Our Silversea Expeditions “Adventure Cruise” on the Silver Wind continued in Angola after a well-needed day at sea. But before I discuss our ventures off the ship, I want to briefly discuss the onboard experience.
I have been unequivocally impressed with the staff onboard for their friendliness, intuitive service, and treating each guest in the manner that particular guest would prefer to be treated. I don’t really ask for much, and my butler and steward now seem to be looking for ways to assist. The latest is that if I don’t put my dirty laundry in my laundry bag, they fold it (even buttoning my shirts) and then place a laundry ticket and pen on top of it. Details. Details. Details.
I have found the cuisine to be solid, but I am not a fan of the main restaurant. The dishes are fine, but it is more of a cruise ambiance and, thus, too busy and noisy for my liking. There are only 250 or so guests onboard, so it’s not like it is that busy or noisy, but I have other options. Similarly, I find breakfast in my suite and lunch at The Grill by the pool – on the days I don’t skip a meal or two – more to my liking than dining in La Terrazza.
Speaking of La Terrazza, it is my go-to dining option; not necessarily for a full five-course Italian dinner every night, but a small plate of prosciutto and parmesan cheese, a small starter, and then pasta. With most of the pasta freshly made onboard, it is hard to beat.
Lunches have been interesting. While I have never ventured into the Restaurant or La Terrazza for lunch – mostly because I want to be outside and limit my food intake – every day there is a different themed on-deck lunch (Asian, German, etc.) which supplements the static Grill lunch menu quite nicely.
One surprise has been La Dame, which I’ve dined at a couple of times. It is a beautiful room, and the cuisine is vastly superior to that which I have experienced over the years when sailing on the classic fleet. Add to that some great premium wines – I’ve been enjoying a nice Lynch-Bages Bordeaux – and a very fair $60 per person upcharge, and a wonderful evening is to be had. (I’m not sure I would feel the same with the much higher price charged on the classic fleet.)
OK, enough about food, let’s get to the reasons I am here: Western Africa!
My first Angola experience was the Welwitschia and The Lost Oasis excursion. The focus was to see the Welwitschia plants, which are found only in the Namib desert near Namibe, Angola. They are physically unimpressive, looking like semi-dead long pieces of green leather. However, these male or female plants can live over 2,000 years. Because of this, it was enthusiastically on a number of the expedition team’s life lists.
The other goal was to visit The Lost Oasis, also known as Lago do Arco de Carvalhao (Lake Argo). It is a beautiful and fascinating geological area. We visited at the end of its dry season, but in the wet season, the area floods, creating a beautiful lake. In the interim between the two, local farmers take advantage of the rich soil and moisture.
If done properly, it is about a 1.5-hour drive to see both…and have a discussion of the local people (that was totally absent from my group, but not others). However, Silversea divided those on the trip into two groups. Rather than having one group leave early and the other leave late, we all left at the same time. Being in the second group, it was a 3.5-hour torture session that made me a bit cranky. First, we visited a church for reasons I have no idea (and you know I have no desire to visit yet another church). Then we visited a rundown former Portuguese prison with the commandant giving a detailed description of every nook and cranny in Portuguese, then translated by his assistant. Again, not in the excursion description.
After that hour or so that I will never get back, we were about 30 minutes from the Lost Oasis when we stopped by the side of the road to see the Welwitschia plants. That turned into a 40-minute stall, waiting for the first group to finish their much better experience at the Lost Oasis.
Now, being Jewish, I get wandering in the desert and, ironically, Passover was just about upon us, but this was, frankly, abusive. Add in the guide who knew nothing, and the expedition team adding only slightly more, I was getting hotter than the desert.
Fortunately, when we finally reached our destination, it was so mesmerizing that it captured my focus. That said, I wish we could have done a more extensive hike of the area or have the Silversea geologist give a brief talk. Fortunately, I knew enough about the geology that all was not lost; it being obvious to me that the area had under the sea, probably many millions of years ago (a few fossil clamshells confirmed that), and then as the waters receded sedimentary rock began to form, eventually it all being carved out by floods, rain, and wind.
I also noticed that the vast majority of the desert we were driving through had been disturbed. This came to mind especially after I noticed the ground around the Welwitschia was firm, but during my wanderings, I noticed almost all the other ground was soft or there were small surface mines. A quick ChatGBT query when I returned to the ship: Mining for alluvial diamonds! (Diamonds that are found on the surface.)
Both are things that the expedition team should have explained rather than it being a “Pretty rocks, huh?” day.
Despite that failure, the Expedition Team, while I do characterize this as an “Adventure Cruise”, has consistently put on detailed and entertaining lectures on all subjects relevant to our journey. From cultural to birds to marine mammals, art to anthropology, and more. These are not superficial talks, but quite detailed and high-level; challenging and entertaining. BTW, all of the lectures can be views either live or later, on the in-suite television system. Bravos all around!
After another sea day – Angola is a large country – we arrived in Luanda, its capital. We were, as seems to be requisite, met by a group of local musicians and dancers. Today’s were wonderful and fully engaged.
I selected the Luanda Market & Miradoura le Tua Tour. It was a much better experience, starting out at a fort that had been converted to a military museum and then a church converted to a slave museum. I was glad to finally (my fault) focus on “culture” rather than “nature”. I was left wanting to know a bit more about the slave trade in Angola; noting that this time, the expedition team supplemented the guide’s information, including that the slave trade existed in Angola and elsewhere in Africa and around the world, for thousands of years before “the slave trade” we have come to know. And, further, that the first slaves brought to the west (Brazil, another Portuguese colony) were actually men and women enslaved by other Africans and then sold off to the Portuguese for their own profit.
We then went to a small market. It was not what I was expecting, as it was more of a tourist market than a local one. However, one of the 100+ pieces of art caught my eye. It is acrylic, applied with palette knives, on some sort of cotton. I was not expecting to purchase anything, but there you go! And after who knows how much it will cost to frame, it will be lovingly hung in my living room.
Our final stop was a WOW and far more impressive than the photographs I saw of it. Miradoura le Tua is a geological formation of clay and limestone that is just breathtaking. Words can’t describe it adequately.
Alexandra, of the expedition team, was a wealth of enthusiastic knowledge and made the experience significantly more exciting as she literally chased people down to give them more information. Bravo…again!
(She even made sure I saw this sign!)
After another day at sea (we covered very long distances), we arrived at Pointe Noire, the Republic of the Congo. It will be a day I will remember for so many reasons.
The primary goal was to visit Jane Goodall’s Tchimpouga Chimpanzee Sanctuary, established in 2013 to safeguard and rehabilitate up to 60 chimpanzees while protecting them from bushmeat hunters, poachers seeking to capture and sell off young chimpanzees, etc. It now consists of three islands (creating natural barriers as chimpanzees can’t swim) and over 150 chimpanzees. Very few ever get to visit the sanctuary, so it would be a very special experience. Part of the $399 per person extra cost was a donation to the Sanctuary. What this experience would actually be was a mystery. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves!
Once again, the 36 fortunate guests were broken up into two groups…a clear example of Silversea working to have a higher quality experience rather than flooding areas with too many guests at one time. This time, the groups left at appropriate times. I was in the first group, leaving early in the morning. The 16 of us loaded into a van that had seen better days, but worked, as thankfully, so did the air conditioning. (As we travel north, the weather has gotten significantly hotter and more humid.) The one-hour or more drive was actually a two-hour drive over very rough roads (being generous with the term “roads”), which offered us a fascinating look into the impoverished and crowded daily life in one of the more “developed” areas of the Congo.
As we drove through these areas, I could not help but reflect on the fact that just the cost of this short journey was probably more than those who we passed earned in a year.
There were definitely different feelings among the locals about our van traveling through their villages. Some, including the youth in their tattered school uniforms, waved and greeted us with smiles and were happy to have their photographs taken. (Taking photographs of people without their permission is, rightfully, forbidden by Silversea as a courtesy to the Congolese.) Others, especially the older women, were indifferent, bothered, or even angry. Regardless, it made you think about what actually makes a person happy and to what extent material things are a requisite or even an evil (or, of course, anything in between).
After our two-hour ride, it was time to board one of two aluminum skiffs that had four wooden benches that weren’t attached to the boat. The safety placard said the maximum capacity was six, but our twelve (including the guides and driver) fit somewhat comfortably for the one-hour voyage to the Sanctuary.
While the waters supposedly had hippopotamus and crocodiles, we did not spot any. I did add one bird to my life list, however. It was a beautiful cruise that reminded me of a few I had done on the Amazon in Peru years ago.
We finally arrived at the Tchimpouga Chimpanzee Sanctuary, where the guide stood on the bow of the boat and gave us a fairly rudimentary talk as we waited as he called for the workers to arrive with food for the chimpanzees. Finally, the cries of the chimps in the jungle were heard. Then, slowly, they started to arrive as we sat in our boat about fifty feet from the shore.
While it was clear some chimpanzees were suffering from either a skin condition, or missing a limb, or old age, it was fascinating seeing their unique faces, mannerisms, interactions, and demeanors. It was like nothing you would see in an animal park, as these are essentially wild chimpanzees. There was a definite hierarchy, with one very loud, teeth-bearing male, making sure everyone knew he was the boss and the feeding area was his.
Meanwhile, there was one who calmly sat in a tree like nothing was going on, and a couple of elders sitting on the riverbank who were like, “You go be macho. We will just sit over here while you do your thing.”
And then there was a mother with twins. One of the twins clung tightly to his mother the entire time, while the other was off checking out everything and a number of the other chimpanzees, with a definite independence. In the end, though, he hopped on the mother’s back with the timid one and disappeared into the bush. Cute.
The hand-eye coordination of the chimpanzees was amazing. They caught every fruit sent their way. Left hand or right, it didn’t matter. Definitely possible outfielders for my New York Mets!
As a final “Goodbye”, that one aggressive and loud chimpanzee picked up a large stick and chased us along the shore as we started to motor away. Next thing we knew, that stick came sailing at us and just missed the boat. He showed us!
While we thought we might get off the boat, that was not to be the case, so we headed back. It was interesting that the boat ride back seemed so quick, I guess because we were no longer burdened with anticipation, while we were filled with a lot to process. This was also true of our van ride, now being able to focus more on what we were seeing rather than wondering what we would see and needing to process the culture shock as it first hit us.
We were supposed to have snack boxes for the ride back, though we would return to the ship in time for a late lunch. I later found out that they were actually left under a nice buffet lunch that was provided to the later group (as they would miss lunch). I also heard that the local chief visited with that group. (We were also given pastries for the ride there, and most were left untouched, so the snacks were not missed.) Nicely done, Silversea!
As a final great Silversea Expedition touch, that evening a note was delivered saying that since the basic transport didn’t allow for the team to give us all the information we might want, a written description of the Sanctuary, details on chimpanzees and their lives, as well as the bird we spotted was delivered to our suite. Excellent and a huge improvement from our initial experiences.
Silversea listened and quickly reacted not only improving the “expedition” experience, but exceeding even my expectations. Bravo!
That said, some of the privileged 36 guests grumbled, angered that we didn’t have more time with the chimpanzees. As I discussed with Silversea, there were two ways to view the day’s experience: A. I spent six hours toughing it out to see chimps for a few minutes, or B. I had an amazing multi-sensory experience, not only experiencing something that touched my soul and very few ever will get to do, both concerning culture and nature, but I also made a financial contribution to a well-deserving sanctuary supporting the efforts of Jane Goodall. While I am obviously in Category B, I guess enough guests were in Category A, as Silversea credited back $100 per person. I find that sad and disappointing.
Speaking of disappointing, we were advised due to piracy and safety concerns, our call on Bom Bom Island in the tiny country of Sao Tome & Principe has been cancelled. While it was only going to be a beach day, let’s face it, there will never be an opportunity to tick off visiting that country, and probably not much of a future chance to be accosted by pirates. Oh well!
As a result, we will have three consecutive sea days before reaching Togo, our second-to-last country we will be visiting. The last days are jammed packed, so stay tuned!
