South to Buenos Aires
The sun dips below Corcovado Mountain taking today's temperature down to 30C. Humidity lingers at 50 percent. Passengers, excited about the cruise that lies ahead, are still sweating from the Brazilian heat wave. Are they ready for the mystery voyage: sharing 20 days with 1,000 strangers?
Captain Strazicic, our vessel's commander, is as cool as a cucumber as he directs his crew and the harbour personnel to separate us from the dock for an on-time departure.
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| dockside view |
The photo above, which I tweaked a whole lot to bring up detail in the fading light, is busy and needs description:
The sun is setting behind the left shoulder of Jesus the redeemer. The hilltop housing (right centre) is the favela slum, juxtaposed with the high tech office building (left). Our ship is reflected in the lower left windows. Large indigenous Brazilian faces on a dockside warehouse - artwork commissioned for the 2016 Olympics - please the cruise-ship passengers, three of whom stand with their backs to the ship's rail. What are they looking at?
It is dark now. As we head through the harbour channel to the open sea another ship comes in to take our berth. Some passengers are dining below. Joanne is preparing for our late sitting, and I am out on deck capturing precious things with my camera.
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| ships in the night |
The lovely lady is alone with her thoughts.
I am drawn into the romance of the scene.
The light is seriously gone. Should I or shouldn't I?
I can't help myself. She is frozen in her own time,
long enough for me to fiddle
with my camera settings.
I don't get her name.
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| red sky at night, sailors' delight |
It was a hot night, and the first of many captivating sunsets to come.
On the way to Buenos Aires we stopped for a day at Ilha Grande, a semi-tropical island - no photos from there, then a day at Santos, port city, about 90 minutes by bus to São Paulo. We were advised by a friend who had been there that we may want to give São Paulo a miss. We were not that keen on mingling with 17 million people in the third largest city in the world.
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| The haze was unappealing |
We chose instead to stay on board that day, basking in the sun in the surreal world of service deluxe on deck 14.
We met some nice people who did one of the big pricy shore excursions and wished they hadn't.
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All the South American ports were shared by
cargo ships and cruise ships alike |
The thing about cruise ships is that they often have to tie up to industrial docks. Any old sailor will tell you that the port is usually the worst part of a city - dirty, scuzzy, old worn down, and often dangerous.
But the grunge and the roughness is generally well-considered by our shipping line. Security is extreme, safety is assured. The to and fro of shore excursions are typically, nice coaches - cocoons on wheels, hosted by the informative patter of local guides.
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The port of Santos' population
is almost half a million people
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We happen to come from Vancouver, where the cruise ships berth in rather beautiful, if not, stunning surroundings.
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The next photos, I promise, are the worst images you will see in this blog. I was not going to use them, but the world is not all about beauty, and after all, I'm not doing an ad for cruising.
The left and right of this favela, this urban shanty town, is book-ended by deep-sea shipping docks for dry bulk freighters, huge container ships, & tankers.
There are 21 people in the water and on the shore,
from babies & toddlers, small children & teenagers
to parents & grandparents.
As we look down from our $600 million dollar ship upon the favela, this is what they see - close and looming high above.
Us and them
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| See the boy in shorts standing on the pile of rubble? |
In all fairness, there are some nice things to see and do in Santos. Two shore excursions were titled, Highlights of Santos. But why would a hundred cruise ships a year park so close to these people?
DISCLAIMER: being a cruise-ship-tourist-for-a-day in these places can surely be unfair for a city. Images of all kinds are a magnet for me and my camera. The editorializing is just me shooting from the lip.
Tonight we will be leaving Brazilian waters. It will be our last meal where we will have to pay a $25 (US) Brazilian surcharge on our table wine. What is the government doing with all that money?
GREETINGS FROM THE POPE
in Buenos Aires
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Pope Francis is from Buenos Aires,
though this may not be his effigy |
We booked a Buenos Aires city tour online at home before we left. Our guide for this inexpensive excursion, Hernan, was everything you would want in a guide: punctual, friendly, educated and informative, a good sense of humour, accommodating (more on that, below).
I have captured some of new city Buenos Aires and old city Buenos Aires. Just like every other world centre, we see urban slum and decay mixed together with business towers of metal and glass.
Clearly, BA is on the list of cities with impressive world class architectural and engineering landscapes. The juxtapositions of poverty and wealth, the spread of rich and poor, however, seems just a little a little more pronounced in South America than in North America and Europe.
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| BA has a very European look and feel |
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| Plaza de Mayo |
The Metropolitan Cathedral overlooks Plaza de Mayo.
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Mausoleum of national hero San Martin
in the Metropolitan Cathedral |
The Mausoleum in the church includes three life-size female statues that stand guard over the remains of Argentina's national hero, General Jose de San Martin who freed Argentina, Chile, and Peru from the Spanish Empire (circa 1818).
The Argentinian guards stood as wooden soldiers but they were very much alive. Close up I could see the perspiration on their faces. This guard nodded at me, very imperceptibly with maybe a millimetre of head and eye movement, just enough to advise me that I must remove my hat when entering the sacred chamber. He did that very graciously about three times while I was milling around, slack-jawed, marvelling at the space, until I finally realized that he was trying to communicate with me. I felt almost embarrassed.
Try that body language on someone: see how small a movement you can make to get them to do something. Don't move your eyebrows.
...oooOooo...
next post is More Buenos Aires
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| Joanne friending in the BANOS |
