February 16, 2015 Santos, Brazil

The city of Santos has a population of around 400,000+, but has many, many highrise apartment buildings,  There’s a 5 mile beach which is very popular, although not as pretty as most beaches, it seemed to me.  Our tour took us to the coffee museum which is in the former coffee stock exchange building in old town.  Unfortunately, everything was only in Portuguese so we didn’t understand most of it, but the building itself was beautiful.  Next stop was to the Santos Futbol (soccer) Club where Pele played.  The club has scored the most goals of any futbol team (Pele alone scored over 1,000) and has won many trophies.  We saw the field, which would have meant more if we were soccer fans.  Next was the aquarium which was OK.  Again, our overall impression was not terribly positive.  Our guide said there is no very rich, nor very poor in Santos, that it’s all middle class.  That may be true, but the middle class live in buildings that are quite run-down and in need of basic maintenance.  He also said that there is very little crime in Santos, that Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro are dangerous places.  But we heard tonight of a woman who was knocked down and had her necklace and wedding ring stolen a block from the coffee museum.  And two others were robbed in Salvador the other day.

Yesterday for Michael’s birthday he specially requested lemon meringue pie and they also brought the special Princess birthday cake.  Our table mates, Peter and Carol, gave him a birthday card and a box of chocolate coconut patties which are wonderful.  They are the nicest people.  We’ll miss them when they get off in Santiago.

We also did the Ultimate Ship’s Tour yesterday which was great.  There were only 11 of us and we got to go behind the scenes.  The tour included the Bridge, the engine control room, the theatre dressing rooms, the medical center, photography and printing rooms, laundry and kitchen.

Next is our overnight at Rio de Janeiro.  The temperature is supposed to be only about 82, which sounds much better than the 102 it was a few weeks ago.