BRAZIL: I am embarrassed to say that I had never heard of the city we visited on March 28. Fortaleza is Brazil's 5th largest city and has a population of 3.4 million. Seen from the ship it has a beautiful skyline, but inside the city is quite grubby.

No one speaks English in Fortaleza and Betty's one hour Portuguese class insufficiently prepared her to act as a tour guide. However, we spent the day with our sometime tablemate, a Linguistics Prof. from York. Ian is quite amazing. In 1971 he took a summer course in Portuguese and still speaks the language quite fluently.

In the morning we took a cab into the central market where we spent an hour or so shopping for things for grandsons. We then to walk to another market but were warned off by a local who told us it wasn't safe.

In the afternoon we decided to go to a beach and an onboard staff member recommended a particular upscale beach. After a starting ask of $ 50. Ian bartered a taxi fare down to $ 10.0. We headed to a 7 km. beach that was packed the entire length. The system is that you can only enter the beach through one of scores of restaurants. Once shown to a table (on the sand by the water) you only hve to order a round of beers and then you are free to stay as long as you wish. There were rock bands playing and many young people dancing. We didn't see any tourists. The water was incredibly warm, at least 30 degrees, with very high surf, and surfers.

BRAZIL DAY TWO: When I awoke on the morning of Mar. 30 I stepped onto our veranda to see the skyline of Recife as we sailed into the harbor. I was hit by a wall of heat. Recife is Brazil's 9th largest city with a population of about 2 million. I could see miles of beautiful beaches. However we gave up the idea of a day at the beach when we were assured that "swimming is safe, there has not been a shark attack in almost two years." We did notice signs along the beaches we passed warning of sharks.

Since Betty has a birthday coming up I decided we should take one of the free shuttles offered by the Brazilian jewelry guys. Since the store was at the far end of the city we got a good sense of this quite beautiful place en route. However, I didn't find any trinkets under $ 11,000. U.S. so resigned myself to the idea of giving Betty a senior's pass to the Capital Theatre in Antigonish. After the visit to the store we were dropped at the "Cultural Centre" which turned out to be an abandoned prison converted into a shopping centre with each former cell being a shop. There we found a suitable (affordable) birthday gift but neither of the credit cards I was carrying would work (and appear to be frozen). So as not to lose the sale the merchant walked us to a bank so I could use my ATM card. That didn't work so we were walked to another bank and got the daily limit of Real's. I paid the small balance in U.S. dollars.

By this time we were extremely hot so we headed back to the ship. After a lunch of duck confit salad followed by brilled bream we felt more venturesome and headed back out into the heat. Although my negotiating skills were not at the level of Ian's I did get a taxi driver to take us on an afternoon tour of Olinda for the balance of my Real's (about $ 40.). Olinda is close to Recife and is a UNESCO world heritage city. It was built in the 1500's and still has most of the colonial buildings.

TRAVELLING WITH BETTY: Normally travelling in a foreign country with Betty is one constant search for a lavatory. This is especially a problem in Europe where they charge for less than pristine potties. (I think the French are physiologically different than the rest of us and don't ever need to urinate.) However, at the equator where the temperature is in the 30's one doesn't even need to stop at the toilets that one comes upon.

CRUISE NEARING END: By Friday when we dock in Rio we will have been on this ship for 26 days and will have sailed about 7500 nautical miles. Going home is starting to seem attractive.