South America Odyssey Continued: Brazil

Baiana Lily

Olá!  It's me:  Buckskin Lily, coming to you live from onboard the Royal Princess which is currently docked in Montevideo, Uruguay on the Rio de Plata River across from Buenos Aires.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.  We have just finished a week (or so) visiting three glorious ports in Brazil:  Fortaleza, Salvador, and Rio de Janeiro, and I'd like to tell you a little bit about what we saw.

In Fortaleza, we shared a taxi with a couple of gentlemen from Argentina (more about them in the next post).  But for now...we visited the Central Market, a former prison which has been converted into a five-story shopping mall filled with small shops of all kinds.  It was really difficult to capture the essence of this place in one photo, but I'm including a shot to give you a bit of an idea.  This place must have been a real hell hole when it was a prison.  It was about 90 degrees the day we visited, and as you went higher, it got hotter and the ventilation got poorer.  

Mercado Central de Fortaleza

When it got too hot in the Market, we ventured outside and down the street to visit St. Joseph's Cathedral.  We were hoping to sit quietly in the back and cool off for a bit, but unfortunately, we were besieged by beggars and had to leave.  It was all for the best, though as it was time to rejoin our taxi mates and our taxi driver for our trip back to the ship.

St. Joseph Cathedral, Fortaleza, Brazil

Next stop (after a couple of sea days--Brazil is a VERY large country) was Salvador.  We first ventured out looking for a local tour or taxi, but were literally mobbed and had to flee for the safety of the cruise terminal.  After regrouping and getting some information at the information booth in the terminal, we discovered we could walk to our destination and save the cab fare.  So we started out again, heading for the Elevador Lacerda which would take us (for .15 reales) to the upper (and old) part of the city.

Elevador Lacerda, Salvador, Brazil

Once in the upper city, we began wandering and exploring the Pelourinho (old town).  It was filled with lots of churches...

Sao Francisco Cathedral, Salvador, Brazil

Igreja de Sao Pedro dos Clerigos, Salvador, Brazil

...picturesque cobbled streets lined with brightly-painted buildings...

Cobblestone street in the Pelourinho, Salvador, Brazil

Interesting doorway, Pelourinho, Salvador, Brazil

Someone's window in the Pelourinho

...shops filled with all kinds of touristy items:

Baiana Magnets

...the Carnival House...

Buckskin Lily at Carnival House

...and the former governors' palace (now a cultural center & museum)...

Former Governors' Palace, Salvador, Brazil

The palace had some impressive details:

Stained glass window in former governors' palace

Phoenix newel post in former governors' palace

After visiting Salvador, we again had a few days at sea.  Noah and I spent some time observing the white boobies (no, NOT those kind of boobies!!) that followed the ship.  They flew alongside the ship for miles, hunting and diving for fish.  I tried to capture one diving for fish, but it was very difficult.  Here is my best effort:

White booby diving for fish

White booby splashing down!

Not that great, I know, but it was the best I could do!  Here's a white booby just flying along beside the ship:

White booby (sorry if you aren't as bird crazy as I am!)

Our final port in Brazil was Rio de Janeiro.  In Rio we took a tour with a taxi driver who claimed to speak Spanish.  However, I soon discovered his Spanish was as bad as mine!  However, despite his Portuguese-laced Spanish & my 5th grade-Spanglish, we managed just fine.  He took us on a whirlwind tour of some of Rio's most famous sights, including the Cathedral of Rio de Janeiro (also known as the Cathedral of San Sebastian) the design of which is reminiscent of a Mayan temple:

Noah in front of the Cathedral of San Sebastian, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Inside, it had four beautiful stained glass windows.  Here is one of them (and you can see the altar cross hanging from the ceiling in this photo as well--it's to the left of the window):

Stained glass window behind the altar of the Cathedral of San Sebastian

Next, we visited the Escadaria Selaron--the Selaron Steps.  The steps were created by a Chilean living in Rio named Jorge Selaron.  He began repairing some steps in front of his home in 1990 and basically got carried away, eventually creating this:

First flight of the Escadaria Selaron in Rio de Janeiro

Again, my photo doesn't quite capture the whole scene.  There are about 3 more flights above the ones in the picture, plus the walls on both sides of the street are covered with tiles and tile sculptures like this:

Wall decorations along the Escadaria Selaron street

As I looked more closely, I realized that no two tiles were the same.  Here are a couple shots I was able to grab before we had to move on:

Owl tile

Waitress tile

Bathing beauty tile

I wonder where old Jorge found all his tiles?

We also stopped at the Arcos de Lapa, an 18th century aqueduct constructed by the colonial authorities:

Buckskin Lily at the Arcos de Lapa

Finally, we stopped at Copacabana Beach to see all the beautiful bikini bodies (unfortunately, they were in short supply, but the beach was nice).  We were able to take a stroll along the shore and filled our shoes with sand to take back to the ship with us.

Noah at Copacabana Beach looking for cheeky bikinis

Buckskin Lily at Copacabana Beach wishing she'd brought her cheeky bikini

We didn't want to go up the mountain to the Christ the Redeemer Statue, because word was the crowds were insane, but no blog post on Rio would be complete without at least a token photo, so I went to the top deck of the ship and took this:

Christ the Redeemer Statue from the 17th deck of the Royal Princess

I'll finish this post with a photo that pretty much sums up soccer-crazy Brazil:

Old guy bouncing soccer ball off his head in Rio de Janeiro

Until next time,

I'm sincerely yours,

Baiana Lily

South America Odyssey Week 1: Island Hopping

Noah Regrets and Buckskin Lily at Shirley Heights Overlook, Antigua

Greetings, all, from somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean!  As promised, I will be blogging weekly for the next seven weeks.  Noah and I spent the first week of our cruise island hopping.  After boarding our ship, the Royal Princess, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on February 2, we spent the first two days at sea acclimating to our new environment.  That was followed by four consecutive days of island adventures.

First stop was Charlotte Amalie on St. Thomas in the U. S. Virgin Islands (on February 5th).  If you've been following our adventures, you know we had just visited this island last week while on our 7-day "fill-in" cruise between the Panama Canal and South America.  During our first visit, we took an island tour and got the "lay of the land."  So...on this, our second visit, we knew exactly what we wanted to do:  go snorkeling at Trunk Bay on the nearby island of St. John (also in the U. S. Virgin Islands).

Trunk Bay Beach, St. John, U. S. Virgin Islands (stock photo)

Sadly, there are no photos of our excursion that day because of issues with the Go Pro. (The photo above is a stock shot of Trunk Bay from the Internet.  It looked just like that--except there were a LOT more people when we visited).   However, I can still give you a quick run-down of events.  Our trip involved a taxi ride to the Red Hook Ferry Dock, a 20-minute ferry ride from St. Thomas to St. John, then another taxi ride to Trunk Bay--and on the way back we had to do all of that again in  reverse order!

The big draw for us was the snorkel trail at Trunk Bay.  Unfortunately, that turned out to be a bit of a let down.  There were supposed to be cement markers with plaques on them leading snorkelers along the trail and describing things of interest.  Like this:

Snorkel Trail markers

Sadly, only two plaques were extant, and they were covered with sea plants, making them unreadable.  The snorkeling wasn't the best, either.  The water was rather murky and there wasn't much sea life to observe, though we did see an eel and a large green puffer fish.  Those were the highlights--along with the pretty white sand beach.

The next day (February 6th), our port was St. John's, Antigua--not to be confused with the island of St. John in the Virgin Islands that we visited the day before!  In Antigua, we took an independent tour of the island with a local guide named Earl.  For $20/person (discounted because of the cruddy weather), we got a 2 1/2-hour tour that ended up being a 5-hour tour.  We saw everything there is to see on Antigua.

One of the first landmarks we visited was St. Barnabas Anglican Church which was built in the 17th century and is one of the oldest church buildings in the Western hemisphere.

Buckskin Lily in front of St. Barnabas Church, Antigua

Next we visited Nelson's Dockyard which is named in honor of Horatio Nelson who resided there from 1784 to 1787 while he was enforcing England's Navigation Act (which forbid English merchants from trading with the newly-formed United States).  The dockyard was used for "careening" British naval vessels (cleaning barnacles and worms from their hulls by taking them out of the water and laying them on one side then the other).

Buckskin Lily & cannon at Nelson's Dockyard, Antigua

From Nelson's Dockyard, we were driven to Shirley Heights Lookout which was the site of a military complex.  Remains of the fortifications and other buildings are still standing and/or falling down--depending.  Here's a pano of English Harbor from the heights:

English Harbor from Shirley Heights, Antigua

And a picture of Noah at the magazine:

Noah at the magazine

Here's a picture of the inside of the magazine (because I think it looks neat!)

Inside of the magazine, Shirley Heights, Antigua

We finished up our tour of Shirley Heights with a visit to the Dow's Hill Interpretive Center where we watched a unique multimedia presentation on Antigua's history.  Earl then took us on a drive through the agricultural district and along the beach before returning us to the cruise dock.  It was a long, but interesting day.

The next day (February 7th), we were in Barbados.  I wasn't feeling my best for some reason, so I took it easy and relaxed on the ship.  We did venture out to the cruise terminal and the craft market.  I bought a new dress for wearing to dinner & a few bottles of good, strong ginger beer (non-alcoholic, but chock full of spicy, gingery goodness)...and that was about it.

Finally, our last island before actually reaching South America was Trinidad which we visited on February 8th.  I was feeling much better and really wanted to visit the bird sanctuary to see the scarlet ibises that live there.  Our research on the bird sanctuary said you needed to make reservations ahead of time (which we hadn't done), but undaunted, we debarked and got to work figuring out how to get there.  After a few false starts, we found a lady in the tourist office who was able to call and secure us a spot on a tour boat.  She then hooked us up with two other ladies from the ship who were going to the same place, so we decided to go together and split the cab fare.

Here I am about to hop on the tour boat at the sanctuary:

Buckskin at the Caroni Swamp Bird Sanctuary, Trinidad

We cruised through the mangrove swamp looking for birds:

Caroni Swamp, Trinidad

And were lucky enough to see several scarlet ibises (the national bird of Trinidad).  It was a bit tricky getting a photo of them, but I managed to get one decent picture:

Scarlet ibis in Caroni Swamp, Trinidad

We also saw a number of other birds including egrets, herons, and flamingos.

Egret, Caroni Swamp, Trinidad

Heron, Caroni Swamp, Trinidad

Flamingo Trio, Caroni Swamp, Trinidad

We also saw a couple of boa constrictors up in the trees.  Here is the best photo I was able to get:

Tree boa, Caroni Swamp, Trinidad

Finally, here's my attempt at being artistic:  it's some mangrove prop roots reflected in the still swamp water:

Mangrove prop roots reflecting in the water

And...that's all folks...for the first week of the cruise, anyhow!  Next week we will be stopping at three Brazilian ports:  Fortaleza, Salvador, and Rio de Janeiro with some sea days in between each (Brazil is a rather large country, I've come to discover.  It's 5th in the world in terms of area, so it will take a while to get to all of it).  Anyhow, until next time, keep having fun!

Bye for now!

Love,

Buckskin Lily

Hello?

Eastern Caribbean "Filler" Cruise

Eastern Caribbean Cruise

January 26, 2019-February 2, 2019

Ports Visited:  Grand Turk, Turks & Caicos Islands; San Juan, Puerto Rico; St. Thomas, Virgin Islands; Half Moon Cay, Bahamas

Can you say tourist?  Buckskin Lily arriving at Half Moon Cay, Bahamas

Well…Noah and I just completed cruise #2 of our 3-cruise odyssey.  This cruise was sort of a “fill-in” cruise—something to do between the Panama Canal cruise and the epic 7-week cruise around South America we’re about to embark on.  However, this cruise, “fill-in” that it was, took us to four islands we’ve never visited before, and we had lots of great adventures.  
Our first stop was Grand Turk, Turks & Caicos Islands.  There, we took a glass-bottom kayak tour through a mangrove swamp.  

Buckskin at the put-in location before the kayaking began

Noah navigating through the mangrove swamp on Grand Turk, Turks & Caicos Islands

With Buckskin Lily right behind!

We saw a number of birds while kayaking including egrets, herons, and stilts (and I spotted a flamingo feeding in a lagoon from the back of the open-air conveyance we rode to the put-in point).  About half-way through our kayak trip, we stopped for a hike along the gorgeous white-sand beach.  The shore was littered with conch shells, but all were broken or in pieces, except for one in-tact specimen I found (and brought home with me—the best seashell I’ve ever found!)

Our next destination was Puerto Rico where our port-of-call was San Juan.  After debarking the ship, we hooked up with a local guide for an island tour.  The highlight for me was the thing I’d always heard about in San Juan and have always wanted to visit:  the fortresses.  The Castillo San Felipe del Morro (El Morro) and the Castillo San Cristóbal were built by Spain to protect against land-based attacks on the city from pirates and privateers.  We were only able to view El Morro from afar (due to time constraints).  Construction on this fortress was begun in 1539. 

Buckskin at El Morro

We were able to spend more time visiting the Castillo San Cristóbal.  This fortress was started in the 1630's and not finished until much later.  We walked along the upper ramparts which afforded lovely city views as well as through its underground tunnels which were used to move troops secretly from place to place when the fort was under attack.

View from the ramparts of the Castillo San Cristobol

Noah in secret tunnel beneath the Castillo San Cristobol

Noah was reminded of his friend, La Gorda Gertrudis, whom he met in Cartagena, Colombia when we saw this statue.  It is called Mamá e Hijo, and it was sculpted by the same artist as Gertrudis, Fernando Botero.

Noah & the statue

Next port was Charlotte Amalie on the island of St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands.  We again got off the ship and picked up a local tour guide.  We were taken by “taxi”—a converted pick-up truck with seats for about 25 people in the back.  Our guide, Rupert, was extremely informative.  We were taken to four major stops:  the downtown shopping area, Mountaintop—a large store selling “world-famous” banana daquiris and lots of T-shirts and other touristy stuff.  The view from the back patio, though, was amazing.  

Charlotte Amalie from viewpoint on St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands

From there, we drove (very quickly on narrow, hair-pin turning, mountain roads—whee!) to the beach at Magens Bay (voted one of the WORLD’S top 10 beaches by National Geographic).  Unfortunately, we didn’t have the opportunity to get out and look around, but we will be visiting St. Thomas again very shortly as it is the first stop on our South America cruise, so the plan is to take a taxi to the beach and spend the day swimming, snorkeling and sunning.  Last stop was another view point where a number of vendors were selling home-made wares.  We got our photo taken with a burro named Monica Lewinsky, and I got a steel drum lesson from a wonderful Rastafarian gentleman (Noah’s camera had run out of energy, so no photos!  Boo!)

From left to right:  Buckskin Lily, Monica Lewinsky, Noah Regrets (all phony names!!

And lastly, for this brief cruise…we made a stop at Half Moon Cay, Holland America’s private island in the Bahamas.  I wasn’t expecting to enjoy the island very much, but I was pleasantly surprised.  It was a beautiful curving white sand beach in the shape of—you guessed it!—a half moon.  Noah and I walked the entire length of the beach and back.  Then I got out in the water for a swim, and it was glorious.  I didn’t want to get out, but I finally did, and we tendered back to the ship to pack and get ready for our grand odyssey to South America which is happening NEXT!!  Looks like I'll be having Internet on the South America cruise, so watch for weekly updates...there'll be seven of them.  Until next time, keep having fun!

Love,
Buckskin Lily (who didn't want to get out of the water!)  :0

No, Noah!  You can't make me!