Luanda, Angola
Isolation freedom. We were cleared for take off at 7:30 this morning. Enough time to finish up our breakfast and meet our excursion group at the Main Stage at 8:00am. We had a small group of 11 passengers on our trip today. I was not 100% comfortable with our safety situation today and I really had hoped a member of the shore excursion department would have accompanied us, but they said because of the currently health status on our ship they were not allowed to get off with us today. We visited the San Miguel Fort and got see the history of the military uprisings, civil wars and governmental upheavals here in Angola. The president’s home and the homes of other dignitaries are within a short distance from the Fort and therefore it is still pretty actively used by the military. We saw many officers at the Fort. Next, we went to Augustino Nieto Mausoleum. He was the first president of Angola and he is remembered very fondly by the people. His sarcophagus if here and it a beautiful building shaped like a rocket on the outside and inside it looks like a flower. This building was built in memory of Nieto and a museum of the people of Angola. We actually got to stand in the area that President stood and stands to make public appearances before his constituents. There is also a second area that is going to opened here shortly with the sarcophagus of the second president of Angola who just passed away last year. We also saw the domed parliament building that was quite grand in stature. Next, we drove through a part of town that will forever be in bedded to my memory. The amount of poverty and trash we saw was so sad. Luanda is supposedly one of the richest countries in the world due to the amount of oil produced here, but there is a very large percentage of the country that doesn’t even have access to clean drinking water. Where the funds are all going is your guess. It was difficult to see people living this way and it was a reminder to appreciate what we are blessed with. Our next stop was the Mussulo Pier for a crossing to the Mussulo Island. We boarded our boat just as it was starting to rain. We were pelted by raindrops as we made our way to the island and it stopped raining as we arrived. We arrived at Dally’s Resort on Mussulo Island around 11:00am. They seemed surprised we had arrived as early as we did and told us they weren’t prepared to serve us lunch until 1:00pm. So Megan and I made our way to the pool and spent the afternoon relaxing, sunning ourselves, and trying to stay cool from the 90+ degree weather we are having today. We are making our way back towards the equator and we will be crossing it for the second time of this voyage on Friday. We will be doing a King Neptune’s Ceremony. I have not had the opportunity to participate in one thanks to COVID in 2020 and I am looking forward to my first one ever. This being my third equator crossing. This will be special as it is my understanding is we are crossing at the Prime Meridian making us “Golden Shellbacks”. But that is TBD. We had a nice seafood lunch on the island around 1:00pm. We are still being really careful about what we eat so we opted for simple and only cooked foods that we knew. We took the boat back across to the pier around 3:15pm. We hopped back on the bus and took the ride back to the ship. I have never felt so happy to step back on the ship. There were a couple of times today I feared for our safety and well being and I was happy to back home. One of the weirdest things about today was that people kept continuously taking our photo all day. Police officers, officials, our tour guides, it made us uncomfortable. It was described to me that we are a novelty here due to the color of our skin, but we didn’t care for it very much. I allowed Megan to stand behind me as often as possible. We made it to the main dining room tonight for our 5:00pm seating. It was nice seeing Umam and Regy for the first time in a while. The dining room was noticeably empty tonight. I am guessing due to the number of ill passengers. It gave us a great chance to talk to the crew and catch up on what they have been doing the last few days. We were supposed to sail away at 4:30pm but we were delayed almost two hours due to a medical emergency that necessitated them to remove a passenger from the ship and to have them taken to the hospital via ambulance. I hope that passenger is ok and gets quality care while they are here. We arrived back to our cabin to find a notice reminding us of a time change tonight, we are rolling our clocks back another hour. Putting us 7 hours ahead of CA time. We also we informed our excursion at our nest port has been cancelled. We were supposed to visit a school for the blind and deaf and had been preparing goodies to take to the school for the students. We are very disappointed as we were going there to work, to complete community service projects like painting and to love on the children. We are disappointed we will miss the opportunity. So many ups and down today. But ultimately we are so happy to have been allowed out of cabins, that we are feeling better, and that we have many more adventures ahead of us. Sweet dreams all!!
Live Vicariously Through Debra 