Friday, March 1
Today is a
sea day so we slept in, but there was a presentation on the Rio Carnival
in the showroom at 10:00 so we wanted to attend that. I was still feeling the effects of all the
food I ate yesterday and wasn’t really hungry so I skipped breakfast and went
ahead to save our seats for the presentation while Val finished her morning
routine. These talks are quite popular
so you have to get there almost a half hour early just to get decent seats.
The talk
was very interesting and we learned quite a bit about the history and
significance of Carnival in Brazil. As we left
the showroom we ran into Tony who, with his wife Evelyn, will be joining us for
a private photo tour. He wanted to talk
further about the tour as Val had gotten some detailed information so we headed
off to the Ocean Bar where we chatted for a while about both the tour and life
in general. Tony has had a very
interesting life and his experiences are very interesting to hear about.
Our next
port is actually south of Rio and the ship was sailing close enough to the
shore to for us to see Rio as we passed by. We could see
the iconic Sugarloaf Mountain and also the famed beaches. After returning to our room we spent the rest
of the morning until lunch on our balcony as we passed by Rio. We left Rio behind and it was time for lunch
so we headed up to the Lido to eat. We
sat next to a couple from Edmunton, Alberta, Canada and had a nice conversation
with them before Val had to leave for her trivia.
I returned to the room and as I usually do, I updated the blog.
There is
another port talk today by our port guide on Rio de Janeiro so after Val
returned from trivia that was the next thing on our agenda. After the talk, Val and I walked back through
the casino and of course, we couldn’t resist. For Val the investment paid off as she came
out ahead, for me, not so much.
We returned
to our room and spent our time reading until the captain came on and said we
had to turn around as there was an ill passenger who required more care than
the onboard medical facility could provide.
We would return to Rio and evacuate the passenger to a hospital in
Rio. Within a couple of hours we were
back in Rio, but this time we sailed into the harbor. We were out on the balcony getting a close up
view of Rio as we approached and eventually entered the harbor. It was very interesting, but sobering knowing
that someone’s life may be hanging in the balance.
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| You can see the cable cars coming and going to the top of Sugarloaf Mountain at the entrance to the Rio harbor. |
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| The famous Copacabana Beach |
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| On to tomorrow's port. |
In the
harbor, a boat came alongside and evacuated the passenger who was taken ashore. We hope this isn’t too serious and the person
involved is able to get back on the ship before we leave Rio in four days. We had to scramble to get ready for trivia,
but when we got there, hardly anyone had shown up including the rest of our
team. Right around 7:00 everyone arrived
as they had been watching what was going on outside the ship. Tonight was a formal night so it takes a little
longer to get ready, but eventually everyone showed up and we proceeded with a
little bit of a chaotic trivia.
After
trivia, it was off to dinner and the casino.
Val had a great night and walked out with a huge profit while my money
went quickly and I spent most of the time watching Val win. Tomorrow we will be in Ilhabela, Brazil, but
we have decided to stay onboard and take a day off.
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