Rio de Janeiro to Miami
Forgot one pretty big thing
about Rio in the last update, so I’ll start with that here. The Cariocas (what people from Rio are
called) are obsessed with Carnaval (correct spelling if you’re in Rio)! Every guide went on and on about it, and
since it had just finished, it was probably even more primary in their
minds. It’s not just a lot of gaudy
parades, although there are dozens of those all over the city for 2 weeks. Carnaval is actually a Samba Club
competition. There are 12 Samba Clubs
in Rio, each with 5000 members, who are all in the ‘parade’. These are the competitors in the 2 biggest parades,
6 clubs in each parade; each parade of 6 clubs takes about 6 hours each. They actually have built a Samba parade
ground specifically for these 2 main parades where the performances take place
and get judged. Each club performs for
an hour in this parade corridor which is about ¼ mile long and about as wide as
a 4 lane city street. They perform, they don’t march anywhere. These 2 parades happen on the Sunday and
Monday nights (all night long) of the
last week of Carnaval. So there are
60,000 people involved in these two events.
After the judging, then the top 6 have a parade. Really, it’s another night of performances,
but it’s the top 6 competitors. The
winner gets about a million dollars but since they spend about 5 or 6 million
on all the costumes and float and special effects, they don’t really win
anything except glory. They practice all
year in huge old vacant warehouses around the city; there were several near the
pier where we were docked. Anyway, this
is more than I ever knew about Carnaval but I thought it was interesting.
So, first stop on this final
segment was Recife, Brazil, way out on the tip of the bulge of the
continent. It took 2 days/nights at sea
to get there from Rio. It’s got about
3.5 million people, so sizable. We had a
trip to a UNESCO site called Olinda, an old colonial town perched on a hill
just east of Recife. It was kind of
charming, but there really isn’t much to see – old church, small square, a few
quaint buildings and a little market where we saw some men perform a local
dance. All the artists, sculptors, and
writers who live here now were nowhere to be seen since they were all sleeping,
according to our guide. It’s so hot that
they all start work in the evening when it’s cooler, work until 4AM and then go
out to eat and socialize until about 7AM.
So, not much going on here for us to see since it was 10AM, but we had
some nice views off a lookout over to Recife and a long curved beach. We returned to Recife and went to the beach
we saw, but there weren’t too many people out, and no one in the water because
it was forbidden to feed the sharks (they have a significant shark problem) ha
ha. Then we were supposed to go to the
main square, but there were some ‘manifestations’ going on (demonstrations) in
protest of the government’s mismanagement of tax money. Evidently, it’s missing! So there are going to be coordinated
nationwide ‘manifestations’ over the weekend of March 14 and 15. These protestors were getting an early start,
I guess. So we went to The Golden
Church, a very extensively gilded church that was just for the wealthy people,
at least in the past. The poor people
went to one that’s connected but separated by iron gates. After that, we just went back to the
ship. Our guide was French and it was
quite a strain to understand her heavily accented English. So, we either missed a lot in translation or
there just wasn’t very much to know about Recife. There certainly wasn’t much to see. There were some very attractive new
condominium buildings along the shoreline as well as some nice office buildings
but that’s about all.
Recife was probably just a
stop to break up the long trip around Brazil to the Amazon River, since we had
2 more days/nights at sea and then another day/night/and another ½ day cruising the Amazon to get to our first
stop after that. We had another equator
crossing and the Polliwog/Shellback /King Neptune party on deck while we were
en route. We calculate that by the end
of this trip we have crossed the equator 7 times when counting all our trips,
so luckily King Neptune has no quarrel with us – just those darn polliwogs.
We could tell we were getting close to the
Amazon delta because of how brown and muddy the water was. The outflow of water from the Amazon into the
Atlantic is so great that the water is brown as far as 200 miles out. The delta is huge and has many channels and
islands until you get to the main channel.
We cruised in the river all that day and night, and then another half
day to get to our first stop, Santarem, Brazil. We will eventually go 1000 miles down the
Amazon to Manaus, and then back out that far again. There’s really nothing along the shoreline as
you go along and the banks are really really far apart, just appearing as dark
lines a lot of the time. At times the
banks get a little closer and we can see lots of rivers letting into the Amazon, but
there’s very little boat traffic or activity of any kind, really. Few houses or people that we could see either.
The land is really flat most of the time
with rainforest growing right up to the edge, except every now and then there
are some red clay bluffs for about a ½ mile or so, or a few low hills off in
the distance, but flat is the main lay of the land.
We arrived early at Santarem
but the tour schedule remained the same, so after lunch we left for a hike in
the Tapajos National Forest, about an hour from Santarem. After about halfway there it really started
to rain so we had to close the windows on our non-air-conditioned city bus that
was our stylish transportation. Before
entering the Amazon region we had all been warned about the facilities in
general being ‘rustic’, so the city bus was no surprise (I was more concerned
with how ‘rustic’ translated to bathroom facilities). Anyway, it really started to steam
then. As recommended, we were all
wearing L/S shirts, long pants adventure-type clothing and hiking boots against
mosquitoes (as well as fortified with malaria pills that we started taking in
Recife). But not our guide! He was wearing shorts and s/s polo and
walking shoes. Then we picked up our
Park guide, and she was similarly dressed but wore flip flops … and brought her
machete as well!
Once inside the park, the 10
minute drive to the overlook and trailhead turned into 30 minutes because of 3
trees that had fallen across the road.
Never fear, though, because not only do Park guides come with machetes,
they also have chain saws! We were on
the way each time in a jiffy. And guess
what – ‘rustic’ here means non-existent as far as bathrooms go.
It stopped raining before we
got off the busses so that was good, but heavy moisture constantly dripped from
the trees. We were hiking in a primary
rainforest which means none of it has ever been cut or disturbed in any way. We had a beautiful overlook view of the thick
forest out across a ravine before we started out. We went single file on a narrow path with
dense overgrowth encroaching right up to us.
We were warned about bullet ants that liked certain palms and about other
palms that had wicked 3 inch thorns covering the stalks, and they were right
there. The ant bite would make you very
feverish and nauseated for about 2 days, and the thorns would cause great
swelling and infection and break into tiny pieces once they were under your
skin, requiring surgical removal. Young
men of the indigenous people allow themselves to be bitten numerous times as a
rite of passage into manhood. We are all
so past that, we didn’t need to even think about it and were very very careful. Two of the tallest trees in the Americas were
in this forest and we saw them both (giant sequoias in North America are the
tallest). We couldn’t see the tops of
them at all. There are thick vines that
grow up tree trunks, eventually encasing the whole thing, killing the
tree. There were lots of black termite
nests in the trees, tubular shaped cicada cones on the ground, and honeybee
nests (these bees have no stingers but
they make lots of honey). The Park guide
used her machete – very casually I might add – to hack off bark from the tree
the Indians chew on to keep from getting malaria. It smelled terrible and bitter. We will stick to our malaria pills, even
though our guide said we shouldn’t bother because the rivers in this area are
very acidic and mosquitoes can’t mature here.
He showed us the leaves of a plant the Indian women use for a jungle
tampax after drying and another bark that is used to make computer paper. According to him, everything we can find at
Target and Walgreens is here in the rainforest in its basic state. We heard lots of bird calls but didn’t see
any monkeys or parrots or any wildlife beyond bugs at all. He advised us several times to keep sipping water
since there is less oxygen in the air inside the rainforest due to all the decomposition
happening, and he didn’t want any ‘faintings’.
We were good about that, but more because of being so hot than anything else.
Non-existent ‘rustic’ bathooms didn’t factor in at all.
We have been asked to keep our
doors closed and balcony lights off to keep the bugs to a minimum, but there
were a lot of them on the walking track – really big grasshoppers and
beetles. It’s so humid the ship’s
barometer shows 102 – 107% humidity even when it’s not raining. Is that even possible? Anyway, it’s pretty uncomfortable. Opening your deck door is like hitting a
wall. So we are compliant with
that. We can’t put our wet shoes outside
though because they would never dry!
Next stop was at Boca de
Valeria, a tiny fishing village of 150 people.
We anchored at 7AM and planned to take the tender over at around 11AM to
walk around. The crew collects items for
donations to the school here and would be going over at noon to distribute, so
we thought we would be there for that, but a steady rain started at 8 and
continued through 1pm. Thoughts of the
red mud and steamy conditions kept us on the boat. We were anchored very close to shore and could
see the houses and even the church and school from our deck, so we decided to
forgo the visit, even though I HATE to miss anything. All of the brightly painted structures,
including the church, are on stilts so they stay above the high water of the
rainy season. The villagers came out to
the ship on little boats that they propel with motors with long rods down to
surprisingly tiny propellers. We were
able to see Amazon pink dolphins from our deck.
We thought they would be hard to see given how brown the water is, but
they’re really a very bright pink color!
We sailed for Manaus at 3PM, and found out later that some kid had stolen the wallet of the
Destinations Services Manager while he was walking over to help distribute the
items to the school. Now we’re not too sorry
we didn’t get over there!
Manaus is a city of 2 million
people built at the confluence of the Rio Negro and Solimoes Rivers, forming
the Amazon, 1000 miles west of the Atlantic coast of Brazil. Why (I know you’re asking) would there be a
need for a city of any size here in this remote place? Rubber! Is the correct answer. Brazil dominated the rubber trade in the late
1800s/early 1900s and the rubber barons built their camps and factories here
and then sent the rubber/latex products down the river for exportation around
the world. This went on until a trader
smuggled some seeds out to Kew Gardens in London, where they were propagated
and then sent to Asia where they grew very well and the monopoly was
broken. In the meantime, the rubber
barons were unfathomably wealthy. They
built huge homes and lived fabulously, even sending their shirts to be
laundered in Portugal and France! They
decided they wanted Manaus to be as great as a European capital, so among other
things, they actually built an Opera House modeled on the one in Paris using
materials imported from all over Europe.
When the monopoly collapsed, the price of rubber plummeted and the
barons closed everything and left.
We took a riverboat cruise to
see the place where the 2 rivers meet, of interest because the Rio Negro is
dark blue, clearer water than the muddy yellow of the Solimoes, and they flow
side by side without blending for several miles. They don’t blend right away because the Rio
Negro is slower and colder. It’s really
quite distinct – not a straight line but kind of zig zaggy. We also went on smaller motorized canoes
which took us into small channels in the flooded forest. The water now is about 6 feet of flood and
will get about 12 – 15 feet higher by the end of the rainy season. We were in vary narrow close passages where
it was dark and very very beautiful. In
November and December, dry season, we would be walking in these same
places. Not too much wildlife, no
monkeys or parrots, not even a single anaconda or caiman! Lots of egrets and hawks and other small
birds.
Back in Manaus, we decided to
walk to the Opera House, which fell into ruin for probably 80 – 90 years but
has been fully restored just 4 years ago.
It’s big and pink with white trim with a large dome tiled in blues,
golds, greens and reds. Very beautiful
and it is being used again for concerts and performances. So weird though because the surrounding area
is not very nice at all. There is a nice
Palace of Justice building, a small square tiled in typical Portuguese black
and white wave pattern with a large monument to something in the middle. Nice church too. But the rest of what we walked through was
pretty dirty and shabby and crowded. So
all that on top of being so hot and sultry sent us back to the ship. We never saw the main part of the new city
with the business and financial centers and all the skyscrapers, but one of our
friends told us he saw it in the distance while on the same river cruise we
were on. Guess we were watching the
water too much…or maybe it was the 2 caiparinhas I had. They were only $3 each!! Anyway, it evidently is a long way from the
pier area and the old section we were in.
On the way back we found the Mercado Municipale local market which is a
copy of Les Halles in Paris. They
probably don’t sell anything like we saw here at the one in Paris!
We had some excitement as the
ship was preparing to anchor in the river at Parintins. We were turning around to face the current
when the ship had to make a quick hard turn to avoid a small boat, then we were
way too close to the shore and had to make another sudden swerve to get out of
that situation. I happened to be looking
out our doors and saw how low the ship was dipping and how close to the shore
it was, and thought for a minute we might actually become beached. Found out later that one of the passengers
fell across her suite into the sofa and injured her hand, and that one of the
cooks spilled very hot water on himself.
Both had to be treated in the Medical Center.
We split up in Parintins to
do separate activities, both related in different ways to the annual 3 day
festival called Boi Bumba, for which Parintins is well-known in this part of
Brazil. The festival is a little like
Carnavale for Rio, in that it’s really a competition. Here there are two rival groups, the
Garantido Club which always uses the color red, and the Caprichoso Club which
always uses blue. It centers around a
mystical white bull, and there are dances, floats, music and costumes that are
involved in exhibitions over the 3 days.
Al went to see the town which included a couple of churches and then the
square which had some interesting murals all over it depicting some of the colorful
events of the festival. Then they went
to warehouses for both teams, but went inside the red team’s building to see
the stored floats and other props they use.
Of course, everything is big, bright, shiny, sparkly and vivid colors,
with red predominating. They drove by
the big arena built specifically for the competitions. Beyond these points of interest there wasn’t
much to the town, except some colorful boats in the harbor and the small
Convention Center on the main waterfront street where I went to see the Boi
Bumba Show, where I was able to see how they incorporate all the components
above into a throbbing, vibrant, high-energy show. It was non-stop for about 50 minutes –
singing, dancing, loud pulsing drum rhythms, lights, huge beautiful costumes
out of peacock feathers dyed any color imaginable along with beads, sequins,
ribbons, bare skin (ladies and men), flying black hair and flashing teeth,
beautiful girls and handsome men. This
exhibition was presented by the Garantido Club so the colors were predominantly
red. It was really really an impressive
display. We were all left a little
breathless by the fast-paced energy. It
was great. Afterward, I shopped around a
little in the rain at some kiosks along the waterfront and then tendered back
to the ship, where Al was already back.
The town isn’t much, but it has managed to put together a pretty big
attraction for itself. The festival is
getting bigger and bigger every year drawing more and more people all the
time. Parintins, like most of the
communities along the Amazon, is only accessible by boat or plane, so it would
be interesting to see how it handles the large influx of people who come for
the festival. Can’t imagine how such a
small place would handle it!
Our final stop in the Amazon
River was another weekend vacation village called Alter do Chao. People come here for the beaches. It was a much nicer town than Parintins,
built in a bay of the Tapajos River which flows into the Amazon. There were some small pretty hotels along the
beaches and a nice long boardwalk. Lots
of colorful boats bobbed around just along it.
We could see a large sandbar in the bay with some huts on it, used by
vacationers enjoying the beach there. It
was partially flooded already and would probably be completely submerged by the
end of the rainy season. We had a stroll
around the neat little streets, looking at the nice homes and shops and
restaurants. It was a quiet easy stop –
we enjoyed leisurely seeing it all before we went back to the ship.
So we were 26 days in
Brazil! It’s such a big country – the
size of Australia, maybe a little bigger!
We enjoyed it a lot, but since everything purchased on the ship
(anything in the boutiques as well as cocktails or wine) during that time had a
25% Brazilian tax added on, it’s kind of nice to be past that. A cocktail or glass or bottle of wine had
the 18% ship service charge and the 25%
Brazilian tax added on to it. Plus the
issue of the significant language barrier made us sort of glad to be headed
toward the Caribbean where things would be a little easier.
Devil’s Island – what a
surprise! It’s one of a group of 3
islands off the coast of French Guiana, all very tiny and close together. We actually disembarked on Ile Royale where
most of the ruins of the notorious French penal colony can be seen. There are many buildings left to see, and
there are 3 different paths up and down and around the island that take you
past them all. It’s a very beautiful
island with a rocky coastline and the water is a gorgeous bluish turquoise
color but there’s no swimming because of sharks and dangerous currents, both of
which made it a really secure prison.
Most of the 80,000+ inmates of the prison over the 100 years of its use
were never heard from again after they were sent there. Kind of hard to reconcile the beauty with the
history as you see the tiny dark solitary confinement cells with irons still in
the wall to which the prisoners were chained.
They were kept chained all night and many day time hours as well. There’s a death row with the same horrible
cells as solitary, they had a guillotine, a hospital, a chapel, an asylum, pig
pens, a slaughter house, a workshop, small cottages that accommodated prisoners
in the regular penitentiary, a large governor’s residence, and guard residences. Nowadays there’s a hotel, too, where people
can stay when they visit. Might be kind
of spooky to do that! Devil’s Island,
just yards away across a small channel, also had prisoners on it, mostly in
solitary confinement cells. Alfred
Dreyfus was imprisoned there, but there’s nothing left of those buildings
anymore. We saw some capybaras but no
parrots or monkeys, although some people did.
One lady, who always brings cat food on trips with her and feeds the cats
she sees everywhere, was feeding a parrot and it bit her finger. Guess parrots don’t like cat food! Anyway, we were pleasantly surprised at what
a nice visit it was to a former prison!
We went out early on Barbados
for a trip around the island in 4x4s.
It’s a very hilly island with one official mountain. We went all around and up and down, lots of
views, and through a forest planted as the island used to be before it was
cleared extensively for sugar cane plantations.
We stopped for refreshments at a beautiful beach on the Atlantic side
with large coral boulders along it, but no swimming because of dangerous
currents. All the swimming beaches are
on the Caribbean side, so that’s where we saw all the hotels, condos, golf
courses, expensive villas, and elegant shops. The water is now officially the
Caribbean turquoise color – beautiful!
We saw cotton and sugar cane fields everywhere. After lunch we took a taxi to Bridgetown, but
it wasn’t very nice. It’s mostly
duty-free shopping, so all the usual jewelry, liquor, and other things you see
in every airport. Al went back
immediately! I walked around with the
camera and found a few nicer colonial structures, including some big stone (or
probably coral block) government buildings with arches and a clock tower, a
small drawbridge that was raising up for a boat to pass into a pretty
harbor, a nice fountain and a few
statues, but not much more. I walked
back to the ship through a pretty park but that was pretty much it for Barbados.
Sailed to St. Barth’s through
lots of islands, the Lesser Antilles, on either side of the ship. Finally, there was something to look out at
while walking on the track. Usually
there’s nothing to see, few other ships and never any dolphins, maybe seagulls
sometimes, at most. Anyway, we arrived
around noon and anchored out among lots of pretty yachts and sailboats, some
really large! St. Barth’s is French, so all
the signs are in French and all the people are speaking French. For some reason it attracts the rich and
famous for vacationing in the grand villas or expensive hotels. There are about 15 different beaches around
the island tucked into the bays and coves.
It’s very dry and hot all year and the vegetation on the hills reflects
that kind of climate, mostly cacti and low scrubby trees and bushes, not very
green. Few flowering plants because
there’s no fresh water and little rain.
All the buildings are white with red tile roofs (maybe a few green ones)
so it’s a pretty sight to see them clustered together in the folds of the hills
and down toward the harbor. There are
major villas dotting the hillsides all over the island. We had a crazy French taxi driver who took us
around the island and shouted out facts and information in a combination of
French and English. It was great fun
trying to decipher the information – I was actually able to remember some
French from high school and college.
After surviving the taxi ride, we walked over to Shell Beach, aptly
named because the entire beach was tiny shells.
It was very close to town but set in a small cove with dramatic rocky
cliffs rising up on its sides, and of course that turquoise water! There were a couple of nice yachts and some
very large sailboats anchored out a little ways, so it was like swimming in a
postcard. The water felt great since it
was so hot. Al went back to the ship but
I swam for about an hour, then browsed my way back to the ship. Everything’s pretty expensive, and there are
the usual major designers represented, along with some small boutiques with
very pretty things. Shopkeepers seem
either completely indifferent or even annoyed that you’re in their shop. It’s a very artificial society, composed of
the very wealthy and the people who serve them, no agriculture or industry at
all. We decided St. Barth’s feels a little like
Monaco but with smaller yachts and no royal family. Also not as pretty. Never mind!
First time back on U.S. soil
in 68 days when we got off the ship in San Juan! One of the ship’s officers commented that we
have been 60+ days in South America and she finally felt like she was back in
civilization. We concur. Everyone speaks English here and the
bathrooms are great. That might not seem
like a lot, but after this long it really is!
We went out to see some of the city, visited the Museum of Art for a
little while, which had a great sculpture garden outside, then went to San
Cristobal Fort in Old San Juan. It is
really amazing. Huge multi-level
fortress built on the coast with a huge wall enclosing it all and linking it to
a couple of other forts all built to protect the entrance to the main
harbor. There’s a shallow reef that
surrounds the island so invading ships couldn’t get close to shore to do any
real damage, so San Juan was pretty impregnable. We explored all the tunnels, ramps and
ramparts, gun decks, lookout posts, barracks, a big church, and all the various
levels pretty extensively. There are
fabulous views out over the old and new parts of San Juan, and it was a sunny
day with very blue skies, so it was very picturesque with turquoise water all
around. We drove out to see El Morro,
another part of the fortifications connected to San Cristobal by the long wall,
4 stories high in some places. We just
drove by it and then after fighting some serious traffic, got dropped off in
Old San Juan. Johnny Depp was filming a movie in Old San Juan, so vans and
trucks connected to that were causing problems in the little narrow streets
built 500 years ago. We walked all
over. All the houses abut each other,
are painted in many pastels with white trim, no more than 3 or 4 stories and no
more than one of each color in the same block.
The cobblestones are blue! We
walked to the Cathedral, one of the old stone city gates, various government buildings,
and the Governor’s Mansion. The mansion
is right above the water, painted pastel blue with white trim with a black wrought iron fence around it – just perfect
looking! There are lots of shops and
bars and restaurants in the little houses.
We took our time for a couple of hours, then Al went back to the ship
and I browsed a little more, just enjoying the area. The ship was docked right in the Old San Juan
pier area, along with 5 other cruise ships, including one of Oceania’s sister
ships, Riviera, and the Regent Seven Seas Navigator, and a really great looking
Disney ship. It was crowded! But it was a great stop.
We left a little late because
of a slow bunkering (fueling) process.
The ship had a champagne party for the 27 of us who have made the full
Miami to Miami circle, a thank you and farewell gathering. Afterward we went to the Toscana specialty
restaurant and enjoyed our last dinner there.
We had our last reservation in the steak house a couple of nights
ago. Both were probably the best meals
we’ve had in each throughout the whole trip – fitting, I guess.
We docked in Nassau at noon
and decided not to go as planned to the Blue Lagoon, along with the maybe
10,000 other cruise visitors from the 6 cruise ships in port that day. Most of the excursions in and around Nassau
seemed to have something to do with the Blue Lagoon, so we thought a walk
around town would be a little easier to cope with. We set out through downtown, passing the
series of pretty pink-and-white British colonial-style Parliament buildings,
the Judicial Center, and more. The
hexagonal shaped library is the former prison, also pink and white. We walked up the Queen’s Staircase, hand cut
through the rock by 6000 slaves, and went into Fort Fincastle. It’s the highest point in Nassau so we had a
view of downtown, the harbor with all the cruise ships, the pretty turquoise
water, and Atlantis in the distance on Paradise Island. It’s a tiny round fort with a long point like
the prow of a ship, and there are a few original cannons around, but not much
else to see – just the view. We went
back down and found our way past the Governor’s Mansion and the old Colonial
Inn, a Hilton property down on the water.
Everything seemed to be pretty well kept and clean as we walked around
town. We enjoyed seeing the local police
men and women dressed in traditional
British Colonial uniform – navy slacks with a red stripe down the pant legs,
white jacket with leather crisscross chest straps and white pith helmet. Back down by the harbor on Bay Street and
Broad Street are many many shops, the usual duty-free jewelry, liquor and
cosmetics and so on, a few of the big designer labels and then numerous
souvenir T-shirt-and-flip flop shops.
There were only 2 of interest to me, and I did some damage in one of
them and then headed back to the ship to finish packing. Al, of course, was long gone by this time,
having cut and run as soon as the shops appeared.
Disembarkation was early and
easy, flights were on time, and we were at the house by 3:45pm on Saturday
afternoon, where everything was in great shape, thanks to Whitney’s care and
vigilance. It feels a little strange to
wake up in the same place every morning and not have something new to go out
and do or see, but it’s good to be home.
We have seen some wonderful, amazing things, certainly hit all the main sights
along the way, and met all kinds of people, both ashore and on the ship (!). Circling South America, which has long been
on our to-do list, is now crossed off!
