Cruises are often laughed at as floating all-inclusive hotels where the only adventure is whether you get the salmonella at the buffet or just the second tiramisu. Not even close! Because you also go on excursions, you visit islands and cities, which then groan under the simultaneous onslaught of 6,000 people. That can also be adventurous. Dubrovnik and Santorini can sing lamentations about it. The refrain: “It may be hardcore/ but business comes first.”
But sometimes there is a real, real adventure on a large cruise ship, which is only one if it takes surprising turns and the outcome is not known to the adventurer from the start. And that brings us to Africa. More specifically to the island state of São Tomé and Príncipe, which is located in the Gulf of Guinea, about 200 kilometers off the coast of Gabon.
The Campbell couple from South Carolina came here by ship Norwegian Dawn, which was on a 21-day journey from Cape Town to Lisbon. We know about the Campbells because they have already told CNN about their adventure. And it went like this: Together with six other guests, they booked a trip to the exotic island. The problem: African Time and Norwegian Time didn’t quite work together because the tour provider brought the eight guests back to the port too late. The ship was still there, but was about to leave. Neither the call from the tour operator nor the harbor master could change the captain’s mind. He drove off. Course north-east.
And goodbye!
The shipping company made it known that this was regrettable, but that the guests were responsible for arriving back at the port at the time that had been published several times on board. Their passports had been handed over to the port police. And goodbye!
This is how the adventure began. The eight passengers, one of whom, according to the Campbells, was pregnant, a second had a heart condition and a third was in a wheelchair, now, as CNN writes, had to travel through six African countries at their own expense in order to board the ship again at the next possible port in Gambia. Exactly how the itinerary went was not made public. There are twice as many countries and 5,000 kilometers between the mainland in Gabon and Gambia, so one can assume that the Campbells and their traveling companions flew and changed trains several times.
In the taxi to Dakar
Anyway: When they arrived in the Gambian port city of Banjul Norwegian Dawn Waiting, it was said that it could not come in due to the weather and strong low tide. Next possible port: Dakar in Senegal. After all, just the neighboring country. To do this, they first had to take a ferry across the thick Gambia estuary and then drive five hours overland to Dakar in a large taxi.
The odyssey probably ended well. Like the shipping company Mirror announced that the eight guests had returned to the ship in Dakar. Of course the costs for the journey from Gambia will be covered, but the eight of them really can’t do anything about that. The Norwegian Dawn, who was in the headlines a month ago because of suspected cholera, is now on his way to Tenerife. Will anyone miss the ship again after the trip to Teide? We’ll find out – from the Campbells.
Hans Gasser also had to follow a ship in a taxi in Norway.
(Photo: Bernd Schifferdecker (illustration))