Namibia to Cape Town

After São Tomé, we spent several days at sea continuing south toward Namibia.

By then, we could feel this part of the journey coming to an end. We were beginning to pack and talking about leaving the ship with mixed feelings. We'd been aboard for more than three weeks, and the Splendor had become home.

But we still had one more port before Cape Town.

Walvis Bay, Namibia

We arrived in Walvis Bay on January 10.

We had originally planned to kayak at Pelican Point, but changed our excursion to a four-wheel-drive trip through Sandwich Harbour.

We were very glad we did.

We climbed into Toyota 4WD vehicles and first stopped at shallow wetlands to see flamingos. After some of the wildlife we'd seen elsewhere, the flamingos themselves were a little anticlimactic.

From there we visited the enormous salt ponds outside Walvis Bay.

The water was pink from algae. Our guide explained that seawater is pumped into the ponds and left for months before the salt is harvested. We saw huge piles of harvested salt and handled a single salt crystal several inches across that was surprisingly heavy.

Then we headed south along the Atlantic.

The landscape became increasingly empty.

Ocean on one side.

Desert on the other.

Gray skies overhead.

At one stop the sand along the beach had a pink tint, which our guide told us came from minerals carried north in the ocean from mining areas in South Africa.

We passed fishermen sitting beside their lines on an otherwise nearly deserted beach. The ocean was rough and churning, and the entire place felt both beautiful and desolate.

Then our driver suddenly turned away from the beach.

And we started climbing the dunes.

Sandwich Harbour

The 4WD vehicles climbed and descended enormous sand dunes, sometimes stopping at the top so we could get out and look across the desert toward the Atlantic.

The views were spectacular.

At one point the guides set up lunch and refreshments for us among the dunes. The food was homemade and good, and after eating we continued farther into the desert.

One of the strangest moments came when our guide explained that a river once flowed through the area and still existed beneath the sand.

Another guide dug down about two feet.

Water began seeping into the hole.

After a few minutes he scooped some into a cup, and we tasted it.

It was clear and surprisingly good.

We later wondered whether that had been a brilliant idea.

The next day we both had diarrhea.

As I wrote in the notes: "Probably from drinking the desert water yesterday. Brilliant."

Still, the verdict on Sandwich Harbour was easy: Great outing.

The Last Sea Day

The next morning we woke off the coast of southern Namibia beneath gray skies.

A large pod of dolphins greeted us.

We spent much of the day packing.

For all our initial comparisons between Regent and the Haven on Norwegian Joy, we'd become attached to the ship and the rhythm of life aboard it.

It felt strange to realize that we would leave—and the Splendor, its crew and everyone remaining aboard would simply continue without us.

We were sad for this part of the trip to end.

But Cape Town was ahead, and so was the rest of Africa.

Cape Town Appears

We arrived in Cape Town on January 12 but wouldn't disembark until the following morning.

Our final ship excursion was supposed to take us to Table Mountain.

We didn't actually get underway until about 5:00 that afternoon.

The delay turned out not to matter.

The weather was nearly perfect when we reached the top.

We rode the cable car up and spent about an hour and twenty minutes walking around. Clouds spilled over parts of the mountain like waterfalls, while other areas remained clear enough to give us extraordinary views of Cape Town and the surrounding coastline.

We easily could have spent half a day up there.

The drive back to the ship took us along the Atlantic coast through Camps Bay, Clifton and Sea Point.

It was around sunset.

The beaches were beautiful. People were everywhere—walking, exercising and enjoying the evening.

After weeks of unfamiliar ports along West Africa, Cape Town felt different immediately.

It looked like somewhere we wanted to explore.

Leaving the Splendor

On January 13, we disembarked.

The day before I'd been disappointed that the cruise was ending.

That morning I felt differently.

I was ready for whatever came next.

We gathered the absurd quantity of luggage we'd brought with us and met our driver. The cruise was over.

Twenty-five nights earlier, we'd boarded the Splendor in Barcelona not quite knowing what to expect.

Since then we'd visited southern Spain, the Canary Islands, Cape Verde, Senegal, The Gambia, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, São Tomé and Namibia.

We'd crossed the equator.

We'd celebrated Christmas and New Year's at sea.

We'd stood inside the House of Slaves on Gorée Island, driven through the dunes of Namibia, wandered unfamiliar African cities, eaten lunch in places we'd never heard of a few months earlier and begun getting our "traveler legs" underneath us.

And now we were in Cape Town.

What We'll Remember

We'll remember the enormous dunes of Sandwich Harbour dropping toward the Atlantic.

We'll remember digging into the desert and finding water beneath the sand—and perhaps the lesson that finding water doesn't necessarily mean you should drink it.

We'll remember the dolphins on our final sea day.

We'll remember being unexpectedly sad to pack.

And we'll remember arriving at Table Mountain late in the afternoon, seeing clouds pouring over the mountain and then driving back along the coast as Cape Town came alive around sunset.

Would We Do It Again?

The cruise itself? Probably not this exact itinerary.

But we're very glad we did it.

It took us to places we almost certainly would never have visited independently and gave us a glimpse of a long stretch of Africa that we'd previously known mostly as names on a map.

Some places we'd happily return to.

Others we're satisfied to have seen once.

And somewhere along the way, we became more comfortable simply being travelers.

On the morning of January 13, we walked off the Splendor.

For most of the passengers, Cape Town was the end of the trip.

For us, it was the beginning of the next one.