Pat and Norm's World Cruises and other adventures

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.

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.

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!

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.

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!

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. 

March 5,2023

As we left Rio, I was able to capture the Christ the Redeemer statue and Sugarloaf Mountain.

We had a tender port at Cabo Frio, and our excursion was a boat cruise and Papagaio Island. Cabo Frio is a big tourist destination. It features miles of beaches (9 beaches in total) with fine white sand which doesn’t have mica so it doesn’t get hot and you can walk on it with bare feet without getting burned. We traveled in the canal Itajuru and viewed the many fishing boats, houses and apartments and rocky spots where there were quite a few people sunning and fishing. We had two stops for swimming. The water was very salty and pretty cold. Frio actually means “cold”.

A nice bonus of the day was that I spotted a mother and daughter that we met on our 2015 cruise, Brooke and Kim, and they were on the same tour so we got re-acquainted and made plans to have dinner together.

Here are some pictures of the trip. Brooke and I went swimming but Norm and Kim stayed on the boat.

There really wasn’t much to do here except boat and beach. So after the tour we walked around a bit, then returned to the ship where I decided to spend the afternoon on the spa deck. Very nice and relaxing.