From: Sherman Rootberg (biggiroot)
Date: Feb 9, 2007 4:03 AM
Subject: Thursday, February 08, 2007
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Maputo, Mozambique
The ship was due to dock at 7:00 this morning. The ship showed up, the pilot did not. These people are not very cooperative. Obviously they do not want cruise ship business. We had unnecessarily gotten up at 5:00 in order to go on a 7:00 trip. We didn’t leave until 9:00.
This is a freight harbor and has little or no passenger facilities. Our tour today was to the Kruger National Park. We boarded large buses for our ride there which turned out to be about three 
hours. The arrangements were the pits.
We had to leave Mozambique and go into South Africa. When we got to the border we all had to leave the buses and stand in line in the very hot sun for about half an hour. They took forever to stamp our passports. We then had to walk across the border, and step into some kind of shoe disinfectant. The buses followed and we continued on to the Park. The air conditioning in our bus was not working very well. It was getting warmer inside and it was 
very HOT outside. They reported the temperature was over 90 degrees.
We went for a short ride in the game preserve before lunch and another after lunch. Both rides were about an hour and a half. We went to lunch at a buffet in the park building. It was a long line that took forever. Just what we love. Another long and slow line. The food was very tasty.
This park was different then yesterday. It was dryer and dustier. The roads were in much better shape. We had another stupid driver. He had no idea where we were at any time nor where to go. We did see several elephants. But the rest of the animals seemed far more scared of us. If they were very close they would quickly turn and run. Mostly, we saw the animals at some distance verses the park yesterday where we could just about touch them.
We saw some individual animals in the park, yesterday. Today there were large herds. We saw several different types of antelope, wart hogs, baboon a wildebeest, hippopotamus, zebra and elephant in herds.
We got back into the buses for the ride back to the ship. They had fixed the air conditioning in our bus, somewhat. There was now a new plan to deal with immigration idiots. They had gathered all the passports. They were having their agent take these passports 
to immigration, typing out the forms for them and transporting the passports and information to the next immigration office. Fantastic idea. On the way there we had to stand in line for about 45 minutes. Now this new more efficient system took over an hour while we sat on buses. The ship was supposed to leave at 6:00 PM. We were not even half way there at 6:00. When we did arrive at 7:00 they had many of the ship’s staff outside trying to hurry us aboard.
Needless to say, everyone was highly dissatisfied. Today’s tour was far more expensive then yesterday’s and was supposed to give us more viewing time with the animals. In actuality, it gave a lot less time. Instead of the planned leisurely hour and a half lunch, we were herded into long lines that took approximately twenty minutes to get food. We then had10 minutes to eat. I guess there were enough complaints even before I get into it with them. They said we would be credited with 25% for the tour. Not much for the disgusting treatment when we know they make at 
least half of the price of these tours.
We did highly enjoy the park but it would be nice to spend a long time there and travel some of the tracks and back roads.
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