Gqeberha, South Africa

I never thought I would be thanking God that one of my dear friends had dysentery but that was the case yesterday. It has been quite a week! Since we returned from India many of us who went have been sick in one way or another for a few days but one of us had perplexing symptoms. The ship’s doctor said he must get off the ship and to a hospital so they were ready to do that in the next port, Richards Bay. But due to bad weather and high winds we weren’t able to go in to the port. So we forfeited all tours there and our friend had to stay on board. The same was true of the next port, Durban, everyone was ready to either tour or go to the hospital but we couldn’t get in to that port either. It was certainly a matter of hurry up and wait and we all felt sorry for the crew who had to continually make new arrangements only to have them cancelled at the last minute.

We were finally able to get in to the port at Gqeberha (formerly Port Elizabeth) yesterday, but even that was questionable for a time, and as we took off for tours our friend finally headed to the hospital, all packed up in case of having to abort the cruise. He got excellent and informed care and within two hours was diagnosed with dysentery, which was the least serious of the imagined possibilities, got the proper medications and was back on board by dinnertime.

Most of us who did tours went on game drives and that’s what I did. Dale stayed home thinking that the 4×4 ride would aggravate his sore hip. Here’s a sample of the countryside from the bus ride and the animals from the 4×4. It rained all the way there and all the way back but we had a great ride in the game park with only a few minutes of rain, which you an see in some of the pictures.

As you can see the morning wasn’t exactly promising and the pilot boat hovering out there made us wonder if the pilot had actually been able to get on board.

This park is known for its white lions and we watched one for a while as she tried to hunt but white lions are definitely at a disadvantage and besides, the cape buffalo, who can kill a lion, frightened her away.

This was not a box turtle, it was about 2 feet across.

We ate one of this beautiful kudu’s friends for lunch along with a great selection of other African dishes.

It was cool so it was nice to get to see the hippos lazing on the shore instead of cooling off in the water. But the thrill of the day was the elephants. We watched the female for a while and then saw the huge old male (45 years old) coming from behind us toward her. The guides said there was no sign that he was upset so we just sat still and watched him walk between the closely parked vehicles to reach her.

The female is above, male below. Talk about wrinkles!

It was a great game drive! The way home was wet and long and we arrived 2 minutes before the ship was to leave. Dale was watching for us. But as it was we weren’t the last ones back so we didn’t get under way for another hour. Few things went as planned this week but it was a week of blessing in many ways.