Thursday May 21, 2026
Hi Gang! Today we were docked in the city of Abidjan in the country of the Ivory Coast (Cote d’Ivoire) on the continent of Africa. It is the largest city and former capital of the Ivory Coast with a population of 6.3 million people. It’s the most populous French-speaking city in West Africa. Oui Oui!
It was pretty rainy to start with but we still did a tour named “Akwaba Abidjan to Bingerville”. We started by driving to the City Center Plateau and visiting the Museum of Civilization for traditional dance. We saw all kinds of cool masks and a woman did a traditional dance wearing a mask. No, I did not get up and dance with her but some people did. That girl could shake her groove thing!!
We then visited St Paul’s Cathedral. It was very modern for a Catholic Church and held 3,500 people. It had lots of beautiful stained glass all around. They said there was an even larger church across town that held 10,000 people! Holy Jesus!
We then drove to Bingerville and visited the Charles Combs Museum. OK, I don’t have enough class to appreciate a good museum but I can appreciate a good heavy thunderstorm and that’s what we had! But we still got out and waded across the river of mud to get into the museum but most of that was for the clean restrooms! Lol
We then drove to the Botanical Garden and guess what? It was still pouring! They did say it was the rainy season here and they were right! But can you believe it’s Day 132 of this trip and this is one of the first, if not the only excursion we’ve had, that was really affected by rain. That’s crazy! So we skipped walking thru the rainy botanical garden and stayed on the air conditioned bus (where I wrote part of this blog!).
We then visited the Governor’s House that is now an orphanage and is 114 years old. After independence from the French, some of the French children were left with the African ladies and they started this orphanage. In 1953 they also took a group of children whose parents were killed in WWII. Currently there are 180 children here from 5 to 25 years old.
We then visited the Artisanal Center where we could shop again for the grandkids. Yep, we spoil them rotten (but that’s a grand parent’s mission!!). We then drove to the ship and were back onboard by 2:30 PM. We then chilled and got ready for dinner.
The Wandering Italian 