Cruising the cape

In 1580 English sea captain Sir Francis Drake described the Cape of Good Hope as “the fairest Cape in the whole circumference of the earth.” Today this is still true.

There are many ways to explore South Africa, but when I learned Silversea Cruises had an all-inclusive 10-day voyage covering South Africa and Mozambique, it was time to board with far more luxury than Drake could have dreamed.

Cape Town

Before we set sail, my sightseeing began in Cape Town. To get there I had used Audley Travel, which provided seamless local arrangements with excellent guides. One can easily spend 10 days in the city. There are the natural wonders of Table Mountain to explore, breathtaking vistas of Chapman’s Peak, ostrich farms, Chacma baboons, bonteboks (an antelope species) and leopard tortoises to see along the peninsula to the Cape of Good Hope. A conservancy at Table Mountain National Park also has more than 500 species of proteas, including the king protea, the national flower. Visitors can see jackass penguins at Boulders Beach in Simon’s Town. Kalk Bay, an eclectic beach town, is full of antique and vintage clothing shops, galleries and cafes to enjoy.

In Cape Town’s heart is District Six Museum. Housed in a former Methodist Church, its sobering exhibition documents the 1970s forced removals of nonwhites under apartheid and the Group Areas Act. A short stroll through The Company’s Garden with the Iziko Slave Lodge and St. George’s Cathedral is the South African National Gallery. Out front, a massive Casspir armored vehicle — a symbol of oppression — is covered entirely in multicolored beads. I was lucky to catch an impressive women’s art exhibition, including several enormous, intricate tapestries.

Paces away is the Great Synagogue, a 1905 Cape Dutch-style architectural masterpiece. Next door is the Jewish Museum documenting Jewish contributions to South African society, including the Jewish law firm that hired then-young law clerk Nelson Mandela and later played a vital role in his and the nation’s struggle to freedom. Nearby is Bo-Kaap, an Islamic suburb, where Cape Malay peoples take pride in their homes by painting them in bright candy colors.

When I was in need of recharging, nothing beat cocktails — called “sundowners” — at Seapoint along the water, or seafood delicacies at Baia, one of the numerous eateries at Victoria & Albert Waterfront, a beautiful, still-functioning harbor situated between the Atlantic and Table Mountain.

No trip to Cape Town would be complete without visiting a few vineyards. I joined Wine Flies for a fabulous full-day excursion with five other oenophiles to nearby scenic Stellenbosch, stopping at five vineyards for “fizzy therapy” of Champagnes, wine tastings and pairings with cheeses, chocolates and lunch.

While I could’ve stayed another week exploring Cape Town, it was time to depart. Boarding Silversea’s Silver Cloud, I was immediately handed a glass of wine — a perfect beginning, reminding me that while people might be separated by water, they are certainly united by wine.

The Silver Cloud boasts 290 beautifully appointed suites with granite bathrooms containing Bulgari amenities, plush towels and linens, separate sitting areas, stocked minibars and large walk-in closets. Each stateroom is assigned a personal butler whose mission is to make one’s onboard stay picture-perfect. There’s also speedy 24/7 room service and several bars and top-notch restaurants. To ward off weight gain from the delectable cuisine, there are exercise classes in a fully equipped gym overlooking the sea. There’s also a spa, salon, library, card room, casino, boutiques, an enrichment lecture series and the talented Voices of Silversea providing nightly entertainment. On my trip, 220 staterooms were occupied with mainly European, Australian and South American passengers. A better way to traverse the cape would be difficult to imagine.

Port Elizabeth

Our first stop was Port Elizabeth, known alternately as PE and “Windy City.” Interesting trivia about the city includes its status as the world’s mohair capital — it generates, with Lesotho, 70 percent of world production — and the site of the world’s highest commercial natural bungee jump at 709 feet.

Passing the occasional KFC en route, our guide, Xolani, dubbed them “U.S. embassies.”

Xolani also mentioned that there is a beauty parlor for every four women in the city, and indeed we passed several shipping containers carefully converted into thriving street-side salons.

Port Elizabeth’s history also has a dark side. It’s where anti-apartheid activist Stephen Biko was tortured and beaten into a coma while in police custody in Room 619 of the Sanlam Building in 1977. Biko’s story, documented by journalist Donald Woods, was made into the 1987 film “Cry Freedom,” starring Denzel Washington.

Amid this backdrop, I took an excursion to the northern townships, passing Korsten, with its mostly Somali and Malawi population, and the depressed settlements of Helenvale, Missionvale, KwaZakhele and Ramaphosa. The poverty of the residents — most have no running water or electricity — was in stark contrast with the relative prosperity of the rest of Port Elizabeth.

Arriving in New Brighton, PE’s first official black residential township, we alighted at Charles Duna Lower Primary School with 1,000 uniformed students, 28 teachers and two German volunteers. Principal Nombulelo Sume, who studied at Duna as a child, told us, “The school first obtained electricity in 2005 and water only in 2014.” She also pointed out a nearby patch of land that was once used to bury students who died during the height of the country’s AIDS epidemic.

Now the school is cultivating a vegetable garden to help feed today’s students, she said. Sume’s accomplishments with such limited resources were impressive.

Maputo, Mozambique

Following a day at sea, we arrived in Maputo, which is Mozambique’s capital and largest city — the only port outside South Africa on the itinerary.

The first European to discover Mozambique was Portuguese explorer Vasco de Gama in 1498, who was searching for a passage to India. The discovery opened the country to outside trade and eventually four centuries of colonization by Portugal. Mozambique gained its independence in 1975. Nearly overnight 250,000 ethnic Portuguese departed, and in a short time a government based on Marxist principles was installed under socialist President Samora Machel.

A brutal 15-year civil war commenced in 1977; then in 1986 Machel’s plane crashed near the South African border, sprouting numerous conspiracy theories. Mozambique’s Soviet minders soon departed. Machel’s second wife, Graca, would became Nelson Mandela’s third wife in 1998, the only woman to be the first lady of two different countries.

Since 1992, multiparty democracy has stabilized the region. Today, older Soviet- style block buildings are juxtaposed by palm-lined streets boasting a vibrant cafe and restaurant culture amid once grand colonial villas reflecting its European history. Most impressive is the Gustav Eiffel-designed train station, listed by Time magazine in 2006 as the third most beautiful station in the world after Paris’ Gare du Nord and London’s St. Pancras.

Although Western visitors won’t find a McDonald’s restaurant in Maputo, the city has its own version of fast food at roadside vendors selling rat-kebab snacks. Despite my usual culinary adventurousness, I couldn’t bring myself to sample one. Albert Camus’ 1947 novel, “The Plague,” kept coming to mind.

Instead, I later dined on board at the world’s only vessel-listed Relais & Chateaux restaurant, Le Champagne. Chef Rodolfo Camba prepared scallops with hazelnut sauce, porcini mushroom cappuccino and New Zealand rack of lamb.

Richards Bay

Founded in 1879 by Commodore Frederick Richards, the bay was a 200-person outpost on the Mhlathuze River that was used as a makeshift harbor during the Anglo-Zulu War. Today urban Richards Bay has about 50,000 inhabitants and is a major deep-water harbor of KwaZulu-Natal province. The bay is considered the gateway to the area’s cultural heart, Zululand.

We headed northeast to St. Lucia Nature Reserve, South Africa’s first of eight World Heritage Sites and a naturalist’s nirvana. Its 53-mile estuary boasts more than 1,000 crocodiles and 800 hippos. During a pleasant two-hour boat ride, there were plenty of hippo pods, including several babies wading alongside protective mothers, a few resting crocodiles, colorful pied and giant kingfisher birds, and enormous water buffaloes.

An hour northwest amid rolling, verdant hills with homesteads, farms and livestock brought us to Esho­we’s Shakaland, a living monument to Zulu culture and the site of the 1986 “Shaka Zulu” television miniseries. The name King Shaka, a great Zulu monarch known as the black Napoleon, today graces nearby Durban International Airport and is still revered by Zulus, who form the largest ethnic group in South Africa’s melting pot.

Despite sweltering heat, learning of Shaka’s early family life, military prowess and contributions to the Zulu nation’s history that united the northern Nguni in their wars against Europeans and Boers was a highlight of the visit.

Durban

The busiest container port in South Africa, it was Durban where Mahatma Gandhi, then a young lawyer, arrived to practice law in 1893, working for the city’s wealthy Indian residents. Today Durban has the largest Indian population of any city outside India.

Durban’s indoor Victoria Street Market has a vivid array of Indian spices along with excellent selections of African crafts. Main and King streets, where Dutch and British colonial and art deco architecture is resplendent, also displays a vibrant outdoor market culture.

Nearby are Durban’s lovely Botanical Garden and the Indian Ocean’s Golden Mile — actually four miles — starting at Blue Lagoon Beach and ending at uShaka Marine World, offering beautiful beaches, wide boardwalks, cafes, restaurants and shops.

I arrived back on board in time for Silversea’s afternoon tea with scones so delicious that, gastronomically, I saluted Britain’s greatest social convention.

East London

Built around the Buffalo River’s mouth, East London is South Africa’s only river port. While there’s not much to see in town, in nearby Nahoon River Marine Reserve, I paddled a kayak alongside beautiful waterfront homes amid kingfishers, Cape cormorants, ringed plovers and gray herons.

South Africa’s intense natural beauty, rich eco-diversity and vibrant polyglot of African, European and Asian cultures, languages and architecture make cruising the Cape unforgettable. Satiated by the divine Silversea experience, when I boarded my onward flight, I thought of another Sir Francis Drake statement: “It’s not that life ashore is distasteful. But life at sea is better.”

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Julie L. Kessler is a travel writer, attorney and legal columnist based in Los Angeles.