Cape Town to Lisbon: The One Journey I'm Still Not Over

Do you believe all of these places were on one journey?

Because I was there, and I still don't quite believe it.

In May I sailed from Cape Town to Lisbon on the Silver Dawn. One ship, ten ports and three weeks of waking up somewhere I'd never been and getting off the ship into a brand new world. Ghost towns. Pink water. Dunes that fall straight into the ocean. Baboons I could have reached out and touched. A flower festival dinner that made me cry a little. A glass floor 580 meters over the Atlantic.

I kept waiting for the trip to plateau. For one stop to be the peak and everything after to be the slow downhill. It never happened. Every single time I thought it couldn't get more beautiful or more interesting, it did.

So I wrote it all down, port by port, the way I'd tell it to you over coffee. Grab one. This is a long one, and worth the read.

Cape Town, South Africa

We boarded in Cape Town with Table Mountain doing that thing where the clouds pour over the top like a tablecloth. The starting line. I had no idea yet how much was about to be packed into the weeks ahead.

And then we sailed north up a coastline most people never see.

Lüderitz, Namibia, and the ghost town that was sooooo fun to capture

Our excursion out of Lüderitz took us to Kolmanskop, and I am still not over it.

Here's the part that seems unreal. A little over a hundred years ago, this was one of the richest towns in the world. In 1908 a railway worker shoveling sand off the tracks spotted a shiny stone, and it turned out to be a diamond. That single moment set off a rush. Within a few years the town was producing around a million carats a year, something like a tenth of the entire world's diamond supply at the time. They built mansions. A ballroom. A hospital with the first X-ray machine in this part of the world. An ice factory in the middle of the desert. Fresh water shipped in by rail.

And then the diamonds ran out, richer fields were found further south, and by the 1950s everyone was gone.

Now the desert is taking it back, one room at a time.

I walked through the old schoolhouse and the hospital and these grand faded houses, and the sand had just poured in through the doors and windows and filled them halfway up. Peeling paint in these soft washed-out blues and pinks and greens. Light coming through broken window frames in stripes. Sand drifting across the floors of rooms where people once danced. Nobody there. Just me and the wind and a hundred years of quiet.

I could have stayed all day with my camera.

We went back to the Silver Dawn that evening and just sat there, the two of us, not really able to put into words what we'd just seen. We had the hot tub on the back of the ship completely to ourselves as we pulled out of port. Warm water, an empty ocean behind us, that whole abandoned town somewhere back on the shore. One of those moments you know you'll be chasing the feeling of for the rest of your life.

Walvis Bay, Namibia, two days that didn't feel real

Walvis Bay got two full days, and Silversea had excursions planned for both. I'm so glad, because one day would not have been enough.

Day one started at the salt ponds, and I need you to picture this. The water is pink. Not a little pink. Bubblegum, fuchsia, every shade of pink, sitting under a sky so blue it looks fake. The color comes from a tiny algae called Dunaliella salina that thrives in super salty water and pumps out beta-carotene, the same stuff that makes carrots orange. It's also why the flamingos here are pink. They eat the algae and the little brine shrimp, and the color literally becomes part of them. We were there at the right time of day for the light and the contrast was unreal. 

Then we drove into the dunes, and this is where my jaw stayed on the floor.

We were in SUVs along the red sand and the beach, and then suddenly, the dunes. We were in Sandwich Harbour, part of the Namib-Naukluft, and it's one of the only places on earth where giant dunes run straight down into the Atlantic Ocean. The Namib is the oldest desert in the world. I was not prepared for what it feels like to stand where the desert and the sea crash into each other. Bright blue sky, pelicans overhead, giant sea lions on the sand, and then a jackal and a springbok just passing through like it was nothing!

Our drivers were unbelievable. They let the air out of their tires so the trucks could float over the soft sand, and the way they handled those dunes was a whole show in itself. We stopped on top of a dune for champagne and lunch. On top of a dune!! With the ocean on one side and an endless sea of sand on the other. I keep using the word unreal in this blog and I'm not going to apologize for it, because there's no better one.

Day two was the ocean. I sat on the deck of the boat and a pelican landed right next to me and just hung out. Then a seal jumped up to join us. We found a mother whale and her baby and followed them for hours. Sea lions, dolphins, lunch and champagne on the water. On the way back we did more dune driving and saw the pink ponds again, and honestly, worth it a second time. The fog rolled in off the ocean as the tide came up, and we snuck back along the beach just in time before it closed in behind us.

These were definitely two days I think about constantly. 

Luanda, Angola

Luanda was different, and I'm glad we went.

We were escorted through the city with a police escort, so we felt completely safe. This is a city that struggles. Angola was actually the epicenter of the Atlantic slave trade, and historians believe close to half of all the people taken across the Atlantic came from this region. At least 1.6 million people were shipped out of Luanda alone, most of them to Brazil.

We visited the National Museum of Slavery, which sits in a centuries-old chapel on a hill above the sea. Enslaved people were baptized in that chapel before being forced onto the ships. Standing there is heavy in the way it should be. Some places you visit to be delighted. Some you visit to remember. This was the second kind, and it stayed with me.

Then we toured the city and had a beautiful lunch, and I could not stop watching the way locals carried everything on their heads, balanced perfectly, walking like it was the easiest thing in the world.

And then, the equator.

Crossing the equator on a ship comes with a tradition that goes back hundreds of years. If you've never crossed it before, you're a "pollywog." Once you cross, you become a "shellback," and King Neptune himself has to grant you passage into his waters. It's a whole ceremony on deck, crazy silly, and yes, I had to kiss a fish. A real one. In front of everyone. I'm a shellback now and I'd like that on the record. So is B!

Banjul, The Gambia

The Gambia is the smallest country on mainland Africa, a thin little ribbon of land wrapped around the Gambia River, and it's nicknamed the Smiling Coast. After one day there I understood why. I kept wondering why our tour guide was calling it “The” Gambia and its because it is “The Gambia”. 

Local dancers welcomed us right off the ship, and then we climbed into a small bus and drove through the city, and I could have spent hours just watching. Everything happens on the main road. People gather, sell, talk, move. So much life in every direction. It was a religious holiday while we were there, so the markets were full of goats being sold for the celebration. I just sat there taking it all in. So much to see in every single direction. 

Then we went to see baboons. In the wild. We walked around them like we were just part of the group, which is as wild as it sounds. I got a little too close to a baby, and one of the adults ran toward me; B screamed “look out”, and let me tell you, I learned to keep my distance very quickly after that. I used my Merlin app all day long! We saw cashew trees, listened for birds (White Throated Bee Eater, African Blue Tit, Gray Wagtail, Yellow Crowned Gonlek), and then took a river cruise in a tiny wooden boat, the kind where the river is right there at your fingertips. Lunch back by the Baboons (we were very careful while eating), then the little bus back to the ship.

A small country that gave me one of the biggest days.

Las Palmas, Gran Canaria

Now we were in the Canary Islands, and the whole tone of the trip shifted into history and old towns and church bells.

Our guided excursion took us to Teror, this gorgeous historic town built around the Basilica de Nuestra Señora del Pino. It's one of the most important places of worship on the island and a real pilgrimage site, with one of the oldest markets in the Canaries spilling out around it. We learned the history first, then got time to wander the streets on our own, which is my favorite combination. Tell me what I'm looking at, then let me go feel it. Even heard a Canary Island Chiffchaff using my Merlin App…addicted to it. 

Then on to Arucas and its cathedral and here's something funny. Everyone calls it the Cathedral of Arucas, but it's technically not a cathedral at all. It's the Church of San Juan Bautista, and it's just so enormous and grand and neo-Gothic that people started calling it a cathedral and it stuck. It's carved from local volcanic stone and took almost seventy years to finish. It towers dark and dramatic over all the colorful little houses around it. We soaked up the history, then sat with a coffee and a bakery treat and listened to the birds before heading back.

Santa Cruz de Tenerife

Tenerife is a very cool Island- so much different levels of terrain. Our excursion climbed to a high scenic viewpoint over La Orotava, and the views down over the valley to the ocean were the kind that make everyone on the bus go quiet at the same time.

Then we visited the Jardín Botánico, one of the great old botanical gardens, full of plants from all over the world. I'm not even a plant and tree person and I was fascinated. After that we wandered Puerto de la Cruz along the coast before heading back to the ship.

Funchal, Madeira, and the night that made me cry

Madeira is where the whole thing crescendoed.

We arrived during the Feast of the Flowers, the Festa da Flor, which is Madeira's huge spring flower festival. And Silversea put on an exclusive, invitation-only dinner for the World Cruise (and we were included) that I will be talking about forever. The food. The dancers. The whole event built around our group of about 150 people. Fireworks lighting up the sky and champagne in my hand and that feeling in your body when you realize you're inside a once-in-a-lifetime moment as it's actually happening. I got a little teary (well a lot). 

The next day we toured the town of Funchal and saw all of it. The shops, the places to eat, those cutie little spots along the edge of the water where people sunbathe and then just slip into the ocean. So unique. So Madeira. I wasn’t expecting this and this is somewhere we will return- for at least a week!

Then we toured the island itself, and Madeira didn’t disappoint!  We stopped at Câmara de Lobos and Quinta Grande for the views. We drove through tunnel after tunnel where the view out the other end stopped my heart every time. I took about 100 videos with my arm outside the car to catch the view. Waterfalls in Ribeira Brava and Serra de Água. The natural pools at Porto Moniz (it was a little too cold that day to swim). A secret cove at Ribeira da Janela. A two-level waterfall in Seixal. Unreal and we only scratched the surface of this Island! 

And then Cabo Girão. This is the highest cliff skywalk in Europe, a glass platform jutting out over a 580 meter drop straight down to the Atlantic. The clouds had been thick all day, and right as we stepped out onto the glass, they broke. Magic. The whole coastline opened up below us, perfectly clear, like the island had been waiting to show off. I stood on that glass floor with the ocean that far beneath my feet and could not stop smiling.

Then back to the ship, completely full with all of the sites. 

Portimão, the Algarve coast

Portimão was our day to do our own thing, so we rented a car and drove up the Algarve coast. São Gonçalo de Lagos, Carvoeiro, Lagoa. Golden cliffs, water in colors I didn't know the ocean came in, little towns that feel like they were built for slow afternoons sitting on the beach. The views out over the Atlantic that I made B pull the car over for, again and again.

Lisbon, the last port

Lisbon is where we disembarked, so we gave the city a full day. The hills, the tiles, the light, the pastéis de nata that I refuse to feel guilty about (tee hee and YUM).

And because this was the end, we rented a car and went hunting for beaches along the Sintra coast. Praia da Adraga. Colares. Azenhas do Mar, that white village built right into the cliff over the sea. São João das Lampas. Wild Atlantic beaches, stunning views and almost empty, the perfect last stop before heading home.

So…One journey. Can you believe it- I still can’t!

Cape Town to Lisbon. A ghost town and a flower festival. Pink water and a glass cliff. A fish I had to kiss and a whale we followed for hours. Baboons and basilicas and dunes falling right into the sea.

All of it. One ship. One journey. The best ports ever Silversea!!!

I've traveled a lot in my life. This one rearranged something in me, and I don't think it's going back. How will any trip match up to this???