted to walk to the Polano Hotel, reported to be a five star hotel just a “few blocks” (whatever that means) from the mall. I was reluctant to do so because my feet hurt badly and one of my big toes was rubbed raw from a popped blister, but off we went, enjoying our sights of the city living around us, and enduring the poor condition of the sidewalks. Fortunately, as we walked along we encountered the Hop-on-Hop-off Elephant train which had been told about. (An elephant train is a motor tractor pulling several trailers with seats—like the vehicles used at Disneyland to carry people in from the parking lot.) It was running! We quickly decided that it would be much better to ride on this and hop off where we wanted. The “train” did go right past the Polano Hotel, but the train’s tour guide, who spoke a reasonable amount of English and who responded knowledgeably to my frequent questions, said that the hotel was being thoroughly refurbished, and we could see much of the main building (which appeared to date back to the 1930s, at least) was covered by the fabric used to mask construction activity. Squeek and I were disappointed by this as we love to “collect” hotels in our travels (and have done well on this trip with the Peninsula in Hong Kong, Raffles in Singapore, and the Taj Mahal in Bombay, to say nothing of the Burj-al Arab in Dubai), but we decided that we would have to forego seeing this one until it is reopened, assuming that we might come back here some day on another world cruise. (Yes, we have been thinking and talking about that possibility.) We could, however, see that the hotel was well-placed on the edge of the hillside overlooking the Bay of Maputo, and that it had a nice view of this arm of the ocean.

Our ride aboard the elephant train continued along a waterfront which, although not at present well developed for the tourist trade, and still being used by the local population as a fishing and clamming location, will someday support a tourism infrastructure. We then returned to the main part of the city, which did seem to have recovered well from the devastation and neglect of years of warfare.

We saw an interesting structure, the “Casa do Ferro” or Iron House, which was designed by Gustav Eiffel to make use of what was, in the late nineteenth century, a newly inexpensive building material, and that was steel. The Iron House is built entirely from prefabricated steel components; the support, the walls, the roof, all elements are made of this material. Originally this home was intended to be the official residence of the Portuguese Governor-General of Mozambique, but the steel construction without insulation made it unbearable to live in, given Mozambique’s hot and humid tropical climate, in those days before air conditioning had been invented, so the building was never occupied by the intended residents. Today it houses the National Directorate of Cultural Heritage.

We passed by the Natural History Museum, housed in an architecturally interesting building. This museum’s claim to fame claim to fame seems to be its complete collection of elephant fetuses. Squeek and I would have enjoyed going inside to see the collection but we didn’t get any of this country’s money and the museum didn’t take American dollars.

The train made a brief stop at the Central Market where Squeekie got off to briefly explore inside while I stayed aboard the train guarding our stuff and resting my feet. Squeekie reports that the building itself was rather drab and dark, but that it was made interesting by the colour and character of what was on display to be sold—fruits and vegetables, fish and shellfish, to name just some. (See the pictures attached to this blog issue.) She says that she was reminded of the Mercado in Mazatlan, although Maputo’s is smaller in size.

The train also took us by the “City Palace,” this is the centre of municipal government, and the city’s main cathedral, which is the most un-Catholic Catholic Church I have ever seen—Squeek observed that it looked more Mormon than anything. Ultimately we swung by the main train station, home of the “CFM,” that is, the Caminhoes Ferroes do Mozambique,” which earlier we had seen from the ship. The building sports a dome designed by Gustav Eiffel. We were allowed to get off the elephant train and go inside the station to take photographs, which Squeekie and I did. The station was clean and reasonably well maintained, rather better than some of the rolling stock on the train which was waiting at a platform inside. One train was in the station when we were there, and some of its carriages were of ripple-sided stainless steel so popular in the 1930s through the 1960s; I couldn’t tell when these cars were built, but I suspect early 1960s, before Mozambique’s troubles began. Other carriages were of much older design, and often in need of paint (and maybe more, but I couldn’t get inside to see for myself). The station was laid out in a traditional dead-end—single entry—design with a head building and with its platforms at right angles to that head building, typical of what was used in many European cities at the turn of the twentieth century. Of big interest to me were two small steam locomotives plinthed at the head of the station. One was a 4-6-0 (“Ten Wheeler”) tank engine identified as “No. 9,” which was one of the first locomotives used upon the opening of the railway from Pretoria to Lourenco Marques in 1895; it was used until retired in 1940, when it was put on display at the station. The other locomotive, displayed opposite the first, was a somewhat smaller 0-4-0 “Four Wheeler” tank engine, which was engine No. 1 of the Caminho de Ferro de Gaza, the first railway to be built northward from Lourenco Marques; it was in use from 1910 until 1928. This station, which did not show any obvious ravages of warfare or neglect (although the same could not be said of some of the rolling stock seen there) was of serious interest to me, all the more so because I was nearly ignorant of it prior to visiting here. I knew of the railway from Pretoria, of course, and I also knew that, during the Boer War, young Winston Churchill had walked along the railway to make his escape after capture by the Boers, and had hiked all the way to Lourenco Marques, although the station itself had not yet been built. I was fascinated by the involvement of famous Gustav Eiffel in the construction of this station (specifically identified with the dome, although there is much ironwork over the platforms as well), and pleased to see that two historic steam engines had survived the departure of the Portuguese and remain to be identified with the history of the country. All in all, the station itself was of useful interest to me as a preserved example of the technology associated with colonialism imposed upon Africa in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The station was far more beautiful and imposing than the structures in Nairobi or Mombasa which I had seen (and used) just a few days earlier.

Squeekie did a bit more shopping at one of the outdoor vendors we encountered on the elephant train route, purchasing a very cute outfit pf cotton pants and top featuring an African print. It really looks casually nice on her! The elephant train tour was very well designed and operated, and I certainly wish that other places we visited on this cruise would have done similar tours as a good introduction to their layout, culture, and history. As for Maputo, I must say that the preface to it we were given beforehand was a bit misleading. This city appears to have recovered very well (if not yet entirely) from its decades of warfare and neglect, and is welcoming tourism with open arms. While Mozambique still has a way to go to meet Western standards to make it a desirable vacation destination, it is on the way toward achieving those standards. I am glad that Holland-America has contributed to this by making it a port of call.

Well, that was our day in Maputo. Rotterdam departed from the dock in the westering sun as we headed to our first port of call in South Africa.