West African Tourist

Our ship left Fortaleza, Brazil on March 12 (Day 57), crossed the Atlantic stopping at Cape Verde islands on March 17 (Day 61), and then cruised south along the shores of West Africa from March 18 to March 25. In West Africa, we visited the ports of Dakar, Senegal (March 18), Banjul, Gambia (March 19), Abidjan, Ivory Coast (March 22), Sekondi-Takoradi, Ghana (March 23), Lome, Togo (March 24), Cotonou, Benin (March 25), and the island Sao Tome (March 27).

I visited all of these ports except for Benin (where I stayed on the ship for the day). This was a challenging area for a cruise ship to go. We had lecturers on safety, pickpockets, not going out alone, not wearing any jewelry, not standing out, etc. Several passengers and crew were in dangerous situations when they went out alone, with one assaulted at knife point.

In a number of ports, we were the first cruise they had hosted since November and in Togo the guide told us it had been five years since they had a cruise ship visit. In many places there were security guards on the bus and we were escorted by motorcycle police also.

My view, therefore, of West Africa is pretty limited, but I’ll offer a montage of some of the photos to capture some part of what I could see. You will also notice that many countries are not represented. That is not because there weren’t interesting things there, but instead because I left my phone on the ship in many places because of warnings about security.

This last picture captured a lot for me in one shot. The colonizers slave castle on the left, our cruise ship in the middle, and the really beautiful sculpture of the leader of a 1595 slave rebellion on the right.