Tuesday, February 26
Happy
birthday to me, today is my 71st birthday and I would just as soon
ignore it, but had a very nice birthday card waiting for me when I got up so I
had to acknowledge that I am indeed a year older. I am pretty
lucky, here I am spending my birthday in Brazil, something I never imagined
would happen. In the last few years we
have spent our anniversary in Greenland, Val’s birthday in Norway and
Thanksgiving on the island of Sardinia in Italy. Who would have thought we would be so lucky
in our retirement.
Today, as we continue our trek south towards Rio, we
are in Ilheus, Brazil. Ilheus, with a population of 220,000, is a much smaller city than the other cities we have visited on our journey down the east coast of Brazil. The economy of the city is based almost entirely on tourism with the main draw being its beautiful beaches.
We didn’t
have any tours planned for today so we slept in and had an leisurely morning
before going ashore. We are docked in
another industrial port so we will again be transported to the town center by
bus from the port. We left the ship
about 10:30 and made the long walk to the shuttle stop. It was very hot and humid outside with temperature
getting above 90 degrees F.
We got
right on the shuttle and were soon on our way for the 15 minute drive into
town. We were dropped off in front of
the San Sebastian Cathedral which is right on the edge of the town square. We went in and looked at the cathedral and
then were off to explore the town. The
area around the square was mostly stores and shops catering to both the locals
and the tourists with many places selling souvenirs and local handicrafts after
browsing around for an hour we just couldn’t take the heat and humidity any
longer and made our way back to the shuttle pick-up spot. Along the way we saw a woman selling cases of
water from a cart so we bought a couple and lugged them along with us.
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| Talk about a big sombrero. |
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| I'm not sure what this show was about, but it did draw a crowd. |
When we got
to the shuttle it had just filled up so we had to wait for the next one, but it
arrived in a couple of minutes and we were soon on board in cool air
conditioned comfort. We made the short
drive back to the ship and then got off to haul our new supply of bottled water
back to the ship. I was carrying both
cases of water and along the way a younger couple asked if we could use some
help. I said no, but they insisted and
the man took one of my cases. I felt
self conscious letting him do that, but it was a big help as they were getting
pretty heavy. I guess they felt sorry for us older folks.
We boarded
the ship and were soon in our nice cool room where we changed out of our damp
(from sweat) clothes and rested for a short time before heading off to
lunch. After lunch, it was back to the
room for some reading and of course, I updated the blog. Val left for trivia and after I finished
the blog, I paid some bills online (thank goodness for online banking). When she returned, the ship was preparing to
sail away from Ilheus so she went out on the balcony. I decided to go out on deck so I had a better
vantage point for pictures and watched the sail away from the Lido Deck.
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| The city of Ilheus from the ship as we sail away. |
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| That's the terminal build where we were docked on the left. |
When I
returned, I downloaded the days pictures and we spent the rest of the afternoon
reading and relaxing until it was time for dinner. Our usual trivia, dinner and casino was
anything but the usual tonight thanks to Val.
The trivia team competition is led by the cruise director and tonight
he announced there was a birthday and then called my name and also
added my age. I was then serenaded by 70
or 80 trivia players singing happy birthday to me, it was both embarrassing and fun. Val had told him before we stared that it was
my birthday and I hadn’t even noticed.
Lost in the excitement was gifts of chocolate from Wally and Nancy who
had gone on a tour of a chocolate plantation today, thank you Nancy and Wally.
After
trivia, it was dinner time and another surprise. We had our usual meal, but after our main
course I noticed we didn’t get our dessert menus and I mentioned it to Val who
just shrugged. Suddenly a big piece of
birthday cake was put in front of me and the dining stewards gathered around and
sang the Indonesian birthday song. Once
again Val had tipped off the staff that it was my birthday. It was fun and the cake was delicious, but
the piece was too big for the two of us so we asked Dolly, our waiter, to take
half of it over to Roy and Gabriella’s table who are seated near us. All in all, a fun night.
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| Our dining steward Dolly serving me my birthday cake which is very, very good by the way. |
I had hoped
my luck would carry over into the casino, but no such luck. I quickly went through my evening’s gambling
money, but decided since it was my birthday to try one more slot machine. Surprise, surprise, I won a small jackpot and
won back the money I had lost this evening as was able to play longer. I won a few more times and finally quit near
even for the night, which was better than I have done for a while.
I wasn’t
too happy about turning 71, but thanks to Val, I had a wonderful birthday and
was able to share it with some of our shipboard friends. Tomorrow is a sea day so there was no rush to
get back to the room tonight so we lingered in the casino longer than normal,
but finally called it a night.
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