Back safe and sound from Brazil

I returned from my second port of call, Salvador, Brazil. After hearing so many things about Brazil, I was quite intimidated to go, especially during Carnaval. Overall, I had a wonderful experience, and I returned to the ship exhausted and never happier to be on the ship. Mostly because I didn't have a real shower for 3 days in a row. Ugh.

There is so much to say about Brazil and what I did there! I don't even know where to start. Seeing that I have so much to say, I will split up my post throughout the next few days.

We arrived to Salvador early morning on Tuesday. The first picture is the sunrise as we are pulling in. In one of the classes, we talked a lot about the contrast between the rich and the poor in Brazil. It is a country that has one of the largest income inequalities in the world. As we pulled in to Salvador, our cruise ship was massive as compared to the tiny fishing boats. When we docked at the port, the favelas with their poor housing were immediately visible.

That afternoon, we went to Carnaval in our "afternoon camarote." I had no idea what the camarote was going to be, just that it was a safer way to celebrate Carnaval than taking to the streets. I had the perception that it was just going to be us SAS kids in an enclosed area sipping Kool Aid. Haha, well everything minus the Kool Aid. Instead, there were hundreds of us (us meaning Brazilians and SAS kids in the minority) on a platformed area partying the afternoon and night away. It was packed and hard to walk around because there were so many people. The singers went around on floats, essentially the tops of buses. There were people packed in the streets as well. We saw some famous guy that everyone was going crazy over, but I have no idea who he was, being the ignorant American that I am.

The craziest part about it was that we had a police escort as we were walking from where our bus was parked to the camarote. I was happy to have the security, but I also felt sort of guilty, as though I am too good to walk through the streets. There were kids sleeping on the streets with nothing and begging for cans. I am reading a memoir in one of my classes about a woman who lived in a favela and survived day-to-day by picking up paper and cans and exchanging it for money in order to feed her children. Those kids reminded me of the book (Child of the Dark).

Next blog about the Amazon adventure.