semesteratsea
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Semester at Sea
Our Semester at Sea was a life-altering learning adventure.
Itinerary - 1996Nassau, Bahamas
La Guairá, Venezuela
Salvador, Brazil
Cape Town, South Africa
Mombasa, Kenya
Madras, India
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Manila, Philippines
Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Kobe, Japan
Seattle, WA USA
SS Universe Explorer
Before we leave each port, the ship usually is joined by an "inter-port lecturer" and at least one "inter-port student" -- a professor and a college student from the country that will be our next destination. They help to prepare the shipboard community for our upcoming visit to their country.
Nassau, Bahamas
The Bahama Islands are the result of coral reefs which become dry land when the sea level dropped hundreds of centuries ago. The islands are mostly flat with miles of white and pink sandy beaches.
La Guairá, Venezuela
The Port of La Guairá lies on Venezuela's coastal zone at the foot of its central highlands about 30 kilometers by highway northwest of the country's capital, Caracas.
Salvador, Brazil
Salvador's Street Carnival is the biggest in the world.
Historic Center of the Town of Goiás
Candomblé is Brazil's most influential Afro-Brazilian syncretic religion. Practiced mainly in Bahia, it mixes Catholicism and Yoruba (an African religion).
Cape Town, South Africa
GEOLOGY OF THE CAPE PENINSULA
nonconformity
Precambrian
Ordovician
Cape Point
Yellow line marks nonconformity between the Cape Granite and the overlying Graafwater Formation
Boulders Beach penguin colony
Golf at Stellenbosch
The theatre professor on board was from Cape Town and a member of theStellenbosch Golf Club so we had a foursome from the ship.
Mombasa, Kenya
The Ngorongoro Conservation Area became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979.
The main feature of the NCA is the Ngorongoro Crater, a large, unbroken, unflooded volcanic caldera. The crater, which formed when a giant volcano exploded and collapsed on itself some two to three million years ago, is 610 m (2,000 ft) deep and its floor covers 260 km2 (100 sq mi).[5] Estimates of the height of the original volcano range from fifteen to nineteen thousand feet (4500 to 5800 metres) high.
Lake Manyara National Park, Tanzania
Lake Manyara National Park, founded in 1960, covers 320 square km and contains five distinct vegetation zones. Wildlife of the area includes buffalo, elephant, lion, leopard, rhinoceros, and many water birds, especially flamingos.
Kilimanjaro is an inactive stratovolcano in north-eastern Tanzania and the highest
mountain in Africa at 19,341 ft above sea level.
Madras, India
Madras is now Chennai. This the Central Railway Station. We took an overnight train to the state of Kerala. Cochin is a major city and seaport located on the south-west coast of India by the Arabian Sea.
Periyar is a protected area, and a nature reserve in the South Indian
State of Kerala, set high in the mountains of the Western Ghats at
the border of Tamil Nadu.
Madurai is among the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the Indian peninsula. It is an ancient and prestigious city in the Indian State of Tamil Nadu, situated on the banks of the River Vaigai in the Madurai District.
Madurai Meenakshi Hindu Temple
Gandhi Museum
Manila, Philippines
Rizal Park is the site of Philippine hero Jose Rizal's execution.
Manila skyline with Rizal Park and Intramuros
Jeepneys
Jeepneys are the most common form of public transport throughout the many islands of the Philippines. In Manila they are so numerous, that there is almost constantly traffic congestion. The jeepneys don't have air-conditioning. They have open windows. Most of the time the jeepneys are constantly-packed with many passengers. Jeepneys offer one of the cheapest ways of getting somewhere. They seldom have a special place to stop. The drivers will slow down enough to enable the passengers to jump on or out.
Taal Volcano is located about 60 km SSE of Metro Manila, the capital of the Philippines. It is a complex volcanic system composed of a small volcanic island (Volcano Island), which has been the site of almost all historic activity, located within a 20x30 km lake-filled complex caldera, one of the great volcano-tectonic depressions of the world.
Hong Kong The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region is a city of 7 million located on the South China Sea. Once a quiet fishing village, the city became a British crown colony in 1841 following the first Opium War, when China went to war with England trying to stop the flow of drugs into the country. A second annexation took place following the next Opium War in 1860, and in 1898, the New Territories countryside was leased for 99 years. On July 1, 1997, Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule under the 'One Country, Two Systems' ideology.
Kobe, Japan
Museum commemorating the 1995 earthquake
Mount Rokko provides the pleasant green backdrop to the city of Kobe.
Kyoto
Ryoanji Temple is the site of Japan's most famous rock garden, which attracts hundreds of visitors every day. Originally an aristocrat's villa during the Heian Period. The site was converted into a Zen temple in 1450 and belongs to the Myoshinji school of the Rinzai sect of Zen Buddhism.
Shimogamo Shrine, is an important Shinto sanctuary in Kyoto.
Seattle, WA USA