The Town that Bardot Made

Once upon a time there was a sleepy little fishing village in Brazil.  There was also a famous, beautiful actress who was hounded by paparazzi in Rio de Janeiro.  To escape them, she went to the village, Buzio.  Her agent bribed the paparazzi to stay away, but now tourists come in droves to the beautiful beaches, and restaurants, hotel and gift shops thrive.  So much for the sleepy little fishing village.

There are still boats, but most of them are for tourists.

The quiet beaches are crowded with vacationing sun seekers of all sizes and shapes








Some even build sand castles.


















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The countryside is rugged land, sloping down to secluded beaches, which are less secluded since the tourists found them.

One of the other things the town is famous for is the abundance of bronze sculptures, including, of course, one of Miss Bardot.

Yes, those are sculptures.

In the Port Talk (this is a brief lecture about the next port and the tours available) they showed a picture of 2 bronze cat sculptures on the top of a roof. My guide had never heard of them, so I settled for the next best.

Sign in front of a bar.

Land Ahoy, Land at Last

We are in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil!  Our ship docked this morning, on time, possibly with the help of the Brazilian current and probably because of skillful engineers on board.  Once we turned south off the tip of Brazil, we caught a south flowing current which would help our speed.  Our engineers were able to fix something which gave us a bit more speed.  Technicians from the German company which made the generators is due to come aboard today with the necessary parts to bring us "up to speed." We had only been able to do 12 knots; the current and the engineers brought us up to close to 14 knots; after the repairs we should be able to cruise about 17.5 knots. Max speed is over 20 knots.

My early morning excursion was a fast walk with the Cruise Consultant from the ship to buy more yarn.  All the yarn they had was quite thin, but I bought 3 large skeins anyway.  We will probably have to use 2 strands.  For some reason, they do not knit with heavy yarn in Brazil.  Julianna's
google map said the walk would take 8 minutes, but I am sure we made it in 6.  Even in high heels, she can really move!

Salvador da Bahia was the nation's first capitol and is now the third largest city in Brazil.  It is located at the mouth of the second largest bay in the world.

An old fortress in the harbor is now a museum of Ocean liners.  We share this part of the harbor with small boats and ferries going to the other side of the bay.




Salvador is a city divided.  The area by the shore was the first area developed, so most of the buildings are older and many are abandoned.  The Portuguese influence influence shows in the buildings faced with tile and the sidewalks with designs of dark and light small paving stones, much like Lisbon, Portugal.

The upper parts of the city are reached by a tall elevator.  When our tour arrived at the base of the elevator, the line was about 3 blocks long.  Fortunately a guide came along and said the the city allows those over 65 to go to the head of the line.  Even though there were some people under 65, the average age was well over that, so our whole group bypassed the wait and took the 20 second ride without an hour wait.

Everywhere we went in the city was crowded.  There were at least 3 other cruise ships in town, including one docked just ahead of us that had over 3000 people from Italy.  This is also the summer vacation time, so families were traveling with children and students were out of school.

The original cathedral was near the elevator, but it was torn down by one of the governors, a very unpopular move.  This "broken cross" was a symbol of the unpopularity of that destruction.


The home of the medical college is on the large square.  Various churches and cathedrals were built around the central square, ornately decorated, inside and out.  Unfortunately our tour only took us by the outside, with no time to look inside.  I understand that the entire interior of one is decorated with the blue and white tiles from Portugal and another has copious amounts of gold.

Medical Collage

Entrance to the Governors
 Palace which once was a church.

The inside is decorated in gold.

 Many buildings favor bright colored exteriors.

Street performers demonstrate a style of combat involving kicks, blows and acrobatics.










Steep main streets throb with the sound of drums and music from shops and restaurants, but the side streets are much quieter.




















We did not see an American Embassy outpost (McDonald's) but Subway made it here.

Darrell took a bus tour, so I will let him tell about his tour.

I did see three McDonalds restaurants but could not get a decent picture from inside the bus which happens all the time. The bus tour enabled us to see a much wider view of the entire city as well as the many suburbs and mile after mile of sandy beaches. Suburban buildings were much larger and taller and home to many, many condos of more modern design. Some bus and subway service helps the three million plus residents get to/from work in the city. Most of the city is far more hilly than Chicago, IL which is a similar in size but Salvador has more parks and flowers than Chicago and seems much cleaner. (DZ)

These are a few of the things Darrell saw on the bus trip.

No Recife

We will not be going to Recife, Brazil.  For the last few days we have been moving slower than usual, so we must make up for going slower by skipping our next port, Recife, Brazil.  It seems that there is a problem in the propulsion system which has now been isolated to a generator.  This does not effect the safety or comfort of the passengers, just the speed of the ship.  In a few days we will be at our next port in Brazil, Salvador de Bahia.  There we will meet technicians from Germany who specialize in repairing the generators.  They have also sent the needed parts by air freight, so by the time we leave port there, everything should be "ship-shape."

Meanwhile, life on board continues at it's usual busy pace.  This morning was a Christian book study.  We outgrew the first room they gave us, so now we meet in part of The Restaurant.  Then there was a port talk about our next destination, Salvador de Bahia.  When that was done, I knitted for a while on a new knitted scarf, then went back to the room to meet Darrell to go to lunch.  He was not ready, so I put a few stitches in my latest cross stitch.  After lunch I spent some time with the jigsaw puzzle.  When I got back to the room we watched one of the enrichment talks we had missed on the history of the Amazon.  I am making arrangements to go shopping in Salvador for more yarn for baby hats.  I am all out, since I gave yarn to several people who are also knitting.  I took a short nap, then read some before dinner which was "A Taste of South America" featuring grilled octopus, scallop on a shell, marinated mussels, chimichangas, surf and turf (steak and shrimp,) and several more dishes I did not try.  Dessert was a Pink Pavlova.  We ate in the World Cafe and talked and talked with a couple from Denver.  By then it was time to go back to the room and check my e-mail.

Oh yes, I forgot that I went to Tai Chi breakfast.  Well, that raps up a typical "sea day."  They assure us we will be on time (or almost) for the next port.

No Devils on Devil's Island

At least I don't think there are any.  We actually did not set foot on the island, but we were next door on Ile Royale.  The Iles du Salut, (Salvation Islands) is the largest of the three islands which were used by the French as prisons for the worst offenders.  Devil's Island held mainly political prisoners who were sentenced to prison for life.  These were the islands of no escape since the surrounding waters were home to hungry sharks, but someone did escape and wrote all about it.  Later his success was made famous in the movie Papillion.  You may have seen the old version several years ago, or the new one recently released.

Most of the buildings are now abandoned, but the Governor's house is a very small museum with everything in French. It is amazing to think that parts of the prison were still in use until 1953.  The jungle reclaims it's own.  Several people got pictures of monkeys and a large hamster type rodent.  I saw the rodent, but never more than a quick glimpse, so I got no pictures.





Ile Royale, the largest of the islands, housed
prisoners, guards, a chapel and a hospital for the prison staff.  No such luck for the prisoners.  If you got sick, you either recovered or you died.  It did not make much difference to the staff, except that there was one less body to clothe and feed.







 



 
  There is now a hotel on the island, complete with satellite TV.  There did not seem to be any guests walking around.

The small buildings and the even smaller cells are now just ruins.  The cells for solitary confinement were even smaller, with no windows.













The docking facilities can only handle small boats, so the Viking Sun anchored off shore and used the tenders (lifeboats) for transportation to the land.  The sea seemed quite smooth until you tried to get into the tender.  Then you watched the tender go up and down about 3 feet.  At the moment the two floors were level, four crew members, 2 on the Sun and 2 on the tender, threw you onto the tender, where you quickly found a seat and hung on for the ride.  It was much easier boarding to go back to the ship.

Grenadine is not Just Something You Add to a Drink

The Grenadines are a chain of islands just north of Trinidad and Tobago.  The largest island, Grenada, is divided into parishes, after the French tradition.  St. George's is where we docked early in the morning.  Darrell's tour met at 7:15 and mine at 7:30.  We are usually still sleeping at that hour, so we tried room service breakfast which arrived promptly at 6:15!

The included tour went all over the island on one of the small 20 passenger buses. 

Buses waiting for tourists while a single dead tree stands guard.

At one time Grenada was the world's largest exporter of nutmeg as well as producing other spices, giving the Island the nickname of "The Spice Island."  Unfortunately, several years ago a couple of hurricanes took out most of the larger trees and the production has never recovered.

Another victim of hurricanes

Sue chose an Eco-Hike to Bamboo Falls which was labeled as "Demanding."  That was an understatement.  The island is quite hilly, but when we drove for quite a while going up the mountain, I thought that we would not have much more to climb.  Indeed, the first part of the trail did go up steeply on a old road with loose rocks.  However, when we reached the top, it was all downhill from there.  Our guide, Kenrick, grew up on a spice farm and stopped several times to point out spice trees on the abandoned farms.  It seems that the younger generation finds farming too strenuous!  Nutmeg trees, cacao trees, cinnamon trees and other fruit trees were intermingled to prevent the spread of disease.  Other plants were used to attract insects so they left the productive trees alone.  The nutmeg fruit looks like peaches.  When they are ripe, they split open and drop to the ground.  All parts of the fruit are used.  The fleshy part can be eaten.  The red seed covering is used as a coloring in such diverse products as lipstick and sausage.  The hard shell is used to surface trails, among other things.
When the shell is removed, the remaining part is the whole nutmeg which is grated to make the nutmeg we can buy in a store.

Cocoa grows a large pods in a tree.  When they are ripe, the pods are cut open, showing white covered beans.  The white covering is allowed to ferment to reveal the actual beans which are dried, roasted and ground to make powder which is used to make chocolate.












It was a leisurely stroll downhill until we got to a stream with  large rocks and a rapid current.  A rope was strung across the stream, so it looked easy to step from rock to rock.  But, no.  The rocks were slippery, so we had to take off our shoes and go barefoot, walk in with our shoes on and get wet up to the knees, or stay behind.  which the guides would not allow.  I took off my shoes and socks and put my water shoes back on to cross the stream.  The guides helped us all make it safely.







The waterfall was nice but cold; some of the hardier (and younger) ones actually went swimming.

Let's just say that that leisurely stroll downhill was replaced by an agonizing uphill struggle.  I am sure that the temperature was at least 15 degrees hotter and the way was much steeper and the hike was interrupted by many stops to let my heart rate slow down.  Time to go to the gym!

Our ship shared the waters with others.

And So It Begins

We are off again. (Some say we are a little off all the tie, but we do not listen to them.)  Once again we are traveling on the Viking Sun from Miami to London, but this time we are avoiding most of the tropics.

Our first stop was in Puerto Rico after 2 "sea days."  In many ways these days are as interesting as the ports where we stop, but we will have many more chances to talk about them.

Since we have been to Puerto Rico before, we passed up the tours offer by Viking and just wandered around the Old Town on our own.  The most famous sight in San Juan is El Moro, the Spanish fortress.  Today is "Little Christmas" or Epiphany Sunday and most major shops are closed.  It is a day for families to relax, go to Mass and then have a picnic or go sight seeing, especially in the Old Town.





Although some of the treetops show signs of wind damage from Hurricane Irma, the Old Town was the first part of the island restored and flowers and bushes seem to be thriving.

People watching is fun, but some other things caught my attention.

That's some bull!

A "Penguin Boat"

Of course, I found some cats. 

Some were indifferent,

some were wary...

and some did not seem to have a care in the world.

And then I found these Things.