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We talked a bit with these lovely women sitting on the bottom
of the church steps that were next to Freedom Plaza.
Little did we know that we would see them again.
This is the imposing government building that faces Freedom Plaza.
 
It was still early enough in the day for a good adventure shadow.
The view from Freedom Plaza.
Visitors are allowed in the foyer of that government building.
 
 
Then we were back outside again.
We weren't expecting to see this sign post in front of that government
building.
 
A young soldier just coming out of a salute as two officers ambled
by.
A peeling mural...
We took photos of these police officers with permission. We'd
also see them later.
 
There are many people who work to keep the sidewalks clean. We
assume that they are paid, but their equipment was often crafted
from materials on hand.
 
A typical apartment building...
A mess of cables erupting from under the sidewalk...
 
Those cables continued for a whole block. A salad vendor on the
street had several customers.
 
An untended cart.
A school along the way...
We finally arrived at the craft market which is where the ship's
shuttle drops off our fellow shipmates. Our plan was to ride the
shuttle back to the dock, but not until we looked around and had
our lunch.
A very long political message covered this fence.
We'd been here before and the African art and jewelry were similar
this time around and even though there were aggressive sales pitches,
we did not buy anything.
We did record the street art on the wall of a shelter on this
front side...
...and the outside.
Although on this side, it's still a work in progress.
We bought a beer and found a place to sit and have our lunch.
We worked our way out of the market and jumped on the next shuttle
bus back to the ship.
We did not board the ship--we walked out of the port to go to
the garden where we'd seen the weddings last time.
It was a Friday on this trip, so no weddings that day. We decided
to stroll the grounds anyway.
 
We saw large fruit bats in a few of the trees here. They looked
similar to the flying foxes that we saw in the Sydney Botanic
Gardens in previous visits, but these are the straw-colored fruit
bat (Eidolon helvum), which is common in Sub-Saharan Africa
and the most widely distributed of all the African megabats.
There was a large educational mural on one of the garden buildings
that explained about compost on one side...
...and photosynthesis on the other. It had been a nice visit and
we were on our way out of the garden when we heard drums.
There was a large group marching by the garden. We hurried to
find out what the protest was about.
It was a march for the International Day of Women. And those women
we'd talked to on the church steps were participants and those
police officers we saw sitting in the back of a truck were providing
security for the marchers.
This march was being recorded, both by people among the marchers...
...and by people standing up in the flatbed truck at the beginning
of the group. It was quite moving with singing and chanting along
the route, which also coincided with our route back to the ship,
so we walked with them almost their whole route from Independence
Plaza where we met the women and which only a couple of blocks
from the garden.
Wow. How moving...
Finally back on the ship the view of the gritty port area with
the black sand and buildings with no roofs, but this time the
trains were running from the main station which is the one with
the domed roof in this photo, so that's progress. We counted this
as a good traveling day in this emerging city.
Our next port was Durban, South Africa
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