Sigh, another ship tour day. But, what can you do? We have so much onboard credit to spend, we have to do something. And we’ve been to Tala before and really enjoyed it, so why not?
The tour was originally scheduled for the morning but changed to 12 noon – which makes it a little tough in terms of logistics. Lunch doesn’t even begin until 12:30 in the buffet and 12 in the Patio – so that doesn’t work. We had wanted to do the tour, then go to the seaside Village marketplace and have lunch as we did the last time, but obviously that isn’t in the cards either. So we do our normal morning routine with gym, breakfast, and then our “picnic lunch” fixings of mixed tapas meat and rolls from the breakfast bar. It’s something at least.
Roma had said something about changing the location of the tour due to immigration, and that letters would be sent out last night. But we didn’t get any letters, so we headed down to Shore Ex to figure it out, on our way passing the holiday gingerbread town that has magically sprung up overnight! So cool – now we know why all the chairs and tables from Mosaics have been moved.
Back in the cabin, we once again wait and wait and wait – because again, we are late into port due to the pilot or the port or who knows? It’s Africa after all! The bonus is that we are at a completely different pier that just opened last year. We don’t need a shuttle to get anywhere, we can just walk – which is much nicer than trying to coordinate shuttle times!
Eventually, we get tired of standing on the balcony, so we go down to Deck 5 to see what is happening – and are finally cleared to go through immigration. We figured we’d do the immigration thing, then drop our passports back on the ship, grab the backpack and go to the mall for a bit – if timing allows. There is a huge queue at the stairs to get out, but we finally start moving (thank god because the woman behind us is coughing her head off and I don’t think covering! Geez – these people!) and are out an in the queue along with the first tours. Passing through immigration was a breeze, getting back aboard was smooth, coming back out, a little confusing! Ngawhira had told us we don’t need to stand in the immigration line when we come back out, just show our keycard. That doesn’t work so well, the guard at the door is clueless, even the other documentation officer doesn’t know what to do. Eventually we just duck under the rope line and walk out – no one stops us. So much for security!
Out into the sunshine we go, walking the 10 minutes to the Village Marketplace – just as we remembered! Today is Reunification Day, a national holiday, so we aren’t too sure if every place will be open. We had nothing to fear! Every shop is open and the place is hopping with locals and visitors alike on holiday. We meander through, looking at a few of the shops, but nothing really strikes our fancy. Continuing on, we head to the end of the mall and the beach and the restaurant over the water where we had lunch on our last visit! What the heck? It is a great location, great to sit out over the water – we’ll just repeat history! It isn’t the same restaurant any longer – now it is Ku D’la Pier, not Moyo’s, and no longer are there traditional foods, but more pub type snacks. That actually works better for us since we have our picnic waiting for us onboard. So, just to break our rut, we sit on the opposite side of the deck from where we sat on our first visit, overlooking the quieter portion of the beach, watching a dad teach his daughter to surf. Ordering wine, beer and some really quite excellent peri-peri wings, we spend a lovely 45 minutes or so enjoying the weather, the scenery and our perfect little pre-picnic snack! And Sunny decides to make another appearance. He’s getting quite bold now when there isn’t wind, cold, rain or animals around.
Snack complete, we walk back to the ship (which we could see from the restaurant!) on a straighter course than the way we came, meeting Natalia, the gym manager on the way. She was headed for the beach – she is so cute, she walks right up to us and says “Azamara! From the Gym!” Oh yeah! We’d have never recognized her out of uniform and with her hair down – so cute.
Once back aboard, we ate our picnic lunch, headed to Shore Ex for our stickers (ick) and then after a bit to the bus before Roma called for it. We hate milling about then getting into the whole who can walk faster (or slower) to get to the bus. Of course, there are already people on the bus who know the program, but we still score the seats behind the guide and sit back to wait for the rest of the group.
The others finally manage to amble out, find the bus (a miracle!) and find a seat (another miracle). We drive off through the city listening to our guide, Colin, drone on about the history of Durban (in the ZuluNatal area – so called because it was discovered on Christmas day – ok score one for Colin) and who knows what else, because he has the kind of voice that just lulls you into a coma. I mean, he could have been saying the most interesting things, but I can’t even begin to follow him. It is just that drone of almost white noise. Thank God the preserve is only about an hour from the port.
We arrive, hit the restroom, then the 4×4 which holds 20 or so. Hopping on, I’m just a hair too slow to get the back seats, bummer, so settle for the seats right by the stairs. Then we sit, and sit, and sit, waiting for everyone. The bonus is we see Aaron, our guide from Richard’s Bay! He’s from Durban, so it only figures that he’d be here! And the Australian family was with him, along with 4 others. He’s having a long discussion with our 4×4 driver, then comes over to greet us when he sees us there! He is so great, would definitely have booked a tour with him again if we didn’t have this one.
As we sit, waiting for all the passengers, we sign our waivers, the Asian lady in the zebra pants gets out and walks away to take pictures of the zebras in the field. The guide tries to get her back, but that doesn’t work. Sigh. The Guide is explaining what we will do, and the rules of the drive, be quiet, the animals shouldn’t hear our voices, stay in the vehicle, etc. Zebra lady finally comes back. And then these 2 loud ladies come from the shop, and get on the 4×4. There aren’t any seats together, and they whine about that. Javier, the new ShoreEx guy is on the tour with us, and he sweetly gives up his seat to one of the ladies so they can sit one right behind the other. Meanwhile he is now squished in the back seat with 3 others. And he’s a big guy! Know he probably had to do it, but still so nice.
These 2 don’t have stickers on, and we’re a little unsure if they were on our bus. They have Azamara luggage tags, and they know one of the guys on our tour, but still. I’m thinking they aren’t with us. Hmmmm….Oh, and they are obnoxious. Loud, talking all the time. I had turned to Ed and said we probably should have done the High Tea shore excursion (at which we have been totally rolling our eyes the entire cruise – I mean really, you are in South Africa with game drives and other nature-related things to do, and you go to High Tea?), Ed laughs so hard. And obnoxious blonde lady looks at us and says, what’s got you laughing so much? Ed sweetly just replies, “Something she said.” I would have said, “Um, none of your business.”
Anyhow, we are finally off and on the road. Tala is a great park because, a) it is small, and b) it is wide open. Very little scrub or forest to get in the way of viewing. The first sightings are the previously mentioned zebra which are grazing right around the corner from the main camp along with a couple of ostrich.
Moving farther into the field, we see our first rhinos of the trip! A mom and a baby grazing by a fence. How cool! The guide maneuvers so we are right up close and can watch them walk past and out into the other fields. There is also a wildebeest – they are so ugly and scary – and fast! That guy takes off when we annoy him, and boy can he move.
As we are sitting, watching all this going on, we see Aaron in his van, along with the Aussie family and 2 others. Wait a minute! He said he had 7 with him. No way! That was the big discussion he was having with our guide, I bet! Trying to get these 2 on our 4×4. They aren’t even with us. That wouldn’t ordinarily bug us, but these 2 are totally disruptive, loud and rude. We realize the blonde is the loud, obnoxious woman (LOW) from the 2nd day in the gym – ugh.
We watch the rhinos until they leave, then turn to head further into the park, driving past the Rhino Protection team. How cool is that? To patrol for poachers – even though the rhino’s tusks have been cut off to eliminate the risk. As we drive past the jeep, the dogs in the bag go absolutely ape shit. Yeah, we’d not be poaching anywhere near here with those nasty beasts! They do the job all right.
Next we come upon a couple of kudu and whole herd of wildebeest, just grazing and sort of meandering around the fields. They are just so ugly. Our guide tells us when God was finished creating all the other animals, he had a lot of left over pieces that he didn’t want to go to waste, so he put them all together, and voila! Wildebeest. Cute.
After a little bit of driving – where, btw, it is getting really, really, really cold! As in we totally failed on the “onion” principle where we should always have layers. It was so warm at the coast, we did not bring anything appropriate to keep us warm, sigh. Last packing fail we’re gonna have this trip! – we are on to the giraffes. And I mean giraffes! First there is this little, relatively speaking, guy…just sitting very regally in the grass, enjoying his surroundings and bothering no one. Politely posing for us. He is wonderful. Of course the obnoxious women are talking and screaming so loud, the whole 4×4 shushes them. FYI – doesn’t last long. But they’ve obviously annoyed him enough that he gets up and walks away. Nice photos – but gee thanks for bugging the wildlife.
There are also a few giraffes on the other side of the road that we stop to watch. Fortunately they aren’t scared off by loud mouth, so we can sit in relative peace and just bask in their presence.
About two minutes later, around a bend we see a whole journey of giraffes in the near distance. You can just see their heads sticking up above the bushes. There are so many – We start off counting 7, but then so many more appear. They are so cool to watch. Just standing there all looking at something we cannot see. Then they start to move – walking toward (or away from – who knows?) something. The way they move is so crazy – gawky but yet sinuous. Can’t really describe it – better to watch it and get my meaning.
As we sit here watching, the fog and mist starts rolling in, providing a sort of mystical feel. We end up staying here for a long time, just watching as, it turns out, another guide is out there in the field trying to move the herd toward us. They do a lot of milling around. We watch as the matriarch, the pale white giraffe moves through the bush to browse on the shrubs. Then the males come out, they are the darker brown giraffes, one of which is following another female. Hmmm…must be mating season….no giraffe porn on this trip though!
The males end up coming the closest to us – whether out of curiosity or to protect the rest of the giraffes, we’ll never know. But they make a great sight, watching us as we watch them – crossing their necks in the classic pose. Really something special.
Seriously, we stay there for about 40 minutes, they giraffes are that fascinating. And then we are off, getting stuck in the super wet, muddy fields. Obviously there has been a lot of rain here, and the tracks for the vehicles are completely bogged down with mud. After a couple of attempts, our guide successfully gets us out of the bog and we head off toward the lake, in another section of the park, passing vervet monkeys along the way.
Getting to the lake you can see how wet it is, a huge river of water is running across the road and into a water trench – it is like a waterfall flowing through the marsh. At the lake there are hundreds of ducks and birds all milling about. We are hoping to see a hippo, and there is one in the far, far distance, but no way would we be able to snap a picture! I barely caught him with my on 2 eyes!
On the way out our guide revs the engine really hard, making all this sound, trying to get the birds to fly. But apparently they know this trick, and just start squawking at him while they waddle into the water. Nice try though! Would have made for a great shot.
Onward we go, now, thankfully, heading back to the lodge (thankfully because it is down right frigid out here! We could have worn our puffy coats, let me tell you.) spotting a male ostrich, more Bontebok antelope, a crash of rhinos spread across the road – which the obligatory birds all around – and a zebra for good measure.
And then we are back to the main lodge, were we have refreshments – coffee or juice and pastries. Oh, and footnote on the LOW, when we return, Aaron and his other 5 folks are sitting there, in the van, just waiting. Who knows how long they’ve been sitting there waiting for our 4×4 to come back with the LOW. Matthew, the Aussie teen, is polishing off a bag of chips, everyone else is in the van – so who knows. Those LOW, they are so ignorant. Sigh. Ok, enough rant.
Anyhow, we’re back on the bus after restrooms and shopping (the shop is really expensive!) and back onboard in a little over an hour. PS – it is still lovely and warm down here.
Tonight, after the gym, are the Zulu dancers. This is the same show Quest brought aboard during the COVID cruise. We know from the previous show they are fantastic. And they do not disappoint tonight either. They have the addition of 2 little guys – maybe 7 or 8 or 9? They are amazing – as are all the performers. And as I did the last time, I took tons and tons of photos and tons and tons of videos! How can you resist?
After the show, we have plenty of time to freshen up in the cabin and head to Aqualina for our dinner. It is empty up there – we could seriously roll a bowling ball through and not hit a soul. We knew it probably would be, the specialty restaurant guy is constantly walking around the ship trying to sell reservations. While it is great for us – we love private dining venues – it ain’t so great for Azamara. We’ll put it down to this particular route and itinerary, although last year’s S. Africa season was completely booked out. Whatever it is, we’re hoping they get this all figured out soon.
At any rate, the dinner was fabulous, made even more special by our reunion with Ryan, our favorite waiter from the Quest! We are so excited to see him, as he is us. And we spend a great evening eating, talking, reminiscing and catching up. One of the reasons we love this line – the people. Never met a bunch of nicer, more sincere and genuine staff and crew. It is like family.
Our night finishes, as always, in the cabin with the kindles and the TV. Hey – we’re good with that. If we want to see something, we will. If we don’t? Not a problem!
Andiamo 