at Sea
Today we arrived in Ghana at around 8 am. We had no plans for the day and decided we would go out to the port area where locals set up some shopping. Takoradi is a city we visited in 2022. Nothing to see other than poverty.
It was near 90 degrees when we went outside. The shops along the port area all carried similar items. Bright colored clothing, strange hats, handmade jewelry. We spent about 30 minutes here and were ready to go back to the ship. This is the first time that we haven’t gone to visit something in the city. There really isn’t anything here. I would love to see the $75 that every passenger and crew member had to pay to the government go directly to the people. There is also a port fee that HAL has to pay and I know it is expensive. There are port fees and piloting fees. Fees for this and fees for that. Fees to keep the port running I can understand but the Visa fees are ridiculous.
At lunch, the immigration officials were in line for food. They crowded around one of the counters like they have never eaten before. There were 16 officials. I’m sure these were the folks doing the visa stamping aboard the ship. Muffins during stamping were probably not enough. I’m sure that the promise of lunch made everything go very smoothly.
No team trivia after lunch today but I am guessing from what I saw, most passengers stayed on board or just visited the market set up on the port.
Looking ahead, we have a HAL tour in Banjul, golf set up in Cape Verde and nothing yet in Puerto Rico. These are the final stops on the tour.
Lightning team trivia after dinner. All of the questions had to do with the Netherlands. Which countries border the Netherlands? What Hollands the most famous beer? Which 4 countries make up the Netherlands? What is the Netherlands longest running airline? 2 paintings were show. One was Van Goghs Starry Night and the other was a Rembrandt. What did the King do as a part time job with his King duties? (He was a pilot for KLM)
The evening entertainment was comedian Mark Sampson. He was billed as a comedian that would take us around Africa clockwise. I thought it would be fun to see him. We arrived 20 mins early and he was already in the audience with a microphone chatting with folks. His show started at 7:30. He began to show us a trip that he took around Africa with his family that took 6.5 years. He traveled in a motor home and he said he didn’t use a drop of fossil fuel. He ran his vehicle on used frying oil. It turns out that this trip was all about climate. I’m not sure how burning frying oil helped the climate. What I remember from his trip is that he rebuilt his engine 3 times, his kids hated him after the trip and his wife divorced him. Great trip? If we didn’t have seats in the middle of a row, we would have left mid-show. He has never been to these United States yet he spoke with some negativity towards them. I don’t mind HAL bringing aboard these kinds of folks but adjust the playbill to reflect who they are and what they are presenting. George Carlin does a similar kind of show but I know that going in. We couldn’t get out fast enough.