Mar 11 Santos Brazil -- port for Sao Paulo

 As mentioned in the previous post, it's a long haul from the port to Sao Paulo. We did that excursion 4 years ago during the COVID cruise. And there's not much to see in Sao Paulo -- it's the financial center of Brazil and not particularly touristy.

So we did the Highlights of Santos visiting things near the port.

Pulling into the harbor I spotted this familiar profile. The Azmara Quest is an R-class ship just like Insignia and the other Oceania ships I have done most of my sailing on.

Santos is an old city and has some old buildings.

This is the clock (accurate twice daily) atop a tram station opposite the Pele Museum.

Pele was revered by Brazilians, leading them to 3 World Cups.

The museum isn't much. They have some memorabilia in cabinets and posters on the wall.

A life size figure, but not done in wax. The museum was not air-conditioned.

Next door, Sanctuary St. Antônio do Valongo

The tram loop is now a tourist attraction. It loops through the central section of Santos.

Tramway tracks and houses climbing up the hill.

We walked from the Pele Museum to the Coffee Museum, passing the tram on its way back. Not a big loop.

This section of Santos is old and classic. People are trying to refurbish the buildings and bring them back to life, but it's slow going.

Wall art. I have no explanation.

Tile on buildings, taken from Portugal.

River of Coffee mural just down the street from the Coffee Museum.

Inside the museum, here's a strange ceiling fan arrangement. Two fans are mounted on a rotating frame, which spins at about 6 rpm. I think a normal paddle fan would have done a better job, but wouldn't have looked as good.

Another phone booth!

Third stop was the Botanical Gardens, which was a pretty small space. The Coffee Museum had been very hot inside, so we didn't explore much in the gardens, preferring to sit in the shade.

The view from the bench.

The drive back to the port included a drive-by of the local beach. Santos is the vacation spot for Sao Paulo with some people maintaining apartments for weekends and holidays.  

Mar 10 Sao Francisco

After a day at sea we were supposed to visit Itajai, Brazil. However, there is no dock there and tendering is necessary (indeed, in this segment of our travel, most of the ports are tender ports). But the anchorage is not protected and swells were running 2m in height.  That's too much for tendering, so we skipped it, and moved on to Sao Francisco. 

A lighthouse in the evening light as we leave Punta del Este.

Cynthia's favorite barista, and an old friend from 2016, Paulo drives the olive oil cart around the specialty restaurant Toscana.

Surprisingly, at least for me, Itajai is highly developed. And this is only about 1/3 of the waterfront. Tall skyscrapers, some of them VERY thin, like the one at the far left of the picture. There are more further to the left. They look like the very tall and thin buildings going up in NYC just south of Central Park. In NYC the buildings are tall and thin to stay within "air rights".

You'd think that the solution in Itajai would be to expand away from the sea. But Brazil has a very narrow area along the sea, with a huge Brazilian Shield behind it. The shield is 800 meters tall with a cliff like face. Sao Paulo is one of the few cities away from the coast in Brazil, but it takes over an hour to drive from the port to Sao Paulo, winding up roads cut into the cliff face.

End of geography lesson. This is Sao Francisco do Sul, a small town on a slow Sunday morning.

Doors and windows

Art along the seafront celebrating the 500th anniversary of the city in 2004.

The market is small inside, nothing much going on Sunday morning. We were able to buy a Coke here.

Uphill to the city square, and the local cathedral

Two phone booths!

The municipal building. At first I thought someone had a great corner office, but actually it's just part of the entrance atrium. 

Church of Our Mother

A Presbyterian church nearby, with a service going on. About 30 parishioners were listening to the sermon.  In Portuguese, so we did not attend.

This appeared to be an ADA-compliant ramp. I guess that skateboarders would love it.

In the terminal building, waiting for the tender.

Mar 7 Punta del Este

 Punta del Este is a tender port where we were waved off 4 days ago and just went into Buenos Aires early. Today was a nice calm day, and we took the tender/lifeboat into town. We were here twice in 2020 and had taken the Oceania tour. This time we went independently, and walked about the town.

Marina as we tender away from her.

We started walking up the hill from the port. (It's always uphill from the port, otherwise you'd be under water.) A street mural along the way.

Ornamental grass alongside a park at the lighthouse.

Mata Hari wall art

Meteorological station

Iglesia de la Candelaria, the church at the top of the hill.

The lighthouse at the highest point on the southwest end of the peninsula.

Oceania had an excursion where you provided the motive power to get from place to place. They passed us as we were leaving the lighthouse. We came upon them later at the fingers.

A black Coca Cola sign?

Stopped in a grocery to get needed supplies, like Oreos. March is back to school time in Uruguay so everything is on sale. I should have stocked up on confiteria.

Feeling particularly good this day, we walked all the way to the fingers, about 2km from the lighthouse, but we wandered a bit on the way. We ended the trip back at the ship with about 5+ miles on the Fitbit.

Playa Brava

Uruguyan flag

Nail polish

This is the same guy that's on the horse in Independence Square, Montevideo.

A nifty bit of street art. This is filled with plastic bottle caps. There are two holes at the top of the heart where you can leave your contribution. 

Tendering back to the ship, Isla Gorriti. Marked as uninhabited, but there are people on the beach. Perhaps they dock their boats on the far side.