At Sea

On our run from the Caribbean to Brazil, the cruise director hosted a new fashioned Equator Crossing ceremony.  (We actually crossed at 10:16pm that evening, but the CD isn't the navigator thank goodness).

Cruise director as King Neptune, with his wife to the left and ACD John in the raincoat

ACD John and the royal fish

Slimy pollywogs are invited to come forward and be cleansed of their sins and join the ranks of the trusty shellbacks.  Initiation consists of kissing the Royal Fish ("No tongue").

Pollywogs are then cleansed with the waters of the briny deep, actually just very cold water.  Who knew that the Oceania demographic would enjoy and PARTICIPATE in a wet t-shirt contest?

Jan 23, Sat    Recife/Olinda Brazil

Today was a great day of exploration for us and two friends.  We decided to DIY to Olinda, a small town about 7 kilometers from where our ship was docked in Recife.

View from cathedral square

 Cathedral

We bought a carving of a city street from this vendor

We disembarked, got on a free shuttle that took us to the port terminal, and then another free shuttle took us from the terminal to downtown Recife where we could get a taxi to Olinda.

We found a taxi that used a meter rather than a negotiated fare and after a short ride were taken to the Cathedral du Se, which is on the highest point in Olinda....good for those who don't like to climb up cobblestone walkways.

 Olinda is perched on a hill overlooking the harbor and is old and beautiful.  Founded by the Portuguese in 1530 Olinda became wealthy on exporting sugar.  In 1630 the Dutch arrived and wanted a piece of the sugar business, took Olinda, and  destroyed most of the town.  

Approximately, 25 years later the Portuguese reclaimed Olinda and rebuilt it but by that time, the area around the harbor, Recife, had become the powerful business center, and Olinda lost her status.  Today it is a lovely, small village high on the hill with glorious views.

We walked the streets, took pictures, bought a couple of small items for family members and were pleased to note that everyone, including the taxi drivers took US$ since we couldn't find a bank or ATM.  

We visited a convent that wasn't open to tourists but we just happened to be at the right place at the right time and were invited in.  We saw the lovely painted ceiling and each floor was laid with different Portuguese tiles. 

We visited churches, artist shops, took pictures of small side streets, admired the Royal Poinciana in bloom, and bought a great souvenir from the wood carver!

We finished our lovely day in Olinda by watching young people carrying drums coming from all different directions walking into a tree shaded square.   How wonderful to hear their music and see their love of drumming!    Awesome day!

Puppet Museum

Practice for Carnival

Today we leave for our 5 day sea journey across the Atlantic to Tome on the west coast of Africa.

Obrigado, Brazil....c

Jan 22, Friday  Natal Brazil

Fortaleeza at night as we departed

Today we arrived in Natal by sailing under a wonderful new bridge that was less than 10 years old...quite a sail in!

Sand dunes on the Atlantic Beach as seen on sail in.

 Used boat sales?

 
We took a guided bus tour of Natal and drove through many interesting neighborhoods, some quite old and others I would characterize as "beachy."  

Our guide showed us  one street that was just for ophthalmologists and optometrists and shops selling eyeglasses and sunglasses.  The sun shines the vast majority of the time in Natal and the citizens are encouraged to get their eyes checked regularly; skin cancers are common.

One of the stops was to the world's largest cashew tree (confirmed by DNA tests run by Guinness so it must be true!) which was nothing as I had expected.  The "trunk" was  limbs of various-sized diameters snaking along the ground and curving up towards the sky but there were hundreds of these limbs thrusting up through the sand so I can only imagine what that network must have looked like underground. 

The guides showed us what the cashew fruit looked like and then the nut which does not look like the ones that come in the Planters can.  A raised boardwalk meandered through the tree which was a great idea--it protected the tree from the tourists and yes, the tourists from tripping and breaking something.  Can you imagine trying to explain that situation to your insurance company?

From there we drove along the beach and saw some people surfing until we reached an old Portuguese fort for a photo stop.  Great looking beach.

Finally, we stopped for about 1/2 hour at a former prison that had been developed into a market.  Each of the cells had been turned into a stall selling tableclothes, tee shirts, leather sandals and purses, and various other knicknacks that tourists love.   Who doesn't love a good fridge magnet!!

 Sail away from Natal

from Natal, founded on Christmas Day,........cynthia

Jan 21 Fortaleza

Grey, cloudy and rainy was the story of the day.  We weren't scheduled into port until noon.  We ate breakfast and an early lunch at the Terrace Cafe, which is outside covered seating.  We were driven inside at lunch as the ship turned to enter the port allowing the rain to blow in. 

We were near the front of the line when it came time to go ashore.  First into a bus to take us to the cruise terminal.  Through the terminal, where they handed out hats and bags if you wanted them, and into another shuttle bus that took us to the Mercado Centrale.  The Mercado looked like someone had converted a parking garage into a jammed bazaar of small shops, most of them seling leather goods, lace, and t-shirts, with food stalls every hundred feet or so.  It was hot, humid, crowded and noisy -- good training for our eventual arrival in India.

We then walked next door to the cathedral, which looked like it could use a good powerwashing.  Maybe that's patina and not dirt and mold. 

After about 90 minutes walking around we saw the shuttle bus pulling up out front, and decided it was a good time to head back to the ship.   These are some pictures along the way.  I'm fascinated by the use of the power poles for every kind of wiring.  Also a lot of razor wire atop fences in front of buildings.

Bruno is the maitre de of the Italian speciality restaurant on board, as well as a supervisor in the Terrace Cafe at breakfast and lunch.  Notice the free hat he's wearing.

Also notice the fine job of parallel parking that the captain did here in Fortaleza.
 

Technical note: we took old point&shoot cameras with us so we didn't have as much flexibility in picture taking as we normally do.  Petty theft, particularly grab&go snatches of things around your neck are common.  We didn't want to tempt anybody.

Finally -- this could be the tender that we took back in Belem.  It was rough.

 Jan 19, 2016;      Guama River Excursion
Weather prediction for this morning was a chance for rain, but the day dawned with beautiful skies and soon it became very, very warm and humid.  I thought living in South Florida would prepare us for being in tropical Brazil....not so much!! 

 After annointing ourselves with sunscreen (!!) and bug spray, we took off.  We read Consumer Reports study on insect repellent before we left so we're currently using lemon eucalyptus, which smells much better than DEET.  We also have a set each of clothing in a plastic bag that have been sprayed with permithrin for those areas where the incidence of malaria is much higher according to the CDC.

We boarded a wonderfully painted excursion boat directly from Insignia.  Somehow the blue, green and orange paint just fit the scene perfectly.   We were taken into Belem's port but immediately transfered to a similarly painted ship for our sail up the Guama River.  

The Guama is all part of the  Amazon river system so we were pretty thrilled to be sailing such a famous river.  The houses are quite separated from each other, many brightly painted, and every one I saw had a long pier into the river.  The piers served a wide variety of purposes; boats were tied up, men fished,  and clothes hung to dry while dogs slept.

Since the students were on vacation, many were out on the family piers and waved at us as we went by.  Some jumped into the water, we cheered, and other kids then quickly followed, each with a more spectacular leap than his/her predecessor.  Applause from everyone!  Awesome experience!!!  

We then landed and were taken on a walking tour of the jungle. We visited a school, obviously not in session, and saw young men wearing blue shirts with "taxi" written on them  on motor bikes transporting women with grocery bags down muddy paths back into their homes in the jungle.  Sometimes whole families were on the bikes!

One man shinnied up  a very tall palm tree, using a twisted vine as a foot support, set the tree  swaying, transferred to another tree in mid-air and then came down that tree in a controlled fall--he was 75+ years old.   Amazing!! 

 We  were shown various trees and smaller plants  with a variety of medicinal properties.   Our guide offered to let us hold a ginormous tarantula but notice I did not get close enough to take a photo and I believe David was somewhere behind me!

One young man showed us how he trimmed Brazil nuts with his machete and gave us the nuts to taste.  I complimented him on his fine hair and got the sweetest grin!  Who knew you could get blond tips in the Amazonian river system!!

Returning to the Insignia in a ship's tender was what we refer to as a Disney "E Ticket Ride" and was perhaps a little more "E" than I would have liked.  I scored 2 great seats so that David could get fresh air from both open sides and could see out.  He successfully rode the tender back!!

My sage advice for getting on and off tender boats--think about what your feet are wearing.  Flip flops and flimsy sandals are not the safest thing to wear.  Kudos to the young men of Oceania who brought everyone on board the tenders.   I'm sure the passengers must sorely try their patience.  

Boa Noite  (Good Evening) from Cynthia