In January my wife and I took a luxury cruise with the Italian Costa line along the Guinea coast. Our ship, the Eugenio C, started from Genoa, took on passengers at Cannes, Barcelona and Casablanca, where we joined her, then made south—for Cotonou (Dahomey). On the return she stopped at Accra (Ghana), Abijan (Ivory Coast), Freetown (Sierra Leone) and Dakar (Senegal). We were dropped off, after fifteen days, at Barcelona.
The accounts that I’d had from friends who had made luxury cruises were discouraging: The passengers, I had been assured, were elderly, addicted to bridge and alcohol, with a considerable preponderance of sexagenarian widows. I was expecting a relaxing rather than a refreshing holiday.
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