Supershan
Bob Shanley Joined: March 28th 2008
Logged in: May 26th 2008
Logged in: May 26th 2008
Travel Blog Posts
Lisbon Arrived here right on time at Noon on Thursday, May 22. Since we were not going to disembark until the next morning, we opted to take one last excursion and were glad we did because the weather which had been perfect for the entire trip, turned cold and rainy. The first stop was Queluz, the Summer Palace for Queen Mary I. It was a nice tour but nothing exceptional and typical of the palaces we have seen in the past. Next was the old town of Sintra which is in the National Park and is quite charming. They boast of the second oldest Hotel in Europe, The Lawrence where Lord Byron often stayed and wrote one of his novels. Lots of narrow windy streets and cute shops and definitely would have enjoyed spending more time ... read more
Was surprised to learn that Cadiz, Spain is the oldest continuously occupied city in Western Europe. The Phoenician merchants set up shop here in 1100 B.C. We had a five hour excursion planned that did a little tour of the city and then headed out to Jerez de la Frontera to see the famous Spanish Andalucian horses and drink a little sherry. A lot of Spanish towns in this part of the World have the suffix de la Frontera. When the Spanish Kings were trying to reclaim Southern Spain from the Moors, every time they pushed them out of a city, they added the suffix to indicate this was the new frontier. Jerez is a beautiful area, clean and very picturesque and famous for it's bulls, horses and Sherry. The horse ranch was in a park ... read more
After 2 days sailing past the North African Coast of Tunisia, Algeria & Morocco, we arrived at Malaga, Spain on the 20th of May. We had a half day tour scheduled which turned out to be terrific. First stop was the Castillo de Gibralfaro which means Castle of the Lighthouse Rock which overlooks the city and gave us some great views and photo opts. Next we hit the Bull Ring and Museum and got a history lesson on bull fighting past and present. We were amazed at the costs of the sport today. Bull Fighters can get paid over 100,000 Euro for one fight and it costs over 100 Euro for a seat. Next we got to tour the famous Cathedral of Malaga which was as beautiful as the one we saw in Valletta. Our last ... read more
Tunisia Arrived at Gabes, Tunisia on Saturday and had an all day free tour sponsored by American Express. Saw lots of sand and quite a few oasis with their date palm trees. Our first stop was the city of Matmata where almost all the inhabitants live in cave like dwellings that have been carved out of the hillside. We got a chance to tour one of the homes and were very impressed with the cleanliness and overall layout. We next toured the site where they filmed the first Star Wars Movie and got a chance to buy some real desert souvenirs. The highlight of the trip was a stop at Douz, the Gateway to the Sahara and got back on a camel and road it into the desert. We were quite impressed with Tunisia especially compared ... read more
Malta Arrived in the Port of Valletta early on Friday, May 16th and it was great seeing a European town again! We did a Highlights Tour in the morning which took us first to the fishing village of Marsaxlokk. It was a nice photo opt and probably won't be available in the near future because fishing in the Med has really gotten bad. Most fishermen only do it part time and need another job for support. The next two stops were a porcelain factory and a glass bowing works and both were interesting. The best stop was the Meridiana Wine Estate where we got to taste some very good wines and replenish our South African supply which had just ran out. After the tour, we asked to be dropped in the town of Valletta and got ... read more
Port Suez to Port Said We had spent the night anchored outside of Port Suez, awaiting the rest of our caravan. There are no locks in the Suez Canal since the water level in the Red Sea and the Med are the same. In most places, there is only room for one ship but there are a few areas wide enough to pass so this is where the Northbound and Southbound Caravans pass each other. We were suppose to enter the canal @ 6:00 AM but because we had 40 ships heading North and only 18 going South, they called us @ 3:00 AM and of course no one was awake and got to see us enter the Canal. Warships have first priority and Passenger Liners second so we ended up leading the parade North. We ... read more
On Saturday, May 10th we arrived at Safaga, Egypt which is a desert town on the Red Sea. Safaga was established as a Port to export phosphate minerals and as a Gateway city for tourist visits to Luxor. We boarded our bus which was number 4 of 14 and formed a Caravan for our 3 1/2 hour drive across the desert to the Nile. Security is a big issue in this part of the world so we had a military escort including a small platoon of soldiers in the first and last cars of the Caravan and each bus had an armed security man sitting in the front row. We went through at least 3 checkpoints where the road narrowed down to one lane and we had to stop. At every intersection on our route, cross ... read more
After 4 days at sea, we pulled into Salalah. We had been escorted by the Dutch Frigate, HnLms Evertsen since leaving Mombasa and were sorry to see it leave. It's main Mission was to protect Emergency Food supplies that were being delivered to Somalia but we were very happy to have her company and protection as well. Salalah is a pretty bleak looking place from the water and it did not get much better once we went ashore. We had booked a Shore Excursion to Mughsayl Beach, Frankincense Trees and The Tomb of The Prophet Job. The beach was actually beautiful but there was not a single soul on it! Swimming is not part of the Omani Culture so no one goes to the beach. The big highlight of our first stop was the blow holes ... read more
Mombasa Arrived here on Monday the 28th of April and still pinching ourselves that we are actually going on a Safari! Everything went pretty smooth getting off the ship, onto a waiting bus and off to the airport through the shanty towns of Mombasa. Found out that Abercrombie & Kent was running the Safari and was much relieved since they are one of the very Top Rated firms. Boarded a 4 engine prop plane that had been chartered just for our group and headed off to the Masai Mara. Most private safaris have to go through Nairobi which burns up a lot of time and is where all the rioting has been so we were quite pleased that we only had a 2 hour direct flight. The camp has no fences, so we had to be ... read more
Victoria, Mahe, Seychelles We arrived at this much anticipated stop on Friday, the 25th of April. Our 9.5 hour excursion was right up there as one of my top picks since we were to board a small boat and head over to Praslin Island a World Heritage Site and often called the Garden of Eden. The first bit of bad news was that for the first time in the trip, we ran into rain. The second shocker we got when we down to the lounge to get our Trip Stickers and found out our Excursion had been cancelled because our small boat had lost an engine and declared unseaworthy. Here it was 8 AM and our ship was not going to sail until 11 PM, and it was raining! We looked into getting another boat to ... read more
