Sunday, March 31, 2019
Friday, March 29, 2019
March 28 - March 29 - Recife and the Open Sea
She Said . . .
Overview of Our Mornings at Sea
It is currently the morning of Friday, March 29, 2019. I think. This is our fourth day at sea as we cross the Atlantic. It is about 8:30 in the morning and, as has been our habit during this crossing, we have had breakfast and are camped out on Deck 5. It is a beautiful partly cloudy day with the clouds hanging in the sky such that the sun is glistening across the water in a thick line literally radiating out from where we lounge on the deck at about a 30 degree angle.
If the past few days are any indication, we will rest here, reading, talking, working puzzles from a puzzle magazine I bought from Wal-Mart before we left (yes, I’m THAT person), and napping. Often, I am here longer than Blaise. He may go up to the cabin for a bit and come back. He might not come back at all. Yesterday, he went up to 10 and walked on the track for a couple of miles and came back.
For me, it is lovely to have this time, where relaxation is forced due to circumstances. The circumstances being that we are on the open sea floating around with not much to do. I have thought about participating in the many trivia games they have on the boat, but I get down here on 5 in a comfy lounge chair with my Kindle and think, ehh, I’m good.
In the afternoon, we usually go to lunch late. Neither one of us is very hungry, but they stop serving lunch at 2:00 or 2:30, depending on the day. Azamara is not like Celebrity or Royal Caribbean where there is always lots of food available at all times. After lunch is served, you can only really get pastries and finger sandwiches until dinner time. There is a patio area where they might have burgers and hot dogs until 5 PM, but I have not ventured up there to find out since I love a good burger or dog and I am trying to not over indulge. I have also seen people wandering around with what looks like, from a distance, frozen yogurt. But again, I am trying not to find out.
Usually, sometime in the afternoon, we both try to get some exercise in. We are on different time schedules for this. If I make it too late to the gym, all the equipment is taken, so I head up to deck 10, where the walking “track” is. It takes 14 ½ laps for a mile. Odd number. Depending on the day, there are a few people making the circuit.
The other day I was out there walking because every single machine in the gym was in use, hoping to get in 3 miles. Lots of people out walking that day. I was walking at a good clip, lapping most folks out there, except this older man who looked to be in his 70’s. I could not keep him from lapping me to safe my life. While the guy was only walking, he was really trucking. Even my long legs couldn’t keep up with him. Usually folks walk counter clockwise on the track. And that is what was happening that day (Wednesday, I believe) until . . . some dude comes out and screws everything up by walking clockwise on the track. Dude! You are mucking this up! Not cool. I suspect the gods, or maybe the captain of the ship, did not appreciate this because soon after he arrived, I could see the rain heading our way up ahead. Not long after he started his clockwise circuit, we drove right into the rain. Time to go. Didn’t get my 3 miles in - just 34 laps.
After exercising, we hang out a bit, clean up, and go to dinner. While I have suggested the shows to Blaise from time to time, he does not like to go. I don’t know what his deal is with them, but he absolutely refuses to go. Maybe it was the time we had Charo on the ship. I’m not sure he ever got over that. The shows haven’t sounded really that interesting yet, but if one does, I will likely simply go without him.
Recife, Brazil
After we left Salvador, we had another day at sea before we got to Recife. The day at sea went similarly to those described above.
We did not really plan anything in Recife. What is nice about Azamara that you don’t get with Celebrity, is they have a complimentary shuttle into town or the main attraction area at each stop. Celebrity will often have the shuttle, but you have to pay. With Azamara, it is included in the price of the cruise.
So we took the shuttle into town. They dropped us off at the “Cultural Center” which consisted of booths of locals selling their wares in what appeared to be some old fort. While the structure itself was interesting, and the local crafts were actually quite nice, this “Cultural Center” was in an area of the city where we did not feel safe. At all. We walked across a bridge, still felt very uncomfortable, turned around, walked back, and waited for the shuttle to go back to the ship.
On the way back to the ship on the shuttle, we drove through the area they should have dropped us of at. Before we got there, in reading about Recife, I found the street where all the historical sites were and figured that is where they would drop us. But no.
Nothing lost in Recife. Having never heard of it before we booked this cruise, we really didn’t feel as though we missed out on anything.
First Day of the Crossing
Tuesday was the first day of our crossing the Atlantic. We have 4 days at sea. Tomorrow we reach Cape Verde, an Island off the coast of Africa formerly part of the Portuguese empire, then three more days at sea before we reach Morocco.
The Captain, modified his sailing plan by about 10 miles so we could sail by a very interesting Island, he had been to several years ago. It is an island owned by Brazil and over 70% of this island is a national preserve. No, I don’t remember the name. There are a little over 1,000 residents of the island and they allow very few visitors to the island to preserve the natural habitat of the animals, birds, and sea life there. They maintain very close control of the land and seas near the island and monitor everything. For example, if in their monitoring, they find turtles nesting and laying eggs on a beach, they completely shut down the beach until the little turtles hatch.
Visiting the island requires special permission and a much smaller vessel than ours.
All that aside, the landscape of the island was interesting and beautiful.
The Captain was kind enough to slow down by the island, giving us a narrative about the island as we sailed by. Then he turned around so those on the other side of the ship could get a good view of the island.
Second Day of the Crossing
The only other thing to note of the last three days at sea is at approximately 9:00 AM on Wednesday, we crossed the equator. If you have never crossed the equator at sea, you are a polliwog. This is our second crossing of the equator on a cruise ship so we have not been a polliwog for a couple of years. The first crossing was on that fateful voyage when I broke my face in Australia.
This crossing was a bit different. Azamara and the Captain, made it an event; not really something I remember Celebrity doing when we crossed in 2016. The Captain got on the loudspeaker about 5 minutes before we crossed to tell us it was about to happen and to look for the white line in the water. (He had told us the day before it would happen about 9 AM then next day, so we were already expecting it.) Then at the exact time we crossed the equator, he blew the horn for a good 30 seconds.
Later in the day, there was an equator crossing ceremony where King Neptune and his queen paid us a visit. A silly ceremony, but fun nonetheless.
That evening when we got back from dinner, we had a certificate laying on our bed commemorating our equator crossing.
Third Day of the Crossing
We haven’t seen another boat/ship since the island on day one of the crossing. Not surprising since we didn’t see any, the first time we crossed the Atlantic in 2017 when we went from Barcelona to Fort Lauderdale.
And what I liked about our first Atlantic crossing, is what I do not like about this crossing - the time change. While crossing from East to West, we had the added benefit of gaining an hour nearly every night so it felt like we were cheating the system. But this time, we lose an hour here and there.
It is not a daily time change this time because we are traveling from southwest to northeast, where as when we crossed the Atlantic the last time, it was much more closer to a straight east to west crossing. Also, we started 2 hours ahead of Central time to begin with in Rio.
Currently, we are 4 hours ahead of Central Daylignt Savings Time.
Weather
The weather has cooled down from the high 80’s when we got to Rio to the mid 70’s right now. While the high 80’s is too warm for me (as I get older), the mid 70’s is quite lovely.
It is interesting to note, we have hit all four seasons in a 2 week time period. When we flew out on March 17, it was still officially winter in Texas. When we arrived in Rio, it was summer there. Then their fall equinox hit, so we were in fall. Then when we crossed the equator, we were into spring in the northern hemisphere. I feel we should get some sort of prize for this.
Food
Everyone always asks about food. The food on the ship is great. Every night, not only do they have their feature dishes for appetizers, soup/salad, entrees, and dessert, they have dishes they offer every night, in addition to a chef’s special, and an international cuisine special highlighting food from a different country or area of the world.
For example, two days ago it was Great Britain, so the international cuisine was bangers and mash. However, they also had a fish and chip option that night. The french fries were nothing special but the fried fish was some of the best I have had.
Blaise always skips the appetizer and goes straight to the French onion soup. He loves that Gruyere cheese all crusty on the top. I do too, but since I am trying to be somewhat good, I usually stick to a salad option for that course. That is so I can justify in my mind having dessert, which I have not yet passed on in the evening.
I have not weighed since day 2 of the cruise when I had not lost or gained any weight since starting our vacation. Despite my daily exercise (I only missed one day when I had a headache), I suspect with my daily desserts after dinner, I have gained a couple pounds. It’s a balance. I want to enjoy my vacation and part of that is having a delicious dessert. Guess I’ll have to work extra hard when I get back home. The good news is most of the courses are relatively small portions. Not sure that makes up for the dessert though.
Other meals to note that were particularly delicious: the chicken parm on Italian night, last night’s prime rib, the pate’ I had a couple nights ago, and a pasta dish with a delicious brown sauce and prosciutto.
I think my favorite dessert so far has been the chocolate and cream cheese brownie with the caramel ice cream. I also had a chocolate lava cake the other night with vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce that, although it was not very lavaey, it was still delicious. I always love the chocolate and caramel combo.
What’s Next
We are nearly 2 weeks into our vacation with one more week to go. The time has flown by. It was only yesterday, that I really started thinking about what I need to do at the office when I get back.
We are at sea again today, arriving around 8 in the morning in Minelo, Cape Verde. Cape Verde is a small island nation, formerly a part of Portugal. Then three more days at sea, arriving in Agadir, Morocco on Wednesday. Then Casablanca, Morocco on Thursday. We hit Lisbon, Portugal at 6:00 PM Friday and get off the boat on Saturday.
There is something so comforting about the sound of the waves as the boat pushes forward. I am at peace with the world.
He Said . . .
So after a short sea day we made it to Recife, we didn’t have anything formal lined up in the way of excursions mainly because we didn’t see anything that looked like it was going to be worth doing based on the very few options offered. So we decided we’d hit the bus and go to the “Cultural Center” and walk around the downtown area to get a feel for the Northeast area of Brazil; it is so different from Rio. It is a huge city and you can see a huge number of fairly good sized apartment buildings; not sky-scrapers but 20-40 story buildings, probably 50 or so spread across the landscape. That’s the strange thing though, very modern buildings but the poverty on the streets looks worse than Salvador from what I saw.
Back to our cultural center, we got off the bus and went in thinking there would be a museum or something along that line, I was way off, it was a series of tiny shops crammed into a building that was made up of 4 wings with a general look of a cross if you were to view it aerially - very run down, with a shop keeper struggling to make ends meet, it was very depressing and I thought what an existence. I was quite thankful for back home and was ready to go immediately. We decided to take a walk around the area and headed out; we made it to the corner before we realized that we probably should pull up on the reigns and think this through - we had no briefing data on safety of the area, no idea what was around the next corner of the next street and when we got to the very first corner we had encountered a make shift homeless camp complete with open fire cooking -- we decided after crossing the river and seeing the shanties on the river that we shouldn’t be there and returned to the cultural center to make our way back to the bus and ship. Unfortunately we passed right by the main shopping area on the way back, at least according to our guide book it was, about 2 blocks from the port but by then we were out. It was oppressively hot and we were ready to get back after what we had seen in the past 3 hours. It’s a shame, I suspect there are some very nice areas that we didn’t have an opportunity to see, oh well, maybe next time.
Back at sea…
I haven’t said a great deal about the cruise line as I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about losing my anonymity amongst the larger numbers of guests, this ship only has 700 guests vs the typical 2-4 thousand Celebrity has, but I really like it; they call you by name, you see the wait staff on deck and they chat with you, AND they seem sincere as well as my favorite part, I have not been asked for my seapass card once thus far, virtually everything is included. It really is all inclusive, it really is very well done!!
So the big event after leaving Recife was the crossing of the equator; if you haven’t ever done it they usually try to make a big deal out of it just like crossing the international date line back in the day. Anyway until you do it on a ship they deem you to be a “Pollywog”, don’t ask me where it came from but fortunately for us, we had been through the initiation; if you haven’t ever done it before you must swear your allegiance to King Neptune and be doused with some sort of mango concoction and then dropped in the pool to rinse off. It was great comic relief for those poor souls who had never been through it before -- BTW, that included our captain, who was only forced to swear his allegiance but forwent the food and water merriment… I suspected that after 30 years at sea he had probably crossed the equator many times but had never been through the ceremony to mark the occassion… All good fun and it broke up the first day of the crossing quite nicely.
The other item of note that you would NEVER see on Celebrity was that the captain decided to deviate the course a bit to take us by an island off the coast of Brazil, about 200 miles offshore, so we could get a look at a natural nesting ground for green turtle conservation; he went up the starboard side, turned around and went back down the port side so everyone could get a great view before turning around and heading across. Apparently he had been there many years ago and thought we might enjoy and return someday. He could be right, there are only 1,500 people on a series of 4 islands and the population is almost entirely conservationists, even Darwin wrote about it during his travels. Ami took a panorama of it that we plan to frame and hang up once we return.
So about now my mind continues to return to the house and where we are in the construction phase while we are out here. When we left the site prep was all done and the form boards were up for the foundation. That meant that the piers had been poured and the additional pad for the chimney should be complete and we should be ready to receive the home once we return. We get home on the 7th and the tractor trailers of logs are supposed to arrive at our gate on the 10th so we won’t have much time to make sure everything is ready -- I sure hope that foundation got poured and is cured before we get back!!! I keep thinking about electrical outlet placement, antenna locations for TV’s, water drilling and septic system locations. Just before we left I spent about 4 hours researching how big the air ventilation duct needed to be to vent the range outside, who knew there were only two ranges that even support floor vents these days, Jenn Air and Kitchenaid, that’s it!!! Lots and lots of details to work out but I’m confident that between our General Contractor and ourselves we’ll work out all the details. It really is beautiful, it’s so serene - the bears are another story and I believe that having gun is a given. I can’t wait to finish up Brandon’s place so we don’t have to make the 9 hour drive in one day as we have been. Enough of the house concerns for now, it will be fine I’m sure.
Lastly, I’m rereading Oracle 12c after having polished off a nicely done novel early on; a lot of CDB and PDB information and common and local privileges but I won’t bore you with that; feel free to Google Oracle CDB and you can read all about it!!!
My observation is that the people on this cruise don’t behave like our typical Celebrity brethren, now don’t get me wrong they have issues but they are different issues -- on Celebrity they have the 1,000 yard stare and you wonder how in the world they found the boat, especially in a foreign country without being able to speak any language proficiently (including English) but these folks seem to have the mental acuity but the bodies are falling apart, not as though they are all in Hover Rounds, no they are on canes and a few walkers but for the most part are trying to get around and maintain their independence without conceding to the wheelchair; I, for one, am very impressed with their tenacity!!! Cape Verde tomorrow, Brandon I will call you to login and move money for the house purchase when I find a wifi. More soon…
Sunday, March 24, 2019
March 22-24 - Salvador de Bahia
He Said . . .
Day 1 on the open seas, I already miss Rio, seems like so long ago now. What a whirlwind, I’m not sure why we ever just get a two day interlude in a location before our cruises but I must really work on extending that by a couple of days to see more of the beautiful cruise locales that tend to be the beginnings of our journeys. That said, the boat is beautifully redone and the little things seem to be where Azamara sets itself apart from our typical cruising, for instance just down the hall from our room we have the free laundrymat, which by the way allowed me to get Ami to pack just 1.5 suitcases instead of the typical 3.5, progress I tell you progress!!
I did manage to find the scale in the gym and did my 44.5 laps around the walking/jogging track on deck 11; that’s 3 miles but seemed like an eternity while trying to keep track of how many laps I’d made. Fortunately the scale was kind to me (although difficult to read with the ebb and flow of the waves). I was really skinny in the throughs!!! :) Not so much so on the crests though… :( But overall all good. We relaxed quite a bit and wound down from the journey with no ill effects of the long journey to get us here.
I do have to mention one item I forgot to mention during our hotel stay, can’t believe I forgot about it; when we got to the hotel and checked in Ami and I both took showers (and froze due to the shower temp) before complaining to each other that there was no hot water. I really couldn’t believe that a 19 story hotel could possibly get by with just one boiler so I set out to resolve the issue by the next mornings shower, Ami wanted to tell the front desk, I convinced her otherwise. We got up the next morning, Ami showered first, she told me the same thing, nothing but cold water, I couldn’t believe it. I went in and turned on the shower, before I got in, I sampled the temp, sure enough this was going to be brutal once again. So I began playing with the single handle shower and realized that hot water, just like the toilet ran backward south of the equator. I have no idea if that’s just an old wives tale or not but nonetheless, the shower to the right was toasty warm and I enjoyed the first hot shower since our arrival. I thought I would let her know in good time the following day but that wasn’t to be, turned out I asked her for something, hair spray I believe and she told me she would grab it from the bathroom, the next thing I hear is “Why is there steam in the bathroom? Did you find the hot water?”, damn, foiled again, she wasn’t happy with my silence but I would have told her before she finished her shower the next morning, I promise I would have!!
Back to our first sea day, I finished my Oracle OCP, that stands for Oracle Certified Professional, of which I have two but want to get the newest one for my repetoire, Oracle 12c. Once I wrapped that up I finished my Cisco CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Administrator), my VERY weakest technical subject--that’s always been a mystery to me--not the layer 2 side of things but certainly layer 3 if you’re into the ISO layer 7 model. If not, I wouldn’t spend any time on it, it’s very boring stuff. Then we were on to just novels that Ami and I both have, mainly I just read whatever she read two years ago because oun kindle’s are sunk up with one another. First up was “The Innocent” from David Baldacci, easy reading but a pretty good page turner, not Grisham, Child and not even close to Dan Brown but very pleasant and keeps you engaged which is all I’m looking for on sea days.
Dinner was excellent and I’m having a tough time with the wait staff thinking I’m not liking my food but I really don’t want to tell them that it’s weight loss surgery and not their cooking. But I’m totally skipping the appetizer and only eating the 25% of the French onion soup and about 25% of a fish entree so I can stuff down my cheese and cracker plate. With coffee it’s extremely tough and I have to pace myself carefully not to get stomach cramps and end up losing my dinner. So far so good though, just have to be very careful, I miss my diner, they know my plight!!!
Salvador de Bahia here we are…
Our first stop, Salvador, we got off the boat and took the elevator from the lower city to the upper city; it was a whole 15 centavos a piece, with a real being 3.76 to the dollar and a centavo being 1 cent of a real, well you can do the math, it isn’t very much, I think quicker math say 4 cents US. But it actually had an elevator attendent, government job I guess, certainly not private sector with that kind of ROI.
We enjoyed finding the Cathedral and taking some beautiful pictures it and the surrounding area; the oddity in my mind was the broken cross sculpture just in front of the bay view but I would once we had our excursion tomorrow. Beautiful views of the bay and lots and lots of churches, apparently they had to build their church at night as the slave owners forced the slaves to build theirs during the day back in the 18th century. But you can tell that’s it’s not a very prosperous place on the whole, but the people look like they are enjoying themselves.
Excursion day in Salvador -
We set off on a photo tour, my idea as Ami had a couple of photography classes in college and I had none -- thought I might catch up a bit, boy was I wrong. Started innocously enough, 8:15, we were group 1 off the ship, 6 people that was it!! We met our guides and we were off, little did I know that Tom, our photography guide, would help us so little that I wondered why it was a self serve walking tour, I don’t think I learned a thing but we did make the trek to the lighthouse, greatness, and to the local market, oh my God it was disgusting, all I could smell was body odor and filth ever where I looked. I swore I would never eat another crab as long as lived. We were there as our final stop and I could not get out of there fast enough, but it took an hour; the stop in the city center was quite nice and we saw some great churches and architecture that was beautiful, quite ornate with lots and lots of gold leaf everywhere, amazingly opulent but beautiful!!! We enjoyed the free wifi at the cruise terminal upon our return and caught up with everyone at home, everything seemed fine and the house is still standing so all is good; hopefully the foundation of the new house is poured and Brando sends me some pics from up North, can’t wait.
Dinner came quickly enough but didn’t pass as quickly as it needed to -- turns out that Azamara has a thing called “white nights” where everyone is expected to wear white to dinner, we took this literally, or I should say Ami did, so I did, we walked on deck and realized we were the only two idiots in all white, I turned walked back inside and said, “I’m changing.”, she said, “Me too.”, we’re outta here -- we ate in the main dining room, it was lovely. Those clothes will never be packed for “white night” again, live a learn. Finished my book while Ami was typing, good read, all going according to Hoyle thus far, enjoy home, we’re enjoying the respite!!
She Said . . .
Overview of Vacation
I realized after our first blog of this trip, we never outlined the vacation. It was too long anyway, so now, when there is not as much to talk about, might be a better time.
Here is the overview:
March 17 Sunday 2:30 PM-Flight to Miami, 10:55 PM-Flight to Rio
March 18 Monday 8:15 AM Arrive in Rio de Janiero, Check into Rio Leme Hotel
March 19 Tuesday Rio Private Tour
March 20 Wednesday Get on Azamara Pursuit
March 21 Thursday Sea Day
March 22 Friday Arrive in Salvador de Bahia at 3:00 PM
March 23 Saturday Salvador de Bahia until 10:00 PM
March 24 Sunday Sea Day
March 25 Monday Recife, Brazil
March 26 Tuesday Sea Day
March 27 Wednesday Sea Day
March 28 Thursday Sea Day
March 29 Friday Sea Day
March 30 Saturday Cape Verde (Island off the coast of Africa)
March 31 Sunday Sea Day
April 1 Monday Sea Day
April 2 Tuesday Sea Day
April 3 Wednesday Agadir, Morocco
April 4 Thursday Casablanca Morocco
April 5 Friday 6:00 PM Arrive in Lisbon, Portugal
April 6 Saturday Cruise is done, Noonish-flight leaves for Philadelphia, then Miami,
Spend the night in MIami
April 7 Sunday Flight to Austin, then DFW (yes, the return blows but Blaise had
AAdvantage miles that were going to expire)
Yes, that is three whole weeks. I never thought I would be at a place in my life where I would take a 2 week vacation, let alone 3. But life is too short. I love my job. Most days. But there is much in this world I want to see and do. If there is one thing I learned from watching my sister suffer for years and then loose her life to that vile disease, it is that none of us are guaranteed tomorrow or even a healthy today.
Those that know me, know when I am working, I work hard and often long hours. I know some attorneys, and probably clients, get irritated when trying to schedule hearings, mediations, and whatever else around my vacations. But I am not giving this up - this time I spend seeing the world and spending it with my husband. I would love to add my nieces into the mix at some point but while they are in school and as active as they are with volleyball and all the other fun things teenage girls do, that is not possible. I would love to have Brandon join us too. I hope some day we can all take a trip together and enjoy new places and experiences together. Someday.
Thursday, March 21 - Day at Sea
It was a relaxing day at sea. The day we got on the ship, we found a quiet, little used place on the deck right outside the coffee shop on five with lounge chairs. This location is great for Blaise with his new found love for coffee.
We camped out there in the morning reading and writing this blog. In the afternoon, I spent some time in the cabin finishing my lengthy portion of the blog and attempting to upload into blogspot. I REALLY hate the formatting issues with blogspot! My first attempts at “publishing” were unreadable. Each paragraph was one long line and you had to scroll right to read the whole thing. Thankfully, after Blaise came back from his walk on the track, he gave me an idea to fix it. The result wasn’t ideal but since I refuse to pay for internet, I let it be. We each have 90 minutes of free internet and I spent a good 45 minutes jacking with it. Hopefully today’s upload will be smoother and quicker with what I learned Thursday.
I went to the gym and spend an hour there, first on the elliptical and then on the stationary bike.
We never did eat lunch this day and I really didn’t miss it. Dinner was lovely although 3 days later, I can’t recall what either of us had.
Friday, March 22 - Salvador de Bahia
We spend the first part of this day, not unlike the first part of the day before - Breakfast, then reading on the deck on 5.
We did have lunch this day. I had a slice of pepperoni pizza and some water. There is always free flowing wine and alcohol here since it is included. For some extra money, you can upgrade and get wine and liquor that are more expensive. However, I am doing my best to limit my wine and alcohol consumption. I lost 25 pounds before I came on this cruise. The tip from my diet doctor was to watch my alcohol consumption while on the cruise since you can consume a great deal of “empty” calories that way. The first night at dinner I had a glass of wine. None the second and then vodka, cranberry, and lime last night and the night before. I am trying to steer clear of the alcohol during the day. The doctor recommended clear distilled liquors if I am going to drink and watch the mixers. Cranberry juice is the best I can do and still find it tasty.
We arrived in Salvador de Bahia at 3:00 PM and headed out to explore around 3:30 PM. Bahia is the state and Salvador is the city in Bahia.
Salvador has two levels - an upper level and a lower level. The cruise ship arrived on the lower level. There are 2 ways on foot to get to the upper level - a funicular and an actual elevator.
The elevator was within walking distance and only cost .15 real (real is the Brazillian currency). There are approximately 3.65 reals to a U.S. dollar so the elevator was pretty damn cheap. You wanted to get to the upper part of this city of 2.9 million people, because that is where you find the historical part of the town, Pelourinho. Pelourinho was the heart of the city during colonial times. Because Pelourinho means whipping post, you can imagine what happened in this area of the city during the times of slavery.
Salvador was the center of the slave trade for Brazil back in the day so there is a strong African influence here as well as a greater percentage of blacks here (the locals do not say African American - they say black or Afro-Brazillian, but the latter is used mostly to describe the culture).
In the Pelourinha area, you see mostly black people. In the streets, there were lots of drumming, singing, and dancing. There is a dance called the capoeira. It is actually a mixture of dance, gymnastics and martial arts. This was used by slaves back in the day as a defense against their slave masters. Music was added as a disguise. Once outlawed, it is now celebrated. We saw a demonstration of this on the street but it seemed to me and my not-so-trained eye, these folks were not that good.
We walked into the Franciscan church for 5 reals. It was beautifully ornate and golden.
After walking around for a while, we went back to the ship for the evening.
I must say, this part of Brazil is quite hot.
The food on the ship is fantastic. This night I had coq au vin. It was delicious and probably the largest portion of anything I have had so far.
Saturday, March 23 - Salvador de Bahia
Today, we took a different kind of tour of the city - a tour “through the camera lense.” This was supposed to be a tour to take you to the most photogenic sites of the city with tips on better photographing them. While neither one of us are photography crazy, we thought it would be a great way to see the city and maybe get better tips of taking better pictures.
We went to a lighthouse/fort, Pelourinho (again), and a market next to the water. The market was for locals, so it was interesting to see how the locals live. The market sold mostly seafood and produce, and some crafts. You also saw people with booths selling mints, gum, and candy from the U.S. as well as miscellaneous things like CDs and toothbrushes. While Blaise really hated it, I found it interesting in that it was great insight into the daily lives of some of the people of Salvador.
This day, we explored a bit more of Pelourinha than we saw on our own. It seems every group of Catholics you can imagine built a church in Pelourinha - the Franciscans, the Jesuits, the Carmelites, and the list goes on. It is church, cathedral, and bascilica, right next to each other every where you turn. There is one church that was built just for the slaves. The slaves were made to build a church during the day for their masters so at night, they would spend their sleeping hours building their own church.
Apparently, the Pelourinha area of the city was abandoned for most of the 20th Century. But in 1985 it was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the restoration began. You can see restored buildings right next to buildings that have been abandoned for decades and in extreme disrepair. You can tell those run down buildings were once grand and beautiful. I hope the restore them all.
It was a weird tour which really did not give us any photography hints at all. That part was worthless.
While Salvador is not my favorite place because everywhere you turned someone was quite literally in your face trying to sell you something, the historical aspects of it are quite interesting.
Evening on the Boat
Evening on the boat was quite interesting. We were told by our travel agent they have an all white dress night on each cruise with an outdoor poolside buffet. Because there was a poolside buffet this night, we put on our white clothes and headed up to the pool. When we peaked out there, no one was dressed in all white. We felt silly. So we went back down and changed our clothes. Not sure what the hell happened there. I also discovered we didn’t have to eat poolside, so we headed down to the main dining room for dinner.
For my appetizer, I had a shrimp salad and Blaise had his soup, his standard French onion, when my appetizer was delivered. I had a raddichio ceasar salad and papperdelle pasta with some lovely brown sauce. Blaise had a honey mustard salmon for his entree. Blaise had his standard cheese plate for dessert while I had a cream cheese brownie with caramel ice cream for dessert. Yep, there went the diet. I just hope it all washes out in the end so I did not gain weight on vacation. We shall see. It gets harder and harder not to eat all the time on this boat.
That’s it for now. I write this as I sit on deck 5 enjoying the sound of the waves. Not a stitch of land as far as the eye can see.
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