Maputo, Mozambique

 

April 6:

After we left the Seychelles Islands,  we witnessed some great sunsets.  Two days out the sea was absolutely flat.  The island of Madagascar protected us from the low pressure cell and storm brewing  in the central Indian Ocean. This is the what we saw from our balcony that evening.  Little did we know what waited for us.

On the afternoon of April 5th, we cruised out of  the shelter of Madagascar.  The wave action increased dramatically.  We were being buffeted by 15 foot waves.  This was no problem for us, but there were a number of fellow passengers that looked “green around the gills.”  Our dinner and show  that night was very lightly attended.

The port lecturer aboard ship painted a pretty bleak picture of Maputo and Mozambique so, when we were given the option to op out of the Mozambique visa, we took it.  This was a mistake.  While Maputo isn’t a Sydney or Singapore, it was not as bad as some of the African ports we experienced in northwest Africa several years ago.   We tried to undo our op out request, but Princess said it was too late to make the change.  This meant we could not leave the ship.  We gave our point and shoot camera to a fellow passenger and she capture some of the images below.  The first two images were taken from the ship.

        

The following images were taken from the shuttle bus ride into town.  The image on the left is a home that was damaged during a recent cyclone.  The one on the right is of the “shopping center”  in downtown Maputo.