Pat and Norm's World Cruises and other adventures

Takoradi, Ghana

Posted on March 23, 2023 by patmathews

March 23, 2023

This is our second time visiting Ghana. Here are some pictures of our sail in. The air is much cleaner than yesterday, but it is quite hot, almost 90 degrees.

Today we decided to take the Twin City of Sekondi-Takoradi tour. Our guide was Nana and he was very friendly and informative. Ghana is a mostly very religious Catholic country. Twi is the local language but the official language is English. He taught us a few Twi words. Ghana has had 11 different governments over the years, the current one is a civilian, not military government and has been that way for 10 years now. It was under British control until 1957. 60% of people in the country are employed in some type of agriculture and cocoa and crude oil are important exports.

Nana also talked a lot about cultural norms here, for example, you should not gesture or do anything with your left hand. They consider it to be dirty given bathroom habits and they do also eat with only the right hand. They don’t usually use utensils.

Children have long names and the first part of their name is always the day of the week they are born. For families with more than one child born on the same day, the second part of their name could be the word for the time of day they were born or some physical characteristic, like fat or skinny. I would hate to have my name associated with baby fat all my life!! Babies are named at a special ceremony that takes place on the 8th day of life.

Family is very important here and before a marriage, the family must approve of it. Then, Nana says, you marry the family and anyone in the family can show up at your home 24 hours a day, and stay as long as they want to. If someone needs money, you must give it to them. They believe in communal living, so many families live together.

Our tour description said we would first drive through the monkey hills. I guess they are still called that, but the monkeys have all left the area due to humans moving into their territory.

We drove past the hospital and other areas such as the Naval base where we were warned not to take pictures. I fact, we were asked to check with the person if you want to take a picture because some people here believe you capture their soul if you take their picture. I always ask anywhere I go. Along the way and in every stop, we saw so many people carrying almost anything you could imagine – on their heads. This always amazes me wherever we see it.

Our first actual stop was the fishing harbor. What a busy place! There were metal basins full of smaller fish everywhere and some people had large fish that they were cutting up. Many people were there and Nana said that it is that way every day except Tuesdays when fishing is prohibited. We walked through the market where people were very friendly. I said to Norm that it seemed people saw us as a curiosity here. Even when driving by on the bus, people stared and waved.

We saw some boats in partial stages of building. We got to visit the ice plant which produces 50,000 pounds of ice a day and operates 24 hours a day. Very interesting to see how they desalinate water and freeze it to keep the fish fresh. Their power plant is run by natural gas and is from Turkey. Officials took us all through the market and explained everything but only at the last minute did they use a microphone, so it was hard to hear everything.

Next we drove through market circle, a huge market, the biggest in Ghana. There were a lot of people and a lot of stalls and shops but Nana said it was not too busy compared to usual.

A couple of interesting sights along our routes: Most of their Coke ads seem to be religious!

Our last stop was at the Raybow Hotel where we had refreshments and watched a cultural show with drummers and very energetic dancers. Some of the passengers got up to learn a dance and you could see the locals trying to suppress their laughter.

When we arrived back at the port, there were local people with their items for sale. I was looking for a certain type of basket, but the ones they had all looked mass produced and not what I was looking for.

On the way into the ship, a nice young man asked if I would do a survey and I agreed. The survey asked about my impressions, how much we spent (only the tour cost and tips) and some demographic information. It seems that they are trying to improve what they do. The people were so friendly here, we always felt safe and it is much cleaner than the other west African countries so far.

Good news here on the ship – there are NO quarantines at all for passengers or crew. Yay! Hopefully it will stay that way.

Posted in Africa, Excursions, March, World Cruise #4 | 2 Comments

Abidjan, Ivory Coast

Posted on March 22, 2023 by patmathews

March 22, 2023

This is our second time visiting this country. This time, we had not booked an organized tour and intended to take the shuttle into town. But when we saw the pier with many police armed with AK47s and read the travel warnings, we opted to stay on the ship. Some friends took the shuttle and came right back. Most of the west African countries are about the same, generally nice and friendly people but an element of danger to tourists, lots of trash and air pollution. The air pollution was quite bad today. We both did our usual deck walks but decided to eat lunch inside instead out on the terrace which we usually prefer.

Here are some pictures of our arrival. You can see the level of air pollution. It smells like oil and smoke.

Here’s a shot of the pier. Most of the police have now left and are providing armed escorts to the tour buses.

I had a nice surprise yesterday. There was a knock at our door and someone delivered a gift of chocolate covered strawberries and macarons. When I opened the card, I saw that the surprise was from the Casino team! I already ate a strawberry before I took the picture!

Some facts about Abidjan – it is the largest city in and the economic capital of the Ivory Coast. The population is about 6.3 million. Like other countries we have visited in west Africa, it is mostly a French speaking country.

What else is happening around the ship? Our entertainment has been interesting on the last three days. First we had a duo named the Tap Step Brothers. We were wondering how tap dancing could possible stay interesting for the 45 minute show – well they were amazing. They showed on video the tap dancer that did the tapping for the animated film Happy Feet . Then one of the team came out in a tuxedo and penguin hat and tapped with the animated penguins on screen behind him. There were all styles of tap dancing, then the duo (who are friends, not brothers) explained the difference in style and the taps on the shoes between regular tap dancing and Irish dancing. In the Irish dancing, the taps are made of fiberglass not metal. We really enjoyed the show and look forward to their second one.

We also had a show called musical bliss with two wonderful male singers, Sabatino and Sutcliffe. And last night we had a magician/comedian, Danny Buckler. Lots of laughs with him. Both will be back for second shows. I almost always go to the shows, but with Norm it is hit or miss, so I will be making sure he goes to the last two when they perform again.

The food continues to be wonderful. We will miss our Executive Chef, Farid, when he leaves for vacation in Cape Town. He will return in Tokyo to finish the world cruise with us. I hope his replacement will be good too, but Farid is truly special. We had another fresh fish grilled on the deck two nights ago. He is always doing added features. Some days he sets up a pancake and omelet station for lunch. And yesterday he had a nacho station. He is always front and center doing cooking and serving and seems to also be everywhere on the ship, greeting and lingering to talk with guests.

We are still in a high risk area for pirates and we do have a team of former Navy Seals on board who keep a 24 hour watch. During the days, we see them on deck or in the gym doing the most strenuous exercises you can possibly imagine. If I was a pirate I wouldn’t want to mess with these guys!

We now have three days in a row in the west African countries and we have tours in each. We will be going to a voodo ceremony in Togo and visiting a village on stilts in Benin, which is a new country for us.

Posted in Africa, Food, March, World Cruise #4 | 3 Comments

Banjul, The Gambia

Posted on March 19, 2023 by patmathews

March 19, 2023

Today we booked a private tour with Sonia and Boris. We were here in 2018 and enjoyed our tour then, so this time we were going to do something different. Three other couples booked a tour through the same company and we were all waiting at the pier for the tour guides – ours said to look for Sonia’s name on “A4” paper! Eventually one of the people on the other tour got an text – it turned out that the guides were waiting for us at the other ship that was in port! We could watch them running to get to us. In the meantime, many vendors came to set up on the pier.

Our guide was Mustafa and he was clearly the junior guide of the duo. The other group went in an open air vehicle and we 4 were in a SUV. We traveled together and both guides gave us information during the walks. Their guide stood on the back of the vehicle the whole time.

We stopped first at Our Lady of the Assumption Cathedral which looked pretty beat up from the outside. Mass was just finishing and the priest shook each of our hands as we went into the church. I loved the fabrics of the womens’ dresses last time we were in Africa and they are just as impressive this time.

90% of the country is Muslim but there is a small number of people who practice other religions. We saw hardly any women wearing head scarves or any kind of Muslim covering.

After the church, we went to the market and walked through a lot of the stalls. We saw (and smelled) everything from dried and fresh fish to vegetables, live chickens and clothing of all kinds. Mustafa said that people come to the market to shop every day since a lot of them do not have refrigeration. This is one of the poorest countries in Africa. The people seem very happy and we did not feel at all unsafe. But the shops and the houses are really bad. The market was just along the beach so we walked out there and saw some of the fish that was just caught.

The chickens, chicks and cats seem to get along well!

This looks like wood, but it is a kind of plant that they use to clean their teeth.

There was a restaurant in the market that had open fire and really no place to sit. I wondered how things don’t burn down!

The city is divided in two by the Gambia River. We asked why the country is called “The Gambia” and not just Gambia. The Portuguese named it after the river known as “the River Gambia” so they called it “The Gambia”.

We saw a man on the street leading this flock of sheep.

On one of our walks, we saw the Bombax ceiba, a tree that has a flower the opens like cotton and is used for making pillows.

Many bridges connect parts of the country to the rest. Along the river there are many types of mangroves. Here among the red mangroves, women harvest oysters and there are piles of oyster shells everywhere. One of the women showed us a basket of oysters she had harvested.

We saw some crocodiles on the shore near the mangroves. Little did we know we would see more up close later in the tour! These kids had fun waving to us.

In fact, this was our next stop – in Bakau. First we went through the museum where we learned many of the rituals of the people. One room was all about the circumcision rituals. We asked if women here are still circumcised and yes, some are but many less since it is being really discouraged. There were some of their instruments on display and a shop with lots of wood carvings. This man was carving one as we watched.

The art as we entered the museum was beautiful.

We then walked to the crocodile pool where we found many crocodiles both in the water and around the grounds. There were attendants there who told us there are 100 crocodiles there – they keep the population at that number – and that they are fed 250 kilos of fish every morning so they are too full to eat US! We were allowed to come right next to them and touch them. Eek! The ones who are pregnant, have eggs or babies can get aggressive so we couldn’t go near them but we did see some.

Kachikally is also one of three sacred crocodile pools in the Gambia, traditionally believed to cure couples of infertility. Women struggling to conceive traditionally visit to bathe in the water (today this takes place in an open concrete hut); if a pregnancy results, it is traditional to give the child “Kachikally” as part of their name.

This is the nest of a bat that lives in the area. A huge tree and one that has the plant used for loofah.

We stopped at the river and saw people getting on a boat. One of the flags on the boat was the US flag. There were lots of women in white with large hats both getting on the boat and standing on the street. Was this a bachelorette party??? Our guide said they were probably filming a video but we don’t know for sure.

We had an early departure from the port today and needed to be on board by 2:30, so we declined the offer to go to a hotel for relaxation and lunch. We did stop for local bananas and delicious oranges though.

On the way back to the ship, we went to an area that was full of peanut hulls. They eat a lot of peanuts in their food, and the hulls are used for mulch that breaks down in to fertilizer.

Back on the pier there was a band with a surprising bagpipe player. There were lots of vendors set up too, they were just setting up in the morning as we left the ship.

Tonight we have a show called the Tap Step Brothers that Ray said people talked about for months after they performed on the last world cruise. Looking forward to that after a fresh fish grilled dinner at the Terrace Café. We saw that Farid bought fish in the port yesterday.

Posted in Africa, Excursions, March, World Cruise #4 | 1 Comment

Mindelo, Cape Verde

Posted on March 17, 2023 by patmathews

March 16, 2023

We arrived into Cape Verde around 10:30 in the morning. It is our first port in Africa. Here are some shots of the sail in.

Our tour today was called Island Discovery. We were last here 8 years ago and spent time in the markets so this time we wanted to see more of the island. Our guide was Armindo and we were on a small bus with 15 other guests. We drove through the town of Mindelo where our ship docked. Almost 90% of the population lives in this city, which is the capital. Cape Verde is made up of 10 islands. Most are uninhabited and they are all barren. Many of the houses have no electricity or water and many are in various stages of construction as the owners complete just what they have the money for at the time. The islands obtained their independence from Portugal in 1975. Even though they are African geographically speaking, they have retained a strong Latin flavor. We passed by this fish seller just on the side of the road.

We drove to the outskirts of a small village “Mato Inglese” where we hiked for about an hour through the valley. The area was very uneven and unfortunately one of our group took a fall. He was OK, thank goodness. All around us were dry mountains, someof them volcanic. Armindo said that the tourist season is from October through March and that if they get rain at all it is normally in September or October.

After the hike, we drove to the first beach we would visit, Praia Grande. We tasted the local liquor, Alcane Grogue, which is made from sugar cane and has an alcohol percentage of 43%! It was too strong for me, but Norm enjoyed it so much he even gave some to these people who were not part of our tour.

The beach was pretty far below our stop and it was a short stop, so no one walked down. We could see the stark contrast between the beautiful blue sea, the volcanic rock and the white sand beaches. Many of the beaches are grainy and gray but not this one. The white sand was blown here from the Sahara desert, it is not natural to Cape Verde!

One of our casino dealers, Hitesh, joined us on the tour.

We then drove to Baia das Gatas (Catfish Bay) which is a bay protected by jetties and rock formations, making it very calm, like a swimming pool. I did go swimming and you had to walk out very far for it to get up to your waist. The name comes from a type of shark that was found here that looked a bit like a large catfish. Not sure if any are still here, but we didn’t see any.

We had lunch here at this local restaurant, buffet style, with beer and wine offered.

When I took a walk out on one of the jetties, I saw these rock formations. I am not sure how they hold up in the wind. You can see that on the other side of the jetty, the waves are pretty big.

We had a nice two hour stay at this beach, then we headed for our last stop, the top of “Monte Verde”, the highest peak on the island. The road was narrow and mostly roughly paved if at all, and it would up the mountain side. We had some nice views on the way up. But when we got to the top, clouds were rolling in and we had no view of the beautiful beaches.

The top of the mountain with the cloud cover

At the weather station on the way back to the ship

We both really enjoyed the day. It was a nice combination of hiking, beach and beautiful scenery. When we got back to the ship and went to dinner, we heard that on the night of the 17th, we will be entering a High Risk Area (HRA) for Piracy. We remember this from the Gulf of Aden, but didn’t know it was also here. We got a letter in our room from the captain that there would be a general announcement in the morning and it included measures we should take while in Piracy areas – keeping balcony lights out and curtains closed during the darkness hours and what an announcement would sound like in the unlikely event of a piracy event.

Posted in Africa, Excursions, March, World Cruise #4 | 1 Comment

At sea

Posted on March 16, 2023 by patmathews

March 13, 14, 15, 2023

The wifi has been very erratic and we have been at sea for three days crossing the Atlantic from Brazil to Africa. The usual sea day activities took place and we were lucky to have a very smooth crossing with great weather.

I placed second in one blackjack tournament and won another so that hobby is going OK overall! We have had some wonderful entertainment too, a pianist named Filip Wojciechowski from Poland performed three different concerts and was just terrific. Thinking of my painful 5 years of piano lessons and watching his fingers fly over the keys (no music in front of him) is truly spectacular to watch. In his last concert, he played lots of movie themes – just great.

The other thing that took place on three different days was a series of luncheons for passengers on previous world cruises. This is our 4th, so we were invited to three of the luncheons. Our Oceania ambassador, the general manager, the cruise director and the around the world host and hostess were there and each hosted a table. We really never go to the dining room at lunch so it was a nice surprise to experience the different menu items they have only there. I think I already posted one picture of the 2015 lunch and the salmon appetizer that Norm enjoyed so much. There were 16 guests from the 2015 ATW cruise, 13 from 2017 and 30 from 2019. They will have a lunch for the 2020 which got cut short in March of 2020 when Covid hit, 2021 was of course, cancelled (we were signed up for that one) and 2022 happened (we cancelled our reservation for that one and are here instead) but it was a very different itinerary with very few passengers. Many of the passengers that are here now had cruise credits from the one that was interrupted and the one that was cancelled. So the 2020 and 2022 lunches will probably have many more attending.

Our first port in Africa is Porto Grande, Cape Verde which is an island off the west coast of Africa. We were there in 2015 and enjoyed it. We will do a 6 hour tour this time which includes one of its beautiful beaches and 1 1/2 hours of hiking. I am glad we are both up to that now!

Some people took pictures of the tables of guests at the luncheon but I don’t have the 2017 and 2019 yet. so the only picture I will add to this blog post is the one of this beautiful rainbow that I took one day at breakfast. It was better in real life!

Posted in At Sea, March, World Cruise #4 | Leave a comment

Fortaleza, Brazil

Posted on March 13, 2023 by patmathews

March 12, 2023

Today we took a tour of the highlights of Fortaleza. We were here before, but I was confused about which city it was. I thought it was one of the smaller cities we visited on our Amazon trip. I looked back at the blog, and no, this was a large city, of over 2 million people.

Our guide today was Elder, he said the meaning of his name is “life”. The city is not much different from all of the other Brazilian cities, well, except Rio which is quite beautiful. Elder talked a lot about the oxidation from the salt and said that cars last only 3 – 4 years here. Bikes and TVs can be ruined in a year. The buildings suffer too, there are many that have their beams destroyed. Fortaleza became the first place in Brazil to free the slaves – in 1881- three years before the rest of the country.

An unusual story is about a bar we passed that is open only one day a week, on Mondays. It is called the Pirata Bar and it stays open all night for dancing. I guess the business model works for them since it has been a success for more than 30 years. It is located at Iracema Beach near all of the five star hotels.

Coconuts are found everywhere and are used for drinks.

Our tour went to three places. After a drive through the city and along the beaches, we went to the Se Cathedral, which looked like kind of a mess from the outside. It is made of concrete and is pretty discolored. It is built in the Gothic style and was inspired by the Notre Dame in Paris. It was quite beautiful inside without a lot of the glitzy gold that we have seen in other churches. There was a Sunday mass going on while we were there and the singing was beautiful. The cathedral has 270 beautiful stained glass windows which were imported from Germany. They go all around the cathedral and are depictions of all the saints. The cathedral took 40 years to build.

Our next stop was to the Emcetur, another former prison repurposed into a handicraft market. This one had large outdoor courtyards and three buildings with many of the same products we have seen all through Brazil. There are always embroidered and woven dresses, blouses and lace tablecloths as well as the usual tourist items. Shoes are a big item here and very reasonable in price. I bought some local cashews (there are cashew trees all over the area) and a green t-shirt since I didn’t bring one and St. Patrick’s day is coming up! I don’t generally wear a lot of green. We also had a tasting of the local liquor, Cachaca.

The last stop was the Teatro Jose de Alencar, the theater that is named for the great 19th century novelist and poet who was a native of Fortaleza. The theater was originally an outdoor theater and the courtyard is still there, but it was remade into an indoor theater. The iron work and the caned seats were an interesting feature. Elder shared that in the past, the ladies would go upstairs to a small room and then come down the stairs to the waiting gentlemen and proceed into the theater.

It was another hot day, but although the clouds looked a bit threatening, there was only a brief shower before we got off the ship. There is very little rain here and the temperature stays almost the same all year. On the way back to the ship we saw this interesting sculpture but we didn’t really get the meaning. Something about women’s empowerment!

We had dinner with Mui, Erin, Sonia and Boris and then went to the Oscar party where our entertainment team and the guest Celtic violinist, E Sarah Carter, performed Oscar winning songs from past years. The lounge was decorated and there was even a red carpet, lots of drinks and snacks including popcorn. The awards ceremony was broadcast on three screens. I didn’t stay until the end because of the time difference here, but will find out how we did on our guesses of the winners tomorrow.

We will start our Atlantic crossing on Monday and will have three time changes in the next three days, adding an hour tonight, Tuesday and Thursday.

Posted in Excursions, March, South America, World Cruise #4 | 1 Comment

Natal, Brazil

Posted on March 12, 2023 by patmathews

March 11, 2023

I will be doing two posts today since (for now) we have wifi service – it has been really bad for the past several days.

Natal is the closest city to Africa and Europe and has a population of about 900,000 people. The major exports are crustaceans, carnuba wax and fruits. There are some beautiful beaches and large sand dunes here. We went under a large bridge before reaching the port. I can see that the bigger cruise ships would not be able to come here since they would not fit under the bridge.

We didn’t book any tour for Natal, so we decided to take the shuttle bus to the Centro de Turismo which turned out to be another craft market in another repurposed prison. When the shuttle driver parked the bus, we couldn’t imagine we were at the right place as there was absolutely nothing around. Someone asked about what there was in walking distance, and the guide on the bus told her not to walk around but to go back to the terminal and take a taxi to wherever she wanted to go! So all we did was visit the shops. There was a nice view of part of the city and the beach.

In one shop, there were two men holding a blue sundress that caught my eye. They looked like they were trying to determine if it would fit someone who wasn’t with them. I sort of stayed in the area in case they didn’t buy it, but unfortunately they did. So we walked all around the market to see if there was another one like it, but no. So I went back to the shop and bought the red and blue one!

After the trip to the market, we returned to the ship just as the crew drill was going on. This was the life raft drill and I watched from the deck during my walk. Yes, my ankle is healed enough for me to do my walks again. Good news.

After my walk and lunch, I spent the afternoon in the spa area, resting, reading, in the steam room and the mineral hot tub. Here is a view of the fort and the beach area that I took from the spa deck. Then we had dinner with friends Bill and Bob. A good day all around!

The last port in Brazil is Fortaleza which we visited on our Amazon River trip. It will be day 57, almost 1/3 of our around the world trip. Lots of adventures to come!

Posted in March, South America, World Cruise #4 | 4 Comments

Recife, Brazil

Posted on March 12, 2023 by patmathews

March 10, 2023

Norm was pretty tired of Brazil after our last tour, so he decided not to go on the one we had scheduled for today – Catamaran and Casa da Cultura.

Before the tour, we could see the massive food delivery being loaded on to the ship. This is our last major port before we cross the Atlantic to Africa. The huge crates of pineapples caught Norm’s eye first.

Recife is the fourth largest urban area of the northeast region of Brazil. The city has a population of about 1.5 million. Its name is an allusion to the stone reefs that are present by the city’s shores. Our guide, Blayton, told us that the city is below sea level and the reefs were built up by the Dutch when they were in control of the city. The city also consists of many small islands and over 50 bridges.

We boarded the catamaran for the trip on the Capibaribe River. We were served a drink with the alcohol and juice of the region as we boarded.

We passed under several of the bridges including the yellow one that is the site of their Carnivale when 2.5 million people are out partying in the city and on the bridge! The boat captain blew the horn as we entered and exited under the bridge. Apparently people jump from the bridge to the boats and it is often a suicide attempt. We didn’t see any of those thank goodness. We did see lots of colorful fishing boats.

We passed a sculpture garden, this building with a painting of one of the famous city residents on the side of it, a sailing class, a small fort and lots of reefs. The guide from the other bus was doing the traditional dances to the music and our singer, Laura, joined him. The guides thought she must be Brazilian, she was that good!

After the catamaran tour, we went to the Casa da Cultura which is in a former prison. The cells now all hold small shops with all kinds of merchandise, including some nice jewelry shops and leather shops. I didn’t buy anything but enjoyed seeing the uniqueness of the building and imagining what it must have been like as a prison. The original bathrooms are still there and in use. The building is shaped like a cross. Here is a model.

It was a nice day – and then a relaxing pre dinner drink in Martinis topped it off!

Posted in Excursions, March, South America, World Cruise #4 | Leave a comment

Maceio, Brazil

Posted on March 11, 2023 by patmathews

March 9, 2023

Day 55 of our 180 day world cruise. Hard to believe so much time has gone by already.

Today our tour was Maceio highlights. Well, there really weren’t too many highlights here. We spent most of our time on the bus driving through the city with our tour guide, Flavio. He never stopped talking and he held the microphone so close to his mouth that the words were pretty muffled and I stopped paying much attention.

When we arrived in port, we were docked next to this huge pile of salt. We heard from Flavio that it is imported from Chile for use in the chemical plants here. The main exports are sugar, spices and coconut.

We drove by some beautiful beaches. Much of the city is pretty poor but the residences near the beaches are lovely. Flavio did warn us not to walk around by ourselves. We hear this in every city in Brazil.

We stopped for a visit to Our Lady of Pleasure Church. It has undergone a massive renovation. We sat in the church for a while but again, could not hear most of the commentary.

One quite interesting thing we saw was this group of stands in a market. The train tracks run right through the market so they need to move all the merchandise and tents three times a day for the trains to come through!

They speak Portuguese here, like in all of Brazil, but here they do not teach any other languages in the schools so if anyone speaks another language, they must learn it on their own.

Our last stop was a handicraft market which had all touristy products, and nothing we wanted to buy. We did see a woman doing the weaving of the garments that are sold here.

We also saw the Statue of Liberty. I don’t know why it is here!

Nice picture of the full moon and one Norm took of me on the balcony!

Tomorrow we are in Recife Brazil and have two more ports after that. I am pretty sure we will not return to Brazil, not our favorite for many reasons. including terrible Wi-Fi, 25% tax, crime, taking our temps both when getting off and getting back on the ship, making the crew wear masks the whole time the ship is in or near Brazil, shops and casino closed and dirty cities to name just a few things. In fact, the whole time in Brazil, WiFi has been erratic or not working at all. You can see how late this post is. I used cell service to get online for email but even that is very bad and there is no way to do the blog with just cell service. Antarctica was better for internet service, ironically!

Posted in Excursions, March, South America, World Cruise #4 | 2 Comments

Salvador de Bahia, Brazil

Posted on March 8, 2023 by patmathews

March 7 and 8, 2023

We have two days in this port due to the cancellation of our port in Vitoria. When we arrived into port, I was sort of surprised how large the city was – I hadn’t really done any research into it and I knew that many of the places we were going to visit in Brazil would be pretty small.

We were greeted by women in African Costumes who tied colorful strings on our wrists. It is said that when they fall off your wishes will be answered. Mine didn’t last the day! You also find many tied onto bridges and in the churches.

On Tuesday, we had booked a tour with Sonia, Boris, Mui and Erin, and Karen and Bruce joined us too. Our guide was Vagner. It was very hot here, and he said it is one of the hottest cities in Brazil. The first thing we found out is that the van’s air conditioning wasn’t working properly. He said that when we got to a walking portion of the tour, he would get a different van. In the meantime, he gave us some information about this city. We drove along All Saint’s Bay which is the second biggest bay in Brazil. The population of the city is million and 85% of the population is Black. This was, in fact, the first slave harbor with people coming by ship from Africa. Slaves came here from 1551-1888 and Brazil was the last country to abolish slavery. Nevertheless, illegal slave trade persisted until 1903.

The chief exports here are oil, agricultural products including cocoa and coffee and tourism is third in contribution to the economy. Vagner says that the people here are the most laid back in the country, so much so that they are the subject of jokes from Brazilians from other areas.

Vagner spoke excellent English and told us he took 2 years of lessons but then learned on his own for 6 more years. He was well versed on the sights we went to and also on the history of the area.

There are many beautiful beaches here. We also visited a lighthouse where the main attraction outside seemed to be this woman covered in either body paint or tattoos! Many of the women, no matter what their shapes, seem to wear thong bikinis. This one could pull it off pretty well!

We did about 2 hours of walking through areas of the city and we were pretty hot and tired. My ankle held up OK, some swelling but really no pain to speak of. We visited several baroque churches, all inlaid with gold. The African slaves did the carving, but in spite of being converted (or pretending to be converted) to Catholicism, they were not permitted inside the church for any services. In one church, the Franciscan, the slaves showed their protest by making ugly faces on some of the cherubs in the church.

When we got ready to do the rest of the driving to other areas, a new van with a new driver met us. The AC was better but really not as cool as we would have needed on this hot day.

Here are some of the sights. We did ask why no one does damage to the churches and removes some of the gold. Vagner showed us some places that were damaged, but now that it is a UNESCO site, there is a lot more security.

The city is divided into the Upper Town and the Lower Town. This elevator was build in 1933 and has since been updated.

This church has the outdoor courtyard and all the way around are these Portuguese tiles that all represent something different. Beautiful!

This square was the site of a filming of a Michael Jackson short film. There are lots of colorful houses here.

In the last church we visited, the Bonfim Church, there was a “Room of Miracles” which is part of the yearly pilgrimage of people asking for miracles. The body part replicas are left by the faithful when asking for divine intervention. There were some ankles there!

There are many lovely buildings here but there are still lots of favelas here where the poorest people live.

We visited a lake that was created by the Dutch during their 3 years of occupation here. Now it contains a series of African gods, named for forces of nature, much like the Greek or Roman gods.

He also warned us of people who want to pose for photos for money, those that paint white “tattoos” on your skin, also for money, and about not venturing down any streets except the main ones (we were with him the whole time so it wasn’t an issue) because of high incidence of crime, mostly pickpockets and thieves. We heard later that 4 people from the ship were robbed in this port.

We had a stop at their most famous ice cream parlor and there were probably 50 flavors. I went with the African Chocolate cone and it was wonderful.

Our last stop was a market, but we weren’t really interested in any of the mostly touristic items there.

In the evening, since we are in port, there was a deck party and it was just as much fun as the last one. I did all of the line dances and my ankle held up just fine!

Here are a couple of pictures of our group. And the full moon from the Terrace Cafe at dinner!

Today, we opted to rest in the air conditioned comfort of the ship. I figured it would be good to rest my ankle anyway. So we went off the ship just to the terminal to try to update our devices which really didn’t work out as the connection was sooooo slow and intermittent. Two huge cruise ships were also in port today. This would have been our only day in port before they changed it, so I am glad we had our sightseeing yesterday.

The wifi on the ship was bad today too, we hear it is because they hook up to the local networks when in port, so no surprise here. Crazy to think it is better when we are out at sea!

We are gearing up for a big Academy Awards party here on the ship and Ray says there will be a red carpet, so we should dress up. Some of the nominees are on our TV, so today we watched The Fablemans. Tar is there too so one of these days we will watch that one. It seems Everything Everywhere All At Once is dominating in the other awards shows. I did see that one and while the basic story was a good one, I could not get into all of the special effects. Maybe I need to give it another look. It isn’t on our system yet though.

Tonight we have a show called Celtic Rock with a performer who has played with Lord of the Rings, E Sarah Carter. I am looking forward to that.

Tomorrow we will be in Maceio Brazil, a new port for us.