We haven’t seen a lot of Brazil, so there really is not too much to write about the last few days. At each port, the basic advice we get from the crew is “Uhhhh….try not to be robbed and/or murdered”. At our last port, Fortaleza (metro population >4 million), Oceania provided buses to take us directly to a huge shopping mall where we were instructed to not go outside except to get back on the bus. The mall was nice.
We usually try to learn some basic survival words for a new country, such as “please”, “thank-you” and “where is the bar?”, but in Portuguese we also are working on “help me, I’ve been stabbed/shot/kidnapped/set on fire”. Tomorrow we are visiting Salvador, the murder and mayhem capital of Brazil.
We’ve had quite a few sea days in Brazil. Relaxing is weird and strange, but I can see the appeal, so I’m going to keep at it. The people watching on the boat is entertaining. Worth mentioning is the gentleman I call Farmer Jones. He’s old and weathered and sits on a deck chair by the pool everyday…in a tee shirt, blue jean overalls and work shoes. Every. Day. I assume he is working on his farmer tan. I’ve made up a full backstory that I won’t bore you with, but I’m pretty sure his wife made him take this trip, and that he misses his tractor.
There is also an impossibly fit and impeccably dressed 30-something couple. Different clothes for each hour of the day. They stand out for so many reasons. And they sort of glide around and don’t seem to talk. Perhaps they are sexy, sexy ghosts.
