Home Away From Home

 Welcome to our home away from home - the Viking Ocean Ships - The Star, The Sun, The Sky, The Orion and now the Jupiter.

With a few minor variations, all the Viking ocean-going ships are identical.  This model shows a typical ship.

I'll start our tour in our cabin.  We have chosen the same class of cabin for the last few trips, so if some of the pictures look backward, they are from different years. Our cabin has two "rooms" divided by a curtain, which we leave open most of the time.

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The closet is across from the bathroom.                                                                         

Now, let's walk down the hall to the elevator.  The center panel shows announcements

We could have chosen to walk.  Then we would see all the scenes from the Bayeux tapestry depicting the Norman Conquest. 

When we get to the second deck, we can look up the Grand staircase to see the everchanging picture on

the landing or just notice the 3 deck high open atrium.   First deck has specialty restaurants, a bar, lots of comfortable seating and the Explorer's desk, where we go to get any questions answered.  There are also 4 computers and a printer located under the stairway for guests to use.

Deck 7 has the World Cafe, the Pool Grill, the swimming pool and sun deck with a closable roof and the Winter Garden.   At the front of the ship is the Explorer's Lounge and Mamsen's Cafe.

At the rear of the ship you have a view down to the outdoor dining area, hot tub and infinity pool.

Going  up either of the open stairways you arrive at the upper level, Deck 8, with the entrance to the planetarium, also called the Explorer's Dome, with more seating, books and artifacts related to exploration. From these two decks you look out over the front of the ship to see where we are headed.  It is a great place to be when we arrive at a port.

Deck 9 is where you find the outdoor activities - putting green, ping-pong and shuffleboard.

  

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Going back down to deck 1 toward the back of the ship you find the  spa, beauty salon, fitness center, hot tub, ice room, dressing rooms and saunas. There is also a pool with a current so you can swim without ever going forward!  Deck 2 has the Theater, ship's store for mementoes and necessities as well as a jewelry store.

Deck A, the deck below deck 1, has crew quarters and the Medical Center.

Welcome to the Island Nation of Cape Verde

 Cape Verde means Green Cape.  That is not how it looks today!  The country is in the midst of a 4 year drought.  I do not mean just too little rain.  They have had NO rain.

    

The main income on the islands comes from fishing, farming and tourism.  Fishing has kept the island alive the past months.  Few ships stop at the island.  Combine that with COVID, and tourism has been virtually nonexistent.  The field of corn on the right was planted in anticipation of rain which did not come.  In a few places crude windmills draw water, but with no rain, ground water is sparse.  Even with irrigation, crops do not do well.

These islands are all volcanic, with one of the islands having an active volcano (December 2020.)  The soil, where it can be cultivated is rich, but extremely rocky.  There are not too many places where flat ground allows cultivation.  Despite this, the island persists and is hopeful that tourism will soon return.  Our ship was not scheduled to stop here, so we were and unexpected boost to the economy, even if we did not get out and shop.

         Our tour took us from sea level at Mindelo, the major cruise port, to the highest point on the island of St. Vincent, Salamanca.  The Main road toward Baia Das Gatos is well paved, but when we turned north the road became a series of switchback.  The surface was similar to cobblestone, but since all the rocks were volcanic, they had  been laid so the there was a fairly flat surface, just quite rough.

We could see our ship far below.  At the top, we were above some of the clouds.  When we got out, we had a choice of tea or coffee and a selection of local alcohol. 

The clear bottle held local rum --very powerful stuff!         

I tried the other two, which were alcoholic, and a bit sweet. 

From there we returned to sea level and had a stop so we could feel the warm water temperature.

This statue at a small

restaurant showed one method of catching fish.  More often the men go out in small boats in the treacherous waters around the island.

There are not buildings constructed of wood, at least none we saw.  Concrete blocks made up both the exterior frame and internal walls.  Sand is plentiful and there is some local concrete.  Many buildings are incomplete or abandoned, even in the cities.  Many are painted in bright colors. You will see no steep roofs, since rainfall is so sparse.

        

Since this is a volcanic island, the beaches have coarse sand and the land is covered with many rocks.  In most places vegetation is sparse.  I did not see cactus, as I consider it, but there were some plants with long pointed "leaves" about 2 feet long.   There is one exception to the course dark brown beaches Once in a while there will be an area of  beautiful tan sand, almost dunes, with no vegetation.  This is not "native" sand. It has blown in thousands of miles from the Sahara Dessert during massive sand storms.  Our guide told us that you could see the clouds of sand approaching the island.

 

Have some madeira, m'dearah - or not

Madeira, the island, is part of Portugal in the Atlantic Ocean.  It is a vacation destination for Europe, with verdant hills, steep mountains and lots of sunshine.  The gold of the hay fields contrasts the apple, pear and cherry orchards.  Traditional houses are triangular, with thatched roofs sloping steeply to the ground. The white buildings have bright red doors and some shutters.

Funchal, our port is a fairly large city at the base of, and climbing up, steep hills. 

        

 The port has not only a cruise pier, but facilities for other sea sport fun.  I saw a group of small, single sail boats in a cluster.  The next time I looked, there were no sails.  It seems this was a sailing class.  One by one, the sails were pulled up out of the sea as each boat was righted.  Another group had a dozen or so paddleboarders in a cluster.  Sea kayaks paddled by our ship.  

Two ships docked nearby had several masts for sails, buy I never saw them under sail.  There was even a ship that looked military, but it had no markings.

All of this we know from the tour brochure and from what we could see from our balcony.  I did not leave the stateroom because I was confined to our room.  No, I did not do anything wrong, except to contract norovirus, probably from eating tapas in Valencia without using hand sanitizer before each stop.  My bad, and I paid for it.  Unfortunately, Darrell paid for it too.  He also caught it from me.

Darrell got to go ashore, but not on a Viking excursion.  The ship doctor was not happy about Darrell's abdominal pain (neither was Darrell) and ordered a CT scan at the local hospital.  The ambulance came and picked him up, but I was told to stay in my room in case we had to stay in Funchal and I had to pack up everything to leave the ship.  This was just before noon.  The Jupiter was scheduled to sail at 4:00.  I waited until 3:00, then took out the first suitcase to start packing.  Before I even had it open, the phone rang, telling me that he was returning to the ship.  We were cleared to continue the cruise.  Thank God!  He still had to stay in the room until the doctor cleared him the next afternoon, but I was free to leave the room in time for breakfast.

Just a word about medical care on the Viking Jupiter.  There is a doctor from the Ukraine and nurses from Manila and Croatia.  The medical suite has several rooms, lots of equipment, and the ability to treat several people at once. One room is capable of surgery but only simpler cases.  We went there to see the doctor the first time.  After that the doctor and a nurse came to our room.  There have been a few people who left the cruise for medical reasons.  This is not a hospital, but there is a limit to its capacity. We were on a cruise north of New Zealand that had a crew person, with a bad heart attack, airlifted off by helicopter.  However, when we cross the Atlantic we will be out of range of even the best helicopters. We could not have asked for better care at home.  No doctor I know makes house calls!

We are on our way to the next port of call, in the Cape Verde Islands.

Valencia

 Once upon a time, there was a city divided by a river.  One year, the river flooded the whole city.  What to do?  Divert the river around the city.  What do do with the river bed?  Make it into a park.  That is just what Valencia, Spain, did.

There are playground, walking and biking trails, athletic fields, and The City of Science, a complex with buildings associated with the sciences.  We toured the city and the Oceanographic Park, which has sections representing all the major areas of the world.

Unfortunately, pictures taken in the aquarium did not turn out very well -- too dim as we were at eye level with the fish.  The Oceanarium is as much about education as just seeing the animals.  

593 turtles are killed every year by humans in the Mediterranean Sea.

25% of the world species of sharks are threatened or endangered.

We saw whales from the arctic, penguins from the Antarctic, fish from the tropics and dolphins playing with "toys."  One of them would butt a ball and bounce it off the wall.  Another grabbed the ball in its mouth and threw it.  This was the most comprehensive aquarium I have ever seen.  They also had birds who live near the water like these.

The second part of the tour was a walking tour of the old city.  The city walls were totally destroyed, except for two of the gate buildings.  They were spared because one was the men's jail and the other was the women's jail.

This was a Tapas Tour.  Which meant we went to 3 establishments and were served "tapas", small portions of food, sort of like appetizers along with a drink.  The first stop was near the top of one of the tallest buildings.  The roof garden was being remodeled, so we could not go there.  They served a plate with 3 skewers each with a very thin slice of cured meat, sort of like bacon.  2 of the skewers had a large black grape on the end.  There was also a small bite of cheese and our choice of beer, wine, water or a soft drink.  Many of the people tried the local beer.

                                                                                        

We had a view of the square below us.

The second stop served a plate with 3 kinds of cheeses and 2 fried balls containing pureed ham.  Once again, a choice of beverage.  I thought that if this kept up they might have to carry some of the people back to the bus.

The third stop was an in-and-out to pick up a paper glass of Horchetta, a plant based drink, and a soft, sweet bread stick to eat as we continued the tour.  I have had Horchetta before, but it was served hot, like hot chocolate.

As we continued it was getting dark, but we saw a "square" where merchants set up shops,  However, the "square" was completely round.  From the air, it looks like a hole in the middle of the Old Town.

The main market for locals is called the Parrot because of the parrot on the top of the building (not a real one.)

This is the seal of the city.

By the end of the tour it was dark.  This was a decoration of the side of the cathedral.