Amazon & Carnival Explorer Cruise - Day 27: Ilhabelo, Brazil

Saturday, March 2

We are visiting the island of Ilhabela which is a resort area popular with the residents of Brazil's largest city, Sao Paulo, which is 125 miles inland.  The island is known as the sailing capital of the Brazilian coast which is very evident by the number of boats in the area.  Ilhabela has a relatively small population of just over 32,000.

Ilhabela is very close to the mainland.

This is the southernmost port of our cruise and we had anchored between the mainland and the island, and both looked like beautiful countryside with beautiful, lush green hills above the towns.  Ilhabela is another of the Brazilian beach towns we have been visiting and after seeing the presentation on it the other day, we decided to skip going ashore today and stay on the ship.  It is another tender port and there were no excursions that appealed to us so for the first time on the cruise, we skipped a port.

It was a lazy morning and we didn’t do much of anything except relax and read.  We did say good-bye today to our room steward, Abdul, as he is getting off the ship tomorrow in Rio and going home.  He is pretty excited as he hasn’t seen his family in nine months and will get three months off before his next assignment.  The crew lead a very tough life as they work long days without a day off for months on end, but the pay enables them to provide a better life for their families than they could if they stayed home.  Many of them save enough to eventually start their own businesses.

We had our lunch in the Lido and went out on deck to see what was happening around the ship.  Ilhabela is very close to the mainland and we are anchored between the mainland and the island.  Our balcony is facing the mainland, so this was our first view of the island.  It looked very nice, but with the ever present heat and humidity, nothing made us change our mind and go ashore.

We returned to the room and I decided to grab my camera and return to the deck and take some pictures.  When I returned, Val was getting ready for her afternoon trivia so I did as I always do and caught up on the blog.  We didn’t do much of anything for the rest of the afternoon until it was time to get ready for dinner.

The mainland of Brazil is on right, you can see how close Ilhabela is.

We were back to our usual routine tonight of trivia, dinner and the casino.  I went through my money quickly again as has been the case lately and was down to my final try of the night and what do you know, I hit a fair sized jackpot.  I cashed out  my winnings and Val was ready to go so we quit for the evening and returned to our room.  Tomorrow morning we will be in Rio for Carnival.