A life changing experience.

1. Semester at Sea
Our Semester at Sea was a life-altering learning adventure.

2. Itinerary - 1996
Nassau, 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

3. SS Universe Explorer

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

8. Salvador, Brazil
Salvador's Street Carnival is the biggest in
the world.

9. 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).

10. Cape Town,
South Africa

11. GEOLOGY OF THE CAPE PENINSULA
Ordovician
nonconformity
Precambrian

12. Cape Point
Yellow line marks nonconformity between the Cape Granite and
the overlying Graafwater Formation

13. Boulders Beach penguin colony

14. Golf at Stellenbosch
The theatre professor on board was from Cape Town and a member of the
Stellenbosch Golf Club so we had a foursome from the ship.

15. Mombasa, Kenya

16. 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.

18. 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.

19. Kilimanjaro is an inactive stratovolcano in north-eastern
Tanzania and the highest mountain in Africa at 19,341 ft
above sea level.

20. 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.

21. 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.

22. 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.
Gandhi Museum
Madurai Meenakshi Hindu Temple

23. Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Cho Ben Chanh Market
Tran-Hung-Da Temple

24. Manila, Philippines
Rizal Park is the site of
Manila skyline with Rizal Park and Intramuros Philippine hero Jose
Rizal's execution.

25. 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.

26. 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.

27. 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.

29. Kobe, Japan
Mount Rokko
provides the
pleasant green
backdrop to the
city of Kobe.
Museum commemorating the 1995 earthquake

30. 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.

31. Shimogamo Shrine, is an important Shinto sanctuary in Kyoto.

32. Seattle, WA USA