Report from Travel Channel Academy@Sea

Two of our students head off for Mombasa ready to start filming….

When I was 21 and young and dumb I spent a year crossing Africa overland.

I went across the Sahara Desert with the Toureg Bedouin then made a left in Nigeria and went overland across Zaire to Sudan and down to Kenya.

I lived with locals and I traveled with locals.

The whole trip probably set me back $3,000.

But when you are 21, you think you are pretty much indestructable.

I don’t feel that way any longer.

Today we made landfall in Mombasa, on the coast of Kenya.

I have not been here in 30 years, but not much has changed from the way I remember it.

Daniel Arap Moi is no longer the President for Life. Now that is Kibaki.

But the same unrelenting, grinding poverty is still all around.

The only difference is, this time, I am insulated from it by the ship and by the air conditioned vans that they provide to move us around.

There was a time when I looked upon these cruise ship travelers with contempt.  I was a backpacker making my way across the continent on my own, living and eating with the locals, sharing their lives – whatever it was.  That was real.

Today, after a few hours in the unrelenting heat and dust and squalor of Kenya, I was more than happy to return to the air conditioned serenity of our penthouse suite aboard Crystal.  Sasa, the butler (in full tux all the time), appeared at our cabin door with a chilled bottle of Billecarte Brut Reserve and a platter of fresh shrimp and lobster on ice. Just the thing after a day in the safari being driven around in kombi vans.

On the way back, the van was placed on a ferry  – the kind of thing you read about on page 32 in the NY Times.  (Ferry in Kenya turns over. 4,000 feared dead).  It was choked to the rafters with people, carts, bicycles, piles of mangoes, bananas, children – you name it.  Overflowing with humanity.

We stayed inside our air conditioned ‘safari’ van, and looking out of the window, I caught sight of two young backpackers in shorts and flipflops, hanging on the rail and peering over at our van with obvious contempt.

Don’t judge us too harshly, I thought.  Give it time.

Sitting between Lisa and myself was a guest speaker from the cruise, along with her husband. I read her badge.  “Janet Evans”.

“You’re speaking about the Olympics”, I asked.

Yeah, she replied, she had done a few of these.

“What qualifies you to speak about Olympics?” I asked.

“I won 4 gold medals in swimming” she said. Korea and Barcelona.

In fact, her world’s record for 800 meters stood for 20 years, a record in itself.

Now, that is impressive.

While I was running around the world with a backpack, she was racking up Gold Medals and world records.

Anyone can stand in Tamanrasset with their thumb out.

Olympians don’t come along every day.

Even if it is in the back of an air conditioned kombi van.