Mediterranean cruises are a global attraction. Travelers from all over the world embark in Barcelona, Athens or Rome to visit the ports of Spain, Italy, France, Greece, the Adriatic coasts or countries such as Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia. Tourist boat trips in northern Europe are increasingly in demand, whether to the Nordic capitals, the Norwegian fjords, Iceland or the British Isles. Boat trips to the Caribbean are also in high demand, a classic destination setting sail on trips from three days to two weeks, departing from ports such as Miami, Port Canaveral or Fort Lauderdale, the main ports in the world.
As the cruise sector grows, more countries become the target of shipping companies: Asian markets, Oceania, the remote islands of the Pacific and also Africa, an exotic market for the European, American or Asian traveler. This continent is positioning itself as a destination for vacation and tourism trips and cruise companies offer more and more African ports in their travel catalogs, taking advantage of the southern spring and summer.
The latest to join the trend has been Norwegian Cruise Line, which in its category of extraordinary trips has included sailing through southern Africa for the first time, making two-week voyages to ports in South Africa and Namibia, very interesting itineraries in which Magazine has been able to travel aboard the Norwegian Jade, the ship with which NCL wanted to position itself in Africa. This is how the stopovers have been and this is how this ship is.
The Norwegian Jade makes a circular voyage that departs from Cape Town and returns to its port after two weeks. Having it as a starting or arrival point allows you to have a group of days to get to know South Africa's second city and one of the most attractive on the continent. To get an idea of its geographical location, going up to its two viewpoints is key. The first is Table Mountain, a four kilometer flat-topped mountain. It is reached by a spectacular cable car or, with more time, on foot. The second viewpoint is Signal Hill, a mountain that can be accessed by car and descended in an original way: by paragliding to the ocean. Doing it at sunset is impressive.
All the nature that surrounds the city beckons, especially reaching the mythical Cape of Good Hope by land, a point that on this trip we will double by sailing. The city has three very special points for the traveler: Long Street with the best Victorian architecture, Greenmarket Square, where there is a market almost every day, and the Victoria Waterfront.
The first stop is the small port of a city of 100,000 inhabitants on the so-called garden route, a 300-kilometer strip between the mountains and the Indian Ocean, privileged by climates that never drop below 10ºC or rise above 28 and is considered a biosphere reserve by UNESCO. After disembarking by boat, we travel through an impressive landscape towards three points: a cheese factory and beer factory, the oldest vineyards in the area and an Aloe production center.
Although the region is not eminently wine-growing as is the case with Stellenbosch or Franschhoek, some wineries have special charm and are lovingly cared for to make visitors fall in love. There, visits and especially wine tastings from all over the country, the largest wine producer in Africa, are organized. The region's craft beers are also produced on farms and cheese factories. In their gardens, tastings are also offered at tables under their trees, where the only problem, if we are looking for one, is that the boat continues its journey and we cannot spend all the hours that places like this deserve.
The second stop brings us to the city that officially, and since 2021, is called Gqeberha due to the movement in favor of recovering local names to the detriment of colonial ones. From those times there is still a huge mark on the architecture and general aesthetics of the city, although this day is focused on the visit to Addo, the third largest of the 20 national parks in the country. Founded in 1931, it extends across 3,600 square kilometers and includes islands, coastal areas, overwhelming biodiversity and a variety of fauna ranging from antelopes to black rhinos, lions and buffaloes.
However, the most important thing there is the enormous number of Elephants that live in the area: close to 700, a notable number if you take into account that the park was created to protect the 31 that remained in the province 90 years ago. Traveling the park's trails in open 4x4 vans, in photo safari mode, is absolutely exciting. Even the guide, in love with the place and the animals that live there, knows what we are going to find around the next bend, on the other side of the valley or in the lagoons where life happens, apparently calm and impressive, for all the animals, although the star of all this are the huge groups of elephants walking, eating or bathing. Seeing them is hypnotic… and a fortune.
Norwegian Jade's third stop is officially Durban, South Africa's third most populous city and one of its most important ports. So important that it had no berths available for days and the ship was diverted about 100 miles north to Richards Bay, South Africa's main coal export port, where other minerals and products such as aluminium, timber and, interestingly, corn are also handled. Even outside of the program, it was interesting to moor in such an active industrial port.
A passenger ship completely surrounded by black mountains and huge freighters was quite a contrast. Also notable was the beauty of the industrial sector in continuous movement and being direct witnesses that coal, reviled in other countries, continues to give energy to the world. As for what can be visited on land, the option of visiting Durban, a very attractive coastal city, remained in place, as was also the offer to visit the iSimangaliso Wetland national park, one of the eight points declared a world heritage site by UNESCO for its beauty. that overflows, a consideration that is not exaggerated.
After two days of sailing west and then north after rounding the Cape of Good Hope for the second time, we changed countries to reach Namibia. Lüderitz was until the end of the last century the only port on the entire coast of the country and maintains that name because during the 19th century, Namibia was a colony known as German Southwest Africa. When traveling it is good to know things to put what you visit into context, such as that this stage of colonization was characterized by brutality and oppression towards the indigenous Namibian population and that after the end of the First World War, that territory became administered by the United Kingdom and then by South Africa until Namibia fought and won its independence in the 1990s.
Even so, the feeling when walking through the city is curious: the architecture and urban planning are unmistakably Central European, built thousands of kilometers from where they were inspired and one of the most interesting, although at the same time disturbing, visits is Kolmapskop, a few kilometers away. The interior: an old mining operation now abandoned although visited, where the discovery of diamonds turned it into a place of business attraction. The greed that has ended up eaten by the dunes gives a lot to think about.
The second stop in Namibia was a landing in the extreme beauty of the country. The port of Walvis Bay, a coastal city with a modern aesthetic in the north of the country that was originally Dutch, British and then South African. It is the starting point for one of the most wonderful excursions that can be done in this part of the continent: visiting the area where the Namib Desert (hence the name of this young and sparsely populated independent state) meets the ocean. The desert is one of the oldest and driest in the world. It extends along the coast covering a considerable area: about 2,000 kilometers from south to north and about 100 kilometers from the interior and to the Atlantic. What could be seen as a handicap has become one of the country's great attractions.
From the port and heading towards the desert, the road passes in front of a giant lagoon, that of the flamingos. And thousands of them live there seasonally. A gift for the eyes, as it is also to lose your gaze when traveling through the desert along the beach: on different tracks and with a guide who remains fascinated traveling them at a good and safe speed, on one side is the immensity of the ocean. On the other, the dunes up to 100 meters high, which can be climbed in a 4x4 and can even be descended on foot, where the guide awaits with a picnic that is not forgotten, nor is the trip back to the boat forgotten. while the sun goes down, exploring the beach, dunes and a beautiful desert again.
Norwegian Jade is a 93,500-ton ship, which by today's standards can be considered a medium-large cruise ship. She is 294 meters long, with a maximum capacity of 2,400 travelers and always 1,035 crew members. These are all technical facts and figures for a boat that had a previous life. When it was launched in 2006, it was baptized as Spirit of Hawaii, since the original idea was to assign it to the 100% American division of Norwegian Cruise Line, with ships flagged in the United States due to the legal imperative of Washington, which requires them to carry its flag. if you want to take cruises without leaving the country, which is the case of trips that only make stops in the islands of the archipelago that is considered the 50th state since 1959.
Finally, in 2008 the NCL assigned a single unit, the Pride of America, to the Hawaii market, and decided that the Pride of Hawaii would dedicate itself to making trips in the rest of the world, for which it was renamed Norwegian Jade and flagged in the Bahamas. like the rest of the fleet, which currently has 19 ships. This stands out for having a good ratio of outdoor spaces, a generous entertainment offer and areas where you can be absolutely disconnected from the rest of the passage if you wish.
