Train travelling could not get us further west, so we embarked on a cruise ship! I can now relate fully to the antropomorphization of ships. Seeing this photo of Astor now (almost exactly a year later) brings such feelings of nostalgia, an aching to rekindle a lost friendship.
We dreamed of travelling back to Europe on a freighter, but they were fully booked since long. At first, I felt misplaced on Astor when we were greeted by overly cheerful and service-minded staff – a long shot from my romantic, far more adventurous image of the silent, suspicious, almost hostile (they would of course warm up step by step) tobacco chewing sea men.
But little did I know that we were about to meet Gordon and Gerald on the very first night <3 I will get back to these two lovelies in another post.
The pilot boat saw us off when we left the Australian continent, and I could not help but feel a bit anxious and lonely when they returned ashore…
…and we sailed off into the sunset. We were not to see land for nine full days, and I was not sure how comfortable I would feel being that isolated, way out on the Indian Ocean for that long.
It turned out it suited us better than we had ever expected. The ocean gives the same sense of monotonous zen like feeling, like train traveling on the steppe or in the desert, continuously rocking you into a sleepy state.
We were instantly minor celebrities on the ship. This was not attributed to any of our accomplishments, but to our very tender age, in comparison to the other passengers. We were a good 30 to 50 years younger than most, and everyone was incessantly curious about what we were doing on this floating retirement home (their words, not mine!). They were all worried we would be bored, but we could not have been happier spending time with them, and sharing their extensive life experience.
On the morning of the ninth day we were almost a little intimidated going ashore, leaving the cocooning safety of the ship behind.