...One day before the exotic Mahe Island (Port Victoria) in the Seychelles by Nelly: Here is a quick catch up about happenings around the ship.

Today, Tuesday, January 26, the Australians are all celebrating their National Day . The cry throughout the ship is: Aussie, Aussie, Aussie ! !  90%+ are Australians. Parties are going on and they are having fun and dancing/hopping around like kangaroos. That keeps Jim busy. He is taking pictures and making movies of the fun games.

I forgot to tell you, that in India nor in Sri Lanka no snake charmer and his pet snake tried to serenade me, thank God. It was so crowded that the snake would have been stampede to a mush. Also, no cows to be seen anywhere, which would have held up traffic. I think the cows are smart to stay away from the chaotic traffic. They are not that silly like us to risk their lives.

Also, I have good news. The ship's kitchen this time hasn’t run out of prunes. They knew ahead of time that a bunch of seniors were boarding the ship. Of course, our cruise is not even half over. Even one of the entertainers on the ship had a funny prune story. He told us, that he wanted to mess with the room steward . Therefore, every time he used toilet paper, he would fold the end neatly into a triangle. After four days the steward put a bowl of prunes on his pillow instead of the customary chocolate. We have had a few comedians on board. There are two or more shows every night. Both Jim and I usually attend at least one show. By ten or eleven at night, we are pooped and drop in bed exhausted, but wake up the next morning ready for more adventures.   We have met a few Americans on board. Yes, seven all together. One couple is from New York. Another couple is from Michigan. And guess what? There is a couple from Albuquerque, New Mexico. Last but not least, is a sole lady also from Michigan. All those seven people are happy not to have to fight all that winter stuff back home.  

Weather-wise, we have had no rain since Perth, where we had a thunderstorm the day of departure. It’s been just hot and humid. Last night we crossed the Equator…again. Since we are moving closer to the Seychelles Islands and away from the Equator, it’s more pleasant and somewhat cloudy with a nice breeze .

Wednesday, January 27, 2016. The Seychelles.

We woke up at 6:30 AM, because the docking at the Mahe Island, the largest of all the 115 Seychelles Islands, took place. Wow, we were surprised to see a beautiful tropical place called Victoria with its 23,000 inhabitants. It is also the capital of all the Seychelles Islands. This city is built into the hills of jungle looking mountains. We noticed that the Costa Cruise Line ship beat us to the port, therefore the Princess Sun wiggled itself into port. It was such a tight fit; we were nose to nose and able to see, what the other ship had for breakfast. Half our ship was past the pier, that’s how small the docking place was. At 7:00 AM we were greeted by a band which performed the typical Creole music from this part of the Seychelles.

 After a hardy breakfast, off we went to check out the city on foot. No tender necessary here since the ship was able to make port . We were glad that the weather was overcast but it was super humid - muggy. That meant, even for Jim, sweating buckets. As he is known to say: "Sweating from my eyelids".  Since most interesting things to see were within walking distance, our first place to visit was the Botanical Gardens. It took us about 30 minutes to walk there. After we paid the entry fee of $10 US, we took a leisure walk through this beautiful exotic garden. I am saying leisure walk, because the garden is on a steep hill and the humidity seemed to get worse by the minute. Because of its climate, we were told that many species of plants exist only on this Island. The big attraction in this garden are the giant tortoises. We were able to see them in their low fenced environment. In order to get close to them and hand feed them an extra $ 5.00 US was requested. But Jim got so caught up in the excitement that he didn’t see the sign and walked in without paying. A lady guard got after him. He exited, but not before he had made a quick close up picture of the many giant tortoises . Between the two of us we took over 250 pictures in Mahe. We promise not to bore you, but one of these days we will show you part of what we saw.

Downtown was next. It was a fifteen minute walk and thank God, it was downhill. This walk brought us to the main square. Actually, more like a “round-about” with a miniature Big Ben “Clock Tower” in the middle. What a colorful city, you could tell all the different influences from previous settlers, like the Portuguese, the British, India and the French. The main language spoken here is French because they were the last to occupy the islands. That is also the reason, why a bunch of different religions are here: Catholic, Pentecostal, Muslim, etc. We checked out the main cathedral and the mosque. While we were doing a little shopping, we had a major downpour. Good thing the buildings are built something like in New Orleans. We were covered by the second story balconies. After four hours and not finding a place to hook up with WI Fi, we headed back to the ship. That also means no uploading of pictures again. Mozambique, our next stop, doesn’t sound promising either. At 4:30 pm it was “All aboard ! ! !” again. After supper, we were entertained by three shows. Needless to say, it was after 11:00 PM when we finally made it back to our cabin.

More later, after we see Maputo, Mozambique.   We will be half-way (23 days) through our Indian Ocean cruise in Maputo.  

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