January 31, 2023
Good Morning, I got up early this morning and watched the sunrise while the ship was being anchored on the pier in the City of Nuku’alofa in Tonga.Nuku’alofa is the capital of the Kingdom of Tonga. Tonga consists of over 170 island.We are docked on the island of Tougatapu. Population of Tonga is 106,000, approximate 25,000 live in the capital of Nuku’alofa. The language spoken is Tongan and some English. Tonga is a fairly religious country. Sunday’s all businesses are closed and the church bells are ringing all over the entire island. Generally the people look happy. This morning we set out on a bustour over part of the island. This bus had the old fashioned AC (sliding windows). Our first stop was a tree with hundreds of very large bats hanging from the top of the tree. The bats are called fruit bats, because they predominantly live from eating fruit.Our next stop was at the so called Blowholes. Waves push water into holes into the rock and that is making it spout up high into the air. This phenomenon en is going on all along the rocky coastline. Our next stop was at the 3 headed coconut tree. This is a coconut tree with 3 branches on it. I personally think it’s something of a prank from the local neighborhood. The last stop was at an open air tent where they served us lunch. The lunch was a combination of locally grown fruits and juices. During lunch we were entertained by a group of local singers and dancers. After lunch the bus headed back to the pier. We were glad to get out the bus, because it was smoking hot outside. On our way back to the ship we checked out the market stalls along the pier, selling handmade crafts etc.After return to the ship it was pool time followed by a cold beverage at happy hour on the back deck. Around 5:30 we set sail for our next port. Before our next port we have first 2 seadays.On a side note, we did see little of leftover damage from last year’s devestating volcanic eruption and tsunami.
” Travel becomes a strategy for accumulating photographs.”
Cheers
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