Sitting in an outdoor café in Buzios with free wifi in the shade with a wonderful breeze drinking itaipava beer. No pictures in this blog but will update it with pictures in Rio.

BLOG NUMBER FIVE

 … continuation of planes, trains, automobiles, buses, taxis, collectivos, tuktuk/samlors, horses, and ubers and now… bikes.

after two days in Bohindo and Santos now… our travel includes cable cars, trams and funiculars.

We have been below the radar for several days… internet costs $35 per day on board ship so plan to post this today (march 6 from a wifi café in Santos while we are ashore). Not true... Today we are in Buzios and I don't know what the day or date are!

Our last two days in Buenos Aires, we walked miles and miles, There is an ecological park along the Rio Plata that covers thousands of acres and is home to grasses, swamps, flowering trees, birds, reptiles and other critters.  Had a nice lunch in the shade in the park of cheese, olive dip, and crackers washed down with Malbec.

Leaving the park there was a miniature Komodo dragon about 3 ft long feasting on nest of turtle eggs.

 

Walked the length of a huge market from the main square downtown thru San Telmo almost to La Boca estimated over 2 miles one way. Argentine leather is very beautiful and well made. The walking street is very congested and alive with locals and tourists; street cafes and talented street buskers abound. Very hot so had to stop several times for cervesas ( I didn’t want to but Heather insisted!) and listen to the music.

Our last evening dinner in BA was at Café Tortoni which is the oldest luxury café in Argentina dating back to the 1850s and modeled after a café of the same name in Paris. Very bohemian, much history and a fascinating place of marble, wood, stained glass and professional waiters. Thanks Barb and Rod for recommending the place.

The Regatta is a small ship 650 passengers and a crew of 400. There was an outbreak of gastro enteritis on the previous leg from Lima to BA so we were delayed for 4 hours while the entire ship was disinfected. Watching other cruise ships disembark and embark with thousands upon thousands of passengers from much larger ships getting off and the same number getting on is a real gong show. Makes any delay for airline departures seem like small potatoes. The cruise ship port is very congested, at least 3 ships in port the day we left. The passengers and crew on our cruise must live or have lived in almost every country in the world.  

The cruising from BA to Montevideo to Punta del Este in Uruguay is all in the mouth of the Rio Plata and the water is quite calm. Leaving Punta del Este for our first stop in Brazil we are now “at sea” and have developed a bad case of the staggers as we haven’t got out sea legs yet (compounded by the excellent Uruguayan Tannat wines). Try dancing after a couple glasses of wine on a lurching, pitching dance floor. At least NOW I have an excuse for stepping on my dance partner’s toes. 

 

 

 The quality and selection of foods is amazing… opulently decadent or decadently opulent… can’t decide. Thank goodness for walking opportunities in every port or we would become quite “gordo”. The onboard service is over the top… wonderful entertainers during the day and evening. this cruise will probably be our first and last cruise as it is not the way we like to travel… much like the difference between “being a tourist”  compared to “travelling”. Wines on board are very expensive $60 per bottle and up but…Oceania does allow you to bring wines, beer and liquor on board at every stop that can be consumed in your stateroom. Plan to get hamburgers delivered to our room to be eaten with our $3 bottle of 2012 reserve Malbec… doesn’t  get much better than that!

Montevideo is another beautiful city with less than a million people but the cuidad viejo is a bit run down, again there are many parks, statues, generals or horseback with a strong Italian influence on the architecture. We had a tour of the tallest building in South America built in 1923 as a hotel, marble floors and wooden doors are incredibly beautiful. The Zeppelin Hindenburg stopped here in 1937? before its ill-fated stop in Newark, NJ. The hotel was not tall enough though for the Zeppelin to be moored/tethered there.  The central core of Montevideo is a thriving shopping area. Agriculture (beef and wine) and tourism are the main economic driving forces. Much history in the port surrounding the Battle of the Rio Platte when the Graf Spee battleship was scuttled by the Germans in WW2.

Independence Square Montevideo... beautiful city.


Hindenburg 1937 on way to New Jersey...


 Next stop was at Punta del Este which is the seaside resort area in northern Uruguay reminiscent of Costa del Sol in Spain and the Algarve in Portugal. Harbour is full of luxury yachts and there are miles upon miles of beaches and surfing. Apartments and hotels are owned and patronized by wealthy Argentines for their summer vacation spots. The boardwalk must be about ten miles in length which helps to walk off the meals of steak and lobster. Had to get tendered ashore in P del E … process can be quite time consuming when the boat is filled with a geriatric crowd (we’re not there YET!)

Today, all ship access to the port of Rio Grande was closed due to high seas and strong currents so the Regatta is like a ghost ship as Captain Max (Russian living in the Ukraine) is negotiating a port of entry with the Brazilian immigration officials.

Seas today were 8 meters and the wind was blowing at 50 knots. Normally, Heather looks smashing in green but today she IS green with a bad case of motion sickness. She spent the day in bed in the dark and took some meclizine; thankfully, we are on the lower deck and the motion is minimal there. I was on the top deck looking forward and had to get below after a few minutes… the waves went up and down and up and down and up and down and then my stomach started to come up, went down, came up and down and I headed below! Captain Max says we have another 8 hours of this as there are storms all along the Uruguayan and Brazilian coast. Hopes to get us back on schedule and get us cleared through the Brazilian immigration authorities. Two days at sea and a lot of people have spent both days in their rooms and bathrooms.

Rough night… ship was rolling so bad we almost got rolled out of bed. This morning skies cleared and sea clamed down. We are in Itajai clearing customs and immigration; hopefully we’ll be in port tonight somewhere along the coast. Itajai is a HUGE container port with massive cranes.  At 4 pm, we are hoping to be on our way soon and have a day ashore tomorrow. Brazilian authority regulations appear to be a MASSIVE make work project.

Left Itajai during the night and anchored at Porto Belo, a beautiful bar north of Florianopolis; day is bright and sunny, tendered into the Port and hired a cab to go to Bohindo and Balneario Camboriu natural park.
Porto Belo below






Took a cable car up the mountain to a beach on the far side.  Wonderful beach walk with a nice lunch of shrimp and beer. Porto Belo is a sleepy little village with many local fishing boats. A new cruise ship dock will be constructed within 4 years at Florianopolis so the tourist traffic in Porto Belo will suffer.

Blog likely appears to be rambling as I keep failing to post and continue to write addenda. Will get it posted sometime!

Yesterday, explored Santos, the largest port in Brazil, coffee, grains, sugar, ores.



Took the local bus to old town, which is very historic but quite run down, very reminiscent of Havana. Visited the coffee museum for coffee and ice cream, then took a tram ride, followed by the ride to the top of the highest hill in Santos via funicular.



30 plus storied cemetery... interesting!


Santos was the original team that Pele played for and there is a Pele museum right near the tram station.



Beautiful old buildings and cathedrals in "old town"


Back to the boat by local taxi, many locals “advised” us that we should not be walking in this area especially on a Sunday as in Brazil, on Sunday, EVERYONE goes to the beach and there are no police around. The beach in Santos stretches many kilometres in length and in chocker block full of Brazilians.  If the cost of beach wear is based upon the cost of materials used… these bathing suits have to be “almost free” to use the jargon of Mexican street vendors.

Today will do a walkabout in Parati (Para-tee), one of the oldest settlements along the Brazilian coast. Brazilian coastline is very mountainous and lush and green. Parati was founded in 1600 and by 1800 was the second largest port in Brazil. Main export was gold from the mines in Mina Gerais down the Gold Trail to Parati. Main import was slaves (over 4 million) to work the gold mines and sugar canes fields. Many pirates here in the 1700s and a fort was built in 1703 to guard the gold traffic. Many distilleries here that made cachaca sugar cane distilled drink which is very potent. Town’s economy was driven by slavery and when slavery was abolished in 1888, population dropped from 16000 to 600. Town was declared a historic treasure but the area of town near the beach floods at high tide. Many old churches...

Parati collage below old colonial buildings and churches

 

Neat place… walked to a microbrewery only to find it closed; relative humidity is 100% and temp is 30+ degrees C... need a beer BADLY! Got re-hydrated back in town at a outdoor pub with draft beer(s). Lots of tendering ashore usually takes about half an hour to get to the pier. People with mobility issues have a hard time with the tendering process. There is a “self-proclaimed expert” delivering lectures about the history and culture of the east coast of South America. He has the most boring voice I have ever heard except for the announcer at the Mesa market (for those who have heard him). This guy actually reads his PowerPoint slides to the audience… “As you can clearly see in slide 468, the blah, blah, blah… blah, blah, blah”. Before his presentations, I thought death from PowerPoint poisoning was only a myth! I now realize that it is truly possible and under such circumstances… homicide is justifiable.

March 8 - Vicki’s birthday, we celebrated both hers (& Jim’s-Mar 4),  with champagne last nite), anchored off Ilha Grande, Brazil’s 3^rd largest island. Most of the island is a state park; once was a pirate’s lair, then a leper colony in the 1800s and most recently a penal colony (1903 to 1994). Island is mostly undeveloped rain forest and isolated beaches and is home to many endangered species. Hiking trails abound as only a few roads and no cars; only vehicles are a fire truck, police vehicle and a garbage truck. Tendered ashore at Praia do Abraao and caught a water taxi ( another mode of transportation on this trip) for a 30 minute ride around to another beach at Pouso. Hiked thru the rain forest for about 30 minutes to get to a beautiful uncrowded beach Lopes Mendez. Refreshing swim in the ocean with large waves, sea is teal green color and the sun was baking down so we had to stay in the shade. On the hike back, a pack of small monkeys came right down to us near the hiking trail. At a floating restaurant, we had beer and Heather had the national drink caiprinhina


made  with cachaca (sugar cane distilled) and very potent (much like a mohinto only lime flavoured).

Lynn took a selfie

quiet port Pouso

 

 

 beautiful uncrowded beach

 

 ilha grande 45 minutes from Rio by water taxi